This sudden, unexpected trip to Vancouver to attend a gala event with me, in the middle of the shit show I’d gotten us all into this week, probably made this her least favorite week on Earth. The last several days had not been easy on her.
Easier on her than me, sure. But not easy.
She dialed someone while asking me, “How bad is it?”
“It’s fairly fucking bad.”
“Hold,” she barked to whoever, on the phone, then bore down on me with her shrewd, disapproving mom eyes. Velma was five years older than me and, admittedly, about twenty years more mature. “Like… sex tape scandal bad?”
“No. Not that bad.”
“Good.” She put her phone to her ear. “Mr. Davenport needs a bow tie.Bow. Tie.For his tuxedo.Now.I don’t care where you are. Pick it up on the way.”
Ahhhh. The sound of people jumping to get shit done for me. I basked in it.
I hadn’t heard it nearly enough this week.
“Make it black satin,” she said. “I don’t know where. Figure it out.”
“Casey?” I ventured as she hung up and blew her bangs out of her eyes in irritation. I wasn’t even sure I’d gotten the name of our latest hire right.
“Kelsey,” she corrected me, “is long gone. This one’s called Tanner.”
“Who the hell is Tanner?”
“We hired him last month.”
I searched my memory but came up blank. There were so many executive minions at the corporate compound these days, I generally spoke to Velma and Wiley, in that order, and left them to deal with the underlings. “The other gay one?” I was pretty sure there were a few gay ones, but other than Wiley, I couldn’t be sure.
Velma frowned. “The tall one, and he may have a slight man-crush on you. I’m not sure he’s gay, though.”
Yeah, now I remembered. Maybe. “The one who sweats too much?”
“Because you terrify him.”
“While we’re on it, tell him to bring a fresh shirt to work. He’s not representing my office with those sweat stains.”
“Maybe if you stopped terrifying him,” Velma suggested.
I smiled my most devious smile. “And how would I do that?”
She scrutinized me for a moment. “Try smiling with your eyes once in a while. It’s goddamn infernal when you do that.”
The smile dropped. Even holding that disingenuous of a smile was too much work. “I don’t think I can.”
“We can’t keep burning through assistants and interns like this, Dane. At this pace, we’ll run out of human beings willing to work for you.”
“Good thing I have you.”
“Good thing.”
She fiddled with one of her earrings, glancing impatiently out the window into traffic, and I took a good look at her. I’d barely noticed how nicely she’d pulled herself together for this thing. Honestly, Velma was more than an executive assistant. She was an advisor, of sorts. Like a big sister or something. A confidant, almost.
Frankly, she was better at dealing with humans than I was and I needed her. I couldn’t even remember how I’d managed at this job without her. I’d plucked her out of the admin pool after going through a ton of other EAs, and she’d met every challenge I’d ever tossed her way, and then some.
“You look very acceptable,” I told her.
“Don’t gush all over me at once,” she said dryly. “It may go to my head.”
