Next day, I woke up late. That was to be expected, considering I slept in for a while. Thankfully, I didn't have to go to work today. So, the day would probably consist of making some coffee, grabbing lunch, chilling at home and catching up on shows I hadn't watched in a while, and then going to sleep. A day that I had been looking forward to for a very long time now.
That, of course, meant that it did not go that way at all.
No, Liam messaged. He messaged with a proper plan of just what else I could do to probably boost the popularity of our hotel. It wasn't very detailed, since he wanted me to work out all the little kinks on my own, but it was a start. By the time I was done reading the entire thing and sending him back a thank you message for the help, I had already made up my mind to get ready and drop by the hotel at least once. By the time I kept the phone down, I had already started taking my clothes out. Point being, I was hyped. Something good was happening and it was my job to grab it and not let go.
So, once I was ready, I left my house and got into a bus that would take me straight to the hotel.
By the time I got there, however, the two of them had left. I talked to the head receptionist, and he contacted them about the same. Apparently they had gone out for lunch, so they would be back pretty soon. I asked him if I could help them out till then, but it seemed like they had everything under control. The receptionist very kindly asked me to leave and rest somewhere, so I beelined for the in-house buffet room and sat on one of the tables, scrolling on my phone to pass the time.
"Um, excuse me, sir? What room are you currently staying in?" I heard a voice I'd never heard before.
I turned to see a girl. Probably my age, she was wearing a tight, formal skirt that went down to her knees, and a frilled white shirt on top. Bent just a little bit, her tits sagged to my eye level. Massive. For a human, that is. Very good. She pushed her brown hair back and smiled, waiting for me to respond.
"I, uh, sorry. I work here. I'm just waiting for someone."
"You...work here?" She asked with her smile maintained.
"Yup. I do. What do you mean?"
It turned hostile. In a second, her smile turned hostile, "Then why are you sitting here and staring at your phone instead of doing whatever it is you're supposed to be doing?"
"I-"
"Do you think you get paid for sitting here and waiting for food to be served to you, while everyone else is working their asses off to make sure a customer gets the best service possible? Or, oh, maybe you think that you've already finished your job and can just sit down because there's nothing else to do. If it's the latter, how about you try and find something else to do, yeah?"
"No, that's not what I mean. I do work here, but-"
"I don't want to hear it, whatever it is. Just get to work, ok? Don't go around throwing this hotel's reputation down the drain. It is bad enough as it is. Not a single word out of you!" She stopped smiling, stood up straight and kept staring at me.
I looked at my phone. It was close to the time that the two would be arriving. If only they stepped in at the right moment and helped me out here. I had no idea who this person was, but she clearly had a misconception about what exactly I was supposed to be doing here. And it seemed like she was desperate for the miscommunication storyline, so she would not let me speak no matter how much I tried. Such a beautiful, round face, and it was just being wasted on getting angry at random workers.
"So, are you going to actually do something, or just sit there?" She asked.
"I mean, I'd explain but it doesn't seem like you're interested in listening. Now, I don't care enough to tell you anything." I started scrolling again. Whoever she was, she could fuck right off. I had come in on an off day just to bring a proposition for helping the place out, and here she was, acting like she owned the damn hotel when she didn't. A part of me wondered if she even had anything to do with the company or was just some angry customer. The latter would be disastrous for me, so I was happy deluding myself into thinking that it was totally the former.
She nodded, "Got it. I guess I need to learn some things, don't I? I am so sorry for disappointing you like this, sir. How about you tell me your name?"
"Alex." I decided to answer without even looking back at her.
"Alex...what?"
"There's just one Alex that works here. Go tell them everything. They'll know who you're talking about."
"Hmm. That's so nice of you, Alex. Stay here, won't you? I'll get back to you right away with a termination notice. I understand that this is probably the only place you can even access Wi-Fi at, based on how you probably live, so feel free to use it until then." She turned and walked away.
How rude. Extremely rude. She totally didn't need to add that last bit, but I guess her rich privilege was speaking. I could not wait for her to hear from the head receptionist and find out just how stupid she had been. I controlled my anger and started looking at my phone again. It would be alright in the end, since I'd probably be with Edward and Lucas by the time she came back; there was definitely no chance of any more weird confrontations like that.
And thankfully, they contacted me pretty soon. Lucas himself stopped at the buffet room when he saw me and invited me to the conference room with them. I walked with the two in silence till we reached the room, and all of us got inside.
"So, Alex, tits or ass?" Edward asked, sitting down.
"Huh?"
"Give us your tacks." Edward cleared his throat, "As in tell us what your plans to help us out with the hotel are. What did you hear?"
I nodded, "No, that's exactly what I heard. I was just a bit confused as to what it meant. Haven't really heard that expression before, so I wasn't sure. But yeah, should I start?"
Lucas said yes, and Edward leaned back in his chair. I took a moment, and sat down on one of them too. They waited, I pulled out my phone to make sure I didn't get anything wrong, and started.
"So, uh, Liam was very impressed with the entire hotel. He loved it and said he'll probably come back once in a while just for fun. There's, um...good mattresses here, apparently. He loved those. Had a good sleep, he said. Anyways, that made him very happy to help out a bit more and he sent a few business ideas we could. Some of them seem a little difficult, so I'll just mention them at the end if you want. For now, I'd like to focus on this one idea that he also said was probably the best one. It's basically a short event where we celebrate an upcoming holiday with some music, dance parties, drinks, stuff like that. Get people in, get people happy, get people drunk, and offer a short discount on the rooms since it will be late in the night by then anyways."
Lucas smiled, "See? I told you those mattresses were the absolute best." Then he looked at me and expanded, "Me and Ed had a huge discussion about what supplier to use. The ones here are actually a lower tier version of the company I use at home, so I knew for a fact that they were perfect."
"Well, yeah. It clearly worked, sir."
"Of course it did. Ed, what do you think about the idea?"
Edward sat straight and put his hands under his chin like a supervillain, making an inquisitive face, "Hmm. Iron out some more of the details for me. I'll ask you some questions, so you go ahead and answer them. For one - I don't get the long-term benefits of the whole idea. Sure, we'll earn a bit by putting it all on, but people who are gonna party there aren't going to be potential customers for a long time. We need something more sustainable. Where does this start here?"
"Yeah, I thought of that too. So, the basic idea of that is based on inviting people who would be interested in having events too. We aren't just selling to the public for rooms, but we're looking to get business from bigger businesses who would probably do bulk bookings. That should ideally help us out a lot."
"I see. Not bad. Alright, what about the pricing? You take money for registering with the event, and then you take more money for a room? I don't think that will fly well with most people. Wouldn't they just go home?"
I scrolled to something I had typed out and answered, "Thought of that too. To make sure that doesn't happen, we should probably have the event start early. As such, there will be more people who would be willing to come from afar. Push the end time a little bit, then a little bit more, and more, and suddenly they might not have enough time to go back home. Boom, they stay in the hotel since we're still cheaper than the rest around."
Edward shook his head and looked at his friend, who looked at me.
Lucas spoke, "That sounds like a pretty predatory idea, don't you think? We aren't being fair to them, since they've travelled this far just to be here.
"Well, I..." I had nothing to say. It definitely was an unfair idea. We were basically manipulating them into having no other option left.
"And that's exactly why." Lucas sighed, "I fucking love it. God, I love your brain. We get them in here and then we effectively trap them. Hell yeah! Once that's done, they're basically hooked on the mattresses. Either they come back, or they buy ones for themselves, and its profit either way. We got the business deals for shit like that set up already. Commissions and the whole thing."
"Oh..."
Edward smiled, "I knew I didn't make a mistake telling you we were counting on you. We need more people like you here. I mean, we aren't forcing them to do anything. They can still go back home. Just...twisting the odds in our favor a little bit. It's still fine. If we want to grow, we need to play a little dirty. You get that. Good job, kid."
"Thank you, sir."
You never knew with these two. They were born pranksters. I loved them a bit too much.
Lucas slid his chair over to Edward and the two of them started whispering. I took the time to look around the room at the table and the chairs, and the wall art, and the pop-out ceiling, and basically everything I could look at to not feel weird. I could start doing something on my phone, but it felt wrong to start browsing in front of them. They still had the higher position in front of me, no matter how much they liked me.
They continued to talk to each other for a few more minutes before they turned.
Lucas started, "Start working on it, Alex. We're giving you the job to give us a detailed plan of how everything is going to go down. How about that? Bring us something in the next ten days and we'll go ahead with it. In the meanwhile, we've got some other deals we need to take a look at, so we can't really help you out too much."
"Sure!" I stood up, "That works. I won't disappoint you."
I shook both of their hands.
Lucas asked me to sit down once more, "Before you leave. You don't need to do it all alone. You can take help from my daughter, Kate. She's around today, so we'll introduce her to you. You both can talk, find out a time and place to discuss everything, and give us that plan, ok? Kate's a business major and all that, so she'll get some experience from it all as well. That's alright?"
"Uh, definitely! I'd be more than happy to have some help too!"
"That's fucking perfect, then." Edward stood up, "Let's go to the lobby. She's probably there right now. We can leave from there, Luc?"
As I walked to the reception with them, I already had an idea about how this particular situation was going to end. I wasn't so absent-minded and dumb that I couldn't connect two and two together. A girl I had never seen before, and now this information about Lucas Lee's daughter. They were the same person, weren't they? I had somehow managed to act haughty and managed to piss off the daughter of one of the only two men who controlled my life's direction right now. Talk about a disaster.
By the time the reception was in view, I had already accepted the possibilities of my oncoming fate. Because she was standing right there, pacing as she chewed her nails while talking to the head receptionist. One sound from her father, and she looked up. Instead of locking eyes with him, though, she locked them with me. And I wasn't sure what to think of the expression I saw in them. Anger? Fear? Surprise? Disgust? Happiness? Who knows? It was like her face projected everything she possibly could in a single moment.
"You!" She gasped.
"Oh, uh, hey! Look, Ms. Kate, I didn't know who you were, so I am really sorry for how I behaved earlier. I was just a bit on edge and I completely accept that it was my fault." I immediately said.
"You two met?" Lucas looked at me and her, smiling, "And bickered already? Oh, how perfect. They'll get along really well. Alright, see you then."
And the two of them, comic duo that they were, left. In a moment. Without anything else to say.
Kate cleared her throat and grabbed my shoulder, taking me away from the reception desk to a corner. There, she sighed, looked up and showed me a clearer expression - guilt...?
"No, uh, my bad too. I didn't know you had an off-day. Or that you were the dude my dad's been raving about this entire time. I actually came here today just to talk to you, so I'm sorry for being a bitch. It's just how I get sometimes."
I decided to let her go on, but she didn't. Instead, both of us awkwardly stared at each other for a few seconds.
"So, we cool?" She beamed.
"Uh...yeah. We cool." I nodded, putting my hand forward for her to shake.
"Ahh, that's nice. That's really nice. Let's get to work, yeah? Show me all that genius of yours." She started walking away without shaking it back, straight back towards the conference room.
Kate Lee.
What the fuck kind of troublemaker had I landed myself in with?