Work gets Complicated

No lunch today.

I was pretty sure I knew what that text from Dayana meant, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. It was almost eleven and we hadn’t had a reason to communicate yet, so I’d been expecting to get grilled over lunch based on what Cass had told her the night before at their dinner.

That morning, after gloriously waking up between Cattie and Cass again, my fiancee had been smirking at me a lot. Especially after I’d bluntly asked her what she ended up telling my colleague.

And then the little schemer grinned and shrugged, and wouldn’t tell me.

Texting during the morning had not gotten her to change her mind, either.

“Just ask her,” she said, and kept saying. And Cattie wasn’t any help either since she hadn’t known before I left for the day, and if she knew now she was playing along.

I loved having playful, fun women in my life, but sometimes the playfulness could be a bit much. Of course, that also led to times like the ‘Cock Roulette’ game on the last night of the trip, so it was hard to be too mad at it.

Everyone else in my relationship seemed to be having fun teasing me as well, though.

First were the pictures Zenya had sent me - the downright pornographic pictures of her naked in bed. And she wasn’t the only one sending me pics, though she was the only one sending me anything as lewd as those. Leia sent me a pic of her outfit for the day, which was Monster Hunter-themed. Becca sent me a short video from bed as well, but she was mostly under the covers and blinking drearily into her phone camera as she blew me a kiss.

Then there were the messages - Ami was arriving home around mid-day, so she wasn’t super talkative beyond some Good Mornings, but Terra was going through it a bit with the status quo of her life blowing up. Cass would be flying out to help her with everything tomorrow, and she had the support of all the other girls, but she was also dealing with a lot of questions from her other friends and family about it all. Fair questions, but still stressful to field, and about big things - the breakup, the sudden move across the country, career stuff. Some people were being supportive, others were being shady or picking sides she hadn’t expected. Venting to me seemed to help, though it did have me a little distracted.

And then there was Becca, once she was fully awake, letting me know that Wanda was expecting her soon-to-be-Ex husband Brodi back home later that day.

Which meant that I could be hearing from Wanda that night. And I fucking missed her already.

But it also meant that she was about to go through a super rough emotional experience that I couldn’t help her with because of our very understandable boundaries for the moment.

“Hey, I booked a group in that two-hour slot next Tuesday in the Sunrise room,” Jonas said, breaking me out of my stupor of texting with Becca about Wanda. I was standing off to one side in the corridor outside the main ballroom, waiting for the maintenance crew to come in to help do the setup for the fundraiser event that evening.

“What?” I asked, immediately trying to think of what two-hour gap he was talking about since I had this week on my mind.

“Next week, Tuesday,” Jonas smirked at me. “You had a two-hour gap between a Lunch event and a Dinner event, and I booked in a wine tasting for a bachelorette party. You gotta get grinding, Robbie, I’m up like three bookings on you right now. You’re not even making this difficult.”

“Next Tuesday… The lunch is for the local Furry Friends Society, and the dinner is for the Georgia Realtor Society conference. Jonas, that time slot is open because we need to be ready to steam clean any messes that the dogs the Furry Friends people bring with them out of the carpet. You can’t book that time slot.”

Jonas grimaced, but he was clearly uncaring. “Ooh, yeah, that sounds important. Sorry, man. It’s already booked and Doug wants those spots filled. Oh, and it’s right during the first showing on Stage 1 so I’ll be busy, you’ll have to manage it. I’m sure you’ll make it work.” He didn’t wait a second to speed walk off, leaving me vaguely reaching out towards him wanting to throttle him one-handed.

“Was that Jonas?” Tan asked me, approaching from the other direction.

“Yup,” I grunted, then let out a heavy breath and turned to the younger guy. “What’s up?”

“Do you know how to organise a conga line?”

It took me a second to parse that question as my mind pivoted. “Like, the dance?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “I’m supposed to be helping Walt out later with his whole Drinks by the Pool mini-event and he said that I had to organise the conga line, but I’ve never done that before.”

It took me another long second, looking into his eyes, to formulate a response. “I’m pretty sure you wait for the right kind of song, and then you just yell, ‘Conga!’ and start dancing in one direction.”

“Oh, really? That’s it?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “That’s it.”

“I guess that’s not that hard,” Tan shrugged. “I just… shout it?”

“During the right song,” I repeated myself.

“Sure, right,” Tan said. “OK. Cool.”

“Have you talked with Jonas about Friday yet?” I asked him.

Tan frowned, making it very clear he had no idea what I was talking about.

“Check the schedule, talk with Jonas,” I said. “You need to update plans as necessary.”

“Sure, OK,” he nodded. “Thanks for the tip.”

“It’s not a… tip…” I said, but Tan was already walking away. “It’s a fucking heads-up,” I muttered under my breath. I was saved from stewing on that particular problem by the arrival of my maintenance crew.

“You good, my guy?” asked Sean. He was one of the most trustworthy of the crew, an older guy who had worked as a gaffer and film crew out in LA for a long time before taking the job with the Vaso for more stability.

“That depends on your definition of ‘good,’” I sighed, then nodded towards the ballroom. “Come on, let’s get you guys started and then I’ll make sure some lunch gets sent up for your guys. This one will take a couple of hours.”

I got agreeable grunts from Sean and his three-man crew - it always paid to spend that little extra time to keep the physical labour guys well-fed.

Breakthebar erotica is powered by Patreon, where AMA chapters are releasing 5+ chapters ahead. PM if interested in making a Commission.