First morning back at work, and all that comes with it

It wasn’t anywhere near the first time I’d been on a trip and had to come back to work; hell, I’d even taken an entire week off before so that Cass and I could take a trip back home to visit our family.

Badging into the staff entrance from the staff parking lot felt different this time.

The Vasoseh, named after the Farsi term for Temptation, was one of the newest big casinos on the strip; and, to be fair, that was the only reason I really had the position I did. The Persian business conglomerate that had bought the land in Vegas had caused a bit of an uproar for a little bit since they had apparently done some sort of a runaround on the more established ‘financing groups’ who wanted a piece of every major pie in Vegas, but they had just as seemingly endlessly deep pockets and every hurdle was overcome. The Vaso had been built over three years and Cass and I had moved to Vegas three months before it started hiring its entire complement of staff other than the various managers they had brought over from resorts in the UAE and Kuwait.

Every once in a while when someone found out I worked at the Vaso, especially if they were Vegas born and raised and steeped in the history of the casinos like it was mythological lore, I got asked what it was like working for terrorists. My answer was always the same. ‘Pretty good; they pay slightly above market rate, sprung for above average health insurance, and the tips from the oil execs are great. Plus I haven’t been blown up once!’

My bosses were not terrorists, but talking up all the perks usually shut up the racist comments.

The back hallways of the Vaso were generally the same as any other major hotel and casino on the strip - plain and utilitarian. Once I was badged in I walked the back hallways by rote, nodding to some of the friendly faces on the way. Cleaners, maintenance, front desk, kitchen staff for the restaurants, bartenders and waitresses, admin staff, pretty much everyone who did anything behind the scenes other than security and the actual operations folk of the Casino had reasons to be back there in the corridors, break rooms, storage areas and offices. The actual Casino operations had its own, separate back area that had to be accessed through separate doors inside the building.

It was when I transitioned from the utilitarian area to the more ‘display’ back area that the trouble started.

“Hey, Robbie, welcome back,” Jonas said.

Despite what he said, I knew Jonas was not happy that I was back. He’d probably been praying I fell into the boat motors or drowned. Not because I’d done anything to him, but because Jonas was just a ladder-climbing dickhead.

“I’m back,” I said, nodding and giving him a tight smile. Jonas was another of the event managers and his focus was more on the two theatres and the acts that cycled through them as bonus entertainment. The Vaso hadn’t locked in any major, long-term residencies since it opened simply because the owners hadn’t prioritised shows; the theatres were nice but not massive. They also tended to bring in international performing groups for short stays, which seemed to bring in a more international crowd in a city that was already pretty international as a tourism destination. “Anything wild happen while I was gone?”

“Amber got fired,” Jonas smirked. We weren’t friends, but he was a fucking gossip.

“For what?” I asked, a little surprised. Amber had been a problem for our whole department for a while; she’d worked in Accounting and denied our expense requests, receipts and invoices for petty powerplay shit but she’d been protected by her boss who we guessed had the hots for her.

“She denied an emergency invoice that Doug put in himself,” Jonas smirked. “So he went up to their offices and chewed her out in person, and she started crying and submitted an HR complaint. But that opened an investigation and it came out pretty quick that she was emailing details of our service contracts over to someone at the Sahara.”

“Jesus,” I sighed.

“So anything good happen on your trip?” he asked me. And I knew he meant ‘Got any pictures?’ When Jonas had found out about Cassidy’s cosplaying he’d gotten very interested when I took vacation days for long weekends to go to Cons with her. He’d got it in his head that I could be hooking up with hot nerdy models.

There was no fucking way I was telling that, for the first time, he was right.

“It was fun,” I said with a shrug and a little smirk. “A week of sun, fresh water and friends.”

He gave me a look that said he was disappointed, and I gave him a pat on the arm before moving past him towards my office. As an event manager, I had to meet with outside folks for planning or contract meetings, especially when it came to the Ballroom events, so I was blessed with a nice little space in ‘Event Row’ in the admin offices with a view out over the north of the city. The fact that the window pointed towards home by pure coincidence hadn’t been lost on me.

“Oh, Doug has us scheduled for an all-hands in half an hour,” Jonas said, leaning in the door of my office as I was getting to my desk.

“Great,” I said, giving him a nod. He winked at me and knocked on the doorframe before leaving me alone.

That meant the all-hands meeting of the event managers was either in fifteen minutes, or forty-five. I’d need to check the email.

I started booting up my work laptop and sat down in my chair, turning to look out that window towards home, my fiancee, and my girlfriend.

“Fuck,” I sighed under my breath. Jonas was honestly the least of my troubles when it came to figuring out what to say to my coworkers - it was the ones I was actually friends with who were going to be hard to lie to if I decided to lie, or the most weirded out if I told them as much of the truth as I could.

Especially Dayana.

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