Page 84 of Mistlefoe
“Good job,” one of the sales guys palms Conor’s back as we pass. The wink he sends Conor’s way suggests he’s not exactly referring to the event.
“Ugh, that could’ve been me,” a woman from accounting says with a glare directed at me.
I raise an eyebrow at Conor, who’s not missing a thing but is pretending like he is. The only tell is that he keeps biting his lips to contain the laughter dancing in his eyes.
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” I ask under my breath.
“Oh yeah, I want everyone to know that you’re mine.”
Then he does the same move from the catering test, when we pretended to be together for a moment. He circles his arm around my back, his hand settling at my hip in a very possessive way. I enjoyed it then as much as I am now, and onlybecause this is a work event I don’t slide my hand in his back pocket. I just hook two fingers on his belt loop.
We’re following the circuit in reverse, stopping here and there for a quick chat with coworkers. Questions are still the main topic, but we keep being held up by people wanting to know how the biggest rivals in the company got together all of a sudden.
Conor takes care of those. He’s really good at joking around without actually saying anything incriminating or useful, and still leaving smiling people behind him. It allows me to just rest my head against his chest and rest, and I admit this is way better than Gramps’s office couch.
Eventually, we make it to the start of the circuit, which is the booze booth. There are tens of people lining up for a repeat attempt of the so called Guess the Spike game. It’s basically just sipping from different eggnogs and if you guess what kind of alcohol they were spiked with, you win a ticket for more time at the ball pit to fish for gifts.
When it’s our turn, the part-timers recognize us right away and I say, “Skip the spiel and pour me rum eggnog.”
“The brandy one for me,” says Conor.
We step aside after gathering our goods, clink our themed paper cups, and take hearty swigs.
“I have something for you.” Conor leads me down the seats towards the ice rink.
“Huh?” I stay confused until he sits me on some chair at the front row, except it’s not random because he pulls out a nicely wrapped box from right under it, and places it on my lap. “What?”
He’s kneeling on the floor and motions at it with his chin. “Open it.”
“I know we’ve moved quite fast but it’s too early for a ring.” I joke, knowing full well there isn’t a ring this ginormous in the world. The box is kind of heavy and I won’t try to shake it, butI hesitate to open it. “Conor, I didn’t think about getting you a gift.”
“Don’t worry about it, this one is for my own selfish purposes.” He tilts his chin toward it once more.
I’m the kind of monster who takes her sweet ass time unwrapping gifts, trying not to tear the paper. I can tell Conor’s losing his ever loving mind on the inside by the way his eyes keep widening with impatience. Chuckling, I decide to free him from his misery and tear the paper the rest of the way.
“Hah!” I lift up the box and laugh now that I can see what it is—a brand new pair of skates. “I get it now.”
Grinning, Conor reaches under the next seat and pulls out a sports bag. When he unzips it, it reveals his own well loved pair. “Now we can have tons and tons of skating dates whenever we want.”
“You ice dork.” I lean to place a peck on his lips. “Guess I know what to get you for Christmas now.”
“Something baseball related, isn’t it?” he asks as he does much quicker work of changing out of his shoes and into his skates than I possibly can.
“You know it. I’ll make you the best beer leaguer in town. We start training next week.”
“Looking forward to it.”
Conor helps me finish my laces and then doesn’t let go of my hand as we set out for the ice.
A group of tipsy people tumble into each other like bowling pins and one of the part-timers immediately skates over to assess the situation for any damage. We watch as the part-timer collects their names and after they go, he feeds them into a walkie talkie for the booze booth part-timers to ban them from further spiked eggnog. Assigning people for this duty was a stroke of genius from Conor after the incident with the booths, when safety became of the utmost importance.
Said genius gifts me a bright smile after that whole little episode. I elbow him gently. “Good job, Conor. Without you, this whole thing would’ve been a disaster.”
“Oh.” He blinks as if taken aback. “Well, I wouldn’t have managed any of this on my own to begin with.”
“We both deserve the ten grand and this.” I curl my finger at him and he takes the hint right away, sliding closer and leaning down for a kiss.
Except someone else clears their throat and says, “But only one will get the promotion.”
