Page 48 of Vixen's Guide to Christmas
“As you should be,” I say with an eyebrow wag. “I bought cookies for an office potluck day because I don’t bake. I barely cook. Anyway, I joked that of course I got up at the crack of dawn to bake them, because I’m sarcastic and that’s what I do.”
“Naturally.”
“Anyway, the client in question, a movie director, happened to be in the office that day and grabbed a few. He loved them. Thought they were the best thing he ever tasted. Someone who didn’t sense the sarcasm told him that I baked them myself. And I don’t know what got it into his head, but he was convinced that if I, a little ol’ junior account manager whose name he didn’t know, were to bake and deliver these cookies to the keeper of this list, that he’d get on. So on the instructions of my boss and my boss’s boss, I did it. I believe they equated it to ‘taking one for the team.’”
“Wow,” Grayson says in disbelief. “Did he get on the list?”
“Absolutely not,” I say with a laugh. “He was a shitty director making shitty movies. No cookies can fix that. Though themagazine that published the list did appreciate the effort, and I did a few campaigns with them after that, so it all worked out.”
“Hell, yeah,” Grayson says, tipping his now lukewarm coffee cup to me. “I once had to pay off a pizza delivery guy who accidentally walked in on my client hosting an orgy.”
I spit out my water. “Excuse me? Did you just say what I think you just said?”
“I did. No one was answering the door, and he heard music around back, so he walked around to deliver it. In his defense, the instructions did say ‘hand to customer,’ and he was doing his job. He just didn’t realize why no one’s hands were free.”
“Holy shit,” I say. “I know you can’t tell me, but I really want to know who this was.”
Grayson shakes his head. “Bound by an NDA and my personal code of ethics, which include no outright lying, no blabbing, and certainly no cheating.”
The no-cheating one sticks with me. “You realize now I’m just going to dig to figure out who it was.”
“I’d expect nothing less.”
This has been how the conversation has gone. A little work, a little chat, shared smiles, a lot of laughs. Pretty much the perfect day.
It was almost inevitable that the conversation would turn to our jobs. But in a shocking turn of events for me, I’m glad it has. It’s been superficial talk. Random campaigns we’ve worked on. Biggest flops. Biggest wins. Nothing too technical. Just enough to get me comfortable with this line of conversation. It’s like he knows exactly what I needed.
Of course he does. He has since the moment I met him.
“I don’t know, son… If these two are here any longer, we might need to give them resident status.”
Grayson and I both look up to see Howard and Declan walking up to our table, each dressed as if Christmas is happening right now.
“I must say, I do appreciate you going all-in on the Santa persona right now,” I say to Howard. "The red cardigan suits you.”
“This old thing?" he says, but he does add a little bit of modeling for me. "Just dusting it off for our Christmas party tonight.”
“Christmas party?” Grayson asks. “Is this your employee Christmas party?”
“The opposite," Declan says. “We're hosting one for all the guests. And we wanted to personally invite you both.”
“What kind of party are we talking here?” I ask. “You know, so I know what to wear.”
“A very impromptu one, but one that includes champagne, hors d’oeuvres, and music, so dress in whatever makes you feel that mood,” Howard says. “We know this weather is less than ideal for the guests who, like you, are stranded here, or the ones who had to make unscheduled pit stops to get off the roads. We thought by throwing a party tonight, it would lessen the load.”
“Great idea,” Grayson says. “And something like that helps the goodwill of the guests. They might be grumpy now, but knowing you’re doing this, especially if it’s at no cost to them, that’s PR you can’t manufacture.”
“We weren’t thinking about that, but that’s wonderful,” Declan says. “Though actually, this idea spawned from PR.”
“How so?” I ask.
“You,” Howard says. “We got the idea after our meeting yesterday.”
Shit, what did I say? I say a lot of things in a pitch, so who knows what landed and what didn’t. I also try to sneak a peekto Grayson to see his reaction, but without making it obvious, I can’t get a read. “I’m glad I was able to give you an idea.”
“That’s the funny thing, you didn’t say anything specific,” Howard says. “But, when you talked about activities and things to do around the hotel, it…I don’t know, it just got our brains working.”
“We’re going to have a play area for the children, fully staffed to look after them, so parents can have some Christmas fun before the big day gets here. We also have some teens, so we’re going to have a space set aside for them,” Declan explains. “Then, of course, the party for the adults. Because what is a good Christmas party without some reindeer games?"
