Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Noah
Three hours later, I watched from the window in the office as Nellie’s car pulled out of the small parking lot by the main building.
I’d spent the afternoon teaching her how to use our booking software.
She was a quick learner, and she picked up on it faster than Jeannine had.
She just had to work on her confidence when answering the phone.
All and all, I was impressed with her—and not just because she’d left a lasting impression on me weeks ago.
It felt right, having her around, and that settled the restlessness that had taken hold of me since the night we’d spent together.
Hiring her had been more of an on-the-spot decision than Damien would have liked.
As expected, I heard all about his reservations when I’d gone out to ask Easton to go pick up the pizza from Pizza Picasso.
He would have rather the two of us had sat down and gone over her resume, called her references, then offered the job to her.
He felt like my hiring her on the spot was a desperate move, and maybe it was. Maybe I was desperate to have her around, and desperate to get out of the office. All those things could be true at once, and they were.
I had seen the hesitation on Nellie’s face when it came to accepting the job.
I wouldn’t jeopardize things by acting on my residual feelings from the night we spent together, especially not now.
Maybe down the road we could revisit that night, if she ever gave any indication that was what she wanted.
The back door beeped, signaling someone was entering through the laundry room. A few moments later, Damien appeared in the office.
“I’m leaving now. Pathways have all been shoveled and Easton’s finishing up putting sand down.”
“Alright, sounds good.” I nodded.
“How’d it go with the new girl?” he asked, lifting his chin toward the front desk.
“It went well, considering it was her first day and all.”
“It shouldn’t have been,” Damien grumbled.
“Are you still pissed that I made an executive decision?” I challenged.
“Kind of, yeah. What if she’s a thief? Or a terrible employee?”
“I doubt she would have kept her previous job for eight years if that were the case, Damien.” I rolled my eyes at his dramatics. “She only left that job because she moved to Hartwood Creek.”
“Yeah, well. Maybe she had a prior record that her former employer was okay with, but that wouldn’t fly on a family resort,” Damien was grasping at straws, and he knew it.
“Well, good thing she’s on probation, right?” I pointed out. Damien didn’t look any more appeased by that reminder. I sighed. “I’m still planning on calling her references, but relax. She’s capable, and I have a good feeling about this.”
“Your ‘good feeling’ better not be in your pants,” Damien grumped, shaking his head as the door to the laundry room swung open behind him.
“Oh, are we talking about good feelings in pants?” Easton chimed in, a devious look on his face. “Not exactly workplace appropriate conversation material, brothers.”
“I thought you were leaving?” I asked Damien, irritated.
“I am,” Damien said, heading back out through the laundry room. We often parked in the back lot, to keep spaces free for guests out front.
“He’s in a mood,” Easton said, watching our older brother storm off and slam the door behind him.
“When is he not?” I retorted, roughly pulling out the chair and sitting down. We answered phones until five during the week. Easton leaned against the front counter, a bemused smile on his face.
“So, the new girl is pretty hot. Is that what’s got Damien pissed? He thinks you hired her because she’s good looking?”
“He thinks I rushed into hiring her without doing my due diligence of checking references, but she’s a friend of Sage’s and has Nix’s approval. I’m not worried about the references.”
“Yeah, fair enough. Rumour has it, though, that she’s a former hookup of yours.”
“What rumour?” I scowled, pissed off that my private life was even up for discussion. Normally, I didn’t give a shit what people said about me or my former encounters with women.
“Hey now, I’m not going to reveal my sources. I’m just saying. Maybe Damien has a tiny reason to be worried you hired her for an alternative purpose,” Easton replied, making a pinching motion with his finger.
“Oh yeah? Do you think that too?”
“Personally, I told Damien you’d be hard pressed to find a local woman around our age that you hadn’t slept with.”
“Fuck off,” I growled, chucking my water bottle at him. Easton caught it with ease and laughed.
“You both need to lighten up,” Easton chuckled, tossing the water bottle back. I caught it and frowned. “Anyway, I’m off. Got a hot date tonight.”
“Surprised you can find someone to date that I supposedly haven’t slept with,” I grumbled.
“It’s definitely not easy, I had to go to Springwood,” Easton teased with a smirk, and darted back into the laundry room before I could whip the water bottle at him again.
Easton’s comment got to me more than it should have, and it wasn’t like he was wrong. I kept things easy and casual, always. I didn’t do commitment. So why was his flippant remark settling like lead in the pit of my stomach?
Nellie
“I knew you’d get the job!” Sage said, the excitement evident on her face. She’d been at Tabitha and Parker’s when I got home, picking Daphne up from a play date with the twins, and had all but bombarded me in the driveway when I pulled up.
“Yeah, it’s great. Except for the whole…” I gestured to my midsection.
“We’ll figure that out later,” Sage waved my concerns away with her hand. “The important thing is that you have a job! You’re employed! We should celebrate.”
“I’m going to eat something and crash. I’m tired.”
“The first trimester is an energy suck,” Sage nodded sympathetically. “How about this Friday we go out for dinner?”
“Sounds good,” I nodded, fighting off another yawn. “Tell Daphne I said hi.”
“I will,” Sage gave me a quick hug.
We parted ways, with me going up the stairs to my apartment while Sage walked back up to Tabitha’s to collect Daphne. Normally, I’d have tried to spend some time with Sage and her daughter, but I was so exhausted.
I opened the door, walking inside to my new place, and couldn’t even feel a sense of pride over what I’d accomplished in the span of a few short weeks.
I was too tired. All I wanted to do was go to bed, but it wasn’t even five yet.
I knew I needed to force myself to eat something and try to stay up until at least seven.
Em had sent me home with a lot of Christmas dinner leftovers, so I didn’t have to cook anything. I heated up a plate of turkey, potatoes, stuffing, and carrots, then sat down on the sofa in my living room.
I ate dinner while I mindlessly watched reruns of Friends, barely paying attention. It was both my comfort show, and the show I put on for the background noise. My thoughts kept drifting back to the unexpected day I’d had.
Being around Noah had been…nice. I didn’t know how else to describe it.
I hated that I felt so comfortable around him, even when I was keeping such a huge secret.
I knew I was going to have to have a conversation with him sooner rather than later, but I worried about what that would mean for me job wise.
If I could make it through the probation period, he couldn’t fire me over it. Not that I thought he was the kind of person to do that, fire an employee for being pregnant, but he might not be thrilled about potentially being the father.
I didn’t know for sure, and I didn’t want to blow up Noah’s life, or my own for that matter, on a hunch. Even if he was the father, I wasn’t expecting him to step up and be a parent. Noah had consented to a night of fun, not a lifetime of raising a kid.
It was me that wanted this baby, even if I hadn’t expected to have it.
The next morning, I arrived fifteen minutes before my shift at eight. I had packed myself a lunch and snacks for the day. I’d also brought my large water bottle to keep me hydrated, and several bags of decaffeinated tea.
I was expecting to see Noah waiting for me in the front office, but to my disappointment, he wasn’t there. Instead, a woman with strawberry blond hair tied back in a ponytail was manning the desk.
“Good morning, you must be Nellie! I’m Charlotte,” she said, standing up when I walked into the office. “I’ll be helping train you this morning.”
“Okay, great,” I said, pushing away the disappointed feeling and putting on a smile.
“Did Noah show you where you could put your stuff yesterday? I know it’s been a kind of whirlwind twenty-four hours for you,” Charlotte chuckled.
“Yeah, he did,” I replied. “I’ve never been hired on the spot before. Feels good for the ego.”
“I bet it does,” Charlotte’s laugh was light and airy, and her smile was friendly. “I’ll let you get settled. You’ve still got some time before you’re officially on the clock.”
I nodded my thanks, disappearing long enough to put my lunch in the refrigerator and hang my coat up on the row of coat hooks in the laundry room.
There was a bulletin board beside the back door with timesheets for employees. A new one had been added, with my name printed in barely legible scrawl. Yesterday’s hours were already filled out, so I wrote the time I arrived today on the sheet then joined Charlotte back in the office.
She smiled as I walked over and pulled out the computer chair beside her.
The receptionist’s desk was essentially a long counter that spanned almost the entire length of the front office, dividing the small shop area from the workspace.
A half-wall built to match the front paneling of the desk blocked off the laundry room door.
There were two computers and two phones on the main desk. On the far wall, behind the receptionist desk, was a built-in shelving unit with filing cabinets galore. One of the cupboards housed all the keys to the cottages, condos and outbuildings.
The main office’s small shop didn’t sell much, just merchandise like sweaters and T-shirts, water bottles and hats, all with the Whimsical Woods Resort logo on it.
“So, Noah said he gave you a crash course in the booking system yesterday, and showed you how to ready guest packets for check-ins?” Charlotte asked.
“Yes,” I nodded. Noah had given me a bit of a run down yesterday of how things worked, but I was far from confident about managing it on my own. I hoped the training period lasted a little longer than a day.
“Okay, great. I guess we’ll kick things off by showing you how to check voicemails,” Charlotte smiled.
“Sounds easy enough,” I said once she’d walked me through how to check voicemail messages.
“It is. A lot of people call after hours with booking inquiries, so we ask that you stay on top of answering voicemails and emails. Inquiries lead to bookings, and we want those,” Charlotte said.
“The first thing you do each morning should be to check voicemail messages and write down who you need to call back.”
Charlotte put me to work, allowing me to take down the messages on the notepad by my phone.
“Great! Now we’re going to start calling those people back,” Charlotte smiled once I’d finished. “We also get a lot of inquiries throughout the day, so it’s important to stay on top of things. I’ll handle the first one, then you can try.”
“Alright,” I nodded, trying not to let my nervousness show. It was new-job-jitters. It’d been such a long time since I’d had to learn a new job. I was confident that I could do it, but it’d take some getting used to. It was a totally different vibe than being a barista at a café.