Chapter Twenty-Four
Eoin
Saturday night might have been a raving success—I know it was because Dáithí told me—but that hasn’t stopped Dáithí from being a little subdued all week.
I’m worried that it’s related to what he said on Saturday about not deserving me, but he’s not receptive to talking about it.
The last time I asked, he said he wanted time to work out what his own thoughts were.
Between that, getting a little ahead on my regular work so I can spend today on reception, and Ari’s newfound determination to annoy me until I fire him so he won’t have to work with the Warhammers, it’s been a chaotic week.
But I’m ready for this. I’ve looked through the training manual Candice from CSG loaned me, and Dáithí left a cheat sheet for me on his desk.
I was a soldier for thousands of years, involved in complex operations to protect and relocate people in the midst of a widespread catastrophic series of events.
For part of that time, I was in charge of some of those operations.
I’ve been running Raeulfr’s security for the last few hundred years—I deal with his viceroys and other heads of state as a matter of routine.
I’m pretty sure I can handle reception for the day.
And Ari’s just going to have to suck it up and quit being a baby. I assigned him to the king yesterday so he could sulk out all his feelings while being useful. Hopefully he’s back to himself today, because it’s up to him to manage the team while I’m preoccupied with this.
“This” being the meeting room schedule. I came in early so I’d have time to read through the cheat sheet and familiarize myself with everything, but I didn’t anticipate the meeting room schedule.
Dáithí’s list says to check which rooms have been booked and whether the booking is for an internal meeting or if there will be visitors attending.
If there are visitors coming, I need to confirm that they’re already on the visitor list, and if not add their name, who their contact is, and check whether they’ll need to sign in so they can go through the security gate—and if so, there’s a whole list of other things I need to check off.
I’m familiar with that list, though, seeing as I helped Steffen Draco write it and talked him down when he wanted to include biometric scanning as a requirement.
It should be fairly simple. After all, the process for booking a meeting room requires staff to include these details, and the process for having a visitor in the office requires them to do the rest. Even if they forget to note visitor names when booking the meeting room, they should already be on the visitor list—or vice versa.
The problem seems to be that we work with people who are incapable of following a basic process.
I click into every single taken slot on the schedule. There are eight rooms, with sixteen potential half-hour meeting slots available for each room. Almost three quarters of them are taken, and only six have all the necessary information.
Sucking an annoyed breath in through my nose, I scroll back to the nine o’clock slot and start noting down who I’ll need to contact.
Thankfully, a lot of the bookings span multiple time slots, which cuts the number of meetings I need to chase up even further.
But I’m going to have quite a lot to say to these people.
I send a message to everyone whose meetings begin after ten, but I’ll have to call the ones that start at nine.
This is such a waste of my time—there are still three things on Dáithí’s list that I need to do before the office is open to visitors in twenty minutes.
I stab the digits for the first extension into the keypad.
“What?”
I pull the handset away from my ear and look at it. What the fuck?
“Hanesty?” I check. Usually he answers the phone with his name, but even if he’s trying something new, “what” is not it.
“Who’s this? Is Dáithí not in today?”
My eyes narrow. He thought it was Dáithí, and he answered the phone like that? “It’s Eoin. I’m filling in for Dáithí today.”
There’s a thudding sound that might be Hanesty dropping something, and it gives me dark satisfaction.
“Eoin! You’re… wow. Okay. Couldn’t get a temp at the last minute, hey?”
I don’t bother to reply. I’ve already wasted too much time on him. “You’ve booked Meeting Room 3 at nine o’clock but haven’t followed the process. Update the booking information or I’ll cancel it.”
“The… oh, uh. Really? I didn’t think we actually needed to do that.”
“What was it that made you think that? The fact that a process document was created for it, or the instructions that pop up when you click into the schedule to make a booking?”
He gives a strained, nervous laugh. “No, I mean, visitors check in with Dáithí anyway, right? So it doesn’t need to be in the booking.”
Does he realize he’s talking to the head of the king’s personal security right now, openly stating that he doesn’t follow security practices for the office where the king works?
“Update it in the next two minutes or I’m canceling the booking.
And since it sounds like you have external people coming, they’d better be on the visitor list.” I end the call before I have to listen to him say anything else.
If you’d asked me ten minutes ago, I would have said Hanesty was decent enough and not the type to make trouble.
I’m currently reassessing that opinion.
Mentioning the visitor list raised another concern, though, and before I make the next call, I bring up that file—and swear.
I can’t be certain that people haven’t been populating it, but I do know approximately how much traffic comes through this office every day, and based on that there should be a lot more names on this list.
Is this the kind of bullshit Dáithí deals with before he even needs to switch the external phone lines to active?
Making a snap decision, I stab the buttons on the phone, dialing an extension that’s not on my list. It takes less than a minute to explain the situation to Steffen—I don’t even need to finish before he turns growly and demands I let him deal with it—and then I snap a photo of my list and text it to him.
If people are going to fuck around, they’re going to find out.
“Just fucking do what you’re supposed to, you motherfucking piece of shit!
” My shout bounces off the walls of the small room, and the very young marketing assistant who asked for my help slowly backs toward the door.
I suck in a deep breath—something I’ve done too many times already in the past hour and fourteen minutes—and resist the urge to kick the damn printer. I’m pretty sure it won’t help.
It would make me feel better, though.
I’m on deep breath number three before I manage to calm down enough to paste on a smile… though from the look on the marketing assistant’s face, it’s more of a grimace. “Just leave it with me,” I promise them. “You said you needed the reports for a meeting this afternoon, right?”
Wide-eyed, they nod.
“Great! Come back at noon, and they’ll be ready for you.
” I’m not sure how convinced they are, but they manage to squeak a thank-you before racing away.
I go back to the reception desk, where there are now even more fucking incoming call lights on the phone, plus three people waiting.
I must’ve talked to fifty people already today, and it’s not even ten yet.
How am I supposed to get the things on the list done?
Ignoring the phones—the calls go into a hold queue if they’re not answered immediately—I look at the first person waiting. “Welcome to the DEA.” My voice is a lot less welcoming than Dáithí’s usually is, but I can’t help that right now. “How can I help you?”
“I’ve got an appointment with Asha Carse.
I’m Kari Pelen.” She smiles, and the smile I give in return is a lot more natural this time, thanks to the magic Steffen worked with the meeting schedule and visitor list. Her name is right where it’s supposed to be, with all the relevant information attached, as is the name of the man next in line.
I tell them both to have a seat, send messages to let the respective employees know, then turn my attention to the third person.
A delivery guy—what a relief. Finally something easy to handle.
“Need me to sign for that?” I nod toward the courier envelope under his arm.
He frowns and looks around, then shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “Is Dáithí on break? I might wait for him to get back.”
Hagen’s words from a few weeks back spring into my memory. “I heard the delivery guy ask Dáithí if he’s seeing anyone…” This delivery guy? This guy’s been flirting with my guy?
My expression must change, because he races to add, “No shade to you, man. I just don’t know you, and these are sensitive documents, you know?”
“I work here,” I point out icily. “Do you know every person you deliver documents to?”
He stutters for a very long few seconds, then looks around again and leans forward conspiratorially. “I swear, I’m not insulting you. I just wanna talk to Dáithí, yeah? I haven’t had a delivery here all week, so this is the first chance I’ve had since last Wednesday.”
I’d probably lose points on this task if I ripped this guy’s arms off, so I tamp down on the urge and say, “Oh?”
He nods. “I’ve been trying to get his attention for months, and I think I’ve finally got a shot. But I’d get fired if I asked for his number while I’m working—not professional, you know? So I gotta cram my work into these deliveries.”
He thinks he has a shot? My fingers start to tingle with offensive magic I’ve used so many times, I don’t even need to remember the spell.
“Hey, Eoin!” Hagen’s shout precedes the security gate opening and him jogging into reception, followed by Ari and Caolan. He skids to a halt beside the soon-to-be-armless delivery guy and gives me a hard look. “Got a second?”
I consciously let go of the spell, pulling myself back into control. Dáithí would be super mad if I disgraced his job by attacking someone—even this douche who thinks he has a shot.
“Yeah.” I hold out my hand for the envelope. “Dáithí’s not in today. Sorry.”
The guy’s face falls. “Bummer.” Sighing, he taps the screen of his device and offers it to me. “Could you sign here with your finger?”
A minute later, I have the envelope and he’s gone. I toss it onto the desk and drop into Dáithí’s chair, burying my face in my hands. “Fuck.”
“That’s one word for it,” Ari agrees, sounding way too gleeful. “Lucky Hagen recognized him. It would have been so unprofessional for you to have punched a courier.”
That brings my head up, and I glare at him. “I wasn’t going to punch him. But even if I had, there would have been more reason for it than there was for you to be an ass in that meeting.”
“You weren’t going to punch him?” Caolan asks. “Really? Because if someone who was flirting with David was suddenly two feet away from me and gave me a reason to, I… might.” He glances around furtively. “Don’t tell him. It’s not reasonable.”
“I wasn’t going to punch him,” I repeat, and when all three of them look deeply skeptical, I add, “I was going to rip his arms off.”