Shannon was sitting in her office, but kind of perched up on one hip, her long legs stretched out over an open drawer, shoes dangling by the toes. She was staring at her computer monitor, the manicured fingernails of her right hand drumming on the plastic edge of her keyboard.
He passed in the hall, glancing quickly in through the open door. After a classic double take, he took a few steps backwards, and leered at her legs, giving her the up and down, or side to side in this case, given the posture, thinking himself unnoticed.
"If you've finished perving on me, can you please get your skinny butt in here and take a look at this?" She didn't even take her eyes off the screen.
"Yeah dear," Boone laughed at being caught out, dutifully entering and crossing to stand behind her so he could see the display, resting his hands on her shoulders and massaging them gently. He leaned down and kissed the side of her neck, then paused, sniffing.
"You smell good." He observed.
"Huh? What?" She pulled away and frowned.
"You smell good." He repeated himself.
"I'm not wearing anything." She protested. "I was running late for the Thompson appointment this morning and didn't have time for perfume."
He shrugged, "Doesn't change the fact that you smell nice." He sniffed her neck again, "Baby."
She screwed her face up at bit, mystified. "Yes Honey?"
He chuckled at her misunderstanding, "No, I meant you smell like baby."
"Babies have a smell? Other than baby shit I mean." She thought he was nuts.
Where the hell was her maternal instinct, Boone wondered? Oh yeah, she'd been shopping when it was being handed around. "God you're clueless sometimes. Yes Shannon, babies have a smell."
"Hmmmm, whatever. You're so gay Boone, only you would think that." She scoffed, but thought about the fact that Linda Thompson had forced her to hold her newborn. Well, not forced exactly, Shannon had protested once, then mindful of public relations, had pretended to be thrilled at cradling the infant for five minutes. CR Catering had been contracted to do the after christening party. But she hadn't told Boone she'd held the kid, yet he evidently knew that she had. So maybe he had a point about the whole baby smell thing.
"Fuck off." He rolled his eyes. Yeah he was gay, yet had sex with her almost incessantly.
She punched his shoulder. "Anyway, look at this."
"Okay, what?" He returned to the starting point of the conversation.
"This," Shannon lifted her legs off the open drawer, depriving him of his view, and set her feet on the floor swivelling in her chair to face her monitor. He frowned a bit in disappointment.
"Later Boone, focus you shithead." She pointed at the screen like it should mean something to him. "The Turner's want to book the same day as the Spencer's have already reserved."
He shrugged, not seeing the conflict. "So the Spencer's booked first. You tell the Turners no. It's a non issue."
"But there's more profit in the Turner's function, and it's in the afternoon, the Spencer's isn't until the evening." she answered. "And when I told them you were already booked, they agreed to pay an extra ten dollars a head over the usual premium we already charge for you."
"But the Spencer's booked first, Shan." He repeated. "As I recall you were the one who came up with the rule that we wouldn't double book me, and I can't be in two places at once." Even with the scheduling difference, there was always set-up and tear down, so there was bound to be a few hours of overlap. "There was also something about me not burning out too."
"But there's more profit in the Turner's," she whined again.
"I know you've turned into an excellent business woman, Shan, but what are you, a Ferengi? I think I've created a monster, suddenly it's all about profit?" He displayed his geeky Star Trek Next Gen knowledge; then smacked his forehead when something else occurred to him. "Good lord, did I just say Shannon Rutherford and businesswoman in the same sentence? There's an oxymoron!" She gave him a scowl at that. "This venture was supposed to be about keeping both of us happy, satisfied, and busy. We've got more than enough money if we lived to be two-hundred." His eyes widened at the thought of living another 168 years with her.
"I got that you know!" She picked up on his thought and punched him again.
He winced, not at the punch, just at the fact that she'd read his slightly panicked random musing.
"Ask the Turners to change the day," he said.
"I'll try," she agreed doubtfully, "but I don't know, it's a birthday party."
"Why don't we just send Kevin to the Turner's?" he suggested. It was what they usually did if they had two events for the same day, as an actual professionally trained chef, Kevin easily handled the assignments.
"But they're willing to pay even more than the usual surcharge for you Boone." Shannon pointed out. It was customarily an additional twenty-five dollars a plate if Boone actually went to the venue to cook. They'd decided to tack on the steep charge to dissuade people from demanding his presence. He still liked to keep his time as free as possible outside of office hours, and absolutely hated spending his weekends working and away from his family.
Her words made him feel a little like a male prostitute. "Well unless they've finally come out with a home cloning kit that really works, there's only one of me and I'll be at the Spencer's," he retorted.
She momentarily considered the possibility of two anal retentive, but totally hot, Boone Carlyle's, and smiled a bit at how pleasant that particular fantasy would be.
This time he punched her. "Okay that time, I got that!" He muttered 'anal retentive' under his breath.
She smiled at him seductively and won a kiss for her effort. "Just look at the numbers, Boone, and see if you can come up with anything." She pushed away from the desk, "I have to go check on something."
As she stood, he slid his hand over her ass. She rolled her eyes at him as she left the room.
He sat at her desk and focused on the screen. His first line of attack was to try and squeeze some more profit out of the Spencer function, hoping that it would appease her. He made some changes to the relative quantities and ingredients of the meal he planned without sacrificing quality and was pleased as the bottom line went up.
When the phone rang, his hand shot out automatically, picking up the receiver without even considering letting it go to voice mail, he'd forgotten that he wasn't sitting at his own desk. "Shannon Rutherford's desk," he chirped, thinking what an idiot he was.
"Is Ms. Rutherford in?" the caller questioned, reasonably.
"No, I'm sorry, she's just stepped away. I'm her business partner, Boone Carlyle, may I help you?" He might as well try to salvage the situation.
"Boone?" The female voice on the other end of the line repeated his given name like she was questioning his identity, not the absurdity of it.
"Yes. Boone. I know it's kind of odd." He took a long shot based on her tone of voice, "Do I know you?"
"It's Irene." She identified herself.
"Irene? I'm sorry, but I don't…" Sudden realization flooded through him, as the sound of the voice activated part of his memory. "Irene? Irene, who used to work for me, Irene?"
"Yeah," she responded, pleased he remembered her.
"Wow! How're you doing?" He asked sincerely. They caught up a bit on each other's activities. Knowing that she was probably pressed for time, and realizing that he had things to do as well he fast tracked the conversation, asking, "So why were you calling Shan?"
"Actually I was calling to hire you guys." She'd done a bit of a double take when she'd been given the name 'Shannon Rutherford' as a contact by her clients, but had reasoned that it could possibly be a common enough name that it was just a coincidence, though the way things had turned out obviously not she had to concede.
"Us? You want to hire CR Catering? And you said you still work for my mother, right?" He chuckled, grinning at the irony of it. "Well Shannon usually makes all the arrangements, but I can make a note of the basics and she can call you back later. Um, we don't normally do any catering in the city, it's kind of far and our food's pretty rustic, not as frou frou as you normally get there," he warned.
"Actually speaking of your food, I hear your chef has a list of food rules, things he will and will not cook. His food must be pretty good for your clients to put up with that. Where did you get him? He sounds like quite the diva."
"I am not!" Boone denied indignantly, the whiney tone of his voice making him sound exactly like what he was protesting he wasn't.
"I wasn't talking about you. I was talking about your chef." Though, she remembered from working for him that he did have more than a bit of the diva quality about him.
"So am I! I am not a diva. I just care about what people eat!" Now he just sounded pouty, and petulant.
"You're the chef? How the hell did that happen? You have a degree in business admin." This was getting more surreal by the minute she thought.
"You've never heard about changing careers?" Boone defended himself.
"Yeah, but a chef?" she questioned.
They went on for a bit discussing Boones' lack of profession training, but obvious natural talent for his new found profession.
He asked for the details on the location, pointing out again that they didn't usually do events in L.A.
"Actually I think the place isn't too far from you." She gave the name of a small town not more than a half an hour drive. "But you'd better prepare yourself for a lot of business coming your way from the city," she warned. "At the planning meeting this morning, after I mentioned that I was contacting your company, several of the others said they'd been hearing quite the buzz and were planning on calling you too."
Boone carefully wrote a few quick lines in his ever present note book to remind himself to discuss with Shannon how they were going to deal the that eventuality. He didn't relish the thought of making the two hour drive very often and had no intention what so ever of relocating. This was his family's home, the only one Andrew had ever known and he wasn't going to uproot them simply because of the new career path he'd chosen.
He got the nature of the event; a reception to mark the occasion of the bride's remarriage and estimated number of people, then asked for the date.
"June twenty-third," Irene provided.
"No," he put the pen down, wishing he'd asked that first, it would have saved a lot of wasted time, though he had enjoyed talking to Irene. "We're not available, sorry."
"Damn, I knew it was a long shot being only six weeks away. I warned the clients that you might already be booked, but the bride's father was particularly insistent that it be you." She sounded regretful. "So you're already contracted for that day?"
"Well no, not really, but in a way I guess we are." He realized that he was babbling like a complete moron, making no sense at all. He attempted to clarify, "That's Andrew's birthday. At least it'll be his birthday party; his actual birth date is the twenty-first. Shannon and I agreed when we started this that that was one of the days the company wouldn't accept any business."
"His birthday party?" she sounded a bit incredulous. "Couldn't you just have his party on the Sunday?"
"No, and it's not open for negotiation." Boone said decisively.
"How about having it the weekend before?" She suggested, disregarding his last word.
"Irene," he said her name with a bit of an edge to his voice. "I said no. End of discussion."
She sighed; remembering how immovable he was once his mind was made up, and thought for a minute. "Okay, look, you're actually the first call I've made for this event, so the date might not be written in stone, like yours' obviously is." She added a bit snidely. "Let me talk to the clients, maybe they'll switch it to the weekend after." She couldn't believe that she was going to ask for a wedding date to be changed simply because of a child's birthday party.
At her request Boone checked the computer and confirmed that the thirtieth was open. He agreed to hold the date for a few days until she got back to them.
After hanging up he went in search of Shannon, dying to tell her about the ironic nature of the phone conversation.
In a round about way his mother wanted to hire him again, albeit in a different capacity than the job offer he'd accepted at a naive twenty, too blind to the manipulation that should have been obvious. This time, however, he'd had the personal satisfaction of saying no, though he felt a bit bad about Irene.
He had no doubt that Shannon would find the situation even more amusing than he did.