"You wanted to learn about the real world," Glenn muttered to himself. "You wanted to go off and live without your parents support. You wanted to move to middle-of-nowhere Georgia so no one would know you or have reason to know you. Well, you did, so you better be happy."
He let out a groan and rubbed his eyes, still far too exhausted from the previous night's shift. He hated having the 'opening' shift the day after he worked a closing one. By technicality, there was exactly an eight hour difference between the two shifts so there wasn't a rules violation in scheduling him. But those eight hours had to be put to more than just sleep since he lived a half hour drive away and it usually took 45 minutes past the end-of-shift to completely close the front office down when he was scheduled alone. Which he usually was. It also didn't take into account that he had to shower and get dressed and have breakfast (and dinner if he was lucky). So that eight hours squared away for a proper sleep got knocked down to just a little over four.
The mantra he repeated to himself was an echo of his father's fuming disapproval at his decision. He'd been allowed to go, but only grudgingly. The argument that Glenn would be better prepared to inherit and run the hotel empire if he understood where half the guests and employees came from and how they lived had won him the chance. But it also came with the very strict rules that Glenn couldn't ask for any money or special privileges for a year. If he did, he was required to begin shadowing his father in the board room immediately and forgo any of the partying and other 'distracting' lifestyle choices his four sisters got away with. Oh the benefits of being a girl in the Rhee house.
"The first thing I'm changing is the rules on scheduling," he sighed before shoving the car door open and shaking himself awake. Yet another change to make added to his mental list.
Part of the deal, since he'd sited the purpose of the year abroad was for the benefit of learning the company from the ground up, was that he had to work at one of the hotels. So he'd picked the most backwoods location he could find at one of the oldest, most run down properties under one of the corporate umbrellas not publicly associated with the main luxury chain. He'd gone so far as to apply for the front desk position the same as any other prospective employee would. He'd been hired three days later and after a week working there he fully understood why he'd been called back so fast when he wasn't even in the state yet.
The position had a high turn over rate for a reason. It was stressful with terrible hours and the clientèle was far from ideal. Actually, it was the clientèle that was the worst part. They were mostly people from the surrounding area who rented the rooms to get away from their lives or have a private place to hide what Glenn was certain were less-than-legal activities. And most of them were assholes. Racist assholes that liked to make his job even harder. That was the biggest factor for why there was no one manning the desk at night. It was legitimately unsafe. People checking out could leave their keys in a drop box, but if someone wanted a room between midnight and 8am, they were shit out of luck.
Glenn had been working the desk long enough to learn the names and faces of most of his regulars. He had an idea of what they did in their rooms, too. But he couldn't confirm it and he wasn't in a position to report it to his father without his dad deciding to cut his year short and force him back. Worse yet, his boss (he was totally going to fire that guy once he was in charge) flat out didn't care. He ignored the comings and goings so long as the decor and furniture were left in decent shape and no cops showed up.
Glenn sighed again and fished his keys out of his pocket, shaking his head and going through his mental list of changes and policy updates. He was welcomed back to work with the sound of a car door slamming and an overly-friendly, "Chinaman!"
"Hey Merle," he called back with a forced smile after he took a moment to brace himself. The man in question was strolling over, wad of cash for his room already out. Behind him wandered his brother. The younger of the two looked like he was sulking and trying to hide it. Which meant Merle was renting for a drug deal, not a fast lay he wanted to 'impress' with a faux-high class hotel room. Glenn got the door open and held it for the two of them, saying a quick, "Hey, Daryl." as the second brother passed him.
Daryl lifted his eyes and grunted a quick hello back. But otherwise kept himself quiet like he usually did. Just following Merle in to the counter with Merle walking like he owned the place and the cash he was handing over was just a gracious tip to the help and not the only reason he even got a key. All his information was already on file, so Glenn just took the money offered (it was always exactly enough, Merle was meticulous about that) and dug out the list of open rooms.
It took him about twenty seconds to get the key card programmed before handing it over, "All the ground floor rooms are taken. But 249 is on the corner near the stairwell."
"You didn't leave a room open for me on my favorite floor?" Merle groused, taking the key with a more violent yank than was necessary.
"I didn't sell them, Merle," Glenn sighed and kept his head down. They were sold when I came in for yesterday's evening shift. A wedding party rented a block of rooms and they all wanted the ground floor. You'll have to talk to Mr. Blake."
Merle rolled his eyes, but he shut up. Blake was the location manager and handled all the large party reservations. Even Merle knew not to mess with him when it was a matter of money.
"Guess 249 ain't bad," he snorted and turned to walk out. As he passed Daryl, he patted his brother on the shoulder and Glenn heard the usual exchange of how long Daryl should wait before joining him. It was always like that with them. Daryl did the driving for the two and ended up getting shafted when it came to whatever Merle had going on that dragged them out thirty miles from home. Daryl did as he usually did and flopped himself down on the lobby couch.
Glenn waited until he'd gotten his paperwork done to come out and turn the television on. He handed the remote to Daryl and the man flashed him a grateful smile. Merle was never fun to deal with even when he was behaving better than normal, but Daryl wasn't so bad. He was on the quiet side most of the time. Though if saw something on the television or overheard a guest say something that triggered a particular mental tangent, he'd get animated and start talking up a storm about some story he knew or some strange thing he'd been through. Everything from getting lost in the woods for nine days to almost having to cut his brother's hand off because Merle's arm was jammed between two rocks Daryl nearly couldn't move on one of their hunting trips
It was because of Daryl that Glenn knew what signs to look for when guessing what Merle was renting the room for. Daryl was very matter of fact about his brother's choices. He was also very willing to admit he didn't like them. But when Glenn asked one time why he put up with it and didn't do anything to try and stop Merle (Daryl was the only one with a legal drivers license, so he could have used that as a bargaining chip), Daryl had shook his head and said 'he's my brother'. As if that could justify anything.
Glenn had surprised himself when he understood the sentiment. For all that he resented the freedom his sisters had, he'd do anything for them. When he inherited, he'd be the one supporting them the same as his father was now. That conversation was the one that made Glenn realize he liked Daryl. The guy was cut from a similar cloth as Merle, but he had a much better head on his shoulders.
"Hey uh..." Daryl said about a hour into the wait, when the front office was still dead. "Got a favor to ask you."
What people were likely to check out would be doing so closer to the 11am check out time so they had space to talk in relative privacy. Glenn's morning paperwork was mostly done, too. He shuffled it all into a large pile and headed over to join Daryl on the couch, kicking his feet up on the coffee table that had seen the heels of too many boots to be pretty anymore. He raised his eyebrows and looked at the man with expectation, "What is it?"
"When you're done with this job," Daryl gestured around the room, somehow indicating more than just the lobby and front desk, "Whenever that is... can you not ban Merle from the property?"
"Uh... what?" Glenn asked with all the grace of a dog on linoleum, utterly confused by the question. "I don't have control over-"
"When you go back and report to your daddy," Daryl cut him off. His eyes flicked over to Glenn for a moment, but settled on his own hands when he pulled them away. He brought a thumb up to his mouth and chewed on it. Went quiet again as Glenn processed what he'd said. "I uh... I saw a news report about one of your sisters. She got arrested for drunk driving after a party up in Chicago. They flashed a few older photos of her with the family. You were in 'em."
Glenn's mouth snapped shut. He'd heard about the arrest, but not through the news. His sister had called him at three in the morning bawling her eyes out because their father said he wasn't going to post bail until after 10. It wasn't the first time she'd been taken in for drunk driving, but it was the first time she'd been made to wait in the 'drunk tank' for longer than an hour. Glenn had had very little sympathy for her, but even if he'd wanted to help, he couldn't from where he was. She'd wanted to an ear to complain to anyway. She understood he was cut off from doing anything more proactive.
"Oh," Glenn finally managed to say. He dropped his feet from the coffee table and leaned forward, hands clasping each other loosely between his knees as he slumped forward. "Did Merle...?"
Daryl shook his head in his periphery, "Nah. He heard it and had himself a laugh, but he ain't seen it long 'nough to pay attention."
Glenn nodded, took a deep breath, let it out, and looked over nervously, "I wasn't planning on banning him. I was planning on changing some of the hiring and security policies, but not banning. Not him."
Daryl's eyes lifted over to look at him again, curious, hopeful, "Yeah?"
"Yeah," Glenn smiled ruefully and shrugged. "I don't like what Merle does and I don't like that you don't fight him on it because I can't help but think that one of these days he's going to drag you down with him if he gets caught... but I guess I'm already playing favorites and abusing my authority because I wasn't planning on doing anything to, you know, jeopardize you. Or your ability to come up here and waste time in the lobby."
Daryl's lips took a long moment to curve into a smile, but they did and in the next moment he was shoving Glenn's shoulder playfully. Touch light, still a little unsure, but friendly. Glenn leaned his own shoulder back, nudging him as his smile widened. He probably should have stood up then. Gone back to his paperwork. But he didn't feel like getting up. He was comfortable where he was. And Daryl didn't seem to mind that Glenn hadn't quite pulled himself back from the shoulder nudge and was leaning into him.
"I'm firing Blake, though," Glenn said after another ten minutes and a lull in the noise from the television.
He was rewarded with a loud hoot of laughter and Daryl's whole body shaking for a few minutes before the other man managed to get out, "Two favors, then. I wanna be there to see ya do it."