Author's Note: Thank you all again for the reviews. This is a challenge. I think sequels are always harder to pull off than originals, so if I start to slip, y'all be sure to let me know, kay? Anyways, on to the next chapter…
Chapter Two: Trainee
Lisa woke up Monday morning to an orange lying on the pillow next to her. She smiled to herself before she stretched and crawled out of bed to get ready for work. Jackson was always up and out of the house a good hour before she was even aware of the world. After she had groomed herself and fixed her hair into a French twist, she dressed in a black dress suit with a vibrant silk blue shirt underneath and went to get her kids up and ready. Luhki refused to wear the light pink dress Lisa tried to dress her in and wound up in a dark green tee shirt and jeans, but Mariah was more than happy to run around in a ruffled floral dress like she was a princess. The only she didn't like were shoes. Mariah hated to wear shoes and took off running whenever she caught sight of a pair of them. It didn't really matter what she put Jack Jr. in, by the time Maggie picked him up from daycare the ensemble would be forever changed. She got them loaded into the SUV and headed for their daycare center, she and Luhki singing along to a Disney CD and Jack Jr. and Mariah in their car seats in the back dancing and squealing along with them.
Daycare was on her way to work, so she dropped the kids off and from there it was a straight shot to the hotel. Cynthia had been on vacation for the past three days and would be for the next week, so Lisa's higher ups had sent her some fresh blood to train. So, she had this new assistant manager following her around, learning the ropes. A young hot shot named Davey Crook. Yes, Davey. Not David, not Dave, not anything more grown up. Just Davey. She clacked into work with an extra bounce in her already confident stride. She was wearing the power Pradas today. While she was training Davey, she didn't want there to be any misunderstandings as to who held the authority at the Lux Atlantic. Young men tended to be ambitious and that was all well and good, but she didn't want him setting his sights on her job just yet.
Lydia, a petite brunette who was trying to put herself through college was working the front desk. She had been working full time since school had let out for summer break a month ago, but all together she had been there for about five months. She was smart and a hard worker and Lisa liked her. She offered the young girl a friendly smile as she came up to stand next to her.
"Is Mr. Crook in, yet?" Lisa asked the girl.
Lydia looked at her, her brown eyes wide and round. "Yes. Lisa, you didn't tell me how gorgeous he was."
Lisa laughed, "Truthfully, Lydia, I didn't know he was."
"Are you kidding?"
"He's your boss, Lydia."
"Does that mean I can't admire him?"
Lisa looked at her knowingly, "It means don't get any ideas."
Lydia grinned as she double checked a reservation she had just made over the phone, "Not ideas. Fantasies."
Lisa chuckled at the younger woman. She remembered when she used to think that way. She had noticed that Davey was attractive. He was very attractive. He had come to the job from working as head concierge at the Righa Royal in New York City. After working there for two and a half years in that position, he had been passed over for promotion three times with the higher ups hiring from outside the company. He decided to leave and take a job where he stood some chance at advancement. The assistant manager wasn't a big step up, but it was step up that held the opportunity for further steps.
"So, be honest," Lydia said, "what do you really think of him?"
"Think of who?" A smooth, light but undeniably masculine voice said.
Lisa looked over to see Davey stepping up beside her. He was young and charming with high cheek bones, full pouty lips, and dark blue eyes framed with long black lashes. He had black hair gelled up in messy spikes akin to that of a punk rocker which was a drastic contrast to the well tailored charcoal business suit he wore. He smiled at the two women, and Lisa couldn't help but think about how young he looked when he smiled. He looked boyish and mischievous.
"Come on, Davey. We have a lot to do today." Lisa said, picking up her notepad and stepping out from behind the desk.
Davey cocked an eyebrow at Lydia and then followed. Lisa led the way to the employee elevator and swiped her card. She had to show him the surveillance room and get him used to the controls. Once they were in the elevator, Davey leaned back against the wall and shoved his hands into his pants pockets. He looked at her with the corners of his mouth turned upward in a grin.
"I never had a boss as pretty as you at the Rihga." He said, looking down as a school boy who had just confessed a crush would. Lisa even thought that she saw a slight blush on his cheeks.
"Yeah, well," Lisa said, "don't let my husband hear you say something like that. He'll kill you."
Davey laughed, looking back up at her his dark eyes sparkling. Lisa let him believe that she was kidding. Truth was, Jackson was jealous, protective, possessive, and any number of other synonyms that you care to take the time to think of. If he thought another man's gaze lingered a little too long on Lisa he would start to head toward them. Lisa was always prepared though, catching his arm and dragging him along to make sure that no fatalities happened because some pervert thought that she had nice legs. If Jackson saw the way that Davey was looking at her now, there was no real telling what he might do to the boy.
"What does your husband do?" he asked.
"Lawyer." Lisa said without the slightest hesitation. It was their standard answer whenever anyone asked about Jackson's profession.
"That must keep him away from home a lot. Long hours and such." Davey continued, his gaze never meeting hers. It was as though he desperately wanted to imply something, but he was too shy to do so. She knew exactly what he wanted to imply and she would have none of it.
"Yes." She said, "But he more than makes up for it when he's home."
Davey's cheeks flushed and he looked down at his feet. Lisa smiled. He was so like a little boy, she had the sudden urge to hug him to her. She would be lying if she said that she didn't like the way he looked at her. It made her feel good that a younger man still found her attractive. After all, she had had three children and she certainly wasn't as young as she used to be. Davey looked up at her with a shy smile.
"Well, forgive me for saying it but, who wouldn't?" he said, his voice very soft as though he hadn't decided whether or not he wanted her to hear him say it or not.
The elevator suddenly felt very small. It was taking too long and he was standing too close. She could feel the heat radiating from his gaze, boyish and innocent or not, there was something in the way he was staring at her, a way that she was reacting to it that felt wicked. The doors opened with a buzz and Lisa could not have gotten out of there faster if she had tried. Davey was instantly following at her heels like a puppy trotting clumsily after its master.
She led him down the hallway to the metal door of the security room, power heels clacking the whole way. She swiped her keycard and the door opened for them to be greeted by the jolly round face of Ed, the head of hotel security.
"Well, hello there sunshine!" Ed said to Lisa. She was his idea of the perfect boss rolled into a daughter esq. figure. He looked at her with an expression of fatherly care on his Carl Winslow esq. face. His stare hit Davey and his eyes narrowed considerably in their scrutiny of the boy. His gaze traveled the length of the young man before settling back on his face. "This the new hot shot?" he asked Lisa.
Lisa smiled, "Davey Crook, meet Ed Canter. Ed, this is Davey Crook."
"Davey, huh?" Ed huffed.
Davey, looking just as innocent and amiable as ever, offered the robust security guard his hand, "It's a pleasure."
Ed eyed Davey's hand for a long moment before accepting it with a big friendly smile. "How ya doin', boy?"
Lisa stared at the two men shaking hands for a moment before letting her eyes roam the rest of the room. She couldn't help but let her memory travel back to the time that she had been in there with Jackson. It felt like so long ago, but it still made her tingle inside. The heat. The rage. The danger. The complete and utter passion that had all but consumed them. Her gaze landed on Davey and found that his almost navy blue eyes were staring right back into hers and a sudden burning sensation filled the pit of her stomach. She felt Goosebumps form over the surface of her skin. She needed to get her mind on something else. It wasn't Davey, she told herself, but the memory of herself and Jackson that was doing it to her. Still, she needed to get her mind into safer territory.
"Today, Davey gets his lesson in the art of surveillance." Lisa chimed, taking the comfortable rolling chair beside Ed and crossing her legs. She smiled at Davey, who tried desperately to hide the fact that he was blushing.
"Well, don't just stand there like a toad, son, take a seat." Ed blasted.
Davey snapped to attention as if he were in the military and hustled to set up one of the numerous folding chairs that were lined up along the far wall. He set it up as close to Lisa as he could without being obvious, even though by then it was too late for any form of subtlety.
"Ed?" Lisa said, "Will you explain all this to him or would you rather…"
"Sure thing, Sunshine." Ed said happily, "All right, sonny, these monitors cover pretty much ever'thing in this hotel." He punched buttons as he went along, each screen flickering into a different image as he went, "We got hallways, elevators, lobby, restaurants, basically ever'thing but the toilets."
"Or suites." Lisa chirped without looking up from her notes.
"That's right, darlin'." Ed said, his face beaming with a kind of paternal pride, "In accordance with the law we are not permitted to have surveillance cameras in the actual rooms themselves. Know why that is, sport?"
"Uh, privacy." Davey said. It came out more as a question than an answer, but Ed gave him the credit anyway.
"That's right."
Lisa chuckled from her chair and continued to scribble on her notepad. Poor kid. He was greener than the grass and Ed could see right through him. Head concierge was a lot different from being a manager, even just an assistant one. Little Davey had a lot to learn. It was her job to show him the basics, but most of what he was going to have to deal was something that could only be taught through experience. It would take him a while to get into the swing of things. She thought about Cynthia when she had first gotten promoted and figured that she and Davey were going to be stuck working together for a while. That thought was scary. She needed to get some things in check, or she was going to wind up unintentionally getting the boy killed. Or he was going to wind up getting himself killed. Either way was a lose/lose.
She looked up from her notepad and looked at her trainee. His brow was furrowed and some of his spiked black locks had fallen into his eyes and his face was adorably scrunched up in concentration as he listened to what Ed was saying. Lisa felt herself smile before quickly shaking it away and averting her eyes back down to her paper. She was in trouble.
They spent a half an hour more in the surveillance room with Ed explaining practically every little detail about the room to young Davey. But it seemed all too soon that the two of them were once again confined to the tiny employee elevator. Lisa decided that she needed to have her head examined, or reexamined as she had gone to a therapist for the entire month after she had agreed to marry Jackson, when she caught herself admiring the way Davey's suit fit him.
"So, is he good to you, then?" Davey said, breaking Lisa from her thoughts.
"What?"
"Your husband." Davey said, a bashful grin on his face, "Is he good to you, you know? Does he treat you well?"
"Oh." Lisa said, trying to regain her composure, "Yes. Very."
Davey nodded and looked away to hide the disappointment that was apparent on his face. He rubbed a hand over his forehead and cursed himself under his breath. How naïve was he? Did he think that she was just going to have a husband who was shit and jump into bed with him? When he had first arrived at the Lux Atlantic, he hadn't really known what to expect. In his experience, most hotel managers were old gray haired crows with absolutely no sense of humor and then Lisa had appeared. She had smiled and laughed and joked around with him, all the while letting him know that she was in charge and in control and that that should never be called into question. He didn't think he had ever met anyone quite like her.
The ringing of her cell phone brought Davey out of his thoughts and back to the present as she flipped it open and held it to her ear, talking quietly into it. He watched her speaking into the phone for a moment, then with a roll of her eyes she flipped it closed once again.
"That was Lydia." She said, "Apparently the Beckersteins are at it again." She leaned forward and punched the button for the tenth floor. "Ready to have some real fun?"
They hit the tenth floor and Lisa cantered determinedly down the hall until they came to a room with the sounds of screaming and glass breaking and any number of objects crashing against the walls coming through the door. The sound of glass shattering against the door rang out and Lisa winced.
"There went the crystal flower vase I sent up yesterday." She said, before knocking tentatively against the door with her knuckles.
She looked at Davey and smiled reassuringly. His eyes grew wider with every little noise that came from within the room. Lisa knocked again only to have the door fly open before her hand hit it a third time to reveal George Beckerstein, a burly man with a stout build clad in a wife beater with a thatch of thick black curly hair coming over the collar. He had a shaved head, a full beard and mustache, and an Army tattoo on his bulky arm. He also had a rapidly forming black eye from the sudden and unexpected impact he had had with the corner of an alarm clock.
"Hello, Lisa." He said.
Lisa held back her shock at the sight of his swollen eye and smiled warmly, "What'd you do now, George?" She joked.
"Apparently I thought that the maid who brought our breakfast was cute." George said.
"Bastard!" Libby Beckerstein screamed as she hurled a plate with half eaten eggs benedict into the wall by George's head.
"Hey, Libby?" Lisa called.
"Lisa?" came the response.
"Yeah, it's me." Lisa said as the small heart shaped face of Libby Beckerstein appeared from around the corner. She was small woman with straight shiny jet black hair and dark brown almost black eyes. She wore a dark blue button up dress with tiny pink flowers all over it to cover her clean pale skin. She came out from behind the corner and Lisa was able to get a better look at her. Her face was flushed and there were tears running down her cheeks. "What's goin' on, Libby?"
"This wanker was flirting with that stupid little slag that brought up our toast!" Libby screamed in her thick English accent, jumping up to smack her husband, who stood a good foot and half taller than her, on the head.
George caught her arms to keep her from jumping up and hitting him again. "You've lost your mind, woman!"
"Have I now?" Libby screamed, trying to twist away from his grip, "You pisser! Why don't you just shag her and get it over with! While you're at it, there's an entire hotel to cover! Just shag the bloody lot of them!"
"Okay!" Lisa chimed, "Libby, darling, do you really think that George thought that your server was cute?"
"He bloody well stared at her for long enough!"
"Pardon me for interrupting, but I just don't see how that's possible, Mrs. Beckerstein." Davey spoke for the first time since they had gotten to the door.
Libby turned her wide eyes to the handsome young man at her door and her fierce expression softened almost instantly. George noticed, "Sorry, who're you?"
"Sorry, sir." Davey said, "I'm Davey Crook. I'm a new assistant manager."
"Are you then?" Libby said, her tone dreamy.
"Yes, ma'am." Davey said, charisma practically dripping from his pores. "And if you don't mind me saying so, I don't think your husband would ever look at another woman when he has you around."
"Oh, I don't know." Libby sighed, "He is a big daft cow."
Davey and she shared a private little laugh at the statement and Lisa watched as George began growing a bit more perturbed with every passing second. Then, Davey leaned forward and whispered into Libby's ear, drawing a light girly giggle from her. She nodded and giggled again, then disappeared back into the room, giving her husband a loving pat on the arm as she passed. George looked about ready to kill Davey, so Lisa took an immediate step in front of him.
"Well, I suppose we'll leave you two alone, now. George, try and keep it down next time. I like you guys, but the other guests complain." She said.
"Yeah. Sorry, Lisa." George said, shutting the door.
Lisa turned to Davey. "What did you say to her."
"I just told her how lovely she was and that if she was really worried about her husband, I would personally see to it that no more women brought them their room service." Davey said.
"That's all?" Lisa asked skeptically.
"I may have suggested that if she were still worried after that to call me." He said with a grin akin to that of a Cheshire cat.
The rest of the day went by at a snail's pace really. Lisa led Davey around and he got to observe all the problems that can and will happen in a large hotel. Everything from a toilet overflowing to an irate drunken sixteen year old who had forgotten what room she was staying in, not to mention a most unfortunate incident involving a hair dryer, electric toothbrush, and three boxes of red hair dye. That one had been interesting.
At the end of the night, when Lisa was certain she had had just about as much as she could stand, Davey came sauntering up to beside where she stood at the counter, his eyes wide and hopeful like a puppy dog as he looked at her.
"Getting off?" he asked.
"Yes, thank God." Lisa said smiling at him.
Davey hesitated before asking his next question. "Come have a drink with me."
Lisa shook her head. "No."
"Please?" Davey went on, "Come on. One drink, I'm begging you here. Be impulsive."
Lisa looked at him. Be impulsive. The word was dangerous and tempting. Jackson had to have everything planned down to the minute. He used to tell Lisa when they had first gotten married that one of the things he loved so much about her was that she was always surprising him, but now nothing in her life felt like a surprise. And then there was Davey who, as much as she hated to admit it, felt like a breath of fresh air. Her eyes studied his hopeful face and she could feel herself about ready to give in to him. Maybe she would have…if her cell phone hadn't have rang at that exact moment.
Davey looked at Lisa as she read the caller id on her phone and from the way her eyes lit up, he knew that it was her husband.
Lisa flipped open her phone, "If you're calling to ask me to change a room number, I'm hanging up."
She heard Jackson's warm, familiar chuckle on the other end of the line. "Missed you today, too, Leese."
"Uh-huh." Lisa said, trying to sound skeptical, but failing miserably.
"I was just calling to see if you were gonna be working late tonight."
Her eyes locked with Davey's, "No. Actually I'm leaving right now."
Davey nodded at her and smiled one last time before walking away, his hands shoved down in his pockets, his head forward staring at his feet. Lisa felt sick. She had just kicked a puppy.
"Well, I probably won't be for about another three hours. Just wanted to let you know not to worry. I just got a new job."
"I don't wanna know."
Jackson chuckled again. "Not even a little?"
"Not even a fraction." Lisa answered, smiling, "See you at home."
"Bye." Jackson said and the line went silent.
Lisa flipped her phone closed and stared off in the direction that Davey had gone. He was a sweet kid and he didn't need to let himself get a crush on her. She didn't want him to get hurt. With a shake of her head, she went to the back and gathered her things before making her way out to her car to go home.
She was ready to collapse when she walked through the door.
"Maggie? I'm sorry I'm late, sweetie." Lisa said as Maggie came from stirring ice tea in the kitchen.
"It's all right." Maggie said.
"Do you need a ride home?"
"No. I'm goo…" the girl began, the gasped and took three steps back, her hand flying up to cover her mouth.
Lisa looked in the direction of the living room where the babysitter was looking. Jack Jr. was safely in his playpen, but Mariah was using the back of the couch as a balance beam. However, that's not what caught Lisa or Maggie's attention. It was Luhki. Or more accurately it was the black semi-automatic 9 mm handgun in the five year old's grasp.
Author's Note: Well, what do you think?