Twenty Four
Tori became fuzzily aware of the pale sunlight warm against her closed eyelids and the sense of quiet peace that radiated, mostly from the shoulder she was snuggled against. She took in a breath and recognized the scent of the wool blanket, mixed with a pleasant spicy smell her brain amiably identified as Jade West's perfume.
Her body was relaxed, and one arm was wrapped around a gently moving surface that was warm and soft, she was aware of a feeling of contentment that drew her in as she nestled a little closer, soaking in the wonderful sensation.
Another breath and her sleepy mind pieced together Jade and the shoulder she was cuddling, causing her heart to race in her chest. Oh no... she thought, panicking internally. She held her breath and cracked an eyelid open, seeing smooth skin very close range. Oh my God, inappropriate.
It was very quiet in the room, and Tori cautiously unwound herself from the unexpected embrace and eased away, feeling a vague but definite sense of regret as she did so. She lifted her head a little to check the clock, relieved that it was only 7:30. She curled an arm around her pillow, now safely on her side of the bed, and took the opportunity to study her sleeping boss. Damn, I got lucky... What if she had woken up?
Jesus, Tori, remember you work for her? This is supposed to be a business trip. But her body ached to go back to the snuggling, craving Jade's touch with an intensity that made it hard to breathe. It felt so good. She sighed and rolled over. Come on, get moving... Go do something productive. Like get breakfast ordered and check the mail.
Stupid crush.
She got up and trudged out of the room, heading to the phone in her own room to call Andre back. Then she remembered she was supposed to call him and checked her watch. I should catch him. She dialed the phone and waited.
"Dre?"
"Tori! Oh... Damn, I fell asleep last night again... Did you call?"
"No, it was too late... I had a time with the folks, and then we watched the news... And I fell asleep too," she told him. "But everyone survived... I saw that."
"Yeah, the pilot looked a little distressed," Andre said. "You coming home today?"
"I think so... Yeah. We have a meeting at 10, and they said they would announce who won the bid. There's no reason for us to hang around here after that."
"How is it? Boring?" he asked.
Tori smiled at the memory of waking up inside. "No... It's not boring. We had three meetings and a sort of fight between our accounting and the competition. That was kind of wild. Then we had to evaluate some stuff last night, so..."
"Babe, that sounds as boring as my Aunt Mary's penances... Did you even get to pick up that Pluto thing you wanted?"
Dead silence. "Oh... You little stinker... All business meetings, huh?" Andre laughed. "You snuck away... Or did the dragon lady not need you?"
"... No... She was there too," Tori told him. "The meeting let out early yesterday, and we weren't going to start up again until today, so... There wasn't much we could do but a little sightseeing."
"...You got stuck walking around Epcot Center with the robot woman from hell?" Andre made a sympathetic noise. "You poor thing."
"I survived. Barely," Tori debated whether or not to protest his characterization of Jade, then figured she had plenty of time to do that when they got back home. "Anyway... Everything's okay. I got my Pluto, and we'll be back tonight."
Then Andre thoughtfully paused. "Were your folks really bad?" he asked.
Tori was quiet for a moment, then exhaled. "Yeah."
"Damn, Tori... Sorry, you had to be there all by yourself... I was thinking of you."
"It was all right... Jade kind of figured out what was going on and patted me on the head and all that," Tori assured him. "Listen... I've got to go and get ready for the meeting. Talk to you tonight?"
"Right... See you then, kiddo," Andre hung up, and Tori did likewise, but she sat there for long moments on her unused bed, deep in thought.
Jade shook herself out of a stupid dream, waking to the sun streaming into the bedroom, and finding herself alone in bed. The feeling of loss and disappointment lingered, almost palpable, and she rolled over, curling up and hugging her pillow until she got a handle on it, allowing the feeling to fade.
It had been so damn real this time... Some little cabin somewhere up north, with a cool breeze coming in... She had been curled up in bed, her arms wrapped around another sleeping form. She remembered feeling lazy happiness and a faint tingle of expectation, waiting for the day to begin for some reason.
She closed her eyes and let herself feel the ache for a moment, but it ended with a soft voice stirring in the silence. "Jade?" The carpet muffled Tori's bare footsteps as she came over and perched on the edge of the bed, putting a hand on Jade's shoulder. "Are you okay?"
The pain eased, and Jade nodded, opening her eyes and giving Tori a tiny grin. "A little too much to drink last night," she said, pretending to massage her temples.
"Ah," Tori smiled back, wiggling her fingers. "I have a bit of a headache myself. I figured some breakfast would help. I ordered it up... And I was checking our mail."
"Good," Jade rubbed her face with one hand and yawned. "What time is it?" She turned her face toward the clock. "Oh, good, still early... We've got a little while. I need to take a nice, long shower in that case." She rolled over onto her back and stretched, arching her back to work out a kink. She gave Tori a petulant look. "I miss my Sleep Number bed."
Tori's fingers itched to work on those muscles, dimly visible through Jade's nightgown, but she counted to ten and controlled herself. "Are those really comfortable?" She stood up, moving away from her boss's warm body, and walked over to stand near the window, gazing out.
"Oh, yeah," Jade assured her, sitting up and starting to get out of bed. She glanced at her shirt, then stopped, frozen in motion. She sat back down, staring at her shoulders in puzzlement.
She reached up with a curious hand and removed several chestnut brown strands caught in her silk nightgown. She stared at them, rolling the soft hair between her fingertips, and glanced over at Tori, who was still peering out of the window with great interest.
"Sleep okay?" Jade asked, curious.
"Yeah... Yeah, I did... I haven't been up that long, just a few minutes... I slept just fine. How about you?" Tori seemed to find the small boats tipping around the lake fascinating.
"Like a baby," Jade said, feeling a smile edging her lips. "You... You always snuggle up like that at night?" She cast her dice on a gamble and held her breath, waiting for Tori's answer. The sudden tightening of Tori's jaw and the stiffening of her back were their own answer. Jade could see that 'oh shit' form on Tori's lips before the young woman spoke.
"Sorry about that. It's a stupid habit. I've got this big panda thing, and I..." Tori knew she was babbling and could feel herself blushing badly.
"Hey," Jade interrupted the stumbling words. "Relax... Didn't bother me a bit." She chuckled, brushing off Tori's obvious embarrassment. "I do it myself. I've got two big pillows at home. I'm always wrapping myself around them... It's a natural thing."
Tori didn't answer for a minute, and she took a breath, feeling a shifting of her shoulders before she turned around. "Well... I'm glad you understand... So, you were going to fill me in on this plan of yours? I mean... If Sinjen came through... Which I guess he did because he called and..."
"Tori," Jade's voice stopped her nervous speech. "Come here." She waited until Tori had approached and patted the bed surface. "Sit down."
Tori settled easily on the edge of the mattress and fastened her gaze on her knees, horribly embarrassed.
"Listen to me, okay? We're friends, right?" Jade asked gently.
Brown eyes lifted to her. "You're my boss," Tori replied softly, as though that explained everything.
"Just forget about that for a minute," Jade urged, her brows contracting. "I haven't known you that long, and you haven't known me for that long... But I think it's fair to say we get along pretty well, right?"
Tori nodded. "Yes."
"Okay... Well, that's good," Jade said, fishing for words. "Because I really appreciate having someone around that I can think of as a friend, and I'm glad we had a chance to get to know each other."
The Latina woman relaxed a little. "Me too."
Jade considered her next statement, knowing she was coming close to crossing a line. "I don't want you to feel... awkward... about the fact that we are friends, and that you—I mean, that we like each other." She stared at the carpet, then looked back up at Tori. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"
Tori considered it. "Yeah," she finally exhaled. "I do... It's just strange."
"Because we work together?" Jade hazarded a guess.
"Because I work for you," Tori corrected gently. "It just feels weird."
"Mm," Jade hummed. "Does it bother you?" She queried hesitantly. "I... I mean..." She lifted a hand and dropped it. "We've gotten so friendly this fast?"
"No," Tori firmly replied, eliciting a tiny, relieved smile from the Latina woman. "I just didn't want you to think that I'm trying to... get something from you or... I..."
"So you aren't saying you're a gold digger, but..." Jade inquired lightly, trying to ease Tori's mind. "I never considered it for a moment. You are not the type... And believe me, I should know."
A hesitant smile. "Your opinion matters to me. I appreciate you saying that."
Jade grinned. "So you can relax... All right?" She patted Tori on the knee. "Besides, you give great hugs. I don't want to miss out on one just because you're worried about what I think of you."
Tori breathed a huge sigh of relief. "Wow, that's good to hear... Because I have this habit of touching people I like without thinking. I didn't know if that was bothering you... I didn't even realize I was doing it until last night."
"Well..." Jade scratched her jaw. "Funny thing about that. I absolutely, positively hate people touching me." She paused. "As a rule... And people coming into my personal space makes me livid." Another pause. "As a rule."
Tori bit her lip.
Jade shrugged. "But every rule has an exception, they tell me, and I guess you're it. No, it doesn't bother me at all, for some reason." She arched an eyebrow. "That was kind of a surprise."
"Oh," the Latina's brow knit. "Good surprise or bad surprise?" Tori felt her composure returning, realizing that things were actually going pretty well here. Jade wasn't upset about things... At all.
Suddenly, serious pale blue eyes captured hers. "A very good surprise, Tori. It's been a long, long time since I felt comfortable with someone. I don't... make friends easily."
Tori felt herself drowning in that regard, and she reached out in pure reflex, curling her fingers around Jade's. "I thought it was the most natural thing in the world."
"I'm glad," she replied simply, squeezing Tori's hand. They gazed into each other's eyes, and the Latina woman felt her heart start to pound a little faster.
A knock on the door broke the silence, and Jade dropped her eyes, a tiny smile playing around her lips. Okay... Let's get the day started... We've got plenty of time to discuss that later.
"Breakfast, I guess."
"Yep," Tori released her hand and stood, running her fingers through her hair as she padded to the door and peeked through the eyehole. "I hope you're hungry... I think I ordered."
White teeth flashed a grin. "Starving," she got up and checked the time. "8:30. Let's eat, then get moving... I'll fill you in on the plan. In the meantime... Since you're a big part of it."
She turned her hand on the doorknob. "Me?" Tori asked, surprised.
Jade smiled. "Yes." She leaned back as the door opened and chuckled softly.
The glass-walled conference room seemed warmer to Tori as she entered behind Jade, closing the door after her. A large LCD screen had been added to the far wall, and the other team looked, if nothing else, smug. She put a laptop and folder down next to Kyle, then seated herself, giving him a reassuring smile. "Hello."
"Hi," Elaine replied. "Did you get the proposal?"
She nodded and tapped the folder, watching Jade saunter to the first seat near the front of the room and sit down.
"They were working all night. They've got this whole whizbang presentation to do... I'm a little concerned," the team leader whispered. "What do we have, other than the paper?"
"Shh," Tori gestured to the door, where Michelle and her retinue were entering. "Jade has something planned."
She eyed the Disney executive, surprised when the woman scanned the room and let her gaze rest on Tori's face for a long moment before drifting off. "I must look darker," she thought ruefully. "Oh well..." She took a quick look at Jade's face, realizing the lighter woman was sunburned and showed pink around her nose, where she was mostly sun-kissed.
"Well," Michelle put a leather-covered folder down and drummed her immaculately painted nails on it. "Thank you all for being prompt." She looked first at Perry, then at Jade, who had slipped her jacket off and was seated casually, her weight resting on her elbows. She had chosen to wear a sleeveless, low-neck white shirt, looking cool, comfortable, and in direct contrast to the men with their tight ties and buttoned collars. This marked the first time Tori had seen Jade in anything other than black.
She supposed it was a strategic move on the executive's part to make sure she stood out as much as possible.
"It's a pity you were... tied up... last night, Jade. Perry and I had some wonderful conversation," Michelle's eyes were sharp, and she let a brief, thin smile edge her lips.
Jade didn't even twitch. She just returned the smile with a lazy one of her own. "Hope you had as good a time as I did, then. Sorry I missed it." Suddenly, Tori was glad she turned the woman down. It was obvious she was enjoying the liberal fawning of the bidding process, and Jade felt a quiet satisfaction that she hadn't stooped to that. Of course, it also might mean she dropped the ball and lost the account.
She hated losing. It didn't happen often, and if she lost this one, knowing she could have tied it up, it was going to hurt in more ways than one.
"Well... Let's get started," Michelle had obviously decided she wasn't going to get a rise out of Jade, so she sat down. "I believe we have presentations from both teams?" Perry leaned back and laced his fingers over his stomach. "Ladies first," he smiled sweetly at Jade. She shrugged and gave him an amused look. "Okay... If you insist... You go right on ahead."
Against her will, Michelle bit the inside of her lip and looked down, then cleared her throat.
"Go on, we don't want to be here all day," Perry's face reddened, and he complied, laying out his materials and launching into a presentation, using the display screen to illustrate how they would realign networks and servers in place. It was interesting, and Jade reflected that he really did know what he was talking about. It took 45 minutes, though, and she caught Michelle peeking at her watch before he finished, and she quietly cursed to herself. Good solid presentation, worthy of the reputation of his company, and probably a very competitive bid. Perry won that publicity was worth the undercutting of the price.
"Well, thank you," Michelle nodded at him as he finished. "That was very comprehensive." She paused, then turned and looked at Jade, raising a ginger-colored eyebrow in question.
Jade remained seated and leaned back, resting her weight on the chair's arms. "Tori?" she motioned to her assistant to head forward with a jerk of her head. That was a surprise... Even her own people expected her to do the presentation... Certainly, Michelle had. Having Tori do it focused the attention on the project, not on Jade, and the project was the important thing.
Besides, Tori looked very sharp herself, with her neatly fitted burgundy suit and the subtle suntan that highlighted her ethnicity. Her intensity was so different from Jade's. She disarmed the watching men entirely, and even Michelle tilted her head in open interest as Tori made her way up to the front of the room.
Tori took a breath as she set her laptop down and began preparing it. She efficiently disconnected the display screen and plugged into her laptop, booting it up and connecting to Wi-Fi. Glancing up, she connected. "This was an interesting scenario to develop a solution for," she commented. "Because in order for an interacting system to work, you have to make it easy to use and complex in its design all at once."
She brought up a network diagram, setting counters and narrowing focus. "This is your current data communications at work," she started the monitors running. "As you can see, your current utilization runs into bottlenecks here and here... Mostly because of the bandwidth requirements, especially in the video link."
Jade, Michelle, and the others leaned forward, peering at the live data with interest.
"So... To open the pipeline, we bring in trunk circuits here and here..." Tori had another screen open and typed several rapid-fire commands, which suddenly made the monitors jump and flutter. "Like that."
Michelle's brows creased. "Did you just go live?"
"Yes," Tori acknowledged with a gentle smile. "See how that moves the bottlenecks? You get better throughput." Tori nodded and launched the game they had been working on all night. "Now, at the kiosks, this game will play. We made it so that they would be touchscreen interactive so you could play the game at separate kiosks while you wait to get on
your rides."
She brought up another screen, this one an actual game, and she played a short round, analyzing the application they were running. "Well... It provides a lot of information, but it's slow. Our game is simpler, taking up less bandwidth that way. As you follow your game throughout the kiosk or stops along the line, almost everything provides a lot of layers to their enjoyment of the magic. The waits in line are sometimes hours long, and stops along the way could keep children entertained and able to keep score." She clicked again. "Our game design division has a replacement to what you already have going."
Tori continued, "You can see it's in a three-dimensional representation of one of the parks, and to get where you want to go, you touch the screen technology. It seems like this." She tapped with her mouse, and the scene shifted into a plate with the castle.
"Nice," Michelle remarked.
"No..." Tori tapped again. "This is nice." The doors opened, and she was given a choice of options, such as playing, signing in, and how to keep track as they moved along in the line. "To see the menus, you go here," she showed it, "then if you want to make a reservation, you can go here."
The screen was replaced with an overhead shot of a restaurant complex with tables. "You can pick your time... And it will show what tables are available." She clicked, and a small screen popped up. "You type your name in and then you go. You could also do this with your fast passes."
The entire room was focused on Tori now, and she glanced past them to a pair of warm, sparkling blue eyes, one of which winked at her.
"This is a nice addition," she went on, accepting the reservation. "It gives you the option to leave the line here... So you can be notified of your reservations, and so the restaurant or even your wait time will be less. You could do other things in the park for a change." She typed a number and clicked OK, then paused expectantly.
Seconds later, a soft beeping sounded from across the room, and Jade held up her phone to show the text.
"That's... Incredible," Michelle sat back. "But what kind of bandwidth problems are we talking about? That program must be huge."
Tori met her gaze and swallowed a little. "Want to find out?" she inquired. "We threw this on two of our servers and a little stress-testing program." She clicked to display the network analyzer in one corner, then started the program with a different session. "It's not that big, really. Since we cache the screens locally, we cut way down on the video traffic. You only need to talk to a live receptionist if you can't figure something out or if you need a party of 30 or something like that." She stopped talking and gazed out at them. "Any questions?" Tori glanced around the room, then let her eyes settle on Michelle. "We downloaded the PDF maps from your websites and cross-referenced them to the location database that's up there, then ran it through a 3-D model attached to a hack and data and stored all the information," she paused. "Beyond that, it was mostly customizing it to your business style, which Jade and I have had the opportunity to evaluate the past two days."
Jade's brow lifted a little unobtrusively. That... was impressive. And prompted Tori clued into the fact that Michelle was miffed that she spent all night wandering the park instead of at dinner with her, and turned a purely personal motive into a compelling business one. Nice. Very nice. She caught her assistant's eye and smiled appreciatively, noting the faint blush that colored Tori's cheeks as she did so.
"No questions? I..." Michelle turned to Jade with a little incredulous shake of her head. "Can I speak to you in private for a moment?"
Gotcha.
"Sure," Jade replied, as she stood up and motioned for the other woman to precede her. They slipped through the door in the rear, into a small chamber with soft furnishings and a smoked glass skylight.
The redhead turned to face her. "I didn't expect that," she stated frankly. "Impressed."
Jade smiled. "I told you we made things happen. Diagrams and grids are fine, but I thought you'd want to see an end result, not promises."
A slow nod. "So... Did you have fun last night?" the woman's eyes lazy, caressed her.
"More than you did, I bet," Jade chuckled. "I've had dinner with Perry."
Michelle tried to wipe a smile off her face with not much success. "He doesn't have much good to say about you, I'll tell you what." She gazed up at the taller woman. "I spent most of the night hearing about how you'd screw me over."
Jade just smiled. "Not my style," she disagreed. "We screw up sometimes, just like everyone else does, but we didn't go out looking for victims." Now she let her own eyes wander, letting a smile of her admittedly seductive side surface. "But I don't think you're the victim type anyway."
Michelle blinked, then stepped back a little and folded her arms. "I'll take that as a compliment. That was a nice presentation. Your prodigy knows her stuff." A cynical edge entered her eyes. "Here I thought she was just a bit of fluff you brought with you."
"She's not a bit of anything," Jade replied more sharply than she intended as she felt her hackles rise.
The smaller woman's lips tensed, then she chuckled softly. "… So you do have the rare soft spots… Well, no offense, Jade, but I like the fact that you stand up for your people." She sighed. "That's so rare at our level. I've seen more times when a subordinate is reserved mainly for putting blame on… But I don't think you're that type."
"No," Jade replied honestly.
"And I don't think you're the kind of person who lies for no reason… So… Were you really casing the joint last night?" Michelle gave her a teasing smile.
"I was keeping a promise," Jade answered quietly.
The shorter woman leaned back against the sideboard and crossed her arms. "Interesting… And that was more important to you than locking up this bid?"
Jade stepped forward, straightening to her full height and meeting Michelle with steel-blue eyes. "If that's how you base your business decisions… Then I won't regret losing it," she said softly.
"Are we done?"
Without a word, Michelle backed toward the door, and then re-entered the meeting room, where Tori had disconnected her laptop and resumed her seat next to Kyle.
"Excuse me for a moment," Michelle picked up both proposals and left the room, this time the hounds stayed behind, glancing at everyone with suspicious eyes.
Jade sat down next to Tori, putting her elbows on the arms of her chair and steepling her fingers before her face. She could feel the eyes of the entire room on her, and it was a struggle to keep her face calm and relaxed.
I think I blew this one, she admitted quietly to herself. If I was going to play her game, I should've played it all the way, not backed off. I think I need more than a stupid vacation… I need to get my head back on straight and remember what the hell my job is. A certain grimness settled over her. Not spend time running around a stupid park playing games.
The door opened again, and Michelle came back in, a thoughtful look on her face. She looked at the two proposals, still grasping in her hand for a moment, then inhaled and tossed one at Perry. "Thank you for your time."
She looked at the other two and said, "I'll be in touch." Then she simply left, taking her hounds with her.
Mickey Mouse smiled at them from the clock on the wall. His fingers pointing to the time. The sound echoed in the shocked stillness of the room for what seemed like an endless instant. Then Jade collected herself and stood up, picking up the proposal and handing it to Kyle. "Here you go." She let her hand fall on Tori's shoulder. "Come on, we've got a plane to catch."
Tori got up and followed her quickly out of the room, across the hallway, and into the waiting elevator, which slid closed behind them, blocking the view of the glass conference room.
Jade leaned back against the wall and crossed her arms, giving Tori a cheerfully triumphant grin. In silence, the chestnut brown-haired woman pumped her fist and mouthed, "Yes!" Jade poked the tip of her tongue out to expose it, then wiped her face of the glee as the doors opened to let them out on the ground floor.
They didn't relax until they were in the rental car, pulling out of the lot and heading toward the airport.
"That… Was amazing," Tori gushed. "Jade, I thought for sure, after those nasty comments… I never thought she'd pick us." The executive slowly shook her head. "Neither did I, to be honest. I thought I really blew it." She pulled out her phone and dialed the number from memory.
"You did?" Tori looked confused. "Wow… I thought you handled it great," she objected. "You were by far the coolest, most prepared person in there. You didn't even react when she tossed the packet at you. It's like you expected it all along."
"Ha ha!" Jade snorted, putting her fingers over the microphone on her phone. "Good acting job."
She grinned, almost giddy with relief, then took a breath. "John? It's done," she held the phone away from her face as various whooping and squawking noises issued from it, chuckling as she waited for the racket to die down.
"Jade goddess," John's voice crackled through the connection.
"It wasn't just me, John," Jade objected. "The website team, Sinjin, and the docs people… And especially my assistant Tori, who gave the proposal, had a big part in it." She caught a blush out of the corner of her eye and gave the Latina woman a playful wink.
"That's fantastic. Let me go, I gotta get to work!" John said. The dark-haired woman hung up the phone and tucked it into her pocket. She had gotten lucky, alright. Big time. Michelle had made her decision based on this meeting, so Jade suspected that it had been a close call. She also suspected that she hadn't heard the last from Miss Graver. But right now, it was done, and she was headed home.
As they drove out of the park, they spotted one thing that they had both wanted to visit. "There's MGM."
"Oh," Tori peered at it. "Next time… I want to do the Tower of Terror."
Jade checked her watch and glanced at the park, then at Tori, whose nose was pressed against the glass, and considered. "Well…" She pulled into the other lane, then waited for traffic to slow. "There are later flights."
Tori glanced over her shoulder, startled. "Jade… You don't have to do that." She saw the sparkle in those blue eyes and stopped. "Hey, listen, promise me something?"
Jade blinked as she completed her turn into the parking area. "… OK, sure."
"Promise you'll come back to Disney when we have more time?" Tori coaxed, hardly aware of the "we" that had slipped into her speech with unnerving naturalness.
"Alright." Blue eyes met hers. "I promise. Now come on… Grab your shorts, let's change, and have a little fun. We earned it."