What is Michelle and Shari's angle. Man Tori is one cute little hot head.
Ten
"That wasn't very successful."
Jade leaned on the inner balcony, watching a bird fly across the inside of the huge lobby. "Not for them, no." She agreed. "But I sure had fun."
Tori looped a finger into Jade's belt and tugged. "Let's go change, sweetheart. We're due at the convention in forty minutes." She turned and started walking, towing her taller companion behind her. "You know, Jade, I don't know that antagonizing those two was a really good idea."
Jade sighed aggrievedly.
Tori unlocked the door to their room and pushed it open. "I mean, I don't like them either, but we could have had a truce just during the show. I don't really want to spend the next two days dodging darts."
"Yeah, I know." Jade trudged past her and kicked her sneakers off, pulling open the closet door to expose the neatly pressed business clothes hanging there. "Sorry." She pulled her t-shirt over her head and tossed it over the back of the nearby chair, unbuttoning her jeans one handedly and sliding out of them.
Tori leaned back against the dresser, just watching her partner for a few minutes. Then she pushed off and walked over to her, pressing her cheek against Jade's bare shoulder for just an instant before she gave her a kiss on the same spot and slipped past, scratching Jade's back with her fingertips as she headed for the bathroom.
Jade almost let her get out of reach, then at the last minute she extended one long arm and caught Tori's sleeve.
Feeling the tug, Tori stopped and half turned, her brows lifting in question. Her searching eyes found something in Jade's that made her walk back over and lean against her, waiting in silence as her partner's jaw muscles worked briefly.
After a little silence between them, Jade lifted one hand and gently traced the curve of Tori's jaw, an unusually sad look on her face.
"What?" Tori asked, in a low tone. "It's Shari, isn't it?"
Jade's lips twitched slightly. "It's idiotic." She replied. "I just can't be nice to her, Tori. No matter how I try to rationalize it."
Tori leaned into her touch. "I know she hurt you."
Jade blinked a few times. "She almost made me miss out on meeting you." She replied quietly. "Tori, I hate her. I can't pretend I don't." She exhaled, feeling a sense of almost absurd relief and just saying the words, and even more so when she saw the understanding in Tori's eyes. "I know this is business, but I can't do it."
The cell phone still clipped to Jade's discarded jeans buzzed. But Tori took both of Jade's hands in hers and ignored it, looking her partner squarely.
Her breath almost stopped in her chest, seeing an expression on that face she'd never seen before. Then Jade blinked, and it was gone, but Tori knew she'd gotten a glimpse of the confused young woman who had gotten kicked in the head by love all those years ago.
It stirred a feeling inside her, deep and powerful, and she pressed her body against Jade's, slipping her arms around her sturdy form and pulling her close. "I understand." She tilted her head to look up. "We'll deal with it. You be as nasty as you want to be.. I'm right there with you." Her arms tightened. "I'm right here for you."
Magic words. Jade could almost see the wonder of them as they settled around her, a precious gift that put a gossamer bandage on wounds she hadn't suspected she'd still possessed. "Boy I must sound like a nitwit." She murmured softly.
"Never." Tori replied.
"Yeah, I do." Jade rested her cheek against Tori's head. "But what the hell. They expect me to be an asshole, I'll just live up to their expectations." She half chuckled, a tiny, wry sound. "But no more breakfasts. I'm not wasting one more cent of my expense account getting indigestion."
Tori dropped her hand down and gave Jade's belly a rub. "Did you really?"
A sigh. "Yeah." Jade admitted.
"Okay." Tori took a deep breath. "Here's what I'd like you to do. Will you think about it at least before you start making those grunting no noises?"
Caught in the actual act of preparing to do just that, Jade cleared her throat instead. "Um. Sure."
"I'd like you to just crash here for a while, and let me show my title off at the show for a while." Tori said. "Would you do that for me?"
"I don't need to do that."
"No." Tori agreed. "But I'd like you to anyway. Please?"
Jade considered the request seriously. Her first instinct was to refuse, and she mulled that over as her fingers sorted through Tori's hair, watching the gray illumination outside catch light and dark shadows in the soft locks. The pros and cons sorted themselves out as easily, and after a brief pause, she nodded "All right."
Tori smiled at her.
"On one condition."
The brown eyes rolled. "Always."
"If anyone asks you where I am…" Jade clasped her hands and put them behind Tori's neck.
"Mm?"
"You tell them you wore me out last night and I had to take a nap."
Tori produced a noise somewhere between a sneeze and a cough, both of her eyebrows hiking up. "Jade!"
At last, her partner laughed softly. "Just kidding." She relented. "Actually, I'm going to boot up and start some deep research on Telegenics." Her brows contracted. "If we missed who was behind them, we might have missed a lot more. You know how much I hate surprises."
"Sounds like a plan." Tori plucked at the waistband of Jade's briefs, a spiffy blue pair covered in grinning goldfish. "You could lay out on the balcony in these. Everyone would think it was a swimsuit. No one would know."
"I would know." Jade objected. "My daddy didn't raise me to show my drawers in public, you pithy little Yankee." She nudged Tori a little. "G'wan. Elle is probably getting so nervous her eyelashes are touching her navel."
Reassured by her partner's tone, Tori stepped to one side and removed Jade's cell, then she moved to the closet to get her suit out. When she turned, Jade had tugged a pair of shorts on and was sprawling onto the bed, already pulling her laptop over to her.
Satisfied with her plan, Tori hooked the hanger with her suit, a new silver blue one with a deep aqua silk blouse that she'd picked up not long before. She spent a moment attaching her favorite pin to the lapel, then studied the results.
It would do. She glanced over her shoulder at Jade, whose half bare body was vividly outlined against the white sheets and spared herself a moment of envy, and then she started dressing for the show.
"Hey, Tor?" Jade interrupted her. "You should keep that t-shirt on."
Tori paused and glanced at the garment. "Oh, that'd make a great impression, Jade." She laughed, a touch embarrassed. "Were you thinking I could open my jacket and flash anyone who pissed me off?"
Jade rolled onto her side and crossed her ankles. "Hm."
"I was joking." Tori tossed the shirt at her, landing it on her head and watching in amusement as it draped half over her face and obscured one eye. "I'm not wearing a shirt that says RTFM to a trade show."
Her partner wiggled a sock covered toe at her. "Yeah." She agreed. "You'd spend your whole damn time explaining what it meant."
Tori chuckled, removing her jeans and reluctantly replacing them with the austere, straight line skirt that came to a respectable knee level and the light, silk shirt that was thankfully sleeveless. She tucked the blouse in to the skirt's waistband and buckled the integrated belt, picking up her shoes and taking them to the bed with her as she sat down to put them on. "I think I like the one you have better." She said. "The programming one?"
Jade chuckled. "I like the 'no, I won't fix your damn computer' one myself." She rested her head on her fist and ignored her laptop screen. "Hey, Tor?"
Tori fastened her watch around her wrist and stood, turning to face the bed. "Hm?"
"Thanks."
"For?"
The visible blue eye twinkled. "Being my best friend."
Tori picked up her jacket and walked over to the side of the bed, leaning over to kiss Jade on the lips. "And what a pleasure it is to be that." She whispered, nudging aside the still draped shirt so she could look into both eyes. "I'll give you a call when it's time for you to make your grand, triumphant entrance, okay?"
"Okay." Jade agreed. "Have fun."
Tori shrugged into her jacket, twitching the light linen fabric straight and fastening the single button. It was cut somewhat low, accentuating her tapered physique, and she gave Jade a wink as she accepted the frankly admiring gaze turned on her. "Look okay?"
"You look better out of it." Jade replied. "But it'll do for now." She watched Tori check her image in the mirror, then pause to clip the cellphone to her belt. "Give them heck."
"Do my best." Tori went to the door, looking back as she opened it an leaned against the jamb. "Will you…"
"Keep my eye on the pipes?" Jade swiveled her laptop around, displaying a screen full of jumping gauges. "Nah."
Tori grinned, and ducked out the door, letting it slide shut behind her.
Jade let the echoes fade before she turned the laptop around and minimized the displays, bringing up another screen and keying in a terse request. "All right… let's see what the hell we've got here." She muttered to herself. "Before anyone other than me realizes how frigging embarrassing it is that I let these guys stomp all over us and didn't even pay attention to it."
She set the request to run, and laid back against the pillows. After a few moments, the silence of the room started bothering her, and she reached for the television control, flipping on the room's set on. After browsing her choices, she settled on ESPN and let it run in the background as she opened her mail program.
The inbox filled with black lines that she glanced over, dividing her attention between the headers and the women playing volleyball on the screen. After a few minutes, however, she abandoned the mail and just watched the game, tucking Tori's discarded t-shirt under her head as she put it down on the pillow. In her peripheral vision, a thin line of alert gauges winked reassuringly green.
It was a short trip, but Tori was glad it was over. Driving in the rain heavy enough to drown lobsters with nervous tourists wasn't her idea of fun at any time, and she was more than happy to park Jade's big rental near the front of the parking lot and bolt for the door.
A small crowd was milling there, and as she ran her fingers through her hair to shed the rain from it, the guard spotted her company badge and politely cleared a path. Tori gave him a gracious nod then realized belatedly it was the same guy as the night they'd arrived. Her face crinkled into a wry grin as he held the door for her. "Thanks." She addressed him pleasantly. "Sure beats coming in the construction entrance."
He froze, but she didn't give him a chance to answer as she strode inside and headed for the show hall. Now, the lights in the outer lobby were on, and a buzz of conversation filled the high ceiling'd space. Banners were strung across over the doorways, and company representatives were everywhere, passing out marketing gimmicks and the occasional business card.
It was all too familiar to Tori. She'd attended more than her share of trade shows on behalf of WesTrek, and as she made her way through the crowd and was recognized, she returned the greetings with pleasant good manners.
It was ironic in the extreme that her early training in her mother's household now served her so well, making her responses gracious and automatic and completely forgettable. Tori excused herself from between two of her major distributor's sales directors and escaped into their booth, giving the techs and the salespeople a brief wave. "Hi guys."
"Tori!" Sinjin appeared from apparently nowhere, dressed in a crisp company shirt and black pleated slacks. "Glad you're here."
"Uh oh." Tori brushed a last droplet off her sleeve. "What's broken?"
Her MIS manager put his hands on his hips. "Does it have to be a bad thing that you're here?" He asked plaintively.
"No." The Latina VP smiled at him. "True disasters wait for Jade." She glanced around at the crowd. "They about to open the doors? There's more people here than I thought there would be, with this weather."
"No shit." Sinjin agreed. "Hey, you know who's here?" His voice dropped, and he moved closer to Tori.
Tori gave him a wry look.
"Guess you do."
"We had breakfast with them." Tori ran her eye over the interior of the booth, and gave the approaching Elle a quick smile. Everything looked ready, and she exhaled out that tiny bit of apprehension still tensing her guts from their abandonment of the prior day. "Morning, El."
"Good morning to you too, Tori." Elle was in a good humor. "Fricking weather's going to knock us on the ass for a while, but that's a good thing. Start slow, less bull." She leaned against the counter next to Tori. "Where's Rambo's worst nightmare?"
"Chilling." Tori watched a group of salesmen from their biggest network equipment supplier break out of a huddle and make a beeline for her. "She'll be by later."
"Good." Elle spotted a slow, but steady flow of people into the room. "Let's keep them waiting… I know there's a t least four big talkers around who were looking to meet her." The marketing VP brushed her hands together. "All right folks – it's showtime. Let's go get 'em."
Sinjin eased back in next to her as the marketing people cleared out, starting to filter through the crowd with their bags full of WesTrek stress balls and the rather clever little beanbag monitor perchers that resembled a cartoon Rottweiler theoretically watching over you. "Man, there were people talking all over the place today." He told Tori. "Those Telegenics guys were over here talking shit, but I ran them off."
"Mm." Tori folded her arms across her chest. "They tried to recruit us the other night."
Sinjin laughed. "Yeah, the boys told me." He agreed. "Bet he's going to crap when he finds out who he was talking to."
Tori spied their little friend in question and chuckled under her breath. 'Yeah." She pushed off from the console and strolled off. "I bet he is."
The soft chime of her laptop slowly penetrated Jade's idle, formless dreams and after a few moments of confusion, she opened her eyes, blinking them a few times to regain their focus. "Umph." She lifted a hand and scrubbed her face, putting her head down and almost letting the warm comfort of her pillow reclaim her.
One hand lifted and touched her trackpad, and she studied the results of her query in silence. One eyebrow slowly lifted. She raised up on one elbow and typed another request in one handed, rolling the pointer over and clicking to submit it.
She'd slept for two hours, and she felt like she could sleep for a few more. Maybe it was the weather. Jade peered over her own shoulder at the window, which was still being lashed by rain. It was dark inside the room, and cool – perfect day for staying in bed.
Well. Jade shifted a little. That's exactly what she was doing, wasn't she?. Lazily she rolled over and stretched her body out, peering up at the television. The volleyball game was over, replaced by a gymnastics competition. She watched Symone Bilestumbling in her intricate floor routine, and idly imagined Tori participating when she was younger.
She stood at the edge of the mat preparing a run so that she can make her gravity defying leap and tumble in the air, her tongue sticking out a little as she concentrated and Jade found herself smiling, knowing Tori would have likely been doing the same thing. She did it now, when she was focused on something, often without realizing it.
It was really cute. Jade put her hands behind her head and indulged in a little daydreaming time. It was interrupted, however, by the room's phone ringing. Jade turned her head, frowning as she judged how long Tori had been gone. She picked up the phone and put it to her ear. "Yes?"
"Ms. Vega?"
"You had a fifty fifty chance and you blew it." Jade replied.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Ms. West?"
"Yes?"
"I have a package here at the front desk for Ms. Vega. Is it all right for me to send it up?"
Package? Jade was puzzled. "Sure." She answered, trying to recall what package Tori might have been expecting. It didn't come to her, so she just put the phone down and got up, walking over to the bathroom and running some water to wash her face with.
She was patting her skin dry when the door knock came, so she tossed the towel down and went to the door, opening it to find a short, curly haired boy standing there with the promised package. "Hi."
The boy blinked and swallowed, then held out the package to her. Jade took it, watching bemusedly as he turned and sped away, disappearing around the corner of the hallway and into a culvert in mere seconds.
"Huh." Jade closed the door and glanced down at the box, only then realizing she was still in just her bra and jeans. An embarrassed chuckle forced it's way out and she covered her face with one hand, wondering if she was due a smack to the head to get her brains working again.
She dismissed the bellboy and examined the package instead. It was relatively small, but heavier than she'd expected for it's size. The label on it was addressed to Tori, sure enough, at the hotel address, but the return address was…
"New Zealand?" Jade repeated. "Who in the hell do we know in New Zealand?" Several major accounts, of course, but she didn't think Tori knew any of them personally, and besides, the box was from what appeared to be a business.
Jade walked over to the table and set the box down, then dropped into the chair next to it and folded her arms across her bare belly. She was curious. One hand lifted and she thunked the box with her finger, hearing a sturdy solidity inside.
Hm. Jade picked the box up and brought it close to her face, sniffing it. Cardboard. "Okay." She examined the wrapping, which was very thoroughly taped. After a moment, she put it back down and drummed her fingers on the table.
She could probably open it. Tori probably would not mind, since the object had been sent to their hotel room and it would be logical to assume Jade would see it anyway.
"Okay, how would you feel if she opened it and it was yours?" Jade asked the empty room. "Would you care?"
Would she? Jade drew one knee up and circled it with both arms, taking a rare delve into her own psyche.
"No." She finally spoke frankly. "I wouldn't give a damn, which means Tori probably would. So leave it alone," She got up and left the package where it was, returning to the bed and plopping back down beside her laptop.
But now that she was up, she felt restless again. So though she put her computer up onto her lap, she also dragged the phone over and picked it up.
"Room service." The tinny voice answered promptly.
"Hi." Jade tapped a command into her mail program. "Can you send me up a really big pot of coffee, a jug of milk, and a bowl of chocolate ice cream?"
Silence.
"Hello?" Jade frowned at the phone.
"Yes, ma'am – that'll be one pot of coffee for… how many people?"
"One person who really likes coffee." Jade replied. "Whatever your biggest one is."
The sound of writing. "Okay, and a jug… is that like a glass?"
"No." Jade glanced at the first mail in the box. "If I wanted a glass, I'd ask for a glass. Just bring me a half gallon, or whatever.."
"Our biggest is. Gotcha." The room service clerk replied. "And our biggest bowl of chocolate ice cream?"
"You're catching on." Jade said.
"That will be about fifteen minutes."
"Thanks." Jade hung up the phone and settled back, plumping the pillows up behind her and resolving to at least get some work done. After a few minutes though, she found her attention wandering from the mundanity of the mail again and focusing on the television. An extremely cute blond girl was on the balance beam, and as Jade watched, the kid did a backflip and missed.
"Ouch." Jade winced, as the small body hit the bar, then the mat. She got up immediately, but she was obviously stunned, and wavered as she tried to get back on the bar. "Hey! Stop her, you creep!" She instructed the girl's coach, visible just on the side of the floor exhorting her.
The girl put her hands on the bar and boosted herself up, getting her feet under her and standing up. But as she started to walk, she lost her balance again and fell in a heap on the mat, this time staying there.
Jade was surprised at the outrage she felt, as the coach yelled, faintly audible, for the girl to get up. "Stupid son of a…" She barked at the television. "Go help her!"
The coach did not. However, as though hearing Jade, one of the other competitors, Symone, as always into team spirit, did rush over and kneel next to the fallen gymnast even though her costume indicated she was on a different team.
The coach yelled again, but Symone looked up and yelled back angrily, and then people began rushing on to the floor and surrounding them both.
"Mm." Jade returned her attention to her mail. "That's better. You go, kid." She typed in silence for a moment, then the irony of the situation struck her and she looked back up at the screen just in time to see the accomplished gymnast helping the other one off the mat, their arms wrapped around each other.
Jade chewed her inner lip and then she smiled, making a mental note to check the ESPN website later and find out who the other gymnast was. There was, she suspected, a story in there somewhere. Her eyes shifted to the table, suspecting there was a story inside the box too.
With a sigh, she went back to her typing. As she finished one mail and found herself checking the television before going to the next, she recalled something Tori had said. "Restless." Jade murmured under her breath. "Hmph."
Tori walked up in back of Mr. Slimy, giving him a smile as he sensed her presence and turned to face her. "Hi."
"Oh! Hi.. um… " The man's eyes dropped to her corporate badge. "Tori wasn't… it…ah."
'That's right." Tori replied. "And you can do me a big favor by cutting the crap out and stop wasting my people's time."
He actually took a step back. "Hey, wait a minute…"
"No wait a minute." Tori squared her shoulders and gave him a direct stare. "They're too smart to do anything but laugh at someone who would go behind their bosses back and approach them like that. If you'd do it to me, you'd do it to them. None of my people like stupid games."
The man blinked. "Look, it was just business as usual, Ms. Vega. Don't tell me you don't do it."
"I don't do it." Tori shot right back at him. "And if you do it again, you're going to have to explain to my boss why you're annoying my staff."
He held up both hands. "Okay, lady. Okay." He took a step backwards into Telegenic's booth. "No problem… I get the message."
Michelle Graver suddenly appeared around the other side of the booth. "What message?" She glanced at Tori, one ginger eyebrow lifting at the brunette's aggressive stance. "Problem, ah… Tori?"
Of the two of them, Tori found it much easier to tolerate Michelle, for some probably not too noble reasons. "You have slimebags working for you." She informed her. "I'm over it. He doesn't know how to take no for an answer."
Michelle gave her manager a look, and he ducked away, disappearing into the interior of the booth. Then she turned back to her visitor. "Ah. Tried a little poaching, huh?"
Tori put one hand on her hip. "He tried to recruit me and Jade."
Both of Michelle's eyebrows hit her hairline with an almost audible crack. "Ambitious." She murmured under her breath.
"Not really. He had no idea who we were."
"Ah." Michelle cleared her throat. "Sorry." She grinned slightly. "We are pretty aggressive. I wont' apologize for that." Her eyes drifted, then went back to Tori. "Sorry about breakfast."
For a moment Tori didn't answer, as she wavered, deciding how to respond. Then she relaxed her stance a trifle. "What did you really expect?" She asked.
Graver exhaled, and half shrugged. "That we'd all act like adults." She said, giving her head a slight toss to take the edge off the comment. "Let's see if I can start over. Buy you a cup of coffee?"
Good cop, bad cop. Tori almost smiled. "Sure." She agreed,
Michelle turned and led the way towards the snack bar on one side of the convention hall. "Nice turnout. Didn't expect that with the rain."
"We did." Tori let her arms drop to her sides and lengthened her steps, secretly enjoying the sensation of having someone shorter than she was have to keep up with her. Jade was such a beast that way – she didn't do it on purpose, and her legs were not much longer than Tori's, but she always felt like she was having to take a little hop to keep up.
"Did you?"
"Orlando is full of distractions." Tori arrived at the snack bar and pointed at the coffee, then held up two fingers. "However, most of them are outdoors. We're not." She leaned on the counter and faced Michelle. "I'm glad I got my fun in yesterday."
Michelle took one of the cups the server offered them and indicated a small table nearby. She led the way over and sat down, waiting for Tori to take the seat opposite her before she spoke. "Listen." She leaned on one elbow. "This is a.. touchy… kind of situation, I know that."
Tori's eyebrows twitched.
"We really didn't want this to turn into a war."
"Sure you did." Tori cut her off, but in a remarkably mild tone. "You came in here setting the stage for us to clash."
Michelle sighed.
"Well, you did. It's not my fault." The brunette said. "I wasn't the one who tried to pay off the convention staff not to help set the place up, and I wasn't the one who sent my lackeys around trying to steal other company's employees."
Michelle eyed her. "You're not as nice as you used to be." She remarked. "Jade must be rubbing off on you."
Far from taking offense,"in more ways than one…" Tori produced a sunny grin at that. "Thank you." She sat back and sipped at her coffee, waiting for Michelle's next salvo. In the meantime, she let her eyes scan the room casually, spotting WesTrek's marketing team doing their thing in the aisles. Elle had the vice president of technology of one of their biggest clients by the lapel, and she made a point of making eye contact with Tori as she cruised along with him. "Ah. Sorry to cut this short, but my services are required."
Michelle was nothing if not tenacious. "Okay. Can we try all this again at dinner tonight? Call me a stinkweed, but I still want to try and make this work. We can all learn from each other."
Tori crumpled her cup and tossed it into the nearby wastepaper basket. "Thanks. " She stood up and braced her hands on the table, leaning on them a little. "But no thanks. We've got plans for tonight." She straightened and turned, walking away without a backward glance.
Michelle got up and dropped the half unfinished cup into the garbage can. "Well, I think I've wasted enough time for one day." She commented to the receptacle. "Don't you?" With a snort, she followed Tori out onto the floor.
Jade had traded her unorthodox lounge wear for a pair of cutoff overalls and a polo shirt and had left her laptop behind as she investigated the hotel. She'd answered all her mail that she felt needed answering, and ditched the rest of it, losing interest in the weightlifting that had been showing on ESPN as well.
So here she was, sauntering around the lobby in her bare feet, watching the tourists mill around giving the still stormy weather evil looks. The interior of the hotel was a pristine white, and the whole décor was one of lightness and elegance.
Jade found a comfortable and mostly empty corner and selected a seat in it, leaning back against the cool fabric as she watched the world go by for a few minutes. There were families here, but she saw a lot of couples, too, walking together or sitting and talking around her.
Her own visits in her youth here had been very different. Jade propped her leg up with one ankle on her knee and rubbed the prominent bone with her thumb. They hadn't been rich, far from it, and the best her father could do was one of the ratty little motels on the strip in Kissimmee or memorably the camping ground inside the park itself.
Fort Wilderness. Jade smiled to herself. She'd loved that place. It had been full of pine scent and horses, and she had spent hours with her father swimming in the manufactured swimming hole on the side of the lake.
It had been one of the best vacations ever. Just four days, a long weekend's leave before his next deployment, but one of the few times Jade could remember where they'd all been just… happy together.
They'd slept in the back of Dad's truck, under the nylon tent and sweated like pigs. It had just made the lake that much sweeter.
"Excuse me."
Jade looked up to find a man standing next to her, peering down. "Yes?"
"Are you Jade West?"
A prickle of surprise rippled up and down her spine. "Yes." Jade replied briefly. 'Why?"
The man sat down and extended a hand, which Jade ignored until he awkwardly withdrew it. "My name is Peter Quest. You don't know me."
"You're right. I don't. What do you want?" Jade gave him a direct look.
"I'm just looking to do a little business, Ms. West. I was told you would be someone I could talk to." Quest replied. "I was at the trade show this morning looking for you, but they told me you weren't around."
"So you decided to walk around Disney hotels asking people at random if they were me?" Jade asked. "Nice."
The man shook his head and chuckled. "No, I had a picture of you." He admitted. "Hope you don't mind."
Jade set her feet on to the floor and leaned forward. "I do mind." She spoke softly. "So you better explain why you're stalking me before I kick your ass right out that door in the rain, buddy."
Quest eased back away from her. "I beg your pardon, Ms. West.. I'm making a big mess of this, and I'm sorry. I really meant no harm.. I just wanted to talk to you." He licked his lips. "I've got a business proposal I think you might be interested in."
Jade was on the verge of booting him anyway, when Alastair's words echoed into her memory. New business. "Okay." She replied instead, relaxing again into her chair. "I'm listening." Her head cocked slightly, and she pinned the man with a sharp stare. "Start talking."
"Um… " Quest visibly gathered up his scattered wits, confused by her change of attitude.
'Well?" Jade inquired.
The man held up one hand, then took a breath. "Okay." He said. "Tell me. How do you feel about cruise ships?"
Jade's eyebrows knit fiercely. "Cruise ships?"
"Yeah." The man went on more confidently, producing a big smile. "Cruise ships."
Well. Jade signed inwardly. Lucky me. He could have said pig farming.
Tori could feel a headache building, and she subtly put her hand behind her neck and rubbed it as she listened to Elle's smooth pitch. Their booth was now crowded with interested onlooTors, most peering at the network monitor screens prominently displayed at each corner. They were showing a real time display of their systems, mirrored from the big monitor Sinjin had in the operations center down in San Francisco.
Out of long habit, she found herself keeping an eye on them also, because the colorful, bouncing screen represented things wholly her responsibility. At work, she had a twin of that screen mounted on a flat panel display in her office and she knew every graph like it was written across the back of her hand.
"Ms. Vega?"
Tori turned, vainly trying to keep her nostrils from flaring as she recognized Shari's voice. "Yes?"
The husky woman leaned on the edge of the booth. "I'll make this short and sweet." She kept her voice low. "Michelle's a decent sort, and she really has an idea that your company and ours can help each other."
Tori simply waited in silence.
"Leave me out of it." Shari continued, after it was evident she wasn't going to get an answer. "I know Jade has a problem with me."
"You're wrong. She doesn't have a problem with you." Tori interrupted.
Shari rolled her eyes. "Okay, fine. She doesn't have a problem, but it's not really likely that we're going to start being pals any time soon, how's that?" She gave Tori a sarcastic look. "She never did have a handle on dealing with people. It's nice to know nothing's changed."
The burn of anger didn't surprise her this time. It almost felt good, in a way, because she knew the emotion was based squarely in the love she felt for Jade. "You know what?" Tori finally spoke. "I guess you're still the same asshole you were back then too. She doesn't have a problem, but that doesn't really matter to me because I have a problem with you, and with Michelle, and with your entire company. So do me a favor and go find someone else to hover over. Okay?"
Shari fell silent and just looked at her for a second, and then she straightened and took a step back. "O..kay." She lifted both hands and dropped them. "Nice to have the air cleared."
"It will be, as soon as you leave." Tori felt slightly abashed at letting her temper get the better of her. "Excuse me." She moved over to where Elle was bidding her latest victim farewell. "El?"
"Hm?" The marketing VP turned. "Oh, hey Tori. You ready to go get some lunch? My snappy patter's wilted."
The thought of lunch made her slightly sick to her stomach. She was shaking inside that much. "Actually, I was just going to tell you I'm heading back to the hotel to pick up Jade. I'll get something there." Tori looked around. "We've got a nice crowd going.. I figured it was time for the ubergeek to show up."
Elle smiled knowingly. "Go on." She nudged Tori. "See you after lunch."
Tori signaled to Sinjin that she was leaving, getting a thumbs up from him as he stood guard over the locked switch box. Feeling that everything was relatively well in hand, she turned and started to work her way out of the room.
Even the rain outside didn't deter her. She cleared the door and stepped out into it, almost welcoming the wash of warm water that plastered the hair on her head and quickly dampened her clothes. She reached the Lexus and triggered the door lock, opening the driver's side and sliding inside with a sense of relief.
It smelled like leather tinged with the faint hint of Jade's usual perfume, and Tori just sat there for a minute breathing it in.
Remembering the first time she'd ridden in a car like this with her, in a rain not really unlike the one she'd just escaped from.
It had been one of the most miserable nights of her life, and one of the most wonderful. Tori leaned back in the comfortable seat and ran her fingers through her wet hair, pushing it back off her forehead. "You know what?" She mused. "A navy sweatshirt sure would feel good right about now."
With a sigh, Tori shook a few droplets of water off her hands and started the car up, shifting smoothly into reverse and backing out of the parking spot she'd chosen. If she couldn't have a navy sweatshirt, at least she knew where to find the next best thing.