I kept my mouth shut because it wasn’t necessary for anyone to know that of all the living souls in this building, who I believed could drink every one of us under the table; it was Marc. I’d gone out with him enough times, even when Malcolm had been alive and Marc eventually found his way out with us, to know Marc could drink with the best of them.
No, I thought it was some misguided sense of professionalism that wasn’t necessary at a place like Arete. That, or maybe he liked the air of mystique that followed him around as far as the resort guests were concerned. If Luka stuck around at Arete long enough, he would learn, much like the rest of our long-termers, that Marc was not nearly as serious and mysterious as the impression he gave. He just needed time to loosen up around people enough to drop the veneer ingrained in him from a young age, strengthened by years of working constantly with professionals.
“I notice you didn’t include me in that belief of professionalism,” I noted as I took a drink from my beer.
Luka scoffed. “You’re damn good at what you do, Reggie, but that’s not the same thing as being professional enough to avoid a party. It’s not hard to picture you in your younger years going out and dancing your heart out in some club.”
“Younger years?” I asked incredulously. “Just how old do you think I am?”
He squinted. “Sometimes I can’t tell if you’re middle-aged, a teenager, or a five-year-old.”
I glared at him. “I’m cutting you off…middle aged. What the hell?”
“I mean, aren’t you?”
“No! You’ve gotta be at least forty for that, and I still have a few years, thank you.”
“Huh, I figured you and Mr. Shepherd were close in age.”
“Okay, five years is still pretty close in age,” I reminded him. “He’s middle-aged; I’m not.”
“It’s a pretty good-looking middle-age,” Luka muttered, then his face went pink. “Which I did not say about one of my bosses.”
I felt a flicker of unhappiness, but I pushed it way, way down before it could gain strength and make an ass out of me. “Considering the things you’ve said about me,tome, I doubt you have to worry too much about saying you think Marc is good-looking.”
“First, anything I said about you to your face? I still mean it,” he said with a snort. “You deserved it.”
“I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on that,” I said with a shake of my head. “But I’ll let that pass; it’s a party after all.”
“Second, it was just an observation. After all, I wouldn’t want to…” he stopped and looked around, realizing we were alone, and then dropped his voice. “Make you too jealous.”
“Half a beer is not nearly enough to make me think you’re cute…and even if it was, it’s certainly not enough for me to forget that you are in fact my employee and that sleeping with you would violate several principles I do not want to, and will not violate,” I told him dryly.
He gave me a knowing smirk. “We both know what I meant.”
“Nope,” I lied, taking a drink. Just before I’d set him loose on his first excursion to being a Guide for newly arrived Rowan, Luka had made me aware that he had somehow figured out that my feelings for Marc weren’t purely professional or platonic. That sort of insight was valuable in a Guide, that was true, and hell, he had tried to be tactful about it, which was another plus in his favor. That did not mean, however, that I wanted anything to do with talking about the subject,especiallyin a room full of employees. There was nothing as productive, active, and often damaging as the rumor mill in a workplace, especially when said workplace had the same employees for weeks at a time.
“Uh-huh,” he said with a snort. “I’ll try that again after you’ve had a few more drinks.”
“It’s going to take more than a couple of beers to get me to go along with whatever stupid idea you’re cooking up,” I warned him. “And don’t think that’s an invitation to ply me with drinks either.”
He clicked his tongue. “As if I would ever encourage you to drink to excess so I can pump you for information!”
“You absolutely would,” I said dryly. “But at least that’s the only kind of pumping you thought to bring up.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Absolutely. Anything attractive about you is ruined by your personality.”
I couldn’t help but let out a surprised laugh, raising my bottle. “And to that, I’ll happily drink.”
Snorting, he clinked his glass against mine, and we took a drink as we took in the rest of the party. He wouldn’t be thefirst of my employees who was comfortable with me, but he was certainly the one I was counting on to be unafraid to humble me. He had started the Spring season as a first-time Guide with understandable nervousness and self-doubt. Yet when you allowed him to loosen up a little, he was bold and not afraid to throw things out there where others might be more wary.
“So,” I began as I watched a group of housekeepers talking animatedly with one of the Guides, one of them gesturing with enough enthusiasm that I thought he might be the first to pass out tonight. “How’s Rowan?”
I didn’t need to look at Luka to know he’d given me a startled look. “What about him?”
“Well, I asked how he was.”
“How should I know?”
