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var Rorik snorted. “Of course. He seeing Bavia again tonight?”
“He didn’t say, sir.”
“No worries.” He shoved another spoonful of plain brown rice into his mouth. “See you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow, sir. Bye, Anita.”
“Bye, Lipa. Hopefully see you soon. Oh.” I twisted in my seat to grin at her. “Maybe you can come with me to pick the food for the event. I’m sure Mr var Rorik won’t be interested in that.”
I glanced over to see him narrowing his eyes at me as he chewed on a piece of chicken. “I’m interested. Why wouldn’t I be interested?”
Lipa made her escape as I gave him a polite smile. “I just assumed you’d want to maintain your strict diet.”
“I have cheat days,” he muttered, reaching for his water bottle to chug half of it.
“Well then. I’ll let you know when Piquante can fit us in. Hopefully it falls on a cheat day.”
“Good.” He gestured at his plate. “Just give me five minutes to finish this and then we can go over the venues. Uh, are you sure you don’t want anything?” he added awkwardly.
“I’m sure. Thanks.”
I bent my head over my tablet to let him eat in peace. I didn’t particularly want to interact with him anymore until he stopped being so surly. When I opened my emails back up, they still hadn’t refreshed. I frowned but stayed quiet, tapping over to my Wi-Fi settings to see if they had a guest network. They did, but it was password protected. Suppressing an irritated huff, I kept my head lowered and pretended to be working so I wouldn’t have to sit there aimlessly while he ate.
“Fuck, that feels better,” var Rorik said a few minutes later.
I looked up to see him leaning back in his seat and finishing the last of his water, the plate in front of him scraped clean.
“Glad to hear it,” I said politely.
His ears fluttered as he set down his empty bottle. “Uh, yeah, sorry about that. I just, uh… have a pretty strict meal plan, so it stresses me out when it gets messed up.”
I blinked in surprise at hearing him admit to something like that. Admit to anything that could be perceived as a flaw or weakness. “I understand. Ready to talk about the venues?”
“Yeah, let’s do it.” He nodded at my tablet. “You took notes, right?”
For the next twenty minutes, we went over the three venues. var Rorik was in a far better mood after eating, but he still found flaws in everything . One of them was too small. One of them didn’t have an impressive enough bar. The last one gave him “bad vibes”.
“Look,” I said eventually, wiping a hand over my face. “I know you’d prefer to hold it in a building your firm designed, but I really think the ballroom at the Basalt is an option worth considering.”
He snorted, leaning back in his seat. “We can’t hold it in a building we didn’t design. We’d look so stupid.”
“Not necessarily,” I said, fighting for calm. “The Basalt Hotel is one of the oldest buildings in the city. It’s not like you’d be holding it somewhere that was designed by a rival firm. It’s got a rich history, it’s an institution in demiurgus culture, and they hold events like this all the time, so we’d be in good hands.”
He wrinkled his flat nose. “I dunno.”
“Why don’t I show you some photos of similar events we’ve held there?” I asked quickly, tapping over to the browser on my tablet.
“I mean, I’ve been to a ton of events there, but sure.”
Ignoring that, I typed in our URL and prayed the website would load. It didn’t, staying as a blank white page. Gritting my teeth in frustration, I glanced up. “Would you mind giving me the Wi-Fi password?”
“Uh… I don’t know it.” He nodded at my tablet. “Didn’t you use the Wi-Fi the last time you were here?”
“No. I didn’t need to.” I tried refreshing the page, but it still wouldn’t load. “Do you know how I can get it?”
“Uh…” He looked around as if the Wi-Fi password might be painted on the walls of his office. “Lipa’s gone home.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. I had the utmost respect for PAs everywhere—I bet it wasn’t too dissimilar from babysitting a spoiled, overgrown toddler in a fancy suit every day.
