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Foam padded, Channon decided. He eyed it doubtfully. “Do I even want to know what’s in here?”
Nate laughed. “Oh, I bet you do. Don’t open it yet,” Nate warned, mock serious. “I was told you had to have permission.”
A familiar prickle of anticipation sparked in Channon’s belly. Whatever it was, Nate knew. And Nate thought he’d like it. Or hate it. Either way, it wasn’t going to be something insignificant. Channon had his suspicions, but he just nodded and asked if Nate needed him for anything.
Nate dismissed him with a wave. “No, you go have fun.”
That really didn’t ease Channon’s suspicions. He took the box to his own room and set it on the bedside table, where it taunted him.
Channon’s room was a suite of rooms, actually. Not fancy enough to make him super uncomfortable, but enough that he called Jack straight away, while he was still unpacking.
“Hey, sweetheart. How was the flight?” Jack asked.
“Good. They had kale chips,” Channon told him, hanging up his jacket to keep it from wrinkling.
“A-plus service,” Jack said with amusement.
Channon went to the window and looked out. The sky was dark already, but the city was lit up like Christmas. “Sir,” he said deliberately. “When you said Cynthia would book my room for me, did you get her to upgrade it?”
“Do you like it?” Jack asked, a smile clear in his voice.
Channon picked up what he thought might be a fig and sniffed it. “There’s a fruit basket.”
“You’re allowed to eat fruit.”
It deserved an eyeroll. Channon bit his lip. “I don’t think fruit baskets are, like, a standard part of the employee training accommodation package.”
This made Jack laugh softly. “No, they probably aren’t. Send it back if you don’t want it.”
Well, Channon wasn’t going to do that, even if he wasn’t sure how to eat fresh figs in the first place. “I’ll keep it. Thank you, Sir. Um…” He hesitated.
“Yeah?”
“Nate gave me something. He said I had to ask you for permission to open it.”
This time, Jack’s laugh was deeper and a fair bit more suggestive. “You don’t have permission yet.”
Oh god, that made it so much worse. But Channon knew better than to argue. “Okay, Sir.”
“What are your plans for this evening?” Jack asked.
“I was going to have a shower, get a chicken quinoa salad from room service, and, um, maybe watch something?”
“Wanna watch a movie with me, sweetheart?”
Channon really did. “Yes please,” he said.
“Okay, well, go order dinner and get ready, then call me back. I’ll see what’s good on Netflix.”
“Yes, Sir,” Channon said, grateful and satisfied.
?
Day one of the conference passed almost entirely without incident. It was like all the other conferences Channon had been to before, slickly corporate and tending toward snobbish. Being a tech conference, however, the attendees were a mix of conservative office types, tech bro entrepreneurs, and programmers in jeans and graphic tees. Channon had worn a blazer and jeans. Nate looked disarmingly casual in a button down with the sleeves rolled up. Everyone treated Nate like royalty, which Channon found amusing because Nate hadn’t even shaved for this.
They were offered coffee and pastries—Channon refused a croissant because it was a not-without-permission food—and then Nate had to shake hands with a lot of people who seemed to think Channon was his PA.
Nate didn’t let them get away with it for long. He introduced Channon as, “One of our juniors. Channon started out as an intern, but he’s a fully fledged member of the team now. Our internship program has an excellent retention rate,” he added, going into a well-rehearsed spiel about JNNS that Channon guessed Jack had had a hand in.
