“It isn’t that the service is bad.” Sean said, looking around. “Just indifferent. Sometimes that means you’re left to your own devices a little too long. At the bar you generally get what you need as you need it.”
Just as he said this the bartender showed up. She was a middle-aged woman with a pleasant, laid back look. “What’ll ye have?” She asked with an Irish accent.
“I’ll have a Guinness and a menu, please.” Sean looked at Krista. He was still feeling uncomfortable with the scene earlier. The scene he had made.
She figured she’d let him stew in it for a while. “Uh, I guess I’ll try a Guinness as well, and a menu also. Please.”
The bartender nodded once, put some menus within reach, and wandered away, making a joke with a guy down the way. Indifferent made sense. Polite indifference.
“Have you ever had Guinness?” Sean asked with a bemused grin. He was bemused a lot. Was it just her or life in general?
She hoped it was life. She was damn funny, sure, but she didn’t think of herself as all that confusing.
“I mostly drink Guinness when in Ireland and England,” she explained, making an effort to turn off her mental dialogue. “Not so much anywhere else.”
“You travel there often?”
“Which? To Ireland or England?”
“Either. Both.”
“I haven’t gone anywhere in a couple years, but when headed to Europe I tend to spend some time in England. It isn’t that I love it—I mean, I like it—but travel out of Gatwick to most anywhere in Europe is crazy easy. Oh, and I understand the language.”
Sean laughed that deep, throaty laugh of his. “Knowing what people are saying is a decided advantage, yes. Have you traveled anywhere else?”
“Oh yes. I took a year off school, much to my parents’ chagrin, to travel around Europe. Besides that I’ve been to a few other places.”
“Like where?”
Sean had his full attention on her. He seemed calm and relaxed. For the first time, he seemed completely, utterly normal. Human. Not a God, or a supermodel, and certainly not a womanizer. He seemed interested in nothing more than friendly conversation. They could’ve been two friends, meeting up for lunch and a chat. Two people with no drama, no sordid work history, and no sexual office tension. Regardless of Krista’s wishes, she could feel her guard slipping even more, and instead of his sexual attraction, she admired his exquisite beauty.
His eyes were radiant and intelligent, currently sparkling a brilliant shade of green. His straight, perfect nose ended above a full set of defined lips that looked sensual. And kissable.
She rushed into her answer to get her brain back on track. “I’ve been to many places in South America, to Canada, to most of the U.S., including Alaska, um, Mexico, ah...let’s see...Egypt--”
“Egypt?” Sean interrupted.
“Yes. I went there about four years ago.”
“I’ve never been. How was it?”
The bartender showed up with their beers. Krista belatedly realized she should have looked at the menu.
“Now.” The bartender said it in a way that meant “there ya go” as she put their beers in front of them. She leaned against the counter casually and asked, “Do ye know what ye want?”
Sean said, “I’ll have the burger, please. Medium.” The bartender nodded and looked at Krista.
“Oh God, um…” She scanned words quickly, then just picked the first thing that looked half-way decent. “French dip.”
The bartender nodded again, put the menus away and headed off.
Krista’s stomach gave a loud rumble. With an embarrassed grin, she clutched it. Sean smiled, his eyes crinkling in the corners.
“It was great,” she went on, “one of my favorite places because of the art history, but one of my least favorite places for trying to fit in.”
Sean laughed. “I can imagine. Tell me, did you get to see the Great Pyramids and go in one?”
“I saw them, but didn’t go in. I was with a group and we had a guide, so we went in a different pyramid that didn’t have lights. It smelled like pee.”
“Oh, smelled like the BART station, you mean?”
“Exactly,” she laughed. “Have you traveled at all?”
He nodded, his eyes getting distant. “I have, yes. I’ve hit all the places you have, except Egypt, of course. Australia, China and Japan, and parts of Africa.”
“I’ve always wanted to go on an African safari.”
“Have you? It’s dangerous.”
“I know. It’s wild and raw, and therefore, real. I want to see an elephant so bad it hurts. I’ve watched enough documentaries and nature programs to know how dangerous they are, but I just can’t help it. They are so majestic.”
Krista paused as Sean took a sip of his Guinness. Into the silence she said, “And I want to marry an Australian.”
Sean choked into his beer and put the glass down in a hurry. Krista gave his large back a slap, clearly helping. The way he jerked forward against the bar, choking a little harder, he thought she clearly wasn’t.
“You alright?” she asked in laughter.
He chuckled, “Just so happens I’m Australian.”
“Uh huh. I am younger than you, yes, but I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“Honest,” he raised his hand as if to say ‘Scout’s honor.’ “My parents are from Australia. I am first generation American.”
“You just said it—you’re American. Doesn’t count. You don’t have the accent.”
“Oh. In order to count I need the accent?”
“Exactly.”
“Pity.” There were layers to that word, and Krista didn’t want to know any of them.
Thankfully, the food showed up right before it got awkward. On Krista’s plate sat a large sandwich stuffed with thick slices of red meat. Beside it was a small cup of au jus. The rest of the plate was filled with fries.
“Wow,” she said, not knowing where to start. “This is manly.”
Sean looked over at her, just about to bite into his giant burger. “What? The food?”
“Yeah. Meat. Bread. Fries. Enough food for two meals. Manly. Let’s hope it tastes womanly.”
“You don’t think men know what good food tastes like?”
Krista smirked, “Let’s see.”
Sean took a big bite. Krista picked up her large sandwich, thankfully cut in half by the kitchen, and took a Krista-sized bite. She got mostly bread.
“It won’t taste womanly if you eat like a chick,” Sean said with a smirk.
“I am trying to maintain some decorum.”
“How’s this for decorum—I was in Ireland shortly after they stopped smoking in the bars. It was a wonderful thing for the most part. Before that, you’d get home from the pub and smell like an ashtray. You had to wash your clothes every day, which isn’t easy when traveling. After the ban went into effect, though, the old guys would sit and drink their Guinness, as usual, but without the smell of cigarettes in the air, they filled the bar with their farts instead. It wasn’t pretty.”
Krista put her sandwich down, choking. “Why did you just tell me that?”
Sean started laughing, “So you’d know that a pub is no place for decorum. Take a bite. A big one. No one’s looking.”
“This is a work lunch.”
“And?”
“And…fine. You want to sit next to a sloppy mess? So be it!” Just to make a mockery of the scene, Krista dipped her sandwich in the au jus and took a mouthful.
Sean watched for a minute, then took a mouthful as well. When he was chewing, he said, “Goorrd?”
“Huuumm?”
They both started laughing, taking a sip of their beer so as not to choke. When they’d both finished, Sean said, “Well?”
“Good. Really good. Quality bread and quality meat. This place is a keeper.”
Sean nodded, “Yeah, food here is consistently good. The bar is consistently full, and the waitresses are consistently unimpressed.”
Krista laughed as she scarfed down most of her sandwich—she’d been starving. There wasn’t much conversation as they finished up and the plates were taken away. She was about halfway through her Guinness, Sean on to his second.
“So… Fatty?” Sean asked as he looked at his beer. He was trying to hide a smile.
“I didn’t think that comment was out loud.”
“I snooped, too. Blaming me for turning in a report early, huh? Excuse me for saying, but your department is…backwards.”
“You didn’t already know that?”
“I did. In theory. I took Ray to meet Mr. Montgomery. It was…funny. Ray is probably the most polite guy I know. He doesn’t like saying negative things. He was hard pressed to say anything at all concerning James. He was flabbergasted.”
“I’ll bet. Did he meet the others?”
“Briefly. I didn’t want to scare him too badly.”
“Well, usually I call him Mr. Montgomery, but when he is being an ass, or stubborn or whatever, I call him Fatty. It’s what the girl who trained me always called him.”
“Ah.” He laughed and bowed his head. After a moment, his grin faded. “Right. Business.” Suddenly everything changed. His focus was razor-sharp, his mannerisms were fluid but honed, and his eyes probed her with intensity.
Chapter Nine
“You are disgruntled and you don’t trust me. First, let’s go over why you are disgruntled.”
“Uh …” Krista had to downshift. She leaned forward on the bar, collected her thoughts, and then paused. Yeah, she was disgruntled, but she didn’t really want to air her dirty laundry in a public forum.
Sean waited patiently. He wanted her to take the first step.
“It’s growing into kind of a long list,” she stalled.
He nodded once. No surprise in his countenance. Apparently he wasn’t daunted. “Just start at the beginning, then.”
Well, here goes…
“Okay, well, firstly the presentation was a shambles.”
“How so?”
“How so? You rudely didn’t introduce me. Then you and your lackey sat back and admired the view like a couple’a sleazeballs. You didn’t even hide the fact that you were looking at all the available skin rather than focusing on, oh I don’t know, the presentation I was doing? Then you made me answer a question you knew very well you should have been answering. Finally, adding insult to injury, or at least insult to grievance, you ushered me out halfway through the meeting. I looked like a useless stat rat to the clients, never mind the rest of the team that already hated me. You would have never done that to my boss!”
She marveled at how quickly she’d gotten riled up. Since she was on a roll, she was about to go on when Sean held up his hand to stop her.
“I didn’t realize your list was so well organized,” Sean said pensively. “Why didn’t you throw this at me yesterday?”
“I was really, really hung over yesterday.”
“Did you get in and decide to talk to me, or was it something you’d planned?”
“I’d decided I had to on Friday—not true. My friends decided I had to on Friday, and after I couldn’t find a reason to disagree, I had to jump on board. It was a long weekend.”
“Well, hopefully after today you’ll know that you shouldn’t be worried or nervous to speak with me. We are a team now. If you have any problems, any at all, I want you to feel comfortable coming to me. Or at the very least, Ray.”
“Hopefully after today you’ll know that there is a certain way, a professional way, that I expect to be treated, and I will not tolerate anything else.”
“Touché. Okay. Let me hit your first points before we move on.”
“Thinking I’ll forget the rest of my grievances?” Krista smiled.
“Yesterday I would have said yes. Now…I’ll make sure you’re hung over when I try to get one over on you.”
“Hmm.”
“Well, first, you’re right on all counts, and if you weren’t...ah, irritated by these issues, it would prove to me that you didn’t care all that much about your work. Your boss wouldn’t have minded my not introducing him, or being asked to leave early. Actually, he would have thanked me for the latter.
“I would apologize for playing you false, but I won’t, because I wouldn’t really mean it. I didn’t introduce you because I wanted to show you as your own sector. Your department is always set aside from the rest of the company, just like most of the financial sector and occasionally IT. The difference is finance and IT don’t interact with clients. They do their own thing, and we do our own thing. The presidents and VP’s bring it all together. Your department, though, is greatly needed, but also greatly feared ...” He paused to think how to go on.
“Feared?”
Sean nodded, “Greatly feared because the presentations are dry and usually miss the mark. The presenters themselves are terrible at communicating with anything but robots. It just doesn’t work for our clients. Which are human, by the way.”
She ignored that last dig. On the humor circuit, he could do better.
Krista’s Guinness showed up, along with another for Sean. She looked at him with raised eyebrows. He caught the look. “I can drink a lot of Guinness. My grandparents are Irish bar owners. I’ve spent a lot of time in the pub shooting the shit and drinking Guinness. Anyway--”