Not waiting for a response, she swirled out of the room and ducked back into her office, grabbing her tin of tea and her mug. A soothing cup of vanilla spice rooibos would be just the thing to settle her agitation over finding him here, in her office.
At the dot of half past one, Nell knocked on Tommy’s office door. He didn’t like late, or early. But instead of his usual barked “Come in,” she heard footsteps, and he opened the door for her himself. “Nell, you’re here,” he said, in an unusually affable tone. “Come and sit down. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
Oh, crap. Eamonn the photocopy room guy, the pool player from the Frog and Ball, was sprawled in one of Tommy’s guest chairs. “Hi, Nell. Uncle Tommy, we’ve met — she helped me with a paper jam in the copy machine.”
“Well, good. Nell, Eamonn’s going to be your assistant for a while. No experience, but he can learn on the job. Changing careers isn’t easy, so I trust you’ll help him out and not be too hard on him?” The inflection made it a question and asked for her agreement, but the wording didn’t give her a choice.
“Of course. I’m… sure we’ll work things out.”
Eamonn looked across at her and gave her a slow wink, making the words work things out seem somehow dirty, like a double entendre she hadn’t intended. “It’ll be a pleasure to work things out with you, baby.”
Tommy or no Tommy, that couldn’t stand. “Do not call me baby,” Nell gritted out.
“Calm down, Nell. Eamonn isn’t used to an office environment; it’ll take him some time to learn all the niceties.”
“Right. Eamonn, if we’re going to work harmoniously together, you’ll have to call me Nell — or Miss Whelan.” No one used last names at Wildforest, not even the most senior management or the board of directors. But Nell was accustomed to being Miss Whelan in a martial arts setting, and she could use a little of that respect from Eamonn.
That only got a laugh from him. “Miss Whelan, is it?” And she realized that the title didn’t have quite the same meaning as it did in martial arts circles; his emphasis made it something dainty, maybe even a bit southern belle, rather than the earned title of a black belt. Damn. Well, in ten years she’d qualify as Master Whelan, and then… That wouldn’t show him anything. She wouldn’t even know him a decade on. But her goal of attaining mastership had sustained her through a lot of things. She held onto it now and straightened her spine.
“The Wildforest board prefers that we use first names here,” Tommy explained to Eamonn. “Friendly corporate culture and all that. Run along now and Nell will show you your office — Shannon’s is still empty, right, Nell?”
“Yes. Thank you, Tommy. Let’s go, Eamonn.” She turned to leave Tommy’s office and nearly ran smack into Lila, who was carrying two cups of coffee.
“Whoops! Didn’t know you were in here, Nell. I was just bringing some coffee for Tommy and Easy — it’s okay if I call you Easy, right? I’ll never remember to say Eamonn.” Lila held out the coffee to the men, practically purring and batting her eyelashes. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can get you.”
“Thanks, sugar.” Eamonn took the coffee, seeming to accept the nickname and Lila’s fawning behavior as normal and his due. Weird.
Tommy accepted his coffee with a shrug and a muttered, “Typical.”
“Let’s go,” Nell repeated, nearly taking Eamonn’s arm to drag him away from Lila’s fluttering attention. But she jerked her hand back just in time; he might take the contact the wrong way. Who knew what went through that man’s mind?
As they filed down the narrow corridors to Nell’s office and the empty one beside it, now Eamonn’s, she wondered about Lila nicknaming him “Easy” — and how readily he’d accepted it. That seemed pretty brazen of Lila, in retrospect, although it did somehow suit him. Maybe the receptionist had heard Tommy call him that, or perhaps he’d leaned over the reception desk and suggested it. Without thinking it through, she turned back to him and asked, “Hey, why did Lila call you Easy? Is it a nickname? Something you prefer?”
He looked at her in stunned incredulity, coming to a stop in the hallway. “You don’t know?”
“Should I know something about you? Other than your habit of entering women’s bathrooms uninvited?” And she didn’t even know that was a habit, but it didn’t strike her as a one-time effort.
Eamonn still looked stunned. “You don’t, ah, recognize me?” She blinked at him, still drawing a blank. “Rock band? Bass player?” he prompted. “Stage names?”
Crap. “Smidge,” she said, as the puzzle pieces fell into place in her mind. She wasn’t a huge rock fan, preferring classical music and jazz, but she didn’t live in a convent. She’d seen them on television, on bus shelter posters, heard their songs on friends’ playlists. She hadn’t expected one of them to be here. “You’re Easy from Smidge.” And then, “So what the ever-loving hell are you doing in an office, working for Wildforest?”
His face closed up, grew hard, stony. “If you have to ask, do you think we could talk about it somewhere more private?” The icy tone to his voice told her something had gone very wrong and he was raw about it right to his core.
“It’s none of my business,” Nell said at once. “I’m sorry I asked.”
Eamonn shrugged. “Whatever. Show me my office so I can get settled in, okay?” A faint hint of a flush around his neck and jaw told her he wasn’t as blasé about it as he seemed. A complicated man. A rock god. An office assistant?
“Would you rather I call you Eamonn, or Easy?” she asked.
“Either. I’ll answer to both.”
She shrugged, letting him have his privacy.
