Page 34 of Counting Down To You

“I told you,” Lucie is saying to him, clearly trying to be patient. “Brooks is on a call. It might be better if you made an appointment and came back another day?”

The man—Burgers, I remember—leans more heavily on his walking stick, bushy eyebrows creased. “Need to make appointments with my friends now, do I?” He snorts derisively. “That’s new.”

“But you’re not asking as a friend, are you?” The patient edge in Lucie’s voice is wearing thin, making me wonder how long they’ve been having this conversation—I’ve not seen Lucie lose her cool with even the most annoying of guests. “You said you had business to discuss.”

This earns a dark mutter under his breath and—to my alarm—a sharp glance in my direction. “What do you want?” he demands. “I see you made it back in one piece, then.” So he does remember me.

“This is Ali Reynolds,” Lucie says smoothly. “Our current guest-relations manager.” She says this in a distinctly pointed way.

Another dark mutter, and he looks away from me, jerking his thumb in the direction of the comet chairs around the glass coffee tables in the lobby. “I’ll be over there. Tell Brooks to come and find me when he’s done.” He turns and makes his way over to a seat by the Christmas tree, with that same mild limp I noticed in the forest.

“Tell him yourself!” Lucie calls chirpily to his back, earning a dismissive wave as he takes a seat. Lucie huffs out a breath and looks over at where I’m still hovering by the reception desk. “As Nick said—he’s a git to everyone.” She doesn’t bother to lower her voice. Burgers doesn’t look over, though whether that’s because he hasn’t heard or he doesn’t care, I don’t know.

I shift my weight from foot to foot. “Ah…Should I go and get Leo?”

Lucie frowns. “What? Oh, I already sent him an email. He’ll be here in like two minutes. I’ve just always wanted to be dramatic and say that.”

My lips twitch. I glance over at Burgers again, who is scowling down at one of the magazines. Give someone a chance the way you gave me one. But giving this man a chance seems like a step too far, even for Robyn.

“Why does he want to see Leo?” I ask.

“No idea,” Lucie mutters, frowning at something on her computer screen. “Probably so they can be grumpy gits together.” She clicks at something, scowls some more, then glances up at me. “Sorry,” she says, not sounding it particularly, “but did you want something? Only I have quite a lot to sort out right now.”

“Right,” I say, “sorry.” I move closer to the desk. “I just…I need to add a note to the Harrison check-in tomorrow. I wanted to make sure whoever is on duty sees it so is there somewhere—”

“Johann’s working the afternoon shift,” Lucie says. “You better write it in block capitals on a Post-it and stick it to the screen, as well as adding to the notes on the system.”

“Ah, right.” I’m not totally sure if this is a serious suggestion. Clearly, Johann is in her bad books. Lucie has her head down, typing something on the screen. Christmas music blares through the speakers, slightly louder here than in other parts of the hotel. I wonder how long it’ll be before Lucie gets sick of it. “I can come back later, when you’re not so…busy?” I ask tentatively.

“Okay. You do that.” She swears under her breath as she clicks something on her screen.

I go to leave, then turn back, hesitating.

Lucie glances up. “Is there something else?”

“Yes. Well, no. I mean…” I take a breath. Give someone a chance the way you gave me one. “Do you want to go for a drink later?”

Lucie blinks up at me for a second. I think she’ll say no. Maybe she’ll take it as an insult, like I’m saying that she needs a drink or something. Or tell me it’s unprofessional. Or just make another scathing comment.

Instead, she shrugs. “Okay.”

—

That evening, I sit opposite Lucie in a different bar to the one we went to for Charlotte’s birthday. Lucie claimed it was usually quieter here, slightly off the beaten track, though tonight it is buzzing, every table full, so that we are almost uncomfortably close to the people either side of us on the long wooden benches. Like everywhere here, Christmas decorations are out in force, with fairy lights twined tastefully over the wooden beams in the ceiling, and mini-Christmas trees in the center of each table. The smell of mulled wine mingles with pine, and it’s warm enough inside that Lucie has stripped down to a halter-neck top—making me regret my decision to repeat the jumper and jeans outfit.

We have so far exhausted the subjects of: the weather, Betty and Louisa’s request for a helicopter, and the fact that December is mental around here. Lucie hasn’t been snarling and snapping so far, but it’s not exactly been an easy-flowing conversation, leading me to wonder if this was, in fact, a terrible idea. Though, to be fair, it’s Robyn’s terrible idea, and there’s something comforting about that, like it absolves me of responsibility.

Hey, don’t go blaming me for your decisions.

I ignore her voice and sip my beer for something to do, glancing at my phone to check the time: 8 p.m. Definitely not late enough to excuse myself on account of needing to go to bed.

“So what happened with Johann?” I ask.

“Hmmm?” Lucie puts down the cider she’d been about to drink. “Oh, you mean this morning.” She huffs. “He was a twat, that’s what.” I raise my eyebrows and Lucie waves a hand in the air, leaning forward a little on the bench. “He fucked up the system—God knows how because he certainly doesn’t. So he moved a bunch of bookings to the wrong date and it took me ages to realize it’s because he’d moved the whole bloody thing forward a year. I fixed it, but it could have been a fucking disaster.”

I make a face. “That does sound stressful.”

“Yes. And he’s barely even apologized. But he doesn’t really care. He’s good enough with the guests, but he’ll go back to Germany at the end of the season and forget all about his brief stint in hotels, no doubt. He’s only here to snowboard as much as he can like the rest of the young lot.” I try not to smile at the way Lucie says “young lot,” given she can’t be older than about thirty herself. “Charlotte, for instance—I mean, have you seen anyone less interested in doing any actual work?”