Authors Note: This is part of a series and is built on characters and settings from previous chapters.
*
I really can't explain why, but after a good night's sleep, I felt a lot better. I made a quick stop on the way to work to check the progress at the house, and after spending a few minutes with Sunny, I headed in to the office. Tina was already there by the time I arrived, sitting at her desk working away on financial reports.
"Morning Tina." I said brightly, determined not to let the previous day's antics affect things too much.
"Morning Mister Jacobs." she answered back formally.
"Mister Jacobs? You haven't called me that since the first interview. "Turn around and talk to me." I said, sitting in my chair after hanging my coat on the rack by my desk.
Tina turned around, looking long and hard at me before saying anything. "I'm sorry, Scott. I'm really not sure what got into me yesterday. I just started taking pictures and the more I took the more I wanted to show off. Eventually all I could think of was having sex with you," she said quietly. "I really need this job. Please don't fire me."
"I'm not going to fire you," I said with a sigh. "You're not the first woman to do that to me in the last week. Let's just let it go and like you said yesterday. I won't tell if you don't."
"Thank you!" she said with relief in her voice and huge smile coming to her face. "I was really worried."
"Well don't be. Now. I usually try to take most of Friday off when I have to shoot a wedding over the weekend. The day starts early tomorrow, and I might not get done until well after midnight, depending on the reception," I told her. "Can you hold down the fort today?"
"Sure I can. I was going to ask. Do you mind if I tag along to see what you do on one of these? I mean you don't have to pay me overtime or anything, but I'd like the chance to learn more."
"Training my own competition, huh?" I asked with a laugh. "Yeah. Meet me here around eleven tomorrow," I said as I got up. "And now that we have that straightened out I have some chores to do around the house."
"Ok. Enjoy the day off," she said brightly as I got up to leave.
*************
I pulled up in front of the shop just before eleven the next morning. I could see the shop lights already turned on. When I walked in I found Tina waiting, wearing a trim gray knee length skirt, white silk blouse and matching gray jacket. She had three bags of camera gear sitting on the counter, packed and ready to go, along with two good tripods.
"Morning," she said brightly, her face a huge smile.
"Morning. Looks like you packed everything. What do you have in there?" I asked, looking in the camera bags.
"I have both of your Hasselblads, all the portrait lenses, your power flash system, seven fresh memory cards, your ipad, and my Nikon."
"Excellent. We still need that Sony point and shoot, and why don't you take that new Canon instead of the Nikon. It has a better flash. Once all the requires stuff is shot at the reception you can shoot some candid stuff there. Sound good?"
"Sounds great!" she said. "Why the point and shoot?"
"Ahhh. My secret weapon. I give that to the bridesmaids and let them shoot candid shots while they're dressing, that way the bride gets a bunch of really nice shots and doesn't have to worry about having a guy running around while they're half dressed. Some brides are a bit more bashful and don't like me in there. But others don't care. I had one actually want me to hang around and shoot her while she was showering and everything."
"That sounds different."
"Yeah. Pretty much it's up to the bride. I shoot what she wants." I answered her while we zipped closed the bags and got ready to head out.
It was a two hour drive to the lakeside resort where the reception was to be held, and Tina and I used it to just get to know a bit more about each other. It had turned out to be an interesting conversation, though we both danced around the tryst of earlier in the week.
I pulled into the resort and stopped near the office. Tina followed me in when we went to register. "Scott Jackobs. I have a reservation."
"Yes, Mister Jackobs," the pretty young lady behind the counter said as she clicked away on the computer. "Here you are. I show a reservation for you with a standard double queen room in the east tower."
"Excellent. I also will need another room for my assistant." I told her.
I saw her face furrow and not even look down at the computer. "I'm sorry sir. We're already overbooked. We have a conference starting today and every room we have is booked. In fact, because you were a single reservation they upgraded you to a king suite."
"Oh. I see," I said turning to look at Tina.
"No problem. I'm sure we can get by with a single room," Tina said, smiling. "It was a last minute change, and beggars can't be choosers."
"Well, if you want, we can bring up a roll away bed,." the young lady added hopefully.
"That won't be necessary. I'm sure we'll be fine," I told her as I pulled out my credit card.
"Very well. Here are your room keys. Your room has already been paid for by the wedding party as part of the package." She said as she handed over a small envelope with the two plastic keys.
"Thank you," I said, taking them.
