As it turned out, the news that Andy had some control in who he was paired up with had completely upended the house, much to his annoyance. He couldn't be that mad at the girls, but it was still messing with the tranquil energy he'd been trying to cultivate to get through the pandemic and all of its complications.
When Hannah had asked if she could have some time to think about it, she had mentioned that Andy could request people to the rest of the girls, and suddenly there had been a rush on coming to him, asking if he would consider inviting someone they thought he might like to join the household.
Andy had immediately made sure not to make any promises to anyone, which was the best possible decision he could have made for himself. Within 24 hours, Andy had been forced to come up with a system to try and manage it all.
There were five more slots at the dinner table, and Andy had decided that was some kind of sign, so he would only take five more girls into the family. Ash told him straight away that she didn't have any real friends or family she wanted to bring in, so she volunteered to help manage the process a bit, not doing any of the decision making, but more of guiding the girls to get their pitches in order, and weed out anyone who would be an obvious mismatch for the family. It was lucky for him that she was from Ireland, because Ash turned out to be the *only* one who didn't have ideas on who should fill those last slots. Every other member of the house had at least one girl they wanted to suggest to him. Some wanted to pitch him several people, so with Ash's help, he set down some guidelines on how to go about the process of filling out the remaining spaces in the house.
One of Ash's first things to insist upon, however, was that Andy only take a total of four girls from the family's suggestions, not five, and that one girl, one *single* girl out of the entire family, should be completely and totally his idea, without any outside suggestion or influence.
He'd originally laughed at that, pointing out that none of the girls so far had been anything less than magnificent and he really hadn't lifted a finger in deciding who they were, but Ash was adamant that Andy make one solitary selection of his own choosing to add to the family. After going back and forth about it in his head, Ash (with the help of both Niko and Emily, who both reinforced the idea to him multiple times over the course of the day) had convinced him that he would carve one slot out for himself. He still wasn't sure who that would be, but it was swirling around in his mind. He would make that decision after he'd done all of his selections from the girls' candidates.
The second thing Ash had asked Andy to check on was if the house staff had anyone they thought they wanted to bring on, not to join the family, but as additional house staff. Andy had suspected it would be more of a formality, and that none of the three members of the staff would want to bring anyone else into Andy's service, but as it turned out, each of the staff had multiple ideas about who might be excellent additions to the Rook household staff team without being good additions to the family, so Andy had agreed to let each of the staff members make a pitch for one person as well, but only in staff positions, which meant they needed to offer some skill or trade that the house could use. Because they wouldn't count towards his total, he also agreed there wouldn't be a minimum or maximum number of girls he would take from the staff's pitch, but stressed that each staff member, like each of the girls from the family, could only pitch one person, no more, so they should make them count. That meant another zero to three women in the house.
The third and final thing that Ash stressed, which Andy absolutely agreed with, was that it needed to be done quickly. Chaos loomed large on the near horizon, and the longer he waited, the more complicated it was going to get. Phil had called Andy to let him know that the announcement was now scheduled for Nov. 20th, and that from that day onward, nothing would be reliable for anyone anywhere. The system might well crack, so it would be best if he had all his ducks in a row beforehand, Phil stressed, and when Phil took the time to repeat himself, Andy made damn sure to listen twice as hard.
It took about a week to get someone from request to arrival, Phil had also explained to Andy, which meant that the absolute latest he could get his requests in by was Nov. 12th, but he also stressed the earlier the better, and so Andy had personally set the 10th as the deadline for his decision, which meant that Monday, November 9th, would be the day all the girls could make their pitches.
That gave all the girls just 48 hours to organize their thoughts and make a good pitch, first to Ash, then to Andy himself. Pitches were allowed to be no longer than ten minutes, and should cover not only the reasons that the girl wanted him to bring her in, but also why she thought that the girl would be compatible with both Andy and the rest of the family. Ash also wanted to make sure that the pitches also included any possible problems or complications that might come with the person's addition to the house. Ash stressed to each of the girls that they should do their homework before their pitches. Nobody wanted a repeat of the stress Erin had temporarily brought to the house.
Above all, Aisling stressed to the girls that nobody should be upset or angry with Andy's ultimate decisions. Nine girls, four slots. That was going to means a lot of disappointed people, so Ash wanted to set all their expectations properly. Decisions were going to be hard, but Andy had also made his mind up to not consider any decisions final until he'd heard all twelve pitches.
He'd give himself the night to sleep on the pitches before making any final decisions.
And Andy also insisted that those he did choose would be extended invitations, not just blindly brought in, so the girls were told to prepare a letter to their friends, extolling the virtues of being part of the Rook household, as they say fit.
Andy fully expected many of the people they eventually invited to say no, but that was the pessimist in him.
Saturday and Sunday, he'd mostly gotten to work on the next Druid Guslinger novel undisturbed, as the girls had mostly spent their time developing their pitches. Every so often, he would poke his head out and check on everyone, making sure that nobody was getting angry with one another, but to his delight, not only were the girls not fighting, they were actually working together in some cases, trying to help each other polish up their pitches. The process was bringing them together, not pushing them apart, and that let Andy relax just a little more.
Saturday night at dinner, none of the girls had talked about their pitches, thankfully, which let everyone spend some time getting to know each other a bit better. Andy had noticed that the girls had sort of gravitated into groups: Ash, Niko, Emily and Sarah; Lauren, Taylor, Piper and Sheridan; Asha and Hannah.
The two younger girls got along like a house on fire, and once Hannah had gotten past her initial starstruck impressions with Emily and Sarah, she and Asha had mostly stuck to each other, although they'd drifted in and out of all of the rest of the conversations.
Piper and Lauren both had high end athletic experience, so they'd immediately connected, and Sheridan, while of a different stripe of athleticism, had piggy backed on that. Taylor's punishment was still in effect, but Lauren was allowing the girl to talk with the others so that she was establishing friendships. Taylor mostly kept with Lauren, but also seemed to get along very well with the other two younger girls, as she was closer to their ages than the others. Andy suspected that once Taylor's punishment was over that she would divvy her time evenly between Lauren, Asha and Hannah.
Ash, Niko, Emily and Sarah had formed some sort of group hive mind, and did their best to keep Andy's attention off both the upcoming decisions and the loss of his brother. Sarah had finished the most recent Druid Gunslinger book before coming to bed Friday night, and when she'd finally gotten into bed, her first and only question had been "How long before the next one?" Andy's response of "when it's ready" had made her whine a little, but she'd also agreed to be patient and wait until he had a draft he was happy with.
Andy's one break from writing had been to call his contact over at Working Title, to discuss how they wanted to handle the first draft of the screenplay of "Neon Stonehenge," the first Druid Gunslinger novel. As much as Andy wanted to take a crack at it, he was forced to admit he wasn't a screenwriter, so the decision was made to let another writer do the lion's share of the work and Andy would simply provide notes.
With Sarah Washington attached as Layla Heartseye, the Elven barbarian queen, and Emily Stevens attached as Charlotte Sexton, the titular Gunslinger's sister, meant that they weren't just greenlighting the project, they were fast tracking it. Talks were already underway with Christian Kane to take on the lead role.
At dinner, the minute Sarah had started to try and prod him for details about the next one, Emily and Niko had steered her away from it, telling her it would be much better to let him finish the book before she knew a thing about it, which definitely relieved Andy. Eric had usually asked to read the manuscript in quarters, but Andy was still not yet at the 3/4ths mark to show his friend, something Eric had been alright with as he had been a little overwhelmed with all the women moving into his own house.
