Chapter 2

(Ava's POV)

I could kill whatever was making that sound.

I fiddle around my bed and check my phone. It's not vibrating. The sound is coming from somewhere else.

It's almost at that point that I realize where I am. I open my eyes and stir the rest of my body in line with my waking movements. I bring my phone to my face to check the time.

5:00!?

Such an ungodly hour!

I snuggle under the sheets hoping to catch a five-minute snooze. So far, I haven't heard a stir from Lily. Unsurprising. She sleeps like the dead.

The door to our room springs open and I groan. Yup. Our doors couldn't be locked from the inside. Company policy.

"Hey! If you don't get out now, you won't be ready for the assignment early enough. The roughest tasks are assigned last, cause they're discovered last." The person that opened the door whisper-yells and bails out instantly. I don't care. Maybe today, I'll sacrifice the dirty work and get in some extra sleep.

I don't know how long I slept in, but I am sure it wasn't long, because waking up by whatever in God's name that sound was, I still felt my eyes seal shut on their own.

"If you're not out of that bed in the next five minutes, an hour's pay will be taken out of your salary." His voice was croaky from the morning, but it was unmistakable. Dylan.

That did it for me. The extra ten minutes of sleep wasn't worth sixteen whole dollars. I stood up and shuffled over to Lily's bed to begin the treacherous task of waking her up.

Five minutes later, we were both soggily preparing for the day. I make a pathetic note of brushing my teeth without my toothbrush. How I eventually arrive at a clean mouth, don't ask.

Even after a bath and full body preparations, I don't feel ready. Neither did the day. It is still dark! But everyone is buzzing around like it was mid-day it genuinely amuses me. The thought of the fact that I will get used to this sometime in the near future actually did make me feel some sense of responsibility and pride.

"Are you ready, Lil?" I ask her before we step out of the room.

She shakes her head vehemently. "Definitely not."

"Good. Me neither. That's a good start, let's go." I pull her by the arm and tug her out of the room and follow the path of the workers that look ready. I am surprised at the fact that even if we woke up later, there are still some people that aren't fully ready.

"Someone took my apron!" A guy yells into the air at no one in particular. No one seems like they are ready to answer anyway. It all feels so unreal like I am in a house of many siblings and we're all rushing for school.

Like school kids as well, we file up the stairs in a rather organized fashion. Where they are going, our only clue is to follow. They take a few common turns until we enter what seems to be a general room of some sort where Dylan is waiting for us. His dark hair is completely tussled and in need of a proper shave, but I don't think he cares much. It was like this yesterday as well.

When we're up to a certain number he addresses us.

"Good morning everyone." His voice is less croaky now. "We have some new intakes, mainly for the summer. Names are..." He gestures to me and Lily.

"Ava Pearson." I raise my hand in greeting and manage a smile.

"Lily...Lily Crowe." She imitates my gesture as much as her timidity could allow her.

"Ava and Lily, you are welcome. At Belfrost hotels, our goal entails one thing. 'Only the finest.'This definitely puts a lot of pressure on the staff to be as near to perfect as possible. The dishes, the service, the environment...in every one of our branches it's the exact same thing. We try to 'wow' our customers and guests as much as possible." I could have passed out at the lecturing, but I'm not gonna lie, such a speech given by such a guy with his level of professional eloquence hits a little differently. I guess I just didn't expect my supervisor to be this young and temptingly alluring.

"What does this mean for you?" He asks rhetorically, continuing with his boring speech. "It's pretty simple. Sheets must be as nearest to white as possible, toilets and bathtubs, follow suit, practically anything you're given to do, put in at least one hundred percent. It's that simple." He concludes. We nod in understanding.

"So, what task do I give you? Greane would wring my neck if I put you guys in cleaning immediately. Here's what? You follow Matilde over there, he points to a woman just behind me, and...she'll give you some laundry to do, I trust her to show you the works pretty easily and I trust you learned a lot, yesterday."

I wonder what his response would be if I say we didn't, but I don't push it. It's too early to make a mess of myself. Worse still if I get ignored or something like what happened at the stairway yesterday.

"When you're done with those, just come back here and wait for me. I'll assign you another task then. I should be able to come up with your routines in about three or four days, so I hope you're open to randomization." He instructs almost as fluidly, I would say as the RDM. Lily and I exchange looks.

"This is where you tell me whether you're cool with it or not." He utters with a side stare from his clipboard.

Again, after an internal civil war trying to decide whether or not a snarky reply would well suit the situation, good prevails overall over evil, and my devils still themselves. "Yes, definitely. We completely understand. I didn't think we had much of a choice either way, you know." I laugh a little. He doesn't find it funny and only grunts in response again reaffirming my conclusion of his character.

'It's either his having a bad week or a bad life.'

Either of these things I feel is supposed to have no direct gate to me, so I don't expect to be on the receiving end of his grump.

We follow Matilde to the laundry room which is a floor below the living one along with other utilities like stores for non-consumables and things that I pay no attention to.

The entire laundry process seems light, compared to what I'd expect a hotel this large to run. There are rows upon rows upon rows of industrial washers and I later see that they are divided into compartments in which different materials from different sections are washed.

There is a section dedicated to the individual clothes of guests for a long stay, then the one that washes general things like sheets and pillowcases that could be placed in any room.

Even then, especially in the guest washing section, there are different for different types of materials and Matilde makes us understand that washing different materials are more a brain task than a physical one. I do my best to sort the clothes of respective guests by material and color to avoid mixing them with those of other guests. With their sorting system, it's relatively easy.

What isn't easy is when Dylan comes down to observe us.

"That's...give me that." He snatches a fabric out of my hand, more out of hurry than actual lack of character but I'm still offended. "This is seventy-five percent cotton, it should go in here, by the way...Matilde! Guests having less than ten articles to wash should use the self-service laundry room. How many times have I said that?" He has to raise his voice to be heard from the distance over the roar of the spinning machines.

"I have no idea, Dylan. I met them here and just started sorting." Matilde raises her hands in defense.

"When you see an article selection like this, next time, keep it aside. Whoever brought it in would reply to a query. It's one job. Count items. If I haven't done it before, I'd think it's a difficult task." He huffed and stuffed the selected items in the washer anyway.

The rest of the laundry time is peppered with him making subtle corrections here and there which are harmless but enough to mildly piss me off. I feel my breath unhinge when he leaves. After our laundry shift, we reconvene in the reception and wait for another thirty minutes for a reassignment.

"A much-needed rest, don't you think? Shame it's over." Lily nods in a direction and sure enough, when I turn my head in that direction, I see Dylan approach us. He moves fast and even though he's checking something up on his phone, he doesn't trip or stumble.

He must know this place by heart.

"I bet you guys are well prepared for the next task." He says neutrally.

"Yes, we are, Sir." Lily smiles at him. He gives her an awkward look.

"Everyone just calls me Dylan. I'm not that old." The first time his lips ever spread for a smile made me appreciate his beauty even more. Shame he doesn't do it often.

Just then, a crowd of people seems to descend from both the elevators and stairs. He brings his hands to his ears to answer a call and nods as he takes instructions. He turns to us when the call is done.

"Change of plans, follow me." He turns around and flies in the direction the stampede that killed Muphasa seems to be charging from. After wangling through the crowd and saving Lily from being crushed in the sea of bodies, we finally arrive at the hall they had just left.

"We need to tidy this up. Another conference holds in the evening so, event decors need to be here in approximately three hours. I'll bring help."

Lily gasps. I'm in shock too.

"Mrs. Greane said light tasks." I had to say. This was too much! It was an entire hall that sat two hundred at least. And they ate and drank.

"I said I'd bring help." He asserts. "All we're doing is taking off the decorations and trashing items. Sanitary would sort the rest. Start with the chairs he commands and starts out he comes back with help, alright, but I'd rather he just leave us alone.

"You're too slow!"

"It's white! You're going to make it difficult to wash off. We recycle them."

"Lily. Stop talking!"

He definitely does piss me off before thirty minutes, which is a record considering I hadn't talked back yet.

"If he just shut up, I'm sure this thing would be a lot faster. Even without the aids." I huff and continue stripping the tables off the massive clothing. "And whose idea was it to make this white!? Definitely, his, if you ask me."

Lily is visibly shaking when I turn to look at her.

"What?" I asked her. She nods her head quickly to the left and pans back to face her work.

Snap! Too loud.

“I’m s…sorry.” I croak in embarrassment and brace myself for a scolding. Instead, Dylan just stared at me for a second or two before turning back to run a table of its plastic waste.

We work in awkward silence for another ten or so minutes before Dylan looks up. "Reina, Croft...go to the sixth floor. Housekeeping."

The two ladies leave wordlessly leaving me gawking at their retreating forms. "We need them." I grit through my teeth at Dylan.

"On the sixth floor." He replies simply. "Housekeeping." He ends his statement with a smile.

This was a punishment.

But I apologized!

"I'll be leaving now. Major work has been done, you know what to do. Remember, two o'clock." He tapped his watch and also began leaving.

"We’re never going to be able to keep up with time?" I whine.

"Oh, you will." He disappears through the doors.

"I love you so much, Ava." Lily huffs sarcastically when it's just us.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know he was going to flip so bad."

"He's the Boss. Of course, he'll flip." She angrily stomps around trying to get to another table. I look at her small figure waddling around the pile of table cloth we had laid on the floor despite Dylan's complaints.

"You need a longer pair of guts, Lily." I chuckle.

"Maybe you'll give me some of yours, maybe we'd get into less trouble." She pouts.

She looks extra cute when she's angry.