“Hey, Wyatt, what’s going on?” Senan glanced up to notice that Wyatt was still loitering around the door that the others had left at least a few moments before. “Did you forget something, or did you want to have a word?”
Wyatt stood nervously twisting his hands in front of him. “I just thought I should check in before heading out. I’m a bit worried I didn’t do a very good job this evening.”
Senan frowned. “What makes you say that?” He dropped the dishcloth he’d been cleaning up with and stripped off his rubber gloves. His hands felt clammy from being encased in the rubber for so long, and Senan rinsed them under the tap and then reached for a dry cloth.
“It was a good night as far as I could tell,” he said.
“There were no plates broken, nobody got any food spilled on them. From what I understand there were absolutely no complaints, and definitely nothing about you specifically. What made you think that you’d done something wrong? You’ve been doing really well.”
Wyatt had joined the team about three months before.
He was young, no more than nineteen or twenty most likely.
He was tall, but had a slender build, which might have been because he had trouble sitting still, standing still, or being still for any reason.
He was really intelligent and studying computer science, at least that’s what Senan had been told.
While Senan could work his way around a computer if he had to, he wasn’t likely to know how to pull one apart or to be able to fix it if something went wrong.
Wyatt had laughed when Senan had mentioned his lack of expertise, claiming that when he got his degree he’d be the person who Senan would be getting in touch with to fix the computer errors he’d made.
Wyatt did seem to have a problem with interacting with others at times, as if he wasn’t sure how he was meant to act. He got along well with everyone at the catering company, but he did struggle occasionally with guests.
“Let’s have a seat for a moment,” Senan said, glad to take the weight off his feet.
He dearly wanted to go home, but as he had seniority over Wyatt, he knew if he could help him, the way Gabby had helped Senan when he first started his job, then Senan would do it. It was a way of paying things forward.
“There was this guy, one of the guests.” Wyatt sat down, but again the movements were jerky and quick, as though he wasn’t sure what to do with his limbs. “This is going to sound weird, but he kept looking at me.”
Senan’s first instinct was to brush it off. It wasn’t against the law for anybody to look at another person even if they didn’t welcome the glances. But he stopped himself.
Wyatt wasn’t a whiner. Yes, he got distracted easily.
Yes, he sometimes had to be prodded to be reminded to stay focused.
But he had a brilliant mind, and he wasn’t the type to make a complaint about nothing.
He worked hard. He told Senan that his goal was to complete his studies and not have any student debt. So it wasn’t as though he was a flake.
Then there was the fact that the event had been specifically paranormal - host and guests. Wyatt, like everyone else Senan worked with was human. But Senan knew more than anybody how disconcerting some paranormals could be, especially Alpha types.
“Is this your first paranormal-only event?” he asked quietly.
Despite paranormal’s having been out for well over a hundred years, it was very rare to have paranormal-only events.
The events Senan and his colleagues usually attended had a mix of all species that were more interest, business, or hobby specific, like the gardening group he’d worked at during lunch.
“Don’t you have a lot of experience with shifters and vampires and the like? ”
“About the same as anyone else, I suppose. I’m not a hater,” Wyatt added quickly in case Senan thought he might be.
“About half of my class are shifters of some type, and I get along fine with them. There was just something about this guy. He seemed so intense. I kept thinking that he was watching and waiting to jump on me for doing something wrong. That was the only reason I mentioned it. I’m not trying to cause any trouble for him or anyone else. ”
“Hey, that’s okay. I do know that. And the shifter watching you could’ve been doing that for any number of reasons,” Senan said. He had no idea why anybody would single out Wyatt. It wasn’t that the man wasn’t goodlooking, because he was in a geeky way.
But it would be unusual for a person as young as Wyatt to attract a paranormal’s interest unless they were mates.
Senan already knew that if Wyatt had been that intense man’s mate, he wouldn’t be loitering in the kitchen worrying about his job.
He’d already have been swept off to do goodness knows what.
“The thing you need to remember about paranormals,” Senan said, keeping his voice low, even though the guests had gone into their other room for their meeting, “is that they do get fixated on rather strange things. It might have been the way you wore your hair, or maybe the way you smiled or moved. It could be that this paranormal wasn’t looking at you specifically at all, but you just happened to be in his line of vision, and he was intent on one of the other guests. Is that possible, do you think?”
“I don’t know. I suppose it could be.” Wyatt shrugged.
“I just… they were all very intense, you know, and I mean any other time, at any other event, you know, if somebody had done that, I would have just turned around and asked them if they had wanted something. But I couldn’t do that here because of all those rules we had to follow. It felt strange and a bit weird.”
“I think you’ll find the rules were put in place by a very detailed Alpha who was determined that his guests have an enjoyable evening without any distractions.
If you think about it, how hard it might be for a wolf shifter, or a bear, for example to try and enjoy the delicious-smelling steak Maisie and her team prepared, but they couldn’t smell it because you’d decided to wear cologne for the evening.
“It’s not up to us as servers and dishwashers to question a host’s requirements for a specific event.
What I do know is that in the two years I’ve worked for Jeffrey, this is probably only the third specifically paranormal event he’s catered for.
You know yourself in most events we’re encouraged to be friendly, and introduce ourselves to our tables.
Maybe it was you not doing that this time that just made the whole event seem weird from the start. ”
“It could be that, too.” Wyatt nodded.
“Be sure to tell Gabby about it next time you see her.” Senan smiled, as Wyatt looked up, his eyebrows raised. “She was horrified she wasn’t even picked to attend. She got most indignant about servers being expected to blend into the wallpaper.”
“It felt like that, yeah,” and clearly because Senan was normalizing what Wyatt had experienced, Wyatt was feeling better about it.
“I was just… I was so self-conscious and worried I would do something wrong and the more I worried about it, the more likely I was going to trip over my shoe or embarrass myself.”
“You stayed on your feet. You didn’t drop anything. You did really well, and I know Jeffrey’s pleased with you or he wouldn’t have put you on this event. Remember you got in when Gabby didn’t. Ask her about that next time you see her as well if you enjoy having your ears scorched.”
Wyatt laughed. The man really was an open book, and that was nice to see, even if it made Senan feel jaded.
“Look,” Senan added. “It’s Friday night.
You’ve done your job. I don’t know whether you’re going to be like Aisha and at home studying tonight, or if you’re going to go and have a drink with your friends. ”
“Drinking tonight, studying over the weekend,” Wyatt said.
“Brennan and Alex are waiting for me in the parking lot. I told them I needed to talk to you because, you know, I really do need this job. My family couldn’t afford to send me to college.
I’m doing this on my own, so working is really important to me. ”
Senan didn’t have a clue what that was like. It wasn’t as though he’d ever gone to college. But he nodded as if he understood. A strong work ethic was always something he appreciated.
“Honestly, don’t worry about it. Go and have a drink with the others.
Put that man, whoever he was, out of your mind.
The one thing you can count on with anyone rich enough to hire Jeffrey’s company is that they are always the quickest to make a complaint if they have any.
Tonight went off without a hitch, so go and enjoy your weekend.
Paranormals are like anyone else in a way, and they all have their quirks.
I’m sure you have nothing to worry about. ”
“Phew, thanks Senan. I appreciate it. You look absolutely dead on your feet as well. Are you going out tonight or are you heading home?”
“I’m heading home, definitely home,” Senan said. “I’ve had enough of peopling and dishes to last me a lifetime. I’m going to order takeout that comes in boxes, so I don’t have to wash my own dishes, and I’m just going to sprawl on my couch and watch ridiculous movies on television.”
“Sounds like fun.” Wyatt jumped up from his seat and headed for the door. “Enjoy yourself, Senan, and thanks.”
He disappeared, and Senan let out a long sigh as he stood up a lot slower. I feel like an old man, he thought feeling the ache in his bones. He knew what it was. He was overdoing his magic usage, but Senan still had a job to do which meant he had to hang on just a short while longer.