Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 122206 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 611(@200wpm)___ 489(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122206 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 611(@200wpm)___ 489(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
I chuckled. “They do love their hourly cuppas.”
“I’ll say,” Mr Collins huffed. “I buy more teabags than what’s right for a group of grown men.”
I laughed as I got to my feet and printed out something I had been working on.
“I wanted to show ye a mock-up of a possible new sales invoice.” I grabbed the sheet from the printer and handed it to Mr Collins. “The previous layout was a little chaotic. I made this template where everythin’ has a category and a breakdown of the description of goods, the services we provided, who carried out the labour, the pricin’, and so forth. I colour-coded any part of the vehicle that was inspected. Green is good, orange means there is wear, and red means it needs immediate replacin’. I think it’ll be good for customers to get a heads-up of any parts that might need replacin’ in the future. It’s straightforward for anyone to understand. What d’ye think?”
Mr Collins scanned the document.
“I think that ye should’ve been workin’ here years ago. It’s brilliant. The improvements are just what we need. Well done, love.”
I beamed from the praise. “I’ll go ahead and change the invoice template to this format, so they’ll all be like this from now on.”
“Sounds good to me,” Mr Collins said. “I have a meetin’ to get to, honey. I’ll be back in an hour or two if anyone phones for me.”
I didn’t know what meeting he was talking about because nothing was on his calendar, but I didn’t question him.
“No problem, sir.”
After my boss left, I grabbed the cordless phone and headed from the reception to the office. I placed the phone on the nearest surface. I continued with the work I had started that morning, and when I had everything arranged, I bent over to place the documents in the folder for the month’s expenses. I heard what I thought was a sharp intake of breath, so I shut the filing cabinet door, straightened up, and then turned around.
I smiled almost instantly. I moved my hands and signed as I spoke, “Hiya.”
He signed hello back, then leaned against the door panel.
“Can ye see any differences?” I gestured around with my hands before placing them on my waist. “Any at all?”
Dante looked around the room and blinked. “Holy shit, ye sorted through the entire room!”
“I know,” I beamed. “I went through every single piece of paper that was in boxes in this room over the past month. D’ye know your daddy had copies of customer invoices for cars that were serviced over ten years ago?”
“Yeah.” Dante cringed. “Da doesn’t really like partin’ with this stuff in case he needs it.”
“Until he met me.” I winked. “I scanned every piece of paper, arranged them into categories, then stored them online after I convinced your daddy that having an online cloud for storage was a vital business expense. He wasn’t happy about it, but I was firm about discardin’ invoices for work we provided on a vehicle once it passed the five-year mark. I set it up so the cloud will automatically delete any invoice older than that. Can ye believe we’ve recycled over three thousand sheets of paper?”
Dante whistled. “Ye weren’t jokin’ about gettin’ this place in shape.”
“Of course, I wasn’t. I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. I love this job.”
“I’m happy ye do, love, because the whole receptionist thing was horrible for me brothers and me,” Dante admitted with a shiver. “I hated whenever I had to man the desk, deal with customers, and take phone calls. None of that is me. Engines. They are me safe space. Anythin’ that makes those babies purr is me.”
Listening to him talk so passionately about his job was incredibly erotic when it shouldn’t have been.
“I like being organised. It’s a bit of a pet peeve when I’m not.”
Dante glanced around once more. “I can tell.”
My lips twitched. “I have everythin’ in order, and we have a new system now that’s easy to follow, so it’s onwards and upwards from here.”
Dante’s eyes locked on me when I spoke the last part of my sentence, and it caused me to feel almost naked under his penetrating gaze. “I don’t doubt you.”
I lifted my hand and fanned my face when a flush of heat attacked.
“It’s warm in here. Don’t ye think?”
“The air con is on.”
He was right. The air conditioning was on. I could feel the pleasant breeze flow around me, but it did nothing to extinguish the fire that raged within me. It’d been one month since the brothers and my job entered my life, which meant four weeks of falling more and more in like and lust with Dante Collins. I loved spending time with him. He was my friend, my closest friend. I had recently begun to teach him how to sign, which was special to me, and I even gave him lessons on cooking a time or two. We had gone to the cinema once and even went day hiking in a nearby forest. We saw each other every single day, and I looked forward to it.