that his delivery was too dry or what, but I was too busy processing the information he was spewing out to realize that’s what it was. After he reached the end, they couldn’t discuss potential solutions with me, so the whole damn thing was pointless. Next time Brady’s admin Jenna calls for a meeting? Grill her on specifics of said meeting so I don’t waste my time.”
“Absolutely, sir.”
“Thank you.” I looked at the stack of messages next to his daily planner. “What’d I miss?”
“Six calls returned from Friday afternoon. Five were departmental. Chris from IT stopped in to remind you it’s Rube Goldberg appreciation week so you might see oddities throughout the IT floor. A woman named Janiece called twice. Once to say she had a memorable time with you this weekend, the second time to leave her number and request you call her.”
I frowned. “I don’t remember a woman named Denice.”
Sam shook his head. “J, not D. Ja-niece. Tall. Long red hair. Sparkly aqua-colored top. You mentioned her reminding you of the Little Mermaid. And before you give me that haughty eyebrow raise, the excess of information came from Miss Janiece herself . . . so you didn’t get her confused with someone else.”
“Hilarious. But the only place I went this weekend besides Jaxson and Lucy’s was my buddy Baylor’s birthday bash, for like an hour. This Janiece chick . . .” I racked my brain. “Might’ve been the one I talked to briefly as I stuffed my face with chicken wings. Or maybe the one I chatted with as we waited for our drinks.” I sighed. “I don’t remember.” I shot him a look. “Not because I had women lined up like I used to.”
Sam smirked. “Ah, now we’re talking about the good old days.”
I rolled my eyes.
“I’m just relaying the message, boss.”
“Much appreciated. Let’s hope she gets the message when I don’t call her back.” My gaze dropped to his skinny tie, an understated purple with modernist cubes in shades of black and gray. “Great tie.”
His fingers moved to fuss with the knot. “Thanks. It’s vintage. Givenchy.”
“Stop dressing better than me, Sam.”
That earned me a full-on grin. “That’s the ultimate compliment coming from a guy with a personal stylist.”
“A stylist who is currently annoyed with me.”
“Why is he annoyed?”
“Because I haven’t expressed an interest in anything from the spring lines.”
“Poor Nolan . . . facing the wrath of Jacques Andres.” His lips twitched. “He’ll probably put you in lime-green gingham to teach you a lesson.”
“Don’t even joke about that.” I shuddered. “So is there anything else?”
Sam fiddled with his tie again. “Yes. It’s about your Lund Cares Community Outreach project. Have you come up with an idea yet?”
I fought a groan for many reasons, the biggest one being that my mother—one of the three Lund matriarchs—had asked me this exact same question yesterday at brunch. “Who called to get you to nag me about this?”
“Your aunt Priscilla. First thing this morning. Fair warning, boss. She said if you don’t have a solid plan delivered to the LCCO office by tomorrow, she’s setting up a bachelor auction for next month.”
Fair warning, my ass. That was straight-up a threat. I had half a mind to tell her to go ahead and do it. See if she’d really force the last two single Lund men—including her son Ash—into strutting our stuff for charity.
Sam held up his hand to silence my retort. “All joking aside, sir, a bachelor auction might’ve been all the rage in the 1990s, but now it’d be seen as LCCO being woefully out of touch.”
“As I’m aware, Sam.”
“Which is why I have a new idea. If you’re interested in hearing it.”
“Of course I am.” I gestured to his fingers, still messing with his tie. “Stop fussing. I’m not that goddamn scary to bounce ideas off of.”
He smiled. “True. But my idea for your project is a bit unconventional and maybe controversial.”
“Hit me with it.”
“An event for LGBTQ youth. It wouldn’t necessarily have to be a fund-raiser, but more along the lines of a mixer for LGBTQ kids from various schools in the Twin Cities.”
That immediately piqued my interest. “What age group are you thinking?”
“It’d be geared toward high school students.”
“Where would we hold the event? Would there be a group activity?”
“Jax’s bowling alley was the first place that popped into my head. The activity would be team bowling, with the teams of four drawn randomly to truly make it a mixer. We could kick around the idea