Page 4 of Fierce-Jax

“Give me five,” he said, smiling at one of the accountants.

He put his bag down, pulled out his lunch, and stuck it in the mini fridge in his office. He’d bought it for himself since every time he got up to go into the break room for anything, he was stopped for thirty minutes or more by someone wanting to chat or ask his opinion or advice.

His open-door policy sometimes bit him in the ass, like now when he looked up to see Kent standing there. One of his program directors. Since Kent’s program wasn’t run out of this office but he rather oversaw residential homes and worked there, it meant he was here for a reason.

“Sorry to bother you,” Kent said. “Got a minute?”

It wasnevera minute with anyone.

“Sure,” he said. “But Nora will be here in five, so you’ve got about three.”

He was grinning when he said that. Otherwise people would stay in here for hours chatting.

Being the good guy didn’t always get people out of your office when you had shit to do.

“I’ve got a personnel issue,” Kent said. “I’m on top of it, but it might get sticky. I wanted to keep you in the loop, but three minutes isn’t going to be enough. I stopped in to pick up paperwork and hoped you’d be here.”

“Come in,” he said. “Nora will have to wait. I’ll let her know.”

He got up and walked to Nora’s desk, saw her stand up with a pad in front of her, which meant she was coming to talk about multiple things and he didn’t know why she did. She had two bosses ahead of her to go to.

“I was just on my way,” Nora said. She was young. Or younger than him. Probably in her mid-twenties but oftentimes acted like she was fresh out of college with a flirty giggle.

She didn’t have the proper office etiquette in his mind and he was still trying to teach that.

One more thing added to his list when he had a hundred employees alone in this location and hundreds more scattered elsewhere.

“We’ll have to reschedule,” he said. “I need to meet with Kent about something else. If this is a work question, you should be going to Michele or Livi.”

Her smile dropped, which told him it most likely was. “They aren’t here,” Nora said. “Michele is on vacation and Livi will be in tomorrow.”

“I’m sure it can wait,” he said.

“Oh,” Nora said. “I guess it can wait. One of the programs has some requests and I wasn’t sure where to charge them.”

She was batting her eyes at him.

Shit.

This was more about her flirting than it was about needing help he couldn’t give. Just as he expected it was.

“They will have to wait like everyone else,” he said. “Sorry.”

“No problem,” Nora said, forcing another smile on her face. “Hope you had a nice long weekend.”

“I did,” he said. “Hope you did too.” He turned quickly to get back to his office before she took that as a sign to keep gabbing.

Jax never wanted to be rude, but there were way too many times he had to politely tell people that he had to end a conversation because he had things to do.

“Sorry to drop in like this,” Kent said. “Seems like you’ve got a lot going on. Carolyn Fierce just popped her head in looking for you.”

There was no stopping the roll of his eyes.

“She’ll be back if it’s important,” he said.

He’d stop and talk to Grant or Garrett. They owned the building with the Olsens, McCartheys, and Kennedys. But the Fierce women were only married to the owners and their role in this building was to be nosy.

He had enough nosiness in his life with his family and employees that he didn’t need it from outside sources.

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