32 The bar Sidoh

Ryan brightened up at the sight of her appearance. He had seemingly been eyeing the entrance and he was the first one to shoot up his hand and wave her in. The waitress that she passed cast her a curious look, eyes flickering over to the empty area before losing interest. Naomi raised an eyebrow at Ryan when she came to his side.

"Is this a reserved area, or something?"

"Yeah. How did you know?" He sat down, forcing a few people to shuffle over before Naomi could sit down opposite him.

She shrugged. "Lucky guess. It's just, that waitress looked prepared to stop me."

He laughed. From the state of the drinks on the table, he hadn't bothered to wait all that long before starting without her. She could catch up though. "Company owes reservation for this table. I guess they're eager to have our favor."

A woman on her other side piped up, "It's a lowday today. Not that many here. But good to see you anyway." She reached out a hand, clasping it warmly with Naomi's. "Helen. Nice to finally meet you."

"You too." Naomi tilted her head and observed the people present. "What happens if you're more than eight people?"

"Then we're more than eight people. They must crash somewhere else. Depends on the day, I suppose, but they can just claim another table like any normal person." A man on the opposite side spoke, shrugging. He smiled at her and reached a hand out. "Andrew."

This sparked a round of introductions, and Naomi dutifully greeted every and each of them warmly. These were her colleagues. It would be weird if she didn't. She regretted that she hadn't had the time yet to integrate herself into the company, but her mission had gone off with a flying start that she could hardly have prepared herself for. After the polite small talk where she mentioned her feelings for the company and having started working, all good, of course, the group descended into smaller conversations.

She could see why this bar was popular among them. The ambience and noise levels weren't too loud, but it wasn't too low to stop someone heading out to the small part designated as the dance floor.

Naomi raised the drink she had gotten, an inexpensive whisky, and turned to Helen sitting beside her. "How long have you worked here, then?"

The woman's eyes lingered slightly on a painting hanging on the opposite wall before she offered a smile. "Not all that long actually." As she paused, perhaps to think over her words, Naomi glanced at the painting. It was firmly in the modern era with a mishmash of colors. If she squinted, the center looked a bit like a gummily smiling child. On the other hand, it might just be a vase. "You know," Helen laughed, "it's been three years already. I didn't quite realize."

"Time really does move fast."

Naomi shared an agreeing hum with her. Helen was shaking her head in disbelief. "Don't I know it. Feels like yesterday I first walked into the office. A bit like you, I suppose."

"I agree." Naomi smiled over her drink. "It does feel like I first started working this week."

It took a moment before Helen understood. She chuckled, one delicate hand covering her mouth and the other settling down the drink she had picked up. "Oh come off it." She rolled her eyes. "Those jokes are simply the worst."

"Fact, actually, but I know the feeling." Naomi heaved a sigh though the smile stayed around her lips. "I've had a few clients with just this awful track on puns. And then they just give you this look, like I'm expected to praise them..."

Helen immediately picked up the trailing note, nodding firmly in agreement. "Don't get me started! You know, I worked in the sales department before over at Sdorrah Harrods while studying, and it was awful. After a long shift with my ankles killing me, they're expecting some sort of fanfare that they have some brains inside them." She took another sip, a deeper one this time. "Hurray for them." Her sarcasm was positively choking the air.

Naomi had to stifle a snort at that.

"For us," Helen raised her glass and mock declared, "who have to listen to the pun-stoppable puns."

This time, she didn't bother hiding her laugh while simultaneously groaning. That was just hideous. Naomi raised her own glass and clinked it against her coworker's. "Cheers, for that pun-derstatement of facts."

Helen descended into drunken giggles, and Naomi barely managed to catch the woman's drink before she leaned forward and buried her head in her arms. "No," Helen groaned out, "please don't. Awful, awful."

Naomi put down the drinks and patted her back while she got it out of her system. Those sitting nearby gave them curious looks, but she simply waved them away with a smile. Helen's continued breathless laughter interspersed with mutters about the language made them soon echo her smile. In the meanwhile, as she was patting the woman's back, she took another sip of her drink.

Ryan seemed to have taken two more glasses while she had been in conversation. His head was leaning forward, dipping and swaying. Somehow, she got the impression that he wasn't that drunk, though she could be mistaken about that. Considering the bemused face his current partner had, his words weren't really making all that much sense. He was going to have a rough morning either way with that amount of alcohol. The others sitting around the table drank sparingly in comparison. Except for Naomi who was still on her first glass, the others were roughly on their second or third.

If she remembered correctly, those sitting around the table were all in some sort of management position. A blonde man named Kent was an assistant to the recruiters office. Her forged papers had probably moved through his office at some point. There wasn't really a reason to get close to him except for the upkeep of the friendly Naomi, so she wouldn't bother overly much. The others were either too observant for her tastes or running in completely different circles at Techlaza, including Ryan's assistant that sat at his side. If they met again after this time, she would reconsider her stance.

"Hey, everything going alright?" Ryan leaned forward, suspiciously eyeing the trembling form of Helen.

"Puns," the woman groaned in answer.

His stare didn't so much as twitch. Instead, it shifted to Naomi in question and she shrugged. "Puns," she agreed. "We were just discussing work."

"Work and puns?" He snorted. "Somehow, those two things just fits together like peas in a pod."

"Doesn't it?"

They shared a smile that was utter rubbish at concealing the hilarity behind it. Her eyes shifted discretely towards the glasses in front of him, reassessing her thought that his drunk tone might be fake. For someone that's supposedly well into alcoholism, he was surprisingly steady in his mannerisms. A bit too steady, perhaps. She narrowed her eyes.