Vital Maintenance

Romance short. A hotel receptionist is wooed by their new head of maintenance.

2.5k, just some flirtation and banter in a hotel setting! Light humour and romance. Adapted from a TweetFic.

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Henri’s worked at the same little boutique hotel for twenty-eight years now, and it’s made him pretty much immune to work-related stress.

He was here back when it was the King’s Inn; his contract stayed on when it became Blue Skies; Henri continues on now it’s the Rose Hotel, the same as ever. Apart from the owners changing over twice, management has changed about a hundred times, the chefs, the accom staff, the bar, not to mention fellow receptionists — not to mention changes to the hotel itself, refurbs, extensions, all that jazz.

The only things that have stayed the same it seems like is Henri and their shitty PMS program.

He’s a cool man, naturally reserved by his nature, and it serves him well at his work — the Rose is on the smaller side, but because they’re a boutique place, they get a lot of special requests, and that means there’s more to occasionally go wrong for guests, or bookers, or event managers to get upset about.

A few times at first the current management team had tried to mess him about, and Henri had effectively just refused. No, they hadn’t liked it — they don’t much like it now, that he won’t swap his shifts over all of a sudden or take over management duties or much in with other departments — but he can rebuild their backend computer system from scratch when the bastard thing goes down, knows their filing system backwards and actually keeps on top of the GDPR compliance, knows every one of their regulars from top to bottom and can attend to their needs by reflex alone before they even ask.

The GM can threaten all he likes, or whinge about how they’ll give him “poor reviews” on the employee training client he’s never logged into, but he’s on a full-time contract and he fills out his slime, and there’s no one who can match him for speed or efficiency behind the desk.

He’s the last long-term holdout left, in fact, because their head of maintenance just left.

They’d both started at the same time, each of them twenty-one and just out of respective shitty jobs, and they’d simply stuck with the place all the way through — Henri has been through two relationships and breakups, Louis had been through his divorce…

And it’s sad.

Henri likes his work, he likes dealing with guests, he likes winding up the controlling managers and helping the reasonable ones wind down, but he’s not really particular friends with anybody at work anymore, and doesn’t care to be.

Until —

Well.

The new maintenance guy started and he’s this slick, charismatic gentleman with white-blond dyed hair with a perfect fade and a stud through his ear. Henri thinks at first he won’t last a day with the way things are in this place, everything Macgyvered one way or the other, but he seems to take the slapdash nature of previous maintenance in his stride, laughs whenever anything goes wrong, says he’ll fix it, just give him time.

Ravi’s good, too — he can.

He’s quick, efficient, guests actually like him, and Henri doesn’t think he’s ever seen him frown yet, and he’s been here two months now.

Everyone on the staff either thinks he’s stupid, beautiful, or both — Henri hears some of the accom staff gushing over him when he’s been working in the corridor, clapping and laughing about the muscles that ripple in his arms.

Eva, the DM, says he’s single.

Ravi’s masterkey card snaps, and he asks Henri to program him a new one: he leans over the desk to watch him run it through the machine, raises his eyebrows at the way Henri’s fingers fly over the keyboard.

“Straight from the expert,” he says, grinning.

Henri doesn’t say a thing.

As he hands over the key, Ravi takes it with a wink, clicks his tongue. “Thanks, gorgeous,” he says as he turns on one boot-clad heel and walks away. His arse fills out his work trousers with a rounded curve.

“Are you blushing?” asks one of the assistant receptionists, some student that will disappear into the ether at the end of the summer, assuming she doesn’t flounce out in tears before then.

“Are those guest registration cards finished?” Henri asks archly, and she clears her throat and gets back to work.

* * *

Ravi is thirty-one years old, but he looks younger. Before he worked at the Rose, he’d been on the maintenance crew at an apartment building on the other side of the city. He plays guitar at open mic nights — he’s a bodybuilder, naturally.

He posts thirst traps.

That’s not Henri’s name for the photos on his social media — Nadia in FnB calls them that while idly scrolling through a catalogue of photos, each showing Ravi from a different, delectable angle — his smiling face, his strong arms, his glistening pecs. Carved abs. Waist, arse, thighs.

“Are you on Tinder?” asks Ravi.

“I’m on the desk,” answers Henri. “I’m at work, in fact.”

Ravi is leaning his elbows on the edge of the reception desk again, his sculpted chin resting on the backs of his knuckles so that he’s looking up at Henri. The impression is very nearly coquettish, and Henri does not care to encourage it.

“Grindr, huh?” asks Ravi.

“Haven’t you got work to be getting on with?” asks Henri. He doesn’t look up from the computer as he keeps replying to guest reviews with carefully adjusted template responses and entirely insincere smiley faces.

“I’m thinking.”

“Thinking hard, I see.”

“Very hard,” purrs Ravi.

Henri gives him a severe sideways look, not turning his head away from the computer monitor, and Ravi laughs, leaning back on his heels with his hands splayed on the front desk’s polished surface.

“You’d be a great librarian,” says Ravi. “Or a teacher. Very stern.”

“If you’d ever been in a real library, you might know that librarians don’t typically match up to pornographic ideals.”

“Mmm, Saint Henri admitting he’s seen porn and calling himself a porn ideal at the same time?”

Henri’s lips twitch, although he’s not ready to let Ravi see his smile just yet. “What, pray tell, have I done to earn my sainthood?”

“You kidding? Seems like a miracle every time I come out of that elevator and see your smiling face.”

“I wasn’t aware you’d ever seen my smiling face.”

“Guess it’s a miracle in progress.”

When Henri glances at him this time, Ravi does one of his signature winks.

Henri arches an eyebrow in retort.

“God, you’re ice cold.”

“Aren’t I just?”

“You spend a long time learning to make your eyebrows do that one at a time?”

“Hundreds of hours spent practising in front of the mirror as a child.”

“Really?”

“No. It’s just a quirk of my family’s — we all do it.”

“Growing up in France?”

“Fra — Pah. Hardly. Hong Kong, which I’m sure you knew already.”

Ravi laughs again — it’s a wonderful laugh, expressive but not terribly loud. “You single?”

“I’m working.”

“Hey, I’m working too!”

“And what maintenance are you performing?”

“Vital maintenance. Team morale.”

Henri’s lips twitch again.

“Ey, that’s a smile!”

“You sure of that?”

“I’m single,” says Ravi.

“Is that so?”

“Uh huh. I’m on Tinder, Grindr. Scruff. OKC. I’m everywhere.”

“All those ponds, and the fish aren’t biting?”

“Oh, PlentyOfFish. Forgot that one. You don’t online date?”

“No.”

“You… offline date?”

“Not at work.”

“Friday night at seven?”

The phone rings with the internal tune and Henri answers. “Reception, Henri speaking, how many I help? It’s flickering, or it’s completely turned off? Not at all, I’ll have maintenance come up to you tout de suite.”

“That my Batsignal?”

“Room 32, Mr and Mrs Duncan.”

“And Friday night?”

Henri doesn’t let himself laugh. “Off you go, Ravi.”

* * *

Ravi makes a habit of flirting whenever he passes by the front desk, especially when Henri is alone when other desk staff are seeing to guests or are on a break.

He flirts. He winks. He clicks his tongue, waggles his thick eyebrows, waves or sashays his hips demonstratively as he walks by. It’s flattering, to say the least.

It’s charming, and much as Henri is loath to admit it, it does put a spring in his step some days — Ravi laughs with everybody, regularly smiles and chuckles or makes sweeping, expressive motions with his handsome hands, but he doesn’t wink at anyone like he winks at Henri.

Henri thinks it’s just that he’s the only gay guy on the desk at first, but as much as he’s seen Ravi joking and bantering with Scott, one of their longer-faring bar staff, he hasn’t seen Ravi throw himself at the man the way it feels he does at Henri.

It’s really rather nice, to think of himself as special. Attractive.

Henri is on lunch when Ravi sits down across him.

“You eat late in the day,” he says by way of greeting. “Start at seven, don’t stop for lunch until four… Then you’re here for what, another hour before you go home?”

“That’s right.”

“You eat a big breakfast or something to carry you through?”

“I eat breakfast in the office, when I do the morning reports,” says Henri.

“Good,” says Ravi, spearing chicken and salad on his fork. “You like working here?”

“I’ve been working here almost as long as you’ve been alive,” Henri reminds him, doing his best to balance the natural stern lilt of his tone with some gentleness.

“That’s not an answer,” Ravi says, undeterred. “You’re great at it, but do you like it?”

Henri picks up his glass, taking a sip of his water. “Do you like your work?”

“Yeah,” says Ravi. “I like that it’s different every day, varied, the people. I like fixing things. My dad is a mechanic, you know. He fixes everything.”

Henri inclines his head. He holds his tongue before he answers — he doesn’t much talk at work, not really. Most people, if not making small talk, see him reading his book while eating and leave him be. Ravi had ignored it without thought — and he doesn’t settle for small talk, either.

“I like the variety of the day,” Henri says mildly. “I like creating order out of chaos — filing it away, scheduling it. Hospitality is chaotic by nature.”

“You don’t like chaos?” asks Ravi, tilting his head.

“I quite adore it. Didn’t I just say?”

“Hah. I didn’t hear it that way.”

“No?”

Ravi rests his chin on his hand. “You don’t date guys at work, huh?”

“What guys?”

“Oh, you know. Handsome guys, strong guys, guys with good hair. Say, six feet tall, Black, all muscular… Hot as Hell.” He winks and clicks his tongue again, showing off his white teeth that really do complement the creamier white he’s dyed his hair.

“I’m racking my brains,” says Henri. “Even a man who meets a similar description but is no more than five eleven comes to mind.”

Ravi pouts. “Maintenance guys?”

“Still racking.”

“Rack harder!”

Henri almost smiles. “Aren’t I a bit old for you?”

“You?” asks Ravi, and bless him, he actually looks rather surprised, his eyebrows raising. “Old?”

“Nearly fifty.”

“Oh, yeah,” says Ravi sarcastically. “That’s so old.”

“It’s a good deal older than you are.”

“Maybe I like older guys,” Ravi says, shrugging his shoulders. “I like you, anyway. Confident, unshakable. You take charge just by looking at a situation.”

“You want a daddy, is that it?”

“Mmm, nah.” He isn’t defensive as he says it, and he doesn’t laugh this time either — he just thinks about it as he says it, looks thoughtfully around. “Never really wanted that. I like to take care of boyfriends, not the other way around — sure, I like to be taken care of too, but, you know. I like men who know who they are.”

Henri takes this in, digesting it. “I do know who I am,” he says decisively. “Do you like that because you know yourself, or because you don’t?”

“I do,” says Ravi.”

“And who are you?”

“Why don’t you let me show you? Saturday, lunch, just you and me.”

“You are tenacious.”

“Which you love.”

“Do I?”

“Oh, yes, you love it,” says Ravi. “Tenacity, you find it very sexy, very hot. Makes you want to take all your clothes off and come for lunch with me.”

“Your powers of suggestion need tempering.”

“I’m practising, gorgeous. Let a man try.”

“I’m not a very interesting romance prospect, you know. I like good food, good sex, good company. Nothing more exciting than that.”

“Sounds pretty exciting to me,” says Ravi. “You think I’m a bad cook or a bad lay?”

“Perhaps I think you’re bad company.”

“Nobody thinks that.”

Henri huffs out a laugh, shaking his head. “You’re far too confident for your own good, you know.”

Ravi’s cheerful grin becomes a mischievous smirk. “Yeah?” he asks. “You gonna teach me a lesson?”

“I spend all my working hours keeping people in line. What makes you think I want to teach lessons in my private life?”

“Well, I’m a very good student. I work hard, do my homework. Maybe I can teach you a few things.”

“Oh? And what can you teach me?”

“You ever been fucked against a wall?”

Henri presses his lips together, one eyebrow arched. “At my age, I — ”

“Nah, gorgeous, not facing it. Picked up, I mean, shoulders to the wal, legs around someone else’s waist. Nowhere to go but down on the guy driving into you.”

Henri, for a moment, forgets how to speak.

Ravi’s smile is close-lipped, but his eyes are sparkling. Henri’s cheeks feel suddenly rather hot.

“You’re a big guy,” says Ravi. “Me, I’m bigger. And you seem like the kind of guy that could do with some looking after — the kind that’s not used to being carried like treasure. Seems like you deserve it, though.”

“You make a great many estimates on my character based on my administrative expertise and a few raised eyebrows.” His heart is fluttering in his chest, and while his composure isn’t remotely at risk, he’s really not used to feeling so entirely seduced.

“Most of my estimates,” Ravi admits in an almost conspiratorial tone,” are based off that fat arse of yours.”

“And if my arse is off limits?”

Ravi looks him up and down, his eyelashes shifting as he does so. “I’m happy to take turns.”

“Are you now?”

“Uh huh.”

Henri sets down his fork, neatly wiping off his hands. “Sunday,” he says. “Breakfast at eight o’clock.”

“Breakfast,” agrees Ravi immediately, jumping to his feet as Henri stands. “Where do you want to go?”

“My place,” says Henri as he turns neatly on his heel. “I’ll see you Saturday night.”

Henri’s cheeks are burning even warmer but he knows that the blush doesn’t show — behind him as he walks into the corridor he can hear Ravi laughing, hear Ravi cheer, “Yes!” to himself.

Henri, once he’s turned the corner and is certain Ravi can’t see his face, lets himself smile.

FIN.