Work First, Fun After

(James) 

Claire looked at James who nodded to her to go on. He knew she was a little nervous about taking on the responsibilities of putting on the benefit music festival. What she was ignoring was the fact he'd never put on any kind of music event. To him, she was the expert.

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"Okay… so thanks to everyone for coming. I know you all know James and a lot of you have worked with him. Gioni just recently introduced me to him, and then all this music festival business started. I'm a music agent and manage some bands. I've put on some concerts, but nothing like a festival, so this is going to be a steep learning curve for all of us."

James watched as the people he'd gathered nodded their agreement. Besides himself and Claire, the festival team—that's what they were calling themselves—consisted of Gioni Naalk, who had house-sat for his sister and who had introduced him to Claire; a man from Miami's mayor's office named Sid Roja who would be handling all the permits, licenses, and overseeing all the vendors who would need permits and licenses; another man, a former business associate of James's name Seth Winefaster, who would be handling things like chairs, fencing, and other crowd management things, and Chandis Merryville, a director at Humanitarian Housing.

In addition to James, Gioni, Claire, Sid and Seth, Claire had talked James into bringing on another woman, Tia Thomas, a contract corporate project manager.

Claire continued, at that time introducing Tia. "So, this is Tia Thomas. She's going to help organize all our separate tasks…"

At that, Claire stepped back and leaned on a conference table as Taia moved front and center.

"Okay, everyone," Tia said, "I'll quickly say I am honored to be part of this project. I've known plenty of people who could use a little help, but didn't get it. I'll spare you the 'I had it hard back in the day' story, and move on.

"We don't have a lot of time, and since, as Claire said, the learning curve is pretty steep, let's just get rolling. Gioni, I think everyone has dumped a ton of words on your lap for you to sort out and make sense of. I can say this… we need to have a clear mission statement that connects with Humanitarian Housing's, so I'd like for you and Chandis to tackle that as soon as possible.

"Besides that I think we have more questions than we have answers. I'd like to spend some time today creating a need-to-know list. Does that sound like a good idea?"

James immediately liked her approach. In a part of his mind, he knew that was what should happen, but just hadn't pushed it into an action item. It was obvious getting things going was old-hat for Tia.

Over the next hour and a half, the festival team cranked out a list of things they needed to know that Tia converted into things to do and delegated them to the appropriate people. When she finally said that was enough to keep everyone busy for a few days, James felt sure they were on the right track.

As the meeting broke up, James gravitated to Gioni, Claire, and Tia. "Good meeting."

"To be sure," Claire added. "Tia, that was great."

"It's a start," Tia replied. "I really do think this is a great project. I'm happy to be part of the group."

"Pay's not much," James added. "A roof over your head and a per diem.”

“Roof?” Claire laughed out loud. “You rented a resort beach condo for us!”

James shook his head. “I borrowed! It belongs to Martis… a vacation thing… rental management thing… he makes money on it! He said it was his contribution to the festival.”

“It’s really nice,” Gioni replied.

James thought so, too. He had taken one of the rooms for himself, for the days he was in Miami between his other responsibilities, and the three ladies were using the two other rooms; Claire and Gioni were using the larger master bedroom, and Tia was in the other one.

“So,” James said, “who’s up for dinner?”

Claire shook her head. “I’m going to meet with a man about stage lighting at 5:00. I don’t know when it will be done.”

Tia looked at Gioni and James, then said, “I haven’t had time to get to the store, and it would be nice to not have to mooch off of Gioni… So, if you’ll let me pay my half, I’m in.”

James wasn’t fond of letting others pay for dinners, but he said it would be fine.

Gioni sighed. “I really need to get some time with all these documents. We have to file a bunch of papers almost immediately if we are going to be legitimate. And insurance and bond companies expect us to be legitimate. I need to make some calls, as well, so I’ll take a raincheck.”

James understood. He’d started the ball rolling on getting them set up as an official business. Gioni was going behind him and cleaning up all the applications.

“Well, Ms. Thomas, it looks like it will be just us.”

To say that dinner was pleasant was an understatement. It wasn’t a date, per se, so any sort of tension with that regard was just not there. Yet it was personal and very relaxing. By the time the check came, James thought he’d see if she wanted to stay out a little longer.

“Hey, how would you feel about dancing? There’s a dinner room I know of, and they have pretty nice after-dinner dances.”

Tia said that sounded fun.

She was right. And she was a great dancer, too.

They returned to the condo well before 10 p.m., but it had seemed like they had spent a lot of time together. As James thought about it, counting the meeting that afternoon, they had.

“Well,” Tia said when they entered the condo, “that was a lot of fun. Thanks… Nice way to break the ice. We’ve got a lot of work to do, so… Well, I feel a lot more relaxed now.”

James thought that was a good way to put it. “Me, too. I’m looking forward to working with you.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Tia said.

She smiled and nodded, then turned for her bedroom. “Thanks again. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” James replied.

{{ Fin }}}

• Throughout the "Running With The King!" storyline the part of James King is depicted by the Instagramer king_james_ai. James King's creator has contributed plot ideas to this storyline.

• Whereas this storyline is fictional and includes NSFW content, any agencies or teams mentioned in this story are also fictional, though they might remind readers of real organizations.

• Please remember that Gioni Naalk is an AI model, a character in Ailana Geven Imagines stories.

• Please remember that Tia Thomas is an AI model, a character in Ailana Geven Imagines stories.

• Please remember that Claire Turner is an AI model, a character in Ailana Geven Imagines stories.