His Wolf

Chapter 16: F.U.B.A.R.

They had nowhere to go if they wanted to be alone. Arthit was sharing a room with Todd, and Kongpob was sharing a room with Nai.

"We have to..."

Arthit couldn't articulate what he felt. He only knew he had to get Kongpob naked so he could do all sorts of wonderful things to his body. When Kongpob stopped him, Arthit couldn't understand why. Not after he'd insisted on kissing him with such gusto moments before.

"We can't. You have to go to your room and I have to go to mine because I don't have much self-control right now. I don't care which decision we make. It just can't be by accident. Do you understand?"

"But I already told you my decision."

"And I need you to understand what that decision means. You've already had a taste..." his eyes clouded over with a memory that Arthit wasn't privy to, "...but it is so much more than that."

"Are you going to tell me?" Arthit asked, hoping he sounded reasonable instead of fighting mad.

"No. I'm going to show you. Just as soon as we get home."

Their return should have been two days away. Instead, the procurement and production departments were hustled into a meeting the following morning. Arthit had been enjoying breakfast with Kongpob when the message came through on his phone. Kongpob insisted on following, only to be stopped at the door. P'Yong joined them shortly after and Arthit saw Nai sit down with Kongpob.

"We just received word that the first batch of grills we sent out were sent back for being substandard," Khun Danai said as the point person during the team building event.

"What do you mean?" P'Yong asked, voicing everyone's surprise.

"The grills are neither heat resistant nor smokeless. I have a report that one of them caused a fire during the customer's QC check."

"But we checked them. Everything came back within the expected performance range."

"Did you pick the QC items at random?"

"Uhm...no. P'John told us they were going to supply the rest, so we tested the samples they provided. Everything was fine." P'Somrak said

Everyone could see the situation dawn on him as he spoke. P'John had struck again. He'd been played.

"It looks like the same company gave us products with two different qualities. The ones we tested were what we ordered. The full order that came later had lower quality," Khun Danai said.

"Did you know about this?" P'Earth asked Todd.

Todd shook his head. He looked like he was about to lose his breakfast but that wasn't anyone's concern. They had a bigger problem than whatever part he might have played. Even if it was just negligence...or blind faith in someone who didn't deserve it.

"What are we going to do?" Arthit asked.

"We have to fix this. Unfortunately, that means the festivities are over for you. We have to head back as soon as possible."

Coordinating the trip back was a lot easier than Arthit expected. Both P'Earth and Todd had driven down, so they had options that didn't include taking the bus. They later found out that Khun Danai and P'Yong also had their cars. Between them, they got everyone from both departments, as well as Kongpob and Nai, back to the office.

It wasn't that simple once they got there. They had orders to fulfil before Monday, or they would lose them. It was bad enough that they would have to absorb the cost of the faulty products but to lose their customer meant there would be no chance to recoup the cost if they didn't make the orders in time.