He shook her hand. “Thank you. I’m a fan of yours too. High energy, pleasant manners, quick to respond. Undrea certainly knew what she was doing when she hired you.”
Whitney’s expression had gone from earnest fangirl to slightly dazed. “Thank you. I handle the social media too.”
“I had a feeling there was more to you than phones.” He smiled. “Undrea is expecting me.”
“I’ll let her know you’re here.” She scooted around the desk and went through a metal door at the back of the small reception area.
He stayed where he was, hands in his pockets, gazing at the fish tank and all the activity within. He didn’t wait long.
Undrea came through the door a few moments later with Whitney behind her. “Hi, Ethan.”
“Hi.” He shook her offered hand. “Nice to see you again.”
“You too.”
Whitney went back behind her desk but continued to gaze at him adoringly.
Undrea pushed the door open and motioned for him to come through. “Come on, I’ll give you the grand tour and the not so grand tour.”
He laughed. “I can’t wait.”
They walked into the warehouse space, and he was immediately struck by how neat and organized it was. And clean. It even smelled nice. Like the sea.
Then he realized that was Undrea.
She chuckled softly. “You made quite an impression on Whitney. I’ve never seen her flustered. Not once. That girl is about as cool and collected as they come. At least until you showed up.”
“Sorry about that.”
Undrea glanced at him. “It’s not your fault my admin is a fan. A big fan.”
“Well, I like her too. I generally consider myself a pretty good judge of character, especially when it comes to employees. She strikes me as someone with the drive and ability to go places.”
Undrea nodded as they came to a stop. “I hope so because that’s what I think, too. I hired her right out of college because I needed someone to take care of the general admin stuff, but then as soon as she found out how much I hated social media, she offered to take that over for me, and she’s done a fantastic job.”
His brows lifted in amusement. “You hate social media?”
“Yes. The world would be a better place without it. Sorry, I know that’s kind of your thing, but—”
“No need to apologize. I understand. Besides, I sold Blnk. I take it you’re not one of its millions of users then?”
“Nope.”
“If you’re not on social media, you probably wouldn’t need it anyway.”
She smiled. “I’m not. Whitney does all of that.” She turned a little and gestured toward the space before them. “As you can see, this is our warehouse space. It’s divided into two main areas. The fish rooms where we keep our stock of the most popular fish used in our setups and also any special-order fish that we get in for clients.”
She pointed to another door marked Workshop. “Through there is my engineer’s office. Aaron Rigby. You met him at lunch.”
“I remember.”
“And out here is where we do the actual tank builds and the building of all the equipment that goes into those tanks to run them and process the water.”
She took a step backwards, toward the rooms on the side. “Let’s go see the fish rooms first.”
“Okay.”
She took him into the first one. The lighting was low, except for what was used to illuminate the tanks. “This is our freshwater room.”
He stopped almost immediately. “Why don’t the tanks on this first wall have any decorations in them?”
“Great question. Those are quarantine tanks. Our hospital tanks look the same way. A bare tank makes it easier to assess a fish’s health but also makes it easy to net them for moving to a different tank. An empty tank is also a snap to clean because it’s so much less work to strip down.”
“Oh, right. Makes sense.” He pointed to the tanks. “So all the fish in here are in quarantine?”
“Yep. Once we know they’re fine, they’ll go into gen pop.”
He laughed. “You make it sound like prison.”
She shook her head, clearly amused. “I promise you, it’s not. Our fish are very well taken care of, and all of our freshwater tanks are planted, giving the fish the most natural environment possible.”
“Like the tank in the front office?”
“Exactly like that. Live aquatic plants produce their own oxygen and use the fish waste as food. A planted tank basically becomes a closed ecosystem. It’s very possible to run one without a filter.”
“Interesting. I like that idea a lot. Maybe I should do a freshwater planted tank instead of saltwater.”
“Really?” Her brows lifted. “You certainly could. A nine-hundred-gallon planted tank could really be amazing.”
“Yeah?”
“Absolutely. You could do several large groups of schooling fish, a few bigger show fish, some amazing bottom dwellers. And the scape you could do would be phenomenal. Think anything from mangrove-style roots to a fully grassed floor. We’d want to go longer versus taller, but it would really be something.”
He couldn’t stop smiling. He loved how excited she got talking about something she loved, which was obviously fish. “That sounds pretty cool.”
“It is. And you can still do shrimp. The varieties of freshwater shrimp would probably surprise you. Actually, look at this.”
She led him to one of the bare tanks. “See that shrimp in there?”
He peered in, letting his gaze travel until he located the little guy. “Hey, it’s green.”
“Yep. A green jade. That’s her trade name. She’s pregnant, too. See the cluster of white eggs under her abdomen?”
He nodded. “That is really cool. Is she in quarantine?”
“Yes. But mostly because she was a stowaway. She came in from one of our suppliers hidden in some plants. It happens. But because she’s one of the rarer colors and pregnant, we’re going to take special care of her. We’re going to get her set up with some moss and floating plants to make her feel safe. Probably a little piece of wood too.”
“I like the idea of the shrimp. I’m liking the whole freshwater tank idea, really. I never even considered it. I guess I thought it was mostly goldfish.”
“Nope. There is so much more. I’d be happy to show you some examples. It would be a cheaper tank, too. Not that you probably care about that, but freshwater doesn’t carry the same price tag saltwater does. Not in the setup, the stocking, or the maintenance.”
“I’d definitely like to see some examples.” It was rare someone tried to sell him something that cost less. He liked her more and more.
“All right, I’ll send you some links this afternoon. Give you some ideas of what can be accomplished.” She moved toward the door. “Let’s go look at the saltwater room anyway, though, because when it comes to showy color, you can’t beat saltwater.”
She took him through that room, pointing out some of the fish that he could do in his tank, then they went out to the warehouse.
It was a very different space. Bright, with tall ceilings and a lot of wide-open space. Equipment lined the walls, as did lengths of lumber, enormous sheets plywood and more sheets of thick, clear acrylic coated in paper to keep it pristine.