Free For His Trust by Kelly Favor

couples.”
    He smiled a little. “One of what couples?”
    “One of those couples that says every relationship has its ups and downs, and you know it means they’re sick of one another. And they’re probably always in a down cycle but they pretend that its just the natural way of things.”
    Red didn’t say anything for a long time. When he did, his voice was low and somber. “I don’t want to be one of those couples either. I love you. What can I do?”
    She sighed with relief. “You can support me about our wedding.”
    He put his hand on her leg and rubbed it. She felt a thrill as she always felt when he touched her, and Nicole realized all it took was a simple look or touch for her to know that he still cared and that they were fine. “I support you one hundred thousand percent and I always will,” he said. “I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel anything different.”
    They arrived at the office and went inside. Nicole hadn’t seen the place in a few days and was surprised at all of the changes. There was office furniture, for one thing.
    Nice office furniture. There were some paintings on the walls and photographs.
    “It feels like a real office now,” she said.
    “Let’s go in the conference room,” Red replied, waving at one of his employees.
    “When do we bring in the cubicles?” she asked.
    He shook his head. “No. I don’t want cubicles anymore. I don’t care if they’re efficient. People hate them and I won’t use them.”
    “But what if you need the space for more workers?”
    “Shit, I’ll let the employees vote on it. If they want to keep their offices and do a little more work, or if they want to start having cubicles and more coworkers to lighten the load. My bet is they choose to keep their own offices and do more work.”
    They walked into the conference room and sat down together on one side of the table. “I just realized,” she said. “I’ve never been on the other side of an interview before. I’ve only been the interviewee.”
    Red laughed and leaned in for a quick kiss. “First time for everything, huh?”
    “I’m nervous now. My palms are sweating.”
    “Relax and watch. You can focus on getting an impression of the person while I ask the questions.”
    He passed her the resumes of the people coming in for interviews that afternoon.
    There were five people, all with great qualifications (way better than hers), and Nicole thought she’d have hired any one of them in a pinch. At least, based on their resumes.
    When they actually came in to interview, it was a bit of a different story.
    Nicole was surprised to find that she could tell almost instantly that someone wouldn’t be a good fit working for Red. One guy was twitchy and nervous, and his lips were white and pasty like he’d just eaten a box of chalk.
    Then there was a woman who had an impressive resume, but when Red quizzed her on what she’d done previously, she seemed bizarrely clueless—as if she’d made up her entire work history.
    But then there were a couple of good candidates, too.
    One was a very attractive young woman, probably only two or three years older than Nicole, with a killer resume and a confident demeanor. She sat across from them with a friendly smile and talked about her college soccer playing and how playing in a competitive team environment had made her unafraid to take risks.
    “Tell me what it means to take risks professionally,” Red said to her.
    The woman, whose name was Gia, sat up straight in her chair and met his gaze levelly. “It means that I take bold risks when they’re warranted. For instance, when I came out of high school, I was heavily recruited by some of the lesser-known division one colleges. I knew I’d get a scholarship and a spot on the starting team if I wanted it.”
    “But you didn’t go with any of those smaller programs?”
    She shook her head no. “I tried out as a walk-on at Duke and made the team. I started all four years, and I qualified for