Extensive (A Single Dad Box Set)

by Claire Adams

  I get coffee and the morning goes on. As capable as she is and as willing as she keeps saying she’s become to start handing off some of her day-to-day duties, she’s really fighting me on just about everything.

  Finally, it gets to the point that we’re not going to make any progress whatsoever until she learns that she can trust people that she employs. As I’m technically an employee right now, although we never really got around to discussing whether there would or wouldn’t be payment, I’m ready to do my part to help.

  “Do you know what a trust fall is?” I ask.

  “Kind of,” she answers. “I mean, I do, I’ve just never done one. I didn’t get that far in the cheer auditions.”

  “You were a cheerleader?” I ask.

  “No,” she says, “I just told you that I didn’t get that far. You really don’t listen very well, do you?”

  “What?”

  She clenches her jaw.

  She doesn’t think I’m being anywhere near as charming as I so obviously am.

  “All right,” I tell her, “the process is simple. You stand with your back to me and on the count of three, simply fall backward.”

  “You’re going to catch me, though, right?” she asks.

  “Of course I’m going to catch you,” I tell her. “It’s not a breaking trust fall.”

  “Okay,” she says, obviously trying to gear herself up for the difficult task of believing that I’m not just trying to get her to fall on her ass. “Where should we do this?”

  “We can do it here,” I tell her. “It really doesn’t matter so long as we both have room to stand and you have room to fall.”

  “Let’s not do it in here,” she says. “The floor’s slippery and I can just see you losing your balance and breaking a hip or something, and I’m really not sure if my insurance covers trust falls.”

  “Whatever,” I tell her. “Let’s go to a carpeted area then, and we can do it there. It’s really not that big a deal. I’m not going to let you fall too far before I catch you. It’s just about going just past that point where you could catch yourself and trusting that I’m behind you and that I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

  We walk out onto the sales floor and she spends five minutes trying to find the perfect spot despite my assurances that it really doesn’t matter where we do it.

  “Okay,” she says. “We can do it here. You’re going to catch me, right?”

  “I don’t know what kind of friends you have, but yes, I’m really going to catch you,” I tell her.

  “That’s the problem,” she says, turning her back toward me. “I was never really that good at making friends.”

  “That’s because you don’t know how to do a trust fall,” I tell her. “Now, cross your arms and on the count of three—”

  “Who’s counting?” she asks. “Am I counting or are you counting?”

  “I’m counting,” I tell her. “If I let you count, we’d be here all day.”

  “You’re going to catch me, though, right?”

  “If you ask me that again, I might just change my mind and not catch you,” I tell her. “Now, one… two… three.”

  She just stands there.

  “Three,” I repeat.

  She sways back a little, but quickly rights herself.

  “Should we do it here?” she asks. “It might be better over—”

  “We’ve got space to do it and carpeted floor,” I tell her. “Just go. One, two, three.”

  Nothing.

  “You’re not really filling me with confidence here,” I tell her.

  “Why are you helping me?” she asks.

  “What do you mean?” I return. “You asked me to.”

  “Yeah, but what are you getting out of this? I can give you some money for your time, but it’s probably not going to be anywhere near what you were making with the remodel and everything.”

  “It came out great, though, didn’t it?” I ask. “Actually, I’ll tell you what.”

  “What?” she asks.

  “These can work a lot better if you’re falling from a higher place than where I’m standing, so why don’t we do it over in the Plus department. You can stand on the bottom stair and I’ll stand on the low floor. It’ll give you a little more time to fall, but I’ll still be there to catch you,” I propose.

  “Yeah, I don’t know about that,” she says. “I think we should just start with something smaller before we—”

  “Oh, come on,” I start. “If anything, that extra little bit of backward momentum will just help you learn to trust even faster.”

  I don’t know it yet, but I’m about to come to regret those words.

  “All right,” she says. “We’ll do it there, but you’ve got to swear that you’re going to catch me.”

  “You know, this really shouldn’t be the most difficult part of the exercise,” I tell her, and start walking over to the sunken floor space.

  We get there and she positions herself, rather obsessively, on the bottom step.

  “You’re going to—”

  “Yes!” I interrupt. “I’m going to catch you. Just go: one, two, three.”

  The first problem is that I hadn’t expected her to actually do it this time.

  The second problem is that, as soon as she feels herself losing her balance, her arms start flailing wildly about her.

  Those two problems add up to the back of her hand smacking me hard across the face as I’m trying to catch her. My eyes close on their own with the impact, but I still manage to put my arms out well enough to catch her, although things don’t go quite as planned after that.

  She hits against my body while I’m still trying to process my brand new injury, and before I can get my eyes open again, we’re both falling backward onto the floor below.

  On the positive side of things, I do eventually break her fall. On the negative side of things, due to our respective positioning, I get a pretty solid shot to the fellas when we land and it’s a beautiful fucking sight.

  “You said you were going to catch me!” she shouts as she springs to her feet.

  I would love to offer a response, but as I’m currently in the fetal position, rocking back and forth with one hand over my eye and the other covering my junk, there’s not much I can physically manage to add to the conversation.

  “Shit,” she says. “Are you okay?”

  Yep, still can’t answer.

  I take a breath and try to be a man about it, but the fact that I took a shot to the jewels kind of makes this the only manly thing I can do in this situation.

  “Oh, I didn’t do that, did I?” she asks.

  “No,” I said. “I figured it would be a great idea to squash an incredibly sensitive part of my anatomy after strategically placing my face where the back of your hand could reach it.”

  “Well, you don’t have to be a jerk about it,” she says, and I try to laugh, but it just comes out as a gasp for air.

  After a minute or so, I stop writhing and collect myself. It takes me another minute or two before I can get off the floor, and even then, it’s with plenty of her help.

  “I think we’ve got a little bit of work to do,” I tell her.

  “Maybe we should just give up. Maybe I’m just not the kind of person that can trust someone else is going to be there for me.”

  Fixing her trust issues was supposed to be like constructing something, but this was harder.

  “I don’t believe that,” I tell her.

  “It’s true,” she says. “This is stupid. I should just give up.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” I say, still hunched forward, my hands on my upper thighs, “why don’t we change spots.”

  “You’re bigger than me,” she says. “I don’t think I could catch you.”

  “We’ll do it on the flat ground,” I tell her. “Stand just a foot or two behind me and just catch me when I start to tip. If nothing else, that’ll teach you that you can be a part of a trusting relationship.”

/>   The look on her face tells me that I wasn’t particularly clear with that explanation.

  “What I mean by that,” I explain, “is that I’ll trust you to catch me. You, I have no doubt, are going to prove yourself worthy of that trust. That’s what I meant by trusting relationship. This might be an easier place to start, as I know you trust your own ability.”

  She looks at the ground, then at me, then briefly at my crotch, although I have no illusions that there’s any sexual context to the glance.

  “Okay,” she says. “Are you ready or do you need another minute?”

  After a glass of water and some pacing, I manage to get myself in a somewhat more upright position and we get in our places.

  “You do the count,” I tell her.

  “All right,” she says. “One, two, three.”

  Against my better judgment in this scenario, I fall backward, and she easily stops me from falling to the ground.

  “Oh, well if I knew it was that easy,” she says as I get my feet back underneath the rest of my body, “I wouldn’t have freaked out when you tried to catch me.”

  “In my defense,” I tell her, “even after the smack in the face, I did still catch you. Do you think you’re ready for this?”

  “Yeah,” she says. “I can do this.”

  “All right,” I tell her. “We’re going to start you on the flat floor this time just so you can get used to it, and this time—”

  “Keep my arms folded,” she says. “I got it. Sorry about that.”

  “It’s okay,” I tell her, swallowing all of the many parts of myself that want to stay angry at her for inflicting such a massive dose of pain.

  She gets into position and I start the count, “One, two, three.”

  Jessica falls backward, and managing to keep her hands at least next to her body this time, I catch her easily.

  “Whoa, that was cool,” she says. “Can we do that again?”

  I snicker, “Sure. Do you want to try it from the step or do you want to do another one from the floor?”

  “The floor,” she says. “I’m still kind of nervous.”

  We do it again and this time she even manages to keep her hands crossed over her chest. One more time and Jessica’s actually starting to get comfortable doing it. And I’m getting comfortable feeling her body.

  Finally, she says she’s ready to try it from the bottom stair.

  “All right,” I tell her. “Now, what’s the point of this exercise?”

  “To trust you,” she says.

  Technically, it’s to show her the benefits of being able to trust, period, but it’s kind of nice to hear the words “trust” and “you” coming from her after having the opposite be the rule for most of the time we’ve known each other.

  I think I had a game plan at some point before we started this, but that went out the window when my boys got the pinch of doom. Since then, my brain’s gotten a little hazy.

  I do know that I was going to try to work the fact that I’m the one that she’s been sending messages to into the conversation at some point today, but given the fact that she’s only now learning to trust me at all, I’d say it’s worth saving for another lesson.

  “Are you ready back there?” she asks.

  “Yep,” I tell her. “Just keep your arms to your sides, and I’m pretty sure the four of us are going to be just fine.”

  “The four of—” and she gets the joke. Laughing, she says, “Okay,” and crosses her arms over her chest.

  I stand with my pelvis a bit farther back than usual, but I’m ready, so I start counting, “One, two, three.”

  She falls backward, and thankfully, her arms stay where they are.

  I catch her and just hold her there for a minute. “See? You can do this.”

  “Uh, Eric?” she says, her voice devoid of the celebratory mirth I’d been expecting.

  “Yeah?” I ask.

  “You’re grabbing my boobs,” she says.

  Not even thinking, I let go of her entirely, and she falls to the floor.

  Shit.

  Chapter Eleven

  Steel Wool

  Jessica

  After I picked myself up off the floor, I couldn’t get my mind off Eric’s hands on my boobs. It was the first time in a long while a guy has touched me like that and it was…nice.

  I made sure to clear my head as Eric and I went over some specifics regarding how I should approach and train the person or people I’m ready to promote. He seemed to think that I should get at least two managers right away, but I think I’ll be more comfortable if I only do one at a time.

  That said, I’m not sure why I’m so nervous.

  I’ve decided to promote Cheryl, mostly based off of Eric’s recommendation that she seemed to have the best overall knowledge and savvy of anyone, other than myself, of course, in the store.

  She just walked in the door so I stroll out to meet her.

  Cheryl has been with me for a long time, but I think I know her less than pretty much anyone else in the store. It’s not that I’ve specifically avoided her or anything; she just seems to be less chatty than everyone else.

  “Cheryl, could I talk to you for a minute?” I ask as she’s making her way to the break room to drop off her purse.

  “Sure,” she answers, and changes course to come into my office.

  “Would you mind closing the door?” I ask.

  “Sure,” she says nervously.

  “There’s something that I wanted to talk to you about, and I’m not quite sure how to start. This is kind of new to me,” I begin.

  “Okay,” she says.

  “You’ve been here at this store for a while, and I think it’s time we make a change,” I tell her.

  “What do you mean?” she asks.

  “Well, it’s become apparent to me that things around here need to change,” I tell her. “I don’t think the way I’ve been going about running this business has been—”

  “I can work weekends,” she says.

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Holidays,” she says. “I don’t mind working overtime. You don’t even have to pay me an overtime wage. I just really need this job.”

  “That’s not where I’m going with this,” I tell her. “I’m talking about fundamentally changing the way that I do business—the way we do business. You see, for such a long time, I’ve felt the need to lord over every decision, be here at every moment, and that’s not a sustainable business model.”

  “I really need this job,” she says.

  “What are you talking about?” I ask.

  “I’ve been here since you opened up, and I think it’s pretty screwed up that you’re talking about firing me when I have given so much of my life to help this place off the ground,” she says.

  Now it makes sense.

  “I’m not talking about firing you, Cheryl,” I smile.

  “Oh,” she says. “Well, if you’re going to cut my hours, I really wish you would have told me before now so I could look for another job to supplement my income, I—”

  “I asked you in here so I could offer you a promotion,” I tell her.

  “Well, you’d better just think about what you’re—I’m sorry, what?” she asks.

  “I’m offering you a position as assistant store manager,” I tell her. “It’ll be an increase in responsibility across the board, but you’ll also get a pretty handsome raise. Does that sound like something you’d be interested in, Cheryl?”

  She doesn’t answer.

  “I’ve come to realize that, despite how much I feel the need to control every portion of this store’s operation, every day, I’m not infallible, and I sure as hell don’t know everything. What I need to do,” I explain, “is start trusting my staff. You and the others have put so much time and so much energy into this place, and I know it wouldn’t be as successful as it is without any one of you. Cheryl, you stand out from the crowd. You have a degree of insight into this place that gets people to sta
nd up and take notice, and I want you to know that you are valued here. So, do you think you’d be interested in being my assistant store manager?”

  She looks down at the ground, then back up at me.

  “Yes,” she says in a quiet, shaky voice.

  “Great,” I tell her. “Now, we’re going to have to help each other out here. This is new territory for me, and so I ask for your patience. That said, I’d like to go ahead and make your new position official today.”

  “I’m ready,” she says.

  “Great,” I tell her. “First off, I’m going to need to ask you something.”

  “What’s that?” she asks.

  “What does an assistant store manager do?”

  * * *

  “You actually asked her what an assistant store manager does?” my text friend writes.

  “I’m new to this,” I write back. “I’m sure there are keys involved, but how much of my daily workload do I delegate? I’m not sure what’s appropriate here.”

  I’m sitting at dinner with Kristin and Jed.

  I do not like Jed.

  “Who are you talking to?” Kristin asks.

  “Just a friend,” I tell her.

  “Oh,” she says. “You mean that friend.”

  “How long have we been sitting here?” Jed asks. “I feel like we’ve been waiting for our meals for a really long time. What’s taking them so long? The place isn’t that busy. I don’t see how hard it is to make three simple meals and bring it out to a table.”

  “We just ordered,” I inform Jed. “It usually takes more than two minutes for a restaurant to cook something.”

  “It feels like it’s been longer than that, though,” he says. “I don’t know. I’ve been so stressed lately. I think I’m getting an ulcer.”

  “If anything’s going to give you an ulcer,” Kristin tells him, “it’s going to be how much you constantly worry about getting an ulcer.”

  My phone beeps and I read the message, “It sounds like you might want to have that guy come back and show you the ropes. Was he helpful before?”

  I write back, “He was helpful, but it kind of got a little weird last time.”

  “Jay, there’s something we’d like to tell you,” Kristin says. “Actually, it’s the reason that we asked you out to dinner.”