“Hello?”

“Hey Eric, this is Jessica from Lady Bits,” I start.

“Oh, hey there,” he says. “What’s up?”

“Hey, I know you’re probably really busy and everything, but I was wondering if you might be able to point me in the right direction on something.”

“What’s that?” he asks.

“I’ve decided to take your advice and move up some of my people. The problem is—”

“You’ve never trained a manager before and you’re worried that if you screw it up, all of your worst fears will come true?” he asks.

“Something like that,” I answer.

“Well, I am very busy,” he says over the unmistakable sound of an aluminum can hissing as it’s cracked open, “but I might be able to help. When did you want to get together?”

“Oh, no,” I laugh. “I was thinking more of a phone mentorship or something like that.”

“A phone mentorship?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I answer. “You know, if I get into a training situation where I don’t know what to do, I give you a call.”

“The problem with that is that you’re assuming you already know the proper way to train a manager in the first place. Did you take any business courses?”

“Yeah,” I answer, “but they only went over general theory.”

“All right,” he says. “I’ll meet you at the shop when you open tomorrow.”

He hangs up before I can tell him that tomorrow, we’re closed.

I try calling him back, but the number just goes straight to voicemail.

I can’t believe this is the guy that I’m really going to for advice on higher training for my employees.

This is going to be a disaster.

Chapter Ten

Threading the Needle

Eric

I’m still not sure if Jessica would slap me or hug me if she found out I’m the one she’s been texting back and forth, but I really don’t think that now is the time to find that out. I’m totally in to her after these messages and don’t want to fuck it up so soon.

First, I’ve got to charm her into the realization that I’m not nearly as despicable a person as she thinks I am.

This is not going to be easy.

“Hey,” I say with a smile as she pulls up in front of the store. “Ready to get to work?”

“We’re closed today,” she tells me.

“Oh, right,” I answer, putting my palm against my forehead. “I totally forgot about that.”

“Yeah,” she says.

“Why didn’t you call?” I ask.

Okay, that one was just because I am a bit of a despicable person.

“I tried to, but—”

She’s already flustered, but I interrupt her anyway. “It’s all right,” I tell her. “You and I can discuss the Eric Dawson approach to making great employees into great employees who can carry a little bit more of the burden so I, or in this case, you, don’t have to work quite so hard—trademark pending.”

“That’s quite a title,” she says, shaking her head.

She’s still guarded with the smile, but she’s already loosened up dramatically over where she was only a couple of days ago.

“All right,” I start again, “how did you tell your employee or employees that you were giving them a promotion?”

She hesitates.

“You did tell someone that they’re getting a promotion, right?” I ask.

“I just decided on it last night,” she says. “I haven’t really had the time to talk to anyone about it.”

“All right,” I say. “I can understand that. Since the store’s not opening today, are you hungry?”

“I ate before I came,” she answers.

“Can we talk in your office?” I ask.

She pulls the keys from her pocket and opens the door, quickly running over to the security system’s keypad on the wall. Her sexy ass bounces the entire way and I can only imagine how fantastic it would be to bend her over and give her the D.

“Who’s not open on a Saturday?” I ask.

“We’re not,” she answers as she puts in her code. “I thought you would have noticed that by now.”

“I just thought you didn’t want us working during your busiest day of the week,” I laugh. “Is that something you’re going to be looking to change when you’ve got a manager or two to take some of the heat off of you?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “I’ll think about it.”

This is going to be harder than I thought.

I catch up with her and we go to her office.

“You can leave the door open,” she says as I instinctually go to close it.

“Right,” I chuckle. “I’m just so used to you calling me in here to yell at me that I—”

“You’re usually the one who wants to come in here and yell at me!” she protests.

I hold up my hands and, smiling, I say, “Calm down. It was just a joke.” I rub my hands together and ask, “So, where would you like to start?”

“Well, I guess I’d just like to know where I should start,” she says. “I’ve trained cashiers and salespeople, but never anyone with the kind of responsibility I’m looking for.”

“You know, I’m sorry, but would you like to go get some coffee?” I ask. “I’ve gotten into the habit of sleeping in on Saturdays, and I’m having a hell of a time keeping my eyes open.”

“There’s coffee in the break room,” she says.

“You have a break room?”

“It’s for employees only,” she quips, the hint of a smile creeping up one side of her face.

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—”