You’d think hiring people to sit in a room and watch cameras would be easy.
It’s not.
Our clients trust us with their businesses. Their warehouses. Sometimes their entire livelihoods. One distracted employee, one bad judgment call, and that trust is gone.
By the time we narrow it down to three solid candidates, Jess is cross-legged on the couch, her new glasses sliding down her nose, completely in her element.
She’s wearing nothing but one of my shirts.
I suddenly can’t wait for the fool-around part of the evening.
This whole “journey to a better us,” as Jess so eloquently put it, has actually been going great.
We talk more now. Not just about schedules and clients and which kid refuses to wear clothes. Real talking.
We fight too. Actual fights.
Like the time last month when I asked for more details about what happened. We were out at dinner. And I just blurted it out, how was I supposed to know the waiter was right behind me when I uttered the phrase,tell me what happened when you fucked that guy.
In my defense, when I asked, I wasn’t trying to hurt her. I just… wanted to understand something that still sometimes claws at me when I least expect it.
She exploded.
Stormed out of the restaurant.
I followed her halfway down the block before she turned around, eyes blazing.
“Why would you embarrass me like that?” she demanded. “And why do you want to know after so long?”
“Because I still think about it,” I’d yelled back before asking her if we could please just go back to the car and drive home.
Later that night, after we’d both cooled down, we sat on the kitchen floor with takeout containers between us and talked about it.
I apologized. Thoroughly. For the timing. For blindsiding her. For letting my curiosity ruin what had, up until that point, been a lovely dinner.
She told me the details.
Reluctantly. Shamefully.
I’m not going to lie, her words stung.
But what I’d been imagining for so long wasn’t even close to the truth of it. The pictures in my head had been worse. Bigger. More romantic. More threatening.
The reality was smaller.
Messier.
Sad.
That night we went to bed quiet. Not quite angry. Just… processing.
It took me a while to let go of her words.
But I did.
I have.
“What are you thinking about?” Jess asks now, slipping off her glasses and shutting the laptop.
