All That Really Matters - Nicole Deese Page 0,20

alone. But that’s exactly what I did as I pushed through Silas’s door and into a hallway that looked no different than all the others I’d walked down today.

5

Silas

She turned the wrong way.

Miss McKenzie—Molly—should have taken a right, but in her hurried departure, she shot out my office door and swung a left. I didn’t stop her.

Eventually, the woman would dead-end at the locked doors of the theater room, having no choice but to turn back and walk past my office in search of the main staircase. For as much as Fir Crest Manor had been a godsend to our organization, there was a garish lack of efficiency to its floor plan.

Even still, I doubted her dramatic exit had accounted for a U-turn.

Listening to the tap of those impractically tall shoes against the parquet floors, I swiped her file off the desk and dropped it into the wastebasket. Though she’d hardly been the first applicant I’d turned away over the last five years, she’d certainly been the most vocal. And quite possibly the most disappointing. I’d trusted Miles’s recommendation of her, trusted his judgment as a friend and as a fellow servant to our community. But family ties could blind the best of us, a flaw I knew a thing or two about.

I pressed my palms to the cool glass overlay of my desk, seeing her fake charm of a smile in my mind once again as she shot a live video in the lobby of our private establishment for her own personal gain. And without a second thought. I’d been leery of her self-proclaimed career title as an Influencer on her application, and I was even more so now. Nothing real or authentic ever came from the personal kingdoms we built online, especially kingdoms that paid as well as hers appeared to.

If not for my respect for her brother and the ministry partners he’d sent our way over the years, I would have canceled our interview right then and escorted her out of the house.

My vetting system might be rigorous and maybe even extreme at times, but I’d never apologize for protecting my residents or their privacy.

A crescendo of footsteps peppered their way toward my office, and I rounded my desk to prop my hip against the inside of the doorjamb, preparing myself for Molly McKenzie round two. In my experience, when it came to people who enjoyed the sound of their own voice, more time to think often equaled more fuel to speak it. And Miss McKenzie, with all her impressive accolades and shiny accomplishments, was not short on words or on show.

Though I remained obscured from her view, waiting in the shadow of the doorway, her pace slowed considerably as she neared. Perhaps she could sense my presence the same way I could sense hers. A hint of her flowery perfume wafted in my direction, and for the briefest of moments, I fought the urge to take a deeper breath.

What exactly was she waiting for out there?

The instant before I stepped out to give her directions back to the lobby, those heels started up their engines again. But this time as she strutted down the hallway past my door, she balanced her purse on her right shoulder . . . as if . . . as if she were a 1980s rapper sporting a boombox. I barely managed to bite back a laugh, half expecting her to moonwalk her way to the stairs.

As a youth advocate and advisor for the last several years, I’d seen my fair share of dramatic displays, but this stunt rivaled for the most amusing of them all—a grown woman using her duffle-sized handbag like an invisibility cloak.

I stepped out of my concealed spot in the doorway. “I don’t advise taking that spiral staircase without full use of your peripheral.”

She lowered her purse and seemed to take an extra beat to fill her lungs with whatever dragon fire was about to be spewed in my direction. Yet the instant she faced me, something in my chest opened and cracked. Stripped of her superficial charm and practiced pretense, she was absolutely . . . stunning.

“I was wrong,” she said, jabbing a sparkly pink-tipped finger in my direction. “I do know what Wren needs.”

“I highly doubt that.” There were few things I tolerated less than a stranger telling me what I didn’t know about the kids I’d served for years. Especially someone more in touch with the two-dimensional world of social media fans than the