Richard sat across from the young woman at the old farmhouse table he kept in the back room of his shop. He watched intently as she carefully pulled the glass dropper out of one of the bottles in front of her and brought it to her nose. Her nose crinkled slightly and she pulled the dropper away.

“The scent is quite concentrated,” Richard said. “You only need to bring it a few inches from your nose.”

She held the dropper up again, further from her nose this time, and inhaled.

“Pine,” she said quickly.

Richard nodded to the next bottle on the table.

She picked up the dropper and inhaled again. Paused.

“Cinnamon.”

He nodded to the next bottle.

Again, she picked up the dropper and held the delicate glass cylinder near her nose. She inhaled. Her eyes closed as her chest rose and fell. She inhaled again, slower this time. A dreamy smile appeared on her lips. Richard founding himself smiling slightly, wondering what memory was conjured by the scent.

“Lilacs,” she whispered softly, opening her eyes. The smile, still on her lips, widened to a grin as her eyes settled on Richard. “What?”

Richard blinked, and settled his features back to neutral. He cleared his throat.

“Very good. You have an excellent nose.”

The young woman quirked an eyebrow. Warmth spread to Richard’s cheeks.

“It means you have strong olfactory senses,” he said. “It’s a crucial skill my assistant must have.”

Assistant. Richard choked a little on the word. In his ten years as a perfumer, he’d run his shop on his own. Experimenting and creating scents in the back room of his shop while simultaneously running sales in the front. But a single accident stripped him of his sense of smell and threatened to take away his livelihood. Now, the need to hire an assistant, someone who could smell the scents for him, felt like a lead weight in his stomach that he didn’t think would ever go away.

The young woman sat across from him, waiting expectantly.

“You’ll start tomorrow,” he said, rising from his seat. He extended a hand across the table. “We have a lot to go over.”

She clasped his hand.

“I look forward to it.”