My champagne sticks in my throat and I cough. “What do you mean? What’s not good for me?”

“This job—if it’s not one thing with your work, it’s another. A week ago, you were so stressed about meeting the diva that you canceled your trip to D.C. Then, as soon as you did meet her, you transferred all that stress into panic over some arbitrary deadline.”

“This deadline is the opposite of arbitrary. It matters to Peony’s bottom line. It matters to Noa’s readers. It matters to me—”

“Okay, okay,” he says. “Point taken.”

I’m working myself up—and sensing Ryan shutting down. He’s so focused on the oysters, it’s like he’s trying to make a pearl. Does he want me to fail with Noa Callaway? Does he want me to get fired?

“I don’t know anyone with a demanding job who doesn’t stress about work,” I say. “You stress about work all the time.”

“That’s different,” he says and tips the oyster to his lips.

“How is it different?” I raise my voice, drawing eyes from the couple next to us at the bar.

“Lanie,” Ryan says in his calm-down voice. It usually works, but not today.

“Please, enlighten me.”

Ryan sighs. “Because we both know the trajectory of my career. It’s different from yours. After we get married, you’re moving to D.C.” He looks at me, like, What? “Sometimes I wonder if the reality of that move has even occurred to you. When are you going to tell Sue that you’re relocating?”

He knows I’ve been putting off that conversation. Sue is a tremendous publisher, but she keeps out of her employees’ personal lives. She knows that I’m engaged, but I doubt she has any idea Ryan lives in D.C. My trial promotion has not made me any more eager to tell her.

“Best-case scenario,” Ryan says, “you’re commuting half the week. What are you going to do, sleep on Meg’s couch? And what about after we have kids? You complain all the time about this job. Is that really what you want to model for our family—”

“I do not complain all the time!”

“You might not notice it,” he says, “but you do. Maybe this isn’t your dream job anymore. In D.C., you could have—”

“Don’t say it—”

“A fresh start—”

“I will walk if you bring up that job at the Library of the Congress again.” I cringe, picturing tasteful archives, tidy shelves, and drawers stretching into organized infinity.