She tapped her earbud to end the call. “Opening this Seattle office is going to be a nightmare,” she said, and I nodded, already resigned to the stress of what expanding our company would mean. “We’re going to need these investors to come through stat if we want any chance of expanding.”

I gestured to a stack of photographs leaning against the wall behind her. “You already took those down?” Eleanor called herself an amateur photographer, but her work was stunning. The photos she took on her solo surfing excursion to Costa Rica a couple years ago had added a chill vibe to a space that could often get tense when deals were on the verge of being made—or broken.

“We move offices in, like, three months,” she said matter-of-factly. “Might as well get a jump start on the packing.”

In addition to trying to open an entirely new branch on the West Coast, Eleanor and I were shifting our whole New York City operation to a bigger, brighter space downtown, to accommodate our ever-expanding team. It was exciting and terrifying all at once, a bold declaration of the growth we were experiencing.

The thought of all the success we’d had the last few years made my stomach churn. It was one thing to be successful on my own, or just alongside Eleanor. But we now had an entire company to answer to, people with mortgages and families and car payments. I rarely doubted myself, but when I did, it was because I was worried about letting our team down.

“I have something for you,” she said, her eyes revealing nothing. She reached into her leather tote bag and pulled out a bent copy of the New York Post. She pressed at it with her hands, flattening it on her desk and flipping a few pages until she found what she was looking for. “Saved on the Subway!” She read the headline out loud. “Fashion disaster leads to romance with mystery man on the Q.”

She looked at me again, like she was seeing a wild animal in the flesh for the first time. “You weren’t going to mention you went all Hayes in Shining Armor on the train yesterday?”

I grabbed the paper out of her hand, reaching up to scratch the back of my neck.

“You really think that’s me? That could be anyone.” It was a terrible attempt at a cover-up.

“Don’t play dumb with me.” Eleanor leaned back in her chair with an exaggerated sigh, kicking her feet up onto her desk and crossing them. She slowly, purposely locked her fingers and cracked her knuckles. She knew I hated that sound. As her hands undulated back and forth, the sunshine pouring in from Fifty-Seventh Street connected with the massive diamond engagement ring on her finger, creating a spiral of light on her desk.