I strutted into my office and dropped off my backpack, a little more in control of my morning. I looked up at the enormous clock on the wall—it looked like one of those digital banners in Times Square and almost as big, but when you worked for a time-obsessed maniac, you did what you had to do—I was cutting it close. After a quick scan of my desktop monitor for any Code Red Post-it messages I rushed across the hall to where Natasha was already at her desk.

“Is he—”

She nodded before I could finish. “He’s up there,” she confirmed. Not that I expected the man not to be on schedule. Theo Ganas was a fucking machine. Woke up every day at 5:00 a.m. and fifteen minutes later he was cutting across the water on his climate-controlled rooftop swimming pool. Fifty laps every morning. At 6:05 a.m., on the motherfucking dot, I had to walk into the pool area with his coffee and his daily schedule, and I did not want to be running behind on the day I would deliver the news that would alter his ever-important routine.

“Dammit!” I grumbled, as I put on the Starbucks barista apron Natasha had gotten me as a gag gift a couple of years back.

“I already took out the beans for you and I picked up his voice messages,” she said, moving her hands in a shooing motion.

“You’re my favorite person, Nat!” I bussed her on the cheek, making her squeal. Natasha was in her fifties, but you could not tell from looking at her. The woman was like a cross between Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor with the same curves, eyeshadow and hairstyle choices. Natasha Djurovi´c had never met a wrap dress in a jewel tone she didn’t like and to be fair, she bodied them. But I didn’t even have time to compliment her on today’s fit because I had to focus on the science experiment my boss called morning coffee.

Theo Ganas didn’t even caffeinate like a regular person. His daily dose of joe was in fact a daily test on my sanity. When Natasha first walked me through the ritual during my “onboarding” I almost quit on the spot. The only thing that held me back was the siren song of that all-cash end-of-the-year bonus I’d been promised.