“Did you see it yet?” Zack asked, his eyebrows raising behind stylish, square glasses. Kevin wondered whether they were plain glass or actually prescription.

The young designer started talking about the latest Apple announcement that Kevin had somehow missed. As he did, Jamie Lang came in. Jamie was Kevin’s studio manager, who stayed on top of everybody’s projects and made sure Kevin was able to successfully run Precision without having to hold everybody’s hand. She carried her trusty file folders, which kept her organized and kept everybody else on task and moving forward. Kevin didn’t care how somebody went about doing their job as long as they did it, and Jamie had been doing her job very well for the last four years.

The rest of the team came in at once. Samantha, a newer designer who Kevin joked about being so quiet he was nervous that she was hiding some deep, dark secret from them all. Then there was Pete Dawson, an all-around good guy who loved beer and the Braves. He had a cool vibe about him that he somehow managed to weave into his work. Many times Pete touched up little parts of everybody’s projects, making them better. Pete was all about the fine details, which ultimately meant making the company look better.

“Y’all are going to love to hear about my weekend,” Beth Anne said as she walked in.

It was hard for anybody not to love the demonstrative southern charm of Beth Anne, who had grown up in Greenville and spent a year working in New York only to come back to her beloved city. Beth Anne was Kevin’s accounts manager, the liaison between the designers and all of their clients. She spent a lot of time on the phone, updating customers on the status of their projects and checking in with others. If anybody had a reason to be worried this morning, it was Beth Anne. She knew how important Kevin’s meeting with Silverschone had been, but if she held any worry, it certainly didn’t show.

Mia Chen walked with a quiet and slow grace, gliding in and sitting in the last chair around the table. For a while they talked as they usually did, laughing, listening to Beth Anne’s funny but tragic tale about a double date she’d gone on with her sister.

Kevin thought of all the people around him in this conference room, taking inventory of them in a way he hadn’t done in a long time or maybe even ever.

These are lives I’m responsible for. People that I have to answer to.

He didn’t want to finish the thought, the one about letting them down. Because Precision wasn’t done just yet. Almost, but not quite.

“All right, so . . .” Kevin eventually said, breaking into the conversation that could go for another hour. “I’m going to change pace a little this morning and start with some news.”

“Should we be worried?” Beth Anne asked in the same comical tone that she’d used in relaying the dating story.