If someone had been filming her earlier today, they would have captured a master class in negotiation. She’d shown up to the meeting with a face and style like someone out of a movie—she knew that without a touch of vanity. People had stopped and stared at her on the street on the walk there and in the lobby of the hideous office building. All the men she’d interacted with (and a few of the women) had been visibly dumbstruck, gaping at her stupidly. One of them had even spilled coffee all over himself. She’d asked Ted (via Gloria) to get her this outfit from her apartment on purpose, and despite her hangover, she’d looked her absolute best.

Beyond that, she’d laid everything out for the London people in a clear, precise way without losing her cool or raising her voice a single time. Usually, at best, she could do cold and simmering. Instead, she’d managed firm and friendly. She’d explained the stakes in easy-to-understand terms for even the dullest (or possibly most dazzled) of those listening. When she’d shown them the charts of the money they stood to lose simply by not shifting their timeline seven measly days—from the 6th of March to the 27th of February—that had finally convinced them. Why her board members, who had been here for several days last week, hadn’t managed to do this was completely beyond her. She was reminded, not for the first time, of what Maddie had asked yesterday: why even have a board as useless as they were?

She and Ted were now in a lovely historic pub outside their hotel, ostensibly celebrating. Unlike her board members last week, she’d outright refused to go out to dinner with the people she’d met with in the London office, managing, however, to make it seem like an outcome of exhaustion. She didn’t like that kind of glad-handing crap on her best days, let alone now. So she and Ted had made their excuses and snuck away for a celebratory pint. But Ted had been on his phone almost the entire time, and she’d barely started her first bitter in the hour they’d been here. They were in a little closed snug nestled at the bar, so they had privacy, but she might as well have been alone. She’d been watching cricket on the tiny television behind the bar, simply to have somewhere to train her eyes. She wasn’t really watching or following, not the least because she had no frigging clue how the game was played. It was just something to look at.

“Oh, Jesus, Ryann,” he said, finally flipping his phone facedown on the bar. “I’m being such a millennial. I’m sorry for phone-snubbing you.”

“It’s okay. New love and all that.”