“He does, for the record,” Connor says.
“How do you know? Has he told you?”
“Yes,” Connor says. “Multiple times.”
“That’s a lie.”
“I promise you it isn’t,” Connor says, then sighs. “You know Ben resigned the morning of the layoffs?”
“For real?”
“Yeah,” Connor says. He seems weary, somehow. Like even talking about this is exhausting for him. “He’d been threatening to do it for a while, but he still kind of blindsided me with it. Our team has been understaffed for a long time. And as you know yourself, our remit is kind of all over the place, even more so since Naomi’s been gone. When the layoffs happened, and it was clear we weren’t going to get anyone to help us, Ben decided he was done with all of it. He wants to do other things.”
“Whoa.”
“But then you turned up,” he continues. “And I at least had a temporary solution. It was clear you’d be an enormous pain in the ass but also a really effective project manager. I begged Ben not to quit, to just stick it out a little longer. If things didn’t get better after you joined the team, then he could leave. And as you will notice, he is still here.”
“Oh,” I say, trying to reorganize my memories in light of this new information.
“If you’re getting a vibe off Ben, I promise it’s not because of you. It’s because of me. He’s just waiting to see what happens. Next cookie?”
We decide on a classic: chocolate chip.
“Can I ask you something else?” I say around a mouthful of cookie.
“I have a feeling you will either way,” he comments.
“How did you end up as acting department head? It just feels like…you hateit.”
“Well, Annabelle, when two people love each other very much—”
“Yes, thank you,” I say dryly. “I understand the concept of maternity leave. I mean why didn’t they hire someone to doit?”
“Naomi’s idea of a sick joke, I guess. She wanted me to push myself and go for a management role. She thought I’d like it,” he adds.
“Do you?”
“No,” he says, sighing deeply. “What’s there to like? I spend all day in calls and meetings and taking flak from my direct reports. That’s you, by the way.”
“No idea what you’re talking about,” I say. “You were one of the early people in at Taskio, weren’t you?”
“Employee number five.”
“Wow. So like, early early.”
“Yes.”
“Like ‘Taskio is my religion’ early.”
“We like to think of it as more like a family.”
“The best cults alwaysdo.”
I mull over how to ask him my next question. “I guess I’m just curious about what you like so much,” I say eventually. “Or is it just that you have equity and can’t leave?”
Connor shifts forward, resting his elbows on his knees and rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands, like he’s trying to scrub away whatever thoughts are behind them.
“I know you probably won’t believe this,” he says, “sinceeveryone from Jotter hates Taskio. But it used to be different here. It was genuinely exciting, back in the early days, what we were doing.”
