“Okay. I want to keep building, but slowly. I don’t want to get bigger. I want to get better. That’s the difference no one in business school teaches.” She turned the stem of her glass between her fingers. “I want my staff happy and well-paid. I remember being twenty-three and working three jobs. The version of me who’s signing their paychecks doesn’t get to forget that.”
She tipped her glass toward him. “And I want a Sunday off. Your turn.”
“To stop pretending all these years were what I needed instead of what I picked.” He set his glass down. “And to find out if you and I get to be different people now than we were then.”
“That’s two things.”
“They’re related.”
She nodded.
Peter came with the dessert menu. Gabriel looked at her across the table.
“If we order dessert,” he said, “we aren’t leaving anytime soon.”
“No dessert then.”
“Two espressos, please.”
Peter vanished. They drank the espressos hot and bitter and gone, and Gabriel paid the check, and they stood up together in the warm light of the back-corner table.
Outside, the car was still waiting. He looked at it, then at her.
“We could walk,” he said. “If your shoes are comfortable enough.”
She glanced at her heels. “I can manage.”
“Then we walk.” He waved the driver off.
They started up the block, hand in hand, south toward the bridge.
“What’s the warehouse like?” he said. “I want to picture it.”
“The freight elevator smells like every meal we’ve ever made. David sings off-key in the prep kitchen and pretends he doesn’t know how to stop. Jessica keeps a candy drawer in her desk that I’m not supposed to know about. My corkboard is full of event timelines I keep up there because I like to look at the ones I survived.”
“How long have you been doing this?”
“Six years.”
He whistled. “Average week?”
“Three to five events. We’re at our limit. I won’t take more without bringing on more people, and bringing on more people changes the company. I’m still deciding whether I want it changed.”
“You’ll know when.”
“You sound certain.”
“From what I’ve seen these last few weeks, you’ll get it right.”
They walked half a block in silence.
“What about you?” she asked. “Tell me what you do all day.”
“I read deals. I argue with Knox about deals. I decide which companies are worth Oath’s money and which ones are wasting my time. I have a standing seven-thirty Monday with our investors. I have a standing five o’clock Friday with Ronan that has become, since his honeymoon, a standing five o’clock Friday with Ronan and Devney, because Devney has decided I’m her project.”
“Are you?”
“Apparently.”
