Page 4 of His Wall

"In what world did I order pastries for $7?"

Declan turned the page without answering. Nolan lifted his coffee to his mouth, and the corner of his mouth moved, half a smile.

"Moving on," Declan said.

He took us through the close. Top line, margin, the comp ratio, a footnote on the real estate line item that had me half-listening and half-watching Claire's pen move across her notebook. She wrote in small, even script. She didn't use the margins. She filled one line and dropped to the next.

Nolan set his glass down halfway through a sentence about occupancy cost. The glass was almost empty. He kept talking.

Claire stood, crossed the carpet behind his chair, tipped the pitcher, and filled the glass. The pitcher went back to the table. She was in her chair again before Nolan reached for the water.

He lifted it without looking, took a drink, and kept talking.

I watched the entire thing from the pen in my hand to Claire's chair and back.

"Julian."

I looked up. Declan was watching me across the table.

"With you," I said.

"Are you?"

"I heard every word. Occupancy cost. Keep going."

Declan held my eyes a beat longer. Nolan took a slow drink of the water Claire had just poured him and did not look at me at all, which was worse.

I sat forward and put both elbows on the table. "Keep going. I'm here."

Declan kept going.

We moved to the Meridian timeline. He flipped to the second tab, and his pen paused halfway down the page. His brow pulled.

"3.2 on the leverage ratio."

"3.6." Nolan's voice. Calm. He hadn't even looked at the page.

Declan looked down and back up. "I've got 3.2 in front of me."

"Q2 closed at 3.4. It ticked up, not down."

"Hang on."

Claire was already on her feet. She came around the side of the table with a fresh sheet held flat against her palm, slid it under Declan's eyes, and lifted the old one away behind his shoulder in the same motion. He never turned his head. He tapped the corrected figure with his pen.

"3.6. My apologies."

She was back in her chair before he'd finished saying it. The old page folded once, tucked under her notebook. Her pen back at the line she'd been on.

I looked at her for a second too long.

Four months ago, she walked into my office for the interview with a restructured version of my calendar already printed in a folder under her arm. She had slid it across the desk to me before I had finished the pleasantries. She had treated the whole hour like an operational audit she was running on me. For about ten seconds after she left, I had sat on the edge of my desk, considering whether it would be a complete disaster to ask her out.

I had answered the question in the next ten. She'd eye me just like a misrouted email — polite, brief — no. I had shelved it.

Nolan caught my eye from across the table. One eyebrow. A quarter of an inch.

I dropped the pen and leaned forward. "Klein portfolio. Let's talk about it."