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Hell doesn’t look up from her laptop. “Because you fixed the forecast.”

She calls me into her office ten minutes after lunch, and without explanation, forwards me a meeting invitation for later this afternoon. I’m still standing on the other side of her desk when it appears on my phone. I recognize most of the names immediately, all people several levels above mine, and I scroll through the list twice to make sure there hasn’t been some kind of mistake.

“That feels more like a reason I shouldn’t have to go.”

She stops typing long enough to look at me over the top of the screen, and I immediately regret saying anything.

“I mean,” I correct myself, clearing my throat for extra safety, “obviously I’m thrilled to be included.”

“I need you there in case they have questions about the changes, Merryweather.”

“Right.”

“And print out the latest promotional calendar. Enough copies for the whole room.”

“I already have it.”

Her attention returns to her laptop, which I take as my dismissal, and I head back toward my desk to collect the folder I put together this morning.

I’m not entirely sure when knowing where everything is became the defining characteristic of my professional life, but at this point I suspect I could disappear for six months and Hell’s first question upon my return would be whether I remembered where someone saved the final version of a presentation from 2022.

The meeting is in forty-five minutes, which gives me enough time to answer two emails, move a call Hell has decided she no longer wants to attend, and find the charger I somehow managed to lose between my purse and my desk despite the fact that I have been sitting here for the last six hours.

Of course, it’s under my chair.

I bend to retrieve it, knock my forehead against the edge of my desk on the way back up and immediately sit very still, one hand pressed to the injured spot while I quietly reconsider every choice that led me here.

“Merry?”

I look over the divider. Dani is staring at me from the aisle, a bag of the chocolate drops in her hand.

“I’m fine.”

“I was going to ask if you wanted coffee after your meeting.”

“Oh.” I lower my hand, and Dani winces immediately. “Then yes.”

Her eyes move to my forehead, and I can hear her thoughts all the way from here.

“Everyone’s face is very loud lately.”

She laughs and disappears toward the elevators, and I collect my things before I can injure myself again.

The meeting is already half full when Hell and I arrive, which means I get to experience one of my least favorite corporate rituals: standing beside a conference table while everyone silently calculates which seats belong to whom.

Hell takes one near the middle, as usual, and I choose the chair against the wall behind her.

“Merryweather.”

I stop, and she points to the back of the room, where the other admins are standing, clipboards and manila folders in hand.

Nobody seems to find this significant, so I decide not to either.

The room fills quickly after that, and by the time Phillip’s chief of staff closes the door, there are twelve people around the table and a handful of us standing at the back, in a room designed for eight people at capacity. I recognize everyone, although I don’t regularly work with half of them. Finance and Sales. Marketing. Elizabeth from the seasonal team, who gives me a small smile when my eyes meet hers.

Phillip immediately starts asking questions, which at least means I don’t have time to wonder whether he has noticed me.

I open my notebook, and for the first twenty minutes, everything happens exactly the way I expect these meetings to go.