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Phillip opens the door to one of the smaller meeting rooms and waits for me to go first. “I promise you’re not in trouble,” he says, then adds, “You looked a little worried there.”

“I always look a little worried, I’m afraid.”

“I’ve noticed.”

There it is again. This noticing thing.

Not because I’ve noticed is inherently flirtatious. Obviously it isn’t. People notice their employees, I think. That’s probably one of the things they cover in CEO school. But there is something about the way Phillip looks at me when he says things like that that makes it very difficult to dismiss Veronica and Dani entirely.

I sit across from him.

“So,” I say, finally. “Should I be worried now?”

“No.” He settles into his chair, still smiling. “I wanted to talk to you before this afternoon’s planning meeting. I’ve been paying closer attention to some of the work your group has been doing, and your name keeps coming up.”

“My name?” I know that I sound incredulous, surprised even. I’m sure it’s showing on my face right this second. “I’m a little surprised, sir.”

“Phillip, please. And why?”

I consider giving him the safe answer, mostly because he’s Phillip and I am me, and this entire conversation is happening several levels above where I usually operate. But he’s watching me with the same attention he always seems to give me, waiting rather than filling the silence himself.

So I tell him the truth.

“Because there isn’t much reason for my name to come up with the CEO, sir. I’m just an assistant.”

“Maybe there should be.”

My stomach does that inconvenient thing again. What the hell am I supposed to do with maybe there should be? Is this another of his flirting things?

Phillip doesn’t seem to notice the effect, or if he does, he’s kind enough not to acknowledge it. He leans back slightly and asks, “Do you like what you’re doing?”

I blink at the change in direction. “My job?”

“Your job. Your role. Where you are.”

I open my mouth to say yes because that’s the answer. Or at least, it has always been the answer.

I have a good job, and I’m relatively good at it, which isn’t quite the same thing but has always felt close enough. I know what is expected of me, I know how to deliver it, and every couple of weeks Helena finds some new and inventive way to make me fantasize about quitting abruptly, but I suspect that’s less a career crisis and more the natural consequence of having a hell of a boss.

Except Phillip didn’t ask whether my job is good.

He asked whether I like where I am.

And unfortunately, I’ve recently spent five hundred dollars on a witch who has made it very difficult to pretend I don’t understand the distinction.

“I like what I do,” I say finally. “I don’t know if I like where I am.”

He waits, and somehow that makes it easier to keep going.

“I think I’ve gotten comfortable being useful. People know they can give me something complicated and I’ll figure it out. I like being that person.” I run my thumb over one of the stones on my bracelet. “But sometimes I feel like I’ve gotten so good at doing the work that nobody thinks to ask what I think we should do with it.”

Something shifts in Phillip’s expression, and suddenly I remember sitting on my couch with a list in front of me, trying to come up with things I wanted without attaching a defense to every single one.

I want people to ask what I think.

At the time, it seemed almost embarrassingly small compared to the grand scheme of things. Not a promotion or a different job. Not more money or a corner office or some grand declaration that I was meant for something bigger.

I just wanted to be asked. And maybe that’s why I notice now how rarely I am.