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Nadia shakes her head at Mila and then turns her focus toward everyone else around the table. “Mila’s kidding. That’s actuallyhergood news this week,” she says with a smirk on her face. “She’s going to be my maid of honor.”
“That’s still being decided,” Mila quickly replies, her eyes on the table, a fake smile plastered on her face.
“I think it’s been decided,” Nadia says, her eyes also on the table.
“No, it hasn’t. No decisions have been made,” Mila quips, angling herself toward Nadia.
“Yes, they have.” Nadia turns her head toward Mila.
“No, they haven’t.”
“Mila Banks, you’re being ridiculous.”
“Nadia Singh, no I’m not.”
Do I … intervene? I look at Simone, but she seems more interested in seeing how this plays out than putting a stop to it. Isn’t that her job? She really is too nice.
Mila and Nadia are now giving each other squinting eyes, back and forth, arguing with their eyeballs. And there’s some scrunching noses too. Oh, and yep, Mila just gave a thumbs-up to Nadia, who gives her one in return. I’ve seen them do this before. I don’t think it means what it usually means. Not in this context. Definitely not when they give one to Jason, although he’s too thick to notice.
Call me crazy, but it seems like Mila doesn’t want to be in Nadia’s wedding. Why is that? It’s been my observation at the few weddings I’ve been in that being in the bridal party is something that elicits squeals and excitement. When my younger brother, Josh, got married five years ago, the five bridesmaids of my sister-in-law, Jeanine, had all acted like they’d won the lottery. There was so much screaming.
But Mila doesn’t look excited at all. She looks more like she might reach over and pull Nadia’s bun out in some kind of rage.
“Okay, well, that’s a lot of exciting news today. What about you, Jason? Can you top it?” I ask, doing my best to move on from the awkwardness that just landed in the room. At the very least, it gets Mila and Nadia to stop whatever they were doing.
Jason can’t top it, thank goodness. His good news is that he was able to reinforce some potential security vulnerabilities Vik found after some recent testing. As always, Jason’s good news is about work. Like he needs to really hammer it in that only work brings him joy. It’s kind of annoying, and a little patronizing.
Then Quentin, Jason’s right-hand man, who shouldn’t really be in this meeting but somehow always is, tells us he rescued a captured NPC in his Dungeons & Dragons game over the weekend, and we cheer, even though I don’t think any of us know what that means. Sebastian, the CFO, hit a streak of five hundred on Wordle this morning. Ryan, who runs marketing, finally found a company to do our SEO the right way, and rounding off the group, Simone says that she finished the blanket she’s been making for her niece’s new baby.
“Sounds like we had some real wins this week,” I say.
“What about you?” Jason asks.
“Me?” I point to myself, like a moron.
“Yeah, what’s your win?” Simone pipes in.
I blink. Once, twice. Three times. Whatismy win this week? I’ve got nothing. I usually have something thought up before I get here. Something on my agenda, so I don’t have to come up with it off the top of my head. And often, I make it up, or exaggerate the truth. But I didn’t do that last night. In fact, that’s what I was trying to think of when Mila came in late in that red dress and short-circuited my brain.
What can I say? I don’t have a lot of wins right now. Ineedsome wins, and desperately, where this app is concerned, but we aren’t quite there yet. My personal life isn’t very winning right now either. It’s mostly a mess. I haven’t talked to my parents in a while. I haven’t even spent time with them because I’ve been so caught up with GlobeTrotter. Also, there’s some guilt there too. A lot of guilt, actually. Josh and I haven’t talked in nearly three years. I haven’t magically repaired that relationship in the past week. I haven’t been on a real date in who knows how long, not that I’d use that for my good news if I had.
The truth is, I do the same freaking thing every day. Get up, run, go to work, go home, eat dinner, work some more, go to bed. Day in and day out.
The whole team is looking at me.Think, Grayson, think.
“I …,” I start, trying to rack my brain for something. I tried a new protein powder this morning? Is that a win? It wasn’t very good, so I’m guessing not. I made it to work without hitting all the lights on Lincoln. No, that’s dumb. I look down at my iPad, willing it to give me an answer, and then I go with the only thing that finally comes to me—though it’s not actually a win for me and, in fact, could end up making things very difficult. I look at my team, all waiting for my answer. “I guess … I’m also going to be in a wedding next month.”
Nadia’s fists shoot up in the air, a big smile on her face. “Yeah, you are.”
Mila
“IT’S TIME FOR YOUR ONE-on-one,” Britain says from the entrance to my office. I look up to see she’s just peeked her blond head in, a warm smile on her pink lips.
“Yes, great. Thank you,” I say, getting up from my chair. I adjust my black pencil skirt and re-tuck the front part of my cream dress shirt into it.
“You look great,” she says as I walk out the door, laptop in hand, as if she could read my mind and know that I was feeling insecure about my clothing choice today.
I’ve had my suspicions, but I think Britain might have psychic abilities. Or it could also be that I wear my heart on my sleeve, and anyone with half a brain would know how I’m feeling at any given moment. But I like to think I’m pale and mysterious, and my assistant has supernatural tendencies.
