“I Drove My Drunk Office Enemy Home. Her Roommate Opened the Door and Said: ‘Oh — so YOU’RE the one she saves emails from.’ The folder was called ‘Mason Being Infuriating.’ There were 47 emails in it.”

The night it changed was a Friday. Our firm landed the Bellamy Foods account. Our managing director rented the back room of a whiskey bar on West Randolph — the kind of place that charges eighteen dollars for a drink served in a glass the size of a shot. There were speeches. There were sliders nobody touched. There was the specific exhausted laughter of people who wanted to go home but couldn’t leave before the boss did.

I was nursing one bourbon at the far end of the bar, calculating my exit window, when Natalie slid onto the stool next to mine.

Not sat. Slid. She caught the bar’s edge with one hand and looked at me like I’d personally offended her by existing.

“You’re still here,” she said.

“So are you.”

“I’m celebrating.”