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He settled onto the cement porch, took my hand, and pulled s Mykia was talking about at the party"

"She’s obsessed," I said, s anis, and beneficial nehtand keeping the bad stuff at bay They move quickly and take care of the lesser business so the plants can take care of the big stuff"

I squeezed his hand "I’rateful for theoing to ambush her?" Byron sat at the conference table in the spot normally held by Lukas, as out, supposedly at a lunchfor the perfect outfit for his upcohed "This doesn’tto embarrass ourselves"

Lukas’s plan was very siet in line at different points When it was our turn to approach Petra, we’d give her an elevator pitch Hopefully, by the time the last of us reached her, she’d be so char to stop by Gossamer Space for a full presentation Jackie and Glynnis were to stay in the office and get things ready, a job both grumbled at, and both suspected was the lesser position

"I don’t see why I can’t go," Glynnis whined to o?"

"Maybe he wants one old person there The voice of authority"

She shot me a dubious look "You’re not that old You know the real reason"

The stress of possibly losing her job had made Glynnis a touch cynical Cynicis in a corporate at shirt

"Will you talk to Lukas about letting o to the bookshop?" she pleaded "Maybe if you say soressiveness was one of ? When has Lukas listened toyou can control is the job you have to do" That gavemyself? I wanted to control Trey and Lukas and even Mr Eckhardt Perhaps I had to let go of those feelings and focus only on what my brain and two hands could do

"You know there’sthat, so I suspect you’ve known it for a long time Office politics The balance of power"

"Aren’t you being a little dra to her eyes, and I immediately felt like a villain We were all stressed and worried, but was there so on I didn’t know about? Was this about Byron and Rhiannon?

"Are you okay?" I asked gently "Is solanced at Byron, as punching so on his keyboard "No," she said dully "I just don’t understand why there needs to be a co to this company, don’t we?"

"We do"

"Even Seth did He shouldn’t have been fired" She fiddled with her phone "I don’t like change, especially when it happens because of stupid reasons, because then the outco I can understand" Jesse’s death was stupid "I don’t think ular basis," I said "But it happens You have to learn to react to it To take action" The garden flashed througha pattern?

"I take action all the time," Glynnis said, sadness in her voice "It doesn’tattention People pay attention to you, Paige I could coreatest ad in a hundred years, and no one would pay attention to etwhat is it? Charisma"

"That’s not true," I soothed Butonuncomfortable

I’d always felt success on by hard work--I lived my life by it But what role did luck play? I didn’t like to think luck had much to do with it, because that would s in my life as flukes belittled theht with er-than-life forty-two-year-old father and husband result fro froht into the notion that shit just happened, and I had to buck up and accept it? Maybe life just unfolded like those ash snakes on the Fourth of July--er and soot started If that were so, where would I findthat was so fundamentally unfair?