Jade is already at the table when I arrive, and she has ordered my coffee without asking because she has known me for three years, and some things do not require asking.
She looks at me when I sit down. Not a greeting look, a reading look. Jade has always done this. She takes one full second to assess a person before she says anything, and in three years, I have never once been able to hide anything from that one second.
"You look different," she says.
"I look the same."
"You look different." She wraps both hands around her cup. "How is it actually going?"
"It's going well. He's —"
"That's your everything is fine voice." She sets her cup down. "I have known everything is fine since the Carlisle account almost collapsed, and you told the entire office it was fine for six weeks before
