Before long, I’d found that it would be better to pull the plug on the call before their earlier civil, even warm, exchange deteriorated to nothingness.

One of the other senior partners who’d walked by the conference room had seen Mr. Desmond pacing around the room after that, red-faced, hands clutching his head. He opened the conference door slightly, and motioned to me towards him, intending to ask about what was happening, but Mr. Desmond had cut in loudly, “Don’t leave now, Harley, we need to talk about what just happened and how that could affect our strategy.” His voice was loud and irritated enough for the senior partner to get the clear message.

The senior partner answered from the slightly opened conference room door, “Of course, of course, Mr. Desmond. I’ll just catch up with Harley some other time.”

I wondered whether the senior partner felt like he’d somehow been told subtly by one of the firm’s most important clients to buzz off, because he walked away a little flushed himself. He was one of the three who played a critical role in deciding who was going to get the partner slot that had opened up – could he count this incident against me, in some way?

It was useless for me to worry about that now.

Wow! This whole day is turning out to be such a mess! To think it started out with a lovely make-out session with Aerin up in the roofdeck . Things simply deteriorated from that point for reasons that escaped me. And what the hell was happening to my darling Aerin anyway?

I stared at my phone, as if trying to will it to get a call from Aerin’s phone.

Instead, I saw a call from Annie flash. I swiped right to take it. “Hi,” I said, a little irritably.

“Uh oh. What’s going on with you?” Annie asked.

“It’s been a long, rough day,” I answered briefly. I switched topics, and asked about how the boat ride had gone.

Katy took over the call from their side and proceeded to tell me that the boat ride had gone badly because of the high waves and other things.

Annie took the phone from Katy. “So, how is Aerin feeling?”