The Offsite

Grace counted the pings. Seven since Santa Cruz. Eleven since San Jose. Fourteen since they'd loaded into the vans at the office, Tripp standing on the curb with his arms spread wide like he was blessing a pilgrimage instead of hemorrhaging $140,000 on a wellness retreat with eight weeks of runway left.

The Sprinter van smelled like someone's lavender essential oil and someone else's breakfast burrito. Twenty-seven bodies, inadequate air conditioning, and a Spotify playlist called "Good Vibes Only" that Leila from Marketing had queued up before they'd even left SoMa. Currently they were on the third loop of "Don't Stop Believin'" and Harper, the Head of People, was leading a call-and-response from the middle row that involved clapping on the upbeat.

Grace's phone buzzed against her thigh. She didn't look at it.

"Grace, you gotta sing!" That was Amara from Customer Success, five-year veteran, leaning forward from the third row with a grin that looked expensive to maintain.

"I'm navigating," Grace said, which was technically true. She was sitting in the passenger seat while Marcus from DevOps drove, and the GPS on the dashboard was showing seventeen miles to the turnoff. She could navigate for seventeen miles. She could count to ten seventeen times and they'd be there.

Her phone buzzed again.