"Liability language," Franklin finished. "I know. Complicating is the point. Comfortable closures are how this repeats with better lighting."
Priya said, "We can do that."
Liam said, very quietly, "I'll do whatever training. I want to get this right."
Franklin almost smiled, and then did not, because smiles could be mistaken for absolution. "Wanting is a start. Getting it right will bore you. It will feel like paperwork and role-play and being watched when you think you've already learned. Stay for the boring part."
He stood. The meeting had taken twelve minutes. He had a firmware day still waiting like a second weather system.
Adrian opened the door. As Franklin passed Liam, he paused — not to deliver a tagline, not to crush, just to finish being a person in the same air.
"Mr. Croft," he said, "that laptop on the floor is for people who need tools. Tools do not check wardrobes. You do. Fix that."
Liam nodded hard enough to look dizzy.
Downstairs, the store continued its bright commerce. Franklin returned to the demo bay because the day had not paused for his dignity. Nina from engineering was already on a conference call on Adrian's laptop, her face cropped tight, headphones on, a mug that said DON'T BREAK PROD in peeling letters.
"Talk to me," Nina said. "Hardware?"
"Provisional pass," Franklin said, sitting again. "Speaker resonance on WATCH. Retail case retest. If it fails, we slip. I will not be guilted by newsletter timing."
Nina exhaled. "Legal's going to cry."
"Legal can cry into a gasket redesign."
Nina's mouth twitched. "You sound like yourself. Good. There's a rumor you got — mishandled on the floor?"
Adrian started to speak. Franklin lifted two fingers. "I got sorted," he said. "I'm handling it as process, not as content. Do not put it in the launch channel."
"Copy," Nina said. "We need your formal approval packet by three if we're holding the Thursday window. If you're slipping, I need that by two so I can warn manufacturing."
"You'll have a direction by one-thirty," Franklin said.
After the call, Adrian brought coffee that tasted like it had been invented by a committee. Franklin drank it anyway. Hunger of any kind made him irritable, and he could not afford irritability that belonged to caffeine instead of principle.