Soon my phone battery is on the verge of giving out and I know I should take it as a sign to abandon my weird internet rabbit hole and get out of bed, but I’m in too deep now. Feeling sheepish, I slide Oliver’s laptop off his nightstand—mine’s all the way downstairs—and flick it open.

It opens to his Gmail inbox, and to an email he’s started composing. When I say “started,” it’s virtually blank: it’s addressed to [email protected], the subject line is Meeting up, and all he’s written so far is, Dear Hannah.

I frown.

Who is Hannah G Feldman? And why is Oliver planning to meet up with her? The subject line is highlighted, the cursor blinking beside it, as though Oliver can’t make up his mind what it should say and has been changing his mind.

I take a breath, telling myself not to get agitated. For all I know, Hannah Feldman is just one of the distributors he’s been trying to connect with, or some consultant Dev wants them to talk to. Oliver’s never given me any reason not to trust him, and there’s no call for me to start now, just because some stranger he’s emailing happens to have a pretty name. He was wrong to get so hot and bothered about me seeing his Missed Calls list last night—but he was right about me having to trust him.

I swallow, and with some effort of will, close the laptop and slide it back onto the nightstand. I’m startled to see it’s already noon.

I throw on some jeans and go knock on Sam’s door. He opens it fully dressed, those padded earphones around his neck like they’re surgically attached.

“Morning,” I say. “So, I was thinking it’d be nice to go to the farmer’s market today—what do you think? We can pick out some stuff for dinner.”

He nods with what I decide to interpret as understated enthusiasm.

“We’ll have to hustle,” I say. “They start packing up at one. See you downstairs in ten?”

I leave him to it and head down to see if there’s any coffee left in the pot from this morning. Ten minutes later, though, there’s no sign of Sam. Fifteen minutes later, I tap on his door.

“Sam, if you want to go to this thing, we need to get a move on…”

“Two minutes!” he calls back, and I retreat downstairs, reflecting that my nephew’s dawdling ways definitely don’t come from hyper-efficient Dennis. Sam finally makes his way down the stairs but the dallying still isn’t over; I swear I see him actually untying his perfectly tied laces and starting again.

“We’re not visiting the Queen of England, Sam,” I say, and he looks at me, confused.