I laughed, then really looked at him for the first time. I’ve always had a thing for bikers. It’s actually an item on my Ninety-Nine Things list. Not the greasy, aggressive kind. Think Steve McQueen in The Great Escape. Ryan fell squarely into the latter category. He was wearing a nice suit and shoes that gleamed with fresh polish. He had clean fingernails, sexy hands. Then he lifted the visor and I saw his eyes. I was a goner. Even if I’d needed a lift to Louisville, Ryan’s brown eyes would have gotten me out of that cab.

Check another item on my list.

“You can wear my helmet,” he said, like he knew he had me.

“I don’t normally do things like this,” I said, chucking a five at the cabbie and opening my door.

“Maybe we should make a habit of it,” he said. “I’m Ryan.”

“I’m Lanie.”

I put the helmet on as cars honked all around us. If I’d been with Meg or Rufus we’d have flipped them off en masse, but I stood there patiently as Ryan fastened the helmet’s clasp, feeling his fingers at my chin.

“Don’t worry about them,” he said close to my ear, nodding at the honkers. “In a few seconds they’ll all be in the rearview mirror.”

It’s ten-fifteen by the time I slip my key into the lock of my fifth-floor walk-up apartment. I’ve lived here for six years but have only had the place to myself for the past three, after my roommate moved to Boston, and I could finally (barely) cover the rent on my own. I hired a company to knock down the temporary wall in the living room that had served as my roommate’s old room, and restored the apartment to its one-bedroom glory.

Tonight, when I open the door, a blast of heat engulfs me. I throw up my hands to ward off flames. I sniff for smoke, but all I get is Vito’s garlic knots.

I step inside, and there is Ryan in my kitchen, shirtless and half-submerged in a heap of hoses and hardware, which looks like it used to be my dishwasher. At the sound of my boots, his head pops up, and he gives me the wide grin that makes my dry cleaner fan herself with her pad of receipts.

Ryan played tennis at Princeton, so if you’ve seen Nadal change shirts after a match, the comparison would not be hyperbolic. His muscles are so defined they have etymologies.