“After my dad left,” he says, “Mom and I lived with two other ladies from her nursing school. Aunt Terry and Aunt B.”

“Back up. Aunt . . . Terry?”

Noah smiles, enjoying my surprise. “We were this crazy, estrogen-rich, romance-loving household. My mom and my aunts’ favorite thing to do was swap novels and argue over plots and characters. It was like a book club that never ended.”

“And eventually,” I say, “you got inducted?”

“I read Clan of the Cave Bear in first grade.”

“Those books are so underrated!” I say. “Jondalar was my first fictional crush.”

“Oh, is that your type?” he jokes and I turn red, thinking back on those notoriously steamy cave scenes that I read at least three thousand times.

“So when you started writing . . .” I say, putting a corner piece of the Noa Callaway puzzle into place.

He nods. “I’d fallen in love with love. Though, obviously, at twenty, I didn’t know a thing about it.”

I picture Noah at twenty, not knowing a thing about love. It’s sort of cute.

“When I showed the first draft of Ninety-Nine Things to my mom,” he says, “she didn’t believe I’d written it. If my own mother couldn’t see it, what reader would want to open the back flap and see me?”

I consider what his author photo might look like. Smoldering green eyes flirting with the camera. Dark curls just long enough to suggest untamed. Black turtleneck. No, a button-down showing a little bit of chest hair . . .

He’s right. His author photo would give his readers a shock.

“Alix didn’t know I was a man until after she’d bought the manuscript,” he continues, another key piece falling into place. “We had no idea Ninety-Nine Things would take off the way it did. I never thought I’d make a career of it. Once upon a time . . .”

“It was just a love story?”

“Yes,” he says, meeting my eyes. It feels as if this is the first time we’ve ever really looked at each other. “It was just a love story.”

We keep walking along the river, the sun high and bright overhead, the view of the George Washington Bridge growing in the distance.

“It’s your move,” he says, catching me off guard.

“What?”

“In chess.” He waves his phone. “It’s been your turn for over a week. You’re about to forfeit the game.”

“Oh! I’ve been—”

“Paralyzed by my impending victory?”

“More like trying not to distract you with push notifications! Also, I don’t want to completely crush your confidence in this delicate creative moment. You’ve lost—what?—the past six games in a row?”

“That’s only because I can’t use my intimidation tactics over the app.”

“And those would be?”