Is it so much to ask that they let me continue to do that?

Still, Banks is right when he says our “relationship” deserves more than a sneaky exit.

I can do ten minutes.

I’ll take that time to explain to them that I’m done.

It was a very nice experiment, but I’d like to quit while I’m ahead.

“Ten minutes.”

“Thank you,” Banks says, gesturing for me to precede him on the sidewalk. The other two men mimic his gesture, so I’ve got three men in wrinkled tuxedos gesturing at me like they’re a restaurant maître d’ about to guide me to my table. I’m really starting to think my whole life has been one big hallucination since stepping onto that damn tram.

Shayna slowly turns to me, bewildered. “I don’t know if I should call the police or a documentarian.”

“Welcome to my world,” I mutter, stomping through the sea of tuxedos. “Come on, jerks.”

We walk for a few moments in silence, the three of them huddled around me like bodyguards. Tobias holds up a flat palm to stop a cab before it can cut in front of us, Gabe keeps a hand on the small of my back and Banks looks busy strategizing, the muscle in his cheek doing gymnastics. We’ve only traveled the length of a crosstown city block when Banks holds up his phone. “It’s going to start drizzling any second now. We should do this in a coffee shop.”

“Capital plan,” Tobias says briskly. “There’s one just ahead.”

“There’s a better one two doors past it.” Again, Banks gestures with his phone. “According to Yelp.”

There is something off here, but I can’t quite put a finger on it. Maybe the fact that it’s a clear blue sky. Not a cloud in sight. It’s more than that, though. Banks won’t make eye contact with me, which is unusual to say the least and oddly…makes me feel a tad off balance. “It’s not going to rain,” I say, hoping he’ll look at me. He doesn’t. “Banks—”

Before I can complete that sentence, I’m hustled through an open door. Into a very small establishment with one non-descript desk and beige, centuries-old carpet. The words Can You Break Out? are stenciled onto the wall in red ink, along with a peeling magnifying glass sticker. In smaller print are the words: New York’s Only 24-Hour Escape Room.

Okay. This is not a coffee shop. Five seconds is all the time Banks needs to gesture to the exhausted woman behind the desk and get a wave in return.

“I called about the prison theme,” he says curtly.

“This is who you were talking to on the phone in the cab?” Tobias asks. “I just assumed you were into some weird kink.”

I’m guided down a long hallway in too much of a stupor to react. And then I’m locked in an escape room with Banks, Tobias and Gabe.

A red timer appears above the door. Sixty minutes begins to count down.