“Won’t take but a minute. I’ve done it once recently.” He added a small, crooked smile. Probably that would’ve looked like a smirk to her, only a few weeks ago. But now it looked like the most gentle, welcome encouragement. “I’ll have to be coming by anyway. I need to put a lockbox on the uni—um. Apartment.”

“Right.” She shifted on her feet, newly uneasy. Would her neighbors think of it as a betrayal, Will coming in and out of her apartment? Their reaction to the news of the rental going forward hadn’t been as extreme as she’d anticipated, but still—their memory of Donny was unchanged, this plan of Will’s seemingly as disrespectful as it was disruptive. To them, she and Will were still on different sides of this thing.

But like always, he seemed to see right through her.

“We can keep it between us,” he said. “It’s not as if we both don’t keep weird hours.”

She couldn’t help her smile, the flutter of excitement in her stomach. “That’s true.”

“One condition,” he said, and the flutter faded. If he asked her for some favor about his rental, she—

“You gotta let me have more of that sauce.”

She narrowed her eyes, pursed her lips in feigned, joking contemplation. He’s coming back, she thought, inwardly thrilled, and eventually—right when she thought he might be starting to sweat it—she let her smile break free once again.

She held out her hand. An agreement, not a farewell. Her palm tingled in anticipation.

“Okay, Will,” she said. “You’ve got a deal.”

Nora had always thought of herself as a patient person.

The art of waiting had been instilled in her early, and unlike most of the qualities she considered to be her best, she could mostly credit this one to her parents. In practical terms, honing this skill had been an essential part of her childhood days: waiting quietly outside her mom’s or dad’s office on campus after school, eavesdropping on the excited or concerned conversations they’d have with their research students. Waiting at the kitchen table, where she did her homework each night, for one of her parents to put together or bring home dinner, at least until she got old enough to handle the occasional dinner for herself. Waiting for her mom to have a few free afternoons to teach Nora how to drive when she got her learner’s permit; waiting for her dad to read over her college application essays.