She raised her eyebrows. “How did you—”

“Jonah told me about it. At poetry night.”

I believe everything you say about this place, she remembered him saying, that night in her bedroom, and back then, she didn’t know if she really, truly believed it. She believed Will when he said he was practical, responsible. She believed him when he said this building meant something different to him, something painful and permanently scarring.

But she hadn’t really believed that he was capable of seeing it her way, too. She hadn’t really known that he’d been watching and listening so well. It made her feel warm and soft all over.

“Thank you,” she said. “For doing that for us.”

He looked down, and she thought he might’ve shaken his head, but the movement was so slight, she couldn’t be sure.

“I did it for you,” he said, and her breath caught in her chest.

For long seconds, she couldn’t speak—couldn’t think of anything at all to say. She could only watch him, the memory of the first time she’d ever seen him coming back to her. That morning, it had been from above, outlined by the light from the apartment he never even wanted. She’d seen him like this: tall and lean, his body curved, his head bowed.

He’d looked so far away, so alone.

So untouchable.

She didn’t even realize she’d taken a step forward until he raised his head, and she found herself only inches away, her own face tipped up to meet his gaze. He wasn’t untouchable now: he was flesh and blood and right in front of her. But that—oh, that was too much, wasn’t it? To touch him? That was so forward; that was no way to return a favor.

“Thank you,” she said again, almost a whisper, and had he moved closer, too? Despite her first sight of him, she had been close to him before; she knew she had. She’d been in her bed with him before. He’d touched her in her shower before.

But this was nothing like any before. This was quiet and certain and perfect and new, everything new; her whole body felt new.

“Nora,” he said, a whisper to match her own, and this, too, was novelty, unlike any time he’d said it in all the weeks she’d known him: not a scold or sympathy or a slow down, not anything other than the pure pleasure of saying it. It was the way you said your lover’s name, the way you sometimes softly asserted the fact of their being there, of their being yours.