All she’d wanted, in that brief, loaded moment of silence after he’d said it, was to stay with him, to keep the conversation going. There was no comparing their situations, of course—Nora’s parents were alive and well, probably right now covered head to toe in dust at some faraway dig site without a reliable cell signal—but still, Nora couldn’t help it. She’d wanted to know if Will’s parents hadn’t been with him in the same ways Nora’s parents hadn’t been with her.

A chime from her computer snapped her attention back to her email screen, where an unread message sat waiting, a name she’d been watching for. A confirmation, she was sure of it, and she should’ve felt excitement, or relief. But so quick on the heels of her thoughts about Will and his past and what they might have in common, she hesitated to open it.

Forgetting yourself, she thought, frustrated.

Still, instead of clicking, she stood from her desk to stretch, closing her eyes to resist the persistent window-watching instinct. What she needed to do was focus, to get right in her head before she clicked on that email and proceeded with her new, not-seeing Will Sterling plan. The other night had been a mistake, trying to . . . bond with him, in some way. She needed to keep her mind on the bonds that mattered; she needed to—

Answer the door.

Nothing about that knock that rattled through the apartment indicated that it was one of her neighbors coming to call; in fact, more than once, Mrs. Salas hadn’t bothered knocking at all, though fortunately, Nora had always been dressed and decent on those occasions. And anyway, knocking wasn’t often the way of it around here, not when everyone knew each other’s routines so well, when it was easy enough to know when your neighbor checked the mail, or went for a weekly grocery shop. So a sharp knock? That was even more—

It sounded again before she’d made it halfway down the hall, and she called out an agitated “I’m coming!” in response.

A brief look through her peephole confirmed her quickly-forming suspicion, and she took a deep breath before finally pulling open her door to the man she did not need to be seeing, who was standing there with his loosely-fisted hand already raised, ready to knock again. His hair was a typically delightful mess and his mouth was set in a firm line, and no, she did not need to see him again, but damn if it didn’t make her heart beat a little faster when she did. She crossed her arms over her chest and prepared to pretend like she was entirely unaffected.

“Can I hel—”

“Did you do something to my unit?”