He still has his hand on his cup, but he hasn’t turned it, not yet, and I sense that when he does, it’ll be the end of this, whatever this is. He pulls his lips to the side, and I may have no earthly idea what his job entails, but I’ve got a feeling this is the expression he wears when he’s doing one of those math models. That he wore when he looked at my letters for the first time.

“Let’s just say it has not been an easy place for me to understand,” he says, finally. He makes the last turn of his cup and lifts his eyes to mine. “There haven’t been many signs for me here.”

I have a sudden, shocking urge to protest. But there are signs everywhere here! Street signs, business signs, billboards, subway ads, window decals, graffiti . . .

Of course I know it’s not what he means. But it’s part of what the city means to me.

But I can’t get my thoughts together before he stands, taking his cup and saucer with him in one hand.

“I am grateful for yours, I suppose,” he says, and then he holds out his free hand. On autopilot I shake it, feel the warm, dry strength of his palm enveloping mine, a gesture that feels shockingly unbusinesslike to I’m sure me alone. Good thing I’ll never see him again, because these are highly inappropriate feelings to have for this particular man.

When he releases my hand he gives me one of those devastating nods.

“Goodbye, Meg,” he says, and with one stop by the counter, tidily returning his cup and saucer to the bussing tray, tall, triple-take-face, time-machine-transported Reid Sutherland walks right out the door.

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

I wake up to three unusual things: a hangover-sized headache, the rectangular press of my phone underneath my left shoulder, and the sound of Sibby still in the apartment.

I can thank the evening espresso for the headache, that plus staying awake until 3:30 a.m., finishing up the May spread I’d stumbled over, determined to keep my renewed promise to myself—no tricks, no codes, no signs allowed.