“I mean, yes,” I correct, raising my chin. “They’re mass-produced, obviously. Not . . .” I trail off. Not containing subtle commentary on the status of anyone’s relationship, is what I’m thinking. That’s another benefit to the job, frankly. Surely I won’t be tempted to weave ridiculous, reckless codes into work I’m submitting for a general audience.

“Unique,” Reid says, and it’s a kindness, I think. The most generous completion of that sentence possible.

I stroke the front of my bag, my face flushing, but stop when I hear the crinkling again.

“So,” I say brightly, to cover the crinkling, “They’ve asked me and a few other artists to produce three treatments, full-year planner pages. If they choose me, they’d produce a line with my work, using my name.”

“Aha,” he says quietly, barely a murmur. “A business opportunity.”

“You say that as if it’s a bad thing.”

He turns his head, looks vacantly across the river. “It isn’t.” He lifts a hand, gestures toward the Manhattan skyline. “Obviously.”

But that Obviously—he’s sure made it sound as if it’s a bad thing. He’s made it sound like business opportunities are the worst thing. Like that skyline is Sauron.

When he looks at me, his blue eyes washed pale with the bright sun, his expression looks harder, closer to the way it had been when he’d come to the shop last week.

“Despite what you may think about my work,” he says, “I’m not some kind of business consultant. That isn’t the work I do.”

“I have no idea what you do.”

“I told you. I’m a qu—”

It’s my turn to wave a hand. “I looked it up. I still don’t understand it. Math, that’s the extent of it. You’re probably very smart.”

His mouth lifts, higher on the right side, and it makes a gorgeous decorative line on his cheek, a curve up from his chin, a gentle swoop outward toward his cheek. That curve—it only lasts a second, maybe two, but it’s enough to feel seared into my brain. I’ll probably try to draw it later. Swoonsh.

“I don’t want you to help me with my business,” I say, looking away. “That’s not what this is for.”

“What’s it for, then?”

I take a deep, courage-gathering inhale. “It’s for me to get some ideas.”

I tell him briefly about the signs, about how they inspired me, how the letters on them, especially in this city, are full of variation. I show him the page in my notebook, where I’ve made a bulleted list of some of the most famous hand-lettered signs around the city. I reach for my phone, to show him the map I’ve saved, tiny red pins marking all the places I plan to go, but before I can unlock it, he speaks.