I settle for a “Hello,” but I keep it light and cheerful—buoyant, if you will—and I’m pretty sure he nods. As if he’s saying, “This greeting is acceptable to me.” I have a fleeting image of how it must have been at his wedding. Probably he did that nod when the officiant said “man and wife.” Probably he shook Avery’s hand instead of kissing her. I really don’t think she would’ve minded. Her lipstick always looked so nice.

“Welcome to—” I begin, at the same time he speaks again.

“You still work here,” he says. It’s flat, the same as everything I’ve ever heard him say, but there’s a hint of question, of surprise in it.

So maybe he knows something of what I’ve done since I lettered every single scrap of paper for his wedding.

But surely he can’t know—he absolutely can’t know—why I’d decided his wedding would be my last.

I swallow. “I’m filling in,” I say, and it’s—less buoyant. Cautious. “The owner’s on vacation.”

He’s still standing right inside the door, underneath the bright paper cranes Cecelia has hung from the ceiling near the entrance. Behind him, the window displays feature various sheaths of the new custom wrapping paper she’d told me about two weeks ago, the last time I’d stopped in for supplies. It’s all so colorful, a springtime celebration of pinks and greens and pale yellows, a cheery haven from the mostly gray tones of the city street outside, and now it looks like a human skyscraper has walked in.

It reminds me of one of those truths about Reid Sutherland.

It reminds me of how he’d seemed a little lost that day. A little sad.

I swallow again and take a step forward, pick up my Micron from the crease of my client’s notebook, prepare to close it and set it aside. , it calls, and this time something else occurs to me. It’d be close now to Reid and Avery’s first anniversary. June 2nd, that was the wedding date, and sure he’s planning way ahead, but probably he’s that kind of guy in general. Probably he’s got a reminder on his phone. And he’d be the type to follow the rules, too, all the conventions. Paper, that’s the traditional first anniversary gift, and that’s probably what brought him here. Very sweet, to come all the way to Brooklyn, to the place where they’d chosen their first paper together. Or I guess where she chose it, and he sort of . . . blinked at it in what she’d taken for approval.

I feel a blooming sense of relief. There’s an explanation for this, for him being here. It’s not because he knows.

No one but me could know.