I blink, swallowing my food heavily. Anyone looking at me and Reid right now—anyone who notices his excellent table manners and good posture and tasteful weekend clothing, and my Clever Girl dinosaur T-shirt and the way I slouch over my plate and how I never thought to put my napkin in my lap—anyone would think it’d be me who’d suggest something fun, something light. A game.

“It isn’t my business,” he says in the silence I leave there. He makes a move to gather his plate.

“Wait,” I say, and his hands still. Anyone would think that, even me. But having Reid for a fr—for company—it’s probably going to mean that I stop thinking that way. We’ve built up quite a tower of blocks here, the two of us, in this small, inexpensive, delicious restaurant.

“It’s sort of your business,” I say. “If you’re still doing this with me.”

For a second, we look at each other, the tower tall and quivering between us. The corners of his mouth are tight, as though he’s making an effort to control his expression. It’s still so noisy in here, but not so much that I can’t hear his next two words, a quiet, simple promise.

Of company. Maybe even of friendship.

“I am,” he says.

“Margaret,” Reid says an hour and a half later, staring down at his phone. “We got it.”

“All of them?” There’s a note of disappointment in my voice. Over so soon? I’m thinking, even though the light’s fading and my feet are getting tired.

I move next to him easily, more familiarly now, and peer over his shoulder, but still make sure I don’t let any of my unruly hair blow onto his person. And there it is, spread out over the eight photos on the grid of Reid’s photo library—all the letters of my name, my full name, the one no one ever really uses, but the one that’s been half of our quest since we left the restaurant.

We’d picked something easy for our first try at Reid’s game idea. Each of us, we’d decided, would have to try to find versions of all the letters in the other’s name, Reid including his middle name—Hale, from his mother’s side of the family, he tells me—to even things out. The rules were simple: no using the same sign for more than one letter, and nothing that’s not hand-lettered.