“What the heck!” I say loudly, and a woman pushing an extremely fancy stroller gives me a startled glance. I give her back a brief, apologetic smile before looking back at my phone screen. “These are all hand-done!”

“I walked to South Street Seaport,” he says, and I think I detect a note of self-satisfaction there. “Many painted signs here.”

“I feel like you’ve cheated me, somehow! You’re a card sharp, but with this incredibly nerdy game that only we know about.” I wish Lachelle were here; she would definitely have something to say about this.

But I also don’t wish that. Because then I wouldn’t be alone, in on this secret game with Reid. Then I wouldn’t be alone the first time I hear him laugh. Even through the phone, it’s lovely. Soft, low, hardly a laugh at all. A chuckle. I see that word, drawn out. I’d make it so there were no ascenders, so all the letters were on the level. I’d make it so there was hardly any space between them, so that the word would look as snug and as warm as the sound feels.

Then I really look at what he’s sent. What he’s spelled. T-E-N-S-E.

“Oh. Not a good day, huh?”

“It was—as I said. Or, as I spelled, I suppose.”

“You want to ta—”

“No,” he says quickly. “That word about covers it.”

Reid says so little about his work that it almost makes me wish I understood that Wikipedia page better. But maybe I should be grateful, given how tied Reid’s work is to the things that made our last meeting so awkward: Avery, and Avery’s father.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“It isn’t your fault.”

I wonder if he’s standing still where he is, too. People and cars and buses rushing by, but a tiny, cozy pocket of quiet in the lines between our phones. Maybe I’m sorry and It isn’t your fault are things Reid and I should’ve already said to each other, in other contexts, but it doesn’t matter.

It matters that we’re saying them now.

“So,” I say, after the quiet stretches a beat too long. “South Street Seaport, huh?”

“Yes, it’s not that far from my office.”