“It’s only that—” I break off, sigh heavily. He looks over at me, his brow wrinkled in that same way as it’d been when I’d gotten off the train. “I don’t feel very well today,” I admit.

I barely have time to feel embarrassed, because Reid stops, sets a hand under my elbow—whoops, still an erogenous zone—and gently guides me to the edge of the sidewalk, out of the way of the pedestrians behind us.

The move is so—immediate. So instinctive and concerned and direct, and so very Reid, and that gives me the three-seconds-from-crying feeling again. I lower my eyes, stare down at my shoes, which now feel more than a half size too small. He smells the same as he did last weekend—soap and that whisper of swimming pool—and if this turns into actual crying I don’t trust myself to resist the face-pressing instinct.

“I knew it,” he says. “You’re sick?”

“Not really.” Without thinking, I smooth a hand over my stomach, low where it aches.

“You have—” He breaks off, puts his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. “Aha,” he says, softly.

I can’t help but laugh. This is all very Masterpiece Theatre, like old-timey times when people couldn’t say the word leg or ankle because it was too morally disturbing. It feels as though he’s invited me—with all his serious, starchy caution—to say it out loud.

“If that ‘aha,’ means ‘your period,’ then yes. You are correct.”

He doesn’t clear his throat or set his jaw or get a wash of pink across his cheeks. He gives a skeptical glance to the small purse—a real miscalculation, I admit, since I can’t fit a military-grade heating pad inside of it—and says, “Do you have everything you need?” as though he’s planning to go into the nearest Duane Reade and buy me a bag of supplies.

The funny thing is, I think he actually would. In which aisle would I find tampons? he would say, in that very serious voice.

I tug on the hem of my favorite shirt, an old striped button-up that’s been washed so many times it’s as soft as the sheets on my bed. “I’m okay. I don’t want to quit yet. I’m just feeling . . . yuck.”

I fully expect him to furrow at that description, but he only nods and looks up ahead, where there’s a small, tree-canopied enclosure, black wrought-iron gating separating it from the busy sidewalk and street.

“Let’s go sit for a while. You can put your feet up.”

I stare at him, and this time he actually does flush a little.

“My sister always does that. When she feels . . .” He trails off.