We sat in awkward silence for the next forty-five minutes, until the SUV pulled up in front of my building. James opened my door, and I assumed Edgar would stay inside, but he stepped out as well. We faced each other in front of the brownstone’s corroding steps.

“Carter,” Edgar said, as I stuck out my hand for a farewell handshake.

“Yeah?”

“You’re a strange and confused person. But before I leave for London there’s something I would very much like to do. May I come up?”

“Come up? You mean, to see my apartment?”

“Among other activities.”

“You mean you want to . . .”

“If you’d like to.”

“But is that really a good idea?”

Edgar turned to his security detail, saying, “Carter, I’ve been incredibly rude. You haven’t been properly introduced to my superb team. Please meet Ian Hoagland, Charles Wintermore, Clark Dartley, Terry Winton and Lucky Bartle.”

“You guys are amazing,” I said.

“Yes, they are,” said Edgar. “They’re the finest security force not merely in London but in the world. So let’s ask their opinions. Gentlemen, do you think I should accompany Carter up to his apartment?”

The men scrunched up their faces, as they decided.

“I’d say absolutely,” offered Clark.

“We’ve been discussing it among ourselves for days,” said Ian. “What’re you blokes waiting for?”

“Maybe you’re not really gay,” suggested Terry.

“Miriam asked me about it,” confided Charles.

“Otherwise you’re just wasting our time,” concluded Lucky, who had an impressively broken nose.

James sighed and addressed both of us: “If you must.”

As we climbed the five flights I channeled my mother, racing through a to-do list: was the apartment and especially my bedroom anywhere close to tidy, or at least nontoxic, were there clean towels and non-budget toilet paper, and had Edgar ever been in a rent-controlled apartment where the tilting bookcases covered the cracks in the walls, and oh my God, because this was my mom’s greatest terror, beyond plague or earthquake, would there be any visible bugs? Sometimes, just to upset her, while I was on the phone with my mom I’d pretend to be scolding the bugs, telling them, “Hush, it’s Sarah, we’ll play charades later.”

“Stop it. Stop worrying,” Edgar told me.

“You mean stop breathing?”

“If necessary.”

Clark and Ian took up their posts in the hallway; the other guys were grabbing coffee from a nearby Starbucks. All I could think was that, like raising a child, having sex with a crown prince took a village.

“Hello?” I said, pushing open the front door.

“HIIII!” said Louise, Adam and DuShawn, lounging on the couch.

“Edgar, these are my friends and roommates Louise and Adam, and that’s Adam’s boyfriend, DuShawn, and they’re all about to head into their own bedrooms and be very, very quiet.”