Adam nods. “I wonder what it’s like to make a landmark.” He tells me he’s an architect, but not that kind of architect.

Then he asks what I was doing to the espresso machine before, so I tell him about Bodie and the penny and he laughs. I feel like our whole conversation is some kind of secret test and his laugh means I passed.

After dinner, I take our plates into the kitchen, and Adam is waiting when I get back. He holds the door for me on the way out. He nods, I nod, and we walk to my car together.

“Why were you homeless?” I ask.

“I got in a fight with my father,” he says.

“Yeah, me too.” I don’t want to talk about my father, so I don’t ask questions about his. And maybe he doesn’t want to talk about his father, because he doesn’t ask about mine. But it’s not uncomfortable to walk together, my footsteps filling the beats between his, and I don’t flinch when he gets in my car.

Adam throws his bag on one of the black canvas chairs and says, “What can I get you?”

“What do you have?” I ask, giving him a big smile, trying hard to act like I’m completely comfortable standing here in his living room.

“Water, milk, Coke?” he says.

“Coke,” I say.

He goes into the kitchen and comes back with a can of Coke and a bottle of beer.

“There’s beer too,” he says, plopping down on the futon. “If you want one.” He rests the can of Coke on one of the birch coasters and uses a bent metal corner of the footlocker to open his bottle with a quick pound of his fist.

I crack the can open, slurping the foam so it doesn’t drip on his futon, and say, “I’m good with Coke, thanks.” I can’t afford a buzz. I know enough about men to know the good ones don’t ever want to be alone with a sixteen-year-old girl. And I’m pretty sure Adam is one of the good ones. I can’t afford to say something that will give me away. I already messed up with him once.

“So you’re an architect?” I ask. He moved on from it quickly in the cafe, like he was self-conscious. Like how I’d feel if someone asked me to sing in the middle of just being normal. “You actually make buildings?”

“Well, in theory,” Adam says. “I’m getting my PhD now. And I’m not supposed to be working outside of teaching, but that woman I met with at Decadence? Anna. She’s converting a barn, and has ideas she doesn’t know how to implement, so I’m helping her draw up plans. She’s my first client.”