The view wasn’t all that great. It overlooked an unremarkable square of downtown Chicago and was blocked by some of the old, original skyscrapers from the late 1800s that surrounded them in Wicker Park. It was one of those facts picked up from walking around the city. Usually by a family member who liked acting like a tour guide to visiting relatives—standing at the center of a group of people they had corralled into listening to them—talking about some young architect nobody had heard of outside of the city, who had both built a particular building and who had maybe met Frank Lloyd Wright or Louis Sullivan or whatever. Daniella had overheard enough to pick up which buildings were famous nationally and which ones were famous locally. But it didn’t matter that everyone on the street had an opinion about half the buildings in the greater Chicagoland area. This one, this rooftop, felt like it belonged to Daniella because nobody else ever came up here.

Just her and the mosquitoes.

The warm breeze blew across Daniella’s face, and she took a deep inhale.

Daniella preferred winter in Chicago. She knew that was insane to most people. But she liked the way the snow dampened everything. Made the world go quiet. Muffled the hustle and bustle of the streets below. There was a sense of camaraderie in the winter, of communal survival. There were puffy coats and crunchy snow beneath her boots. There were two layers of scarves and her favorite pompom hat. The air smelled cleaner, too.

No mosquitoes in winter, either.

The breeze on the roof was freezing in the winter, but nobody else would dare go up there when it was fifteen degrees out. She’d grab a hot mug of anything from the break room just to keep her fingers warm so she could sit up on the roof for an extra ten minutes in the winter. Sometimes it would snow and she’d watch as the little flurries melted into the steaming mug.

Today, however, was one of those smoldering, stinking days of summer that Chicago was infamous for. The kind of heat that would really stagnate were it not for the breeze slowly lifting off the lake. She slapped at a mosquito buzzing around her arm. And of course, on today of all days, Daniella heard the jiggle of the door handle. Somebody was coming up onto her roof.

This would never happen in the winter. Never.

The door swung open, and Eli poked his head around. “Wow, I knew you came up here sometimes, but this is really the world’s worst view of the city.”

“Shut up.” But Daniella didn’t have the heart to put any force behind the command.

And Eli knew it. “Bet you thought you were the only one who knew how to get up here.”