“Yeah?” My voice was not as casual as I’d hoped.
“Yeah,” she said, and then ruined me completely by adding, “Even if you did terrify the doorman.”
“Attendant,” I corrected. “His name is Tad.”
“I’m sure he’s writing you up in a binder.”
“I hope it’s a nice binder.”
She laughed again, softer now, and set her mug down. “So. You’re here.”
“I am.”
“And you brought… pancakes?”
“Gingerbread men,” I said, flipping the lid. “So you could make fun of me.”
She looked into the box. She pressed her lips together so hard a dimple appeared in her cheek. “You massacred them.”
“I tried in the truck with a pocketknife.”
“God, you’re insufferable.”
“Still—”
“Don’t,” she said, grinning. “I will throw you off this balcony.”
“Then quit calling me names.”
We ate standing at the counter because sitting felt too official, and the city looked good from this angle.
“Did you really drive all the way down just to see if I remember you?” she asked around a mouthful of holiday carbs.
“Partly,” I said. “Partly to see if your world and mine can be in the same room without one swallowing the other.”
“And?”
“I think your world has better coffee and worse elevator smells.”
“Accurate.”
“And mine has better pancakes and worse Wi-Fi.”
“Also accurate.”
She studied my face then, the way she does when she’s weighing lines on a graph. “You sure about this? The thirty days. The driving. The… not running.”
“No,” I said truthfully. “But I’m sure I want to try.”
She watched that land, let it sit. Then she nodded once, like a deal had been struck. “Okay.”
The okay wasn’t fireworks. It was a lock sliding home.
Down on the street, a horn blared, someone shouted something that wasn’t festive at all, and a bus sighed to a stop. Up here, we stood in the glow of a wreath that was definitely crooked, in a city that didn’t owe us a quiet moment and gave us one anyway.
I held up my mug. “To test programs.”
She clinked hers against it. “Cheers.”
