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“I’m going to D.C. because I need to pick something up,” I say. “I need my keys to do it. And Aude just told me I left them at the office.” I cup my face, retracing my steps. “I ran into my friend as I was leaving... she gave me this egg drop soup... and I must have dropped my keys.”

“So, it’s actually key drop soup.”

I look at him, blink. “Oh my god, you just made a joke.” It was corny beyond belief, but it was a joke nonetheless.

Noah cocks an eyebrow, smiles. “I do it once a month on the full moon.”

“This is a fine time to let me know you actually have a sense of humor in person.”

“Business or residence?” Noah asks.

“Huh?”

“This place you need the keys to get into.”

“Residence. Why?”

“What kind of windows?”

“I don’t know, ones with panes. They slide up? I think.”

I watch Noah’s hands clasp together. I watch him lean back in his seat as his green eyes scan the ceiling. He’s thinking. This is what he looks like when he’s thinking. I picture him sitting like this at his desk in his beautiful Fifth Avenue penthouse, probing his mind for answers about characters I have loved.

“I can get you in,” he says.

“Uh, what?”

“There’s a... ninety-eight-percent chance that I can get you in.”

Noah must see the way I’m looking at him because for once, he’s quick to explain.

“I was raised in a household of women. My mother and two of her friends. Very overprotective.”

“What does any of this mean?” I ask.

“I got good at sneaking out of the house.”

“That’s different from sneakingin.”

“What kind of alarm system?”

“He never turns it on.”

Noah smiles. “Then we’re golden.”

I squint at his nonchalance. “So, you’re going to get off this train with me? And we’re going to this empty house? And you’re going to break me inside?”

Noah nods. Smiles.

“This is not the Friday night I had envisioned.”

“Stick with me, kid,” Noah says. And then, he seems to hear his own words, the rapport that they suggest. His cheeks turn pink, and his manner shifts back to stiff. “If I’m going to agree to this, you need to tell me where we’re going, and why.”

I was afraid of this. But I have no idea how to break into Ryan’s place other than a rock through his window, so if I want my heirlooms without a criminal report, Noah Ross might have to call a few shots.

“It’s my ex-fiancé’s brownstone in Georgetown.”

“The guy on the wall? I thought he wasn’t your ex-fiancé.”