Julia knocked twice on the frosted glass and eased the door open with a grin and a paper bag. “If your twelve o’clock was anything like your eleven, you forgot to eat.”
Ethan laughed and stood to meet her. “Guilty.” He kissed her—quick, bright, a clean strike of warmth—and took the bag. “You’re a miracle.”
“Careful,” she said, slipping onto the couch by the window. “Miracles charge extra.” She began unpacking: two small containers of soup, a stack of napkins, a sandwich cut on the diagonal. “Mrs. Collins nearly frisked me. You run a tight ship.”
“Mrs. Collins was a prison warden in a past life,” Ethan said, smiling toward the door. “Fifty years old, heart of iron, a Rolodex with more power than Congress.”
They ate and traded easy talk—her morning meeting that could have been an email,
