He came at twelve thirty on a Wednesday with food from the Thai place near the university, the same order they had been sharing since their second year when Ava had declared it the only lunch worth eating within walking distance of the campus and the declaration had quietly become a standing arrangement.
They sat in the courtyard in the midday sun, the one that caught the building at the right angle and made the financial district feel almost welcoming, and Ava had exactly twenty-five minutes before her afternoon started. Eli had arranged his own schedule around those twenty-five minutes the way he arranged a great many things around Ava without making a performance of the arranging.
They talked about his research first, a project that had been stalled for three weeks and had suddenly, i
