Her laughter lingers, hovering in the small, warm space between us. “So what about you? Eight million people. Surely one of them is currently waiting for you to walk into a bookstore and drop a heavy hardback or something.”
I shake my head, the cynic’s armor clicking back into place. “I’m not in the market for a great love. I’m looking for a basic level of administrative competence. Someone who won’t lie about their whereabouts and actually likes my daughter. The bar is practically subterranean.”
“That’s bleak, Leo, even for you.”
“It’s pragmatic. It’s adulthood.”
“You’re a neuroscientist,” she says, shifting her weight, the floorboard beneath her hips creaking a little. “Shouldn’t you be more optimistic about the human condition? You literally study the machinery of hope.”
“I study the human brain,” I say, looking down at Emma, who is currently snoring against my thigh. “That’s exactly why I’m a cynic.”
She laughs again, and I find myself realizing, with a quiet, inconvenient jolt that I’ve been aiming for it. I’ve been tailoring my sentences and playing the grouch just to see her nose scrunch up in that specific, ridiculous way it does when she laughs. It’s a dangerous thing to notice, the way her face lights up in the dark. I’d spent the night arguing that New York was a city of millions, but looking at her now, I realize the math is shaky. If I’m looking for this specific laugh, this specific person, this specific face—then the city isn’t crowded at all. It’s actually quite empty.
I like the friction of this. The way she refuses to let me hide behind my own cleverness. The way she doesn’t let me get away with being too serious or too self-deprecating, and how she pushes back. It’s been a while since I’ve had a conversation like this with anyone.
Between us, the architecture of the fort begins to fail. Emma stirs, the blankets shifting like a slow-moving tectonic plate. Her eyes flutter open, glassy and unfocused in the way of a four-year-old who has just returned from a very distant planet.
“Can we watchThe Little Mermaidnow?” she mumbles into her pillow.
Annie and I both let out a quiet, synchronized laugh—an accidental harmony that usually makes me feel incredibly self-conscious. I reach over and brush a stray hair from Emma’s damp forehead. “I think it’s time to move the party to your actual bed, kiddo.”
Emma makes a noise of weary protest, but she doesn’t fight it. She goes limp, her body turning into that strange, heavy-gravity lead that children become when they’re truly exhausted.
“But I wanted to see if Ariel got her voice back,” she mumbles, her head falling against my shoulder.
“She does,” Annie says, leaning in close. “She gets the prince, too. Remember?”
“Good,” Emma sighs, her eyelids losing the battle. “I like it when people get what they want.”
“Me too,” Annie whispers. There’s a certain weight to it, a flicker of yearning, and for a second, I want to look at her, but she’s busy tucked into the shadows of the duvet.
“I should go,” she says after a moment, and the spell of the fort breaks. She sits up, shedding blankets like a butterfly leaving a very messy cocoon. “It’s late.”
I feel a sharp spike of panic. “It’s too late for you to be wandering around Manhattan by yourself.”
“Leo—”
“You can stay here. Really. Take the futon—though, full disclosure, it has a rogue spring on the left side that’s basically an instrument of torture. Or take the guest room. I can clear out the LEGO minefield in there in ten seconds, I’m a professional—”
“Leo,” she says, and she’s smiling now. “It’s fine. I’ll call a cab and wait in the lobby.”
“Are you sure?”
She elbows me, a sharp, playful jab to the ribs. “If I can take you in a fight, I think I can handle a ride to the East Village by myself.”
I want to argue. I want to tell her that New York at one in the morning is a different, grittier animal than it is at noon, but I don’t want to be that guy. The overbearing, pinstriped-suit guy. So I just nod, hoist a sleeping Emma into my arms, and tuck her into bed before hovering in the kitchen.
I find my wallet and pull out two twenties and a ten. It’s too much—the fare is fifteen, tops—but I have this sudden, irrational need for her to be safe, to be armored in small bills.
She’s by the door when I get back, her jacket on, looking like she’s already halfway back to her own life. I take her hand—her skin is warm, a startling contrast to the cold brass of thedoorknob—and press the money into her palm. “Take it. I’m not asking.”
She starts to recoil. “You don’t have to—”
“I know I don’t have to. I’m doing it for my own peace of mind. It’s purely selfish.”
She looks at the crumpled bills, then up at me, her expression softening. “Thank you. For this.” She gestures back toward the living room, toward the ruins of the fort and the empty pizza boxes. “For letting me crash your Friday night.”
“You didn’t crash anything,” I say. “You made Emma’s night. This was exactly what she needed.”
