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Tucker walked around in the background, making a familiar clicking sound on the floor with his nails.

“I can hear Tucker,” I said.

“Oh yeah, his nails are pretty long. I’m going to take him into PetSmart tomorrow and have them cut, actually. He’s almost out of food too.”

“Save your receipts so I can reimburse you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said. “So bone marrow, tell me.”

“Right. I grew up in a really small town in northern Minnesota. Population three thousand. So everyone knows everybody else. There was a little girl in the town who got leukemia, so a lot of the townsfolk—”

“‘Townsfolk’?” She sounded amused.

“Yes, ‘townsfolk,’ we actually talk like that there.”

She laughed at this. I liked her laugh. It was musical.

“A lot of the townsfolk registered on Be The Match because she needed a bone marrow transplant. She ended up getting one. Nobody she knew. But I was in the registry after that, and I ended up being the match for a guy with lymphoma. So I donated.”

“Did they live?” she asked.

I nodded. “They did. I’m friends with the guy on Facebook. He’s been in remission for four years now. And Emily too. She just graduated high school.”

“Wow. That’s…that’s really generous.”

I shrugged. “I just couldn’t imagine being that sick and not having any options, you know? And maybe one day someone will do it for me. Or someone I love.”

There was a little pause, and she was smiling when she started talking again. “So in this tiny town of three thousand, what kind of things did you do for fun?”

I ticked off on my fingers. “Ice fishing, dogsledding in the winter. Canoeing. I worked as a guide for trips into the Boundary Waters for ten years. My dad owns an outfitting company.”

“And your mom? What does she do?”

“She stayed home. Worked at the outfitters in the summer when it was busy.”

She laughed a little. “You really are a northerner, aren’t you? Have you seen any moose?”

“I’ve seen moose, wolves, the northern lights—”

“Oh, I would love to see the northern lights. It’s on my bucket list.”

“Yeah? What else is on your list?”

She made a humming noise. “I want to eat soft-shell crabs. Oh, and I want to visit Ireland. That’s my biggest one. What’s on your list?”

If anyone had asked me the same thing yesterday, I’d have answered, “Play the Hollywood Bowl.” But today? “I want to take you on a date.”