me into my room and eyes Sandberg. “And how about His Nibs? Not giving you too hard a time, I hope.”

I laugh. “At first, yeah. But he got over it faster than I thought he would. Of course, now I’m going to leave him again, so I can probably expect a present waiting for me when I get back later, but oh, well.” I grab my messenger bag from the chair next to the tiny table that’s supposed to serve as a desk and dining table in one. “Where are you taking me?”

He looks from me to the cat and back again. “Well, if you don’t mind ordering in at my place, you can bring Sandberg.”

After going back and forth for a while about the logistics of such a thing (and my obsessively making sure it’s really okay), we load the cat into his carrier and set off on foot, at Jude’s insistence that he lives minutes away. In a surprisingly short amount of time, we’re standing outside his apartment door.

“You have to promise not to laugh when you see this place,” he says, turning the key in the locks. “It’s quite posh. I rather hate it, actually.”

“It doesn’t look very fancy from out here,” I declare in the politest way possible. The hallway we’re standing in is actually kind of dim and dank and smells like mothballs.

But as soon as he opens the door, it’s like we’re stepping into an entirely different building. I noticed the huge windows when we were on the street, but they’re on the second floor, and since he led me to a ground-floor door, I didn’t think they were part of his place. But they are.

I stare open-mouthed at them. “Holy shit,” I breathe, taking in the industrial-chic kitchen, white furniture, and metal stairs leading up to a loft with a giant bed in its center. It’s not his style at all, but I would know blindfolded that he lives here. It smells like him: cinnamon Altoids, shaving cream, and laundry detergent.

“I know. Please don’t think less of me for being the kind of prat who lives in a place like this. It seemed like a good idea four months ago, but…” He sets the carrier down and releases the catch on the door. Sandberg immediately jumps onto the pure-white couch and makes himself comfortable.

“No, no, buddy,” I tell him, picking him up.

Jude takes him from my arms and sets him down where he was. “He’s fine.” Obviously unconcerned, he steps away and goes into the kitchen, where he opens a drawer and pulls out a stack of paper menus. “Let’s see… Chinese, Indian, Thai, kebabs, pizza, fish and chips… what’s your fancy?”

“I think it’s only right that I have fish and chips, don’t you?”

He shrugs. “Sounds fine. I’ll just go upstairs, call them, and change my clothes.”

He presses a button next to the stairs, sending blinds down from a slot in the ceiling to cover the windows. Then he bounds lightly up the stairs, leaving me alone to look around.

This place is eerily similar to the London maisonette of my fantasies, complete with one entire wall of crammed bookshelves reaching to the ceiling. A catwalk connected to the loft and a ladder allows access to the higher shelves. I wander over, perusing the titles at eye level. I’ve never seen these books before in Jude’s possession. They’re all British classics. Heavy on Dickens and the romantic poets.

I stifle a grin and move on to his music collection, an old-school assortment of vinyl, CDs, and even a few tapes thrown in. When I’d questioned why he’d dragged all of this stuff across the Atlantic when it could have fit on a tiny device in his pocket, he’d shrugged. “I like having physical copies of stuff. Same with books and blueprints. Digital files are convenient, but you can’t touch them. You can’t smell them.”

I’d teased him about sniffing CDs, and he’d distracted me by sniffing my neck and murmuring that he’d never replace me with a digital Libby, so why should his music be any different?

I shiver at the memory and snap back to the present.

Everything seems to be mostly the same as it was in Chicago, with a few oddballs thrown in (Neil Young? Johnny Cash?). Unable to resist, I pluck an old Snow Patrol CD from the rack and turn it over to read the song titles. Not a bad song on the entire album. By design, it’s been forever since I’ve listened to anything by them.

“Put on whatever you’d like,” he calls over the railing above, startling me so much that I drop the CD with a clatter, and the front of the case pops off and skitters under the coffee table. I drop to all fours and fish it out, suddenly feeling nervous and jittery.

Even though I suspect it’s dangerous, I nonetheless insert the disc into an ancient CD player that was probably state-of-the-art and extremely expensive when it was originally sold. The notes to the first song blast at me from surround-sound speakers in every corner of the room.

“Aaaghh!” I groan, frantically searching the front panel with shaking fingers for anything that could be the volume control. But without my having touched anything, the music softens.

Sandberg gripes at me from the couch, where he’s crouched into a defensive position.

“Sorry!” Jude says from the loft, where he’s adjusting the volume with a remote. “I tend to keep it a bit loud. Food’s on the way!”

I want to reacquaint myself with the lyrics to the first song, but I’m distracted by my racing heart. My eyeballs feel like they’re jiggling in their sockets.

Jude trots barefoot down the stairs in shorts and a t-shirt. “What can I get you to drink?”

“Water?” I suggest unsurely, blinking rapidly. Sweat breaks out at my hairline.

“Really?” he asks, surprised, standing in front of the open refrigerator. “I have all manner of beverages in here. Just no food.”

“Really,” I reply, trying to take a deep breath and slow

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