“What’s that?”

“Sliders are not sexy.”

I put down my plate. “What’s sexy to you?”

He reaches for me, flips me to my stomach, and kisses my spine. “You. Literally everything about you.”

“Everything? You sure about that?”

“I’m positive, and just because you doubted me, I’ll prove it to you.”

He proceeds to travel up and down my body, naming all the sexy spots.

Back of your knee.

Inside of your arm.

Right there above your belly button.

The shell of your ear.

Your ankle, dear God, your ankle.

The dimple at the top of your ass.

I shiver as he continues his soliloquy, lavishing attention on my hungry, greedy body.

Somehow, he wrings another orgasm out of me, and then I give him one too, and it feels like the world is a string of pearls at our feet.

Like everything is possible if we’re in this together.

That floaty, bubbly sensation carries me into the next day, to Strawberry Fields in Central Park, where we meet the team, grab our clue, and, like super decoder spies, run through options.

Add me up and I’m like a two by two, climb me and you’ll be lucky twice . . . Look inside and you’ll see a famous flyer, look out and you’ll see nearly everything. I’m arguably the prettiest, and I’m inarguably a masterpiece of a movement.

“Is it a Monet?” Noah asks. “Wait. Someplace with a Monet where you have to climb up to it. Monets are pretty stinking pretty.”

“Oh, that’s clever.” Ginny’s tone is straight up admiring. “Is it a helicopter tour? Private plane? Oh, wait.” Ginny crinkles her forehead. “Famous flyer. Please tell me we don’t have to go to Jersey to the Lindbergh monument.”

Noah clasps his face. “No, not Jersey. Anywhere but Jersey.”

Ginny laughs, and Noah nudges her, and all is right in their world.

Leo snaps his fingers. “Lindbergh. He’s on a ceiling somewhere. There’s a mural. Where is it, where the hell is it?”

“I know!” I crack the last clue.

We’re off and flying faster than the famous pilot, en route to the Chrysler Building, seventy-seven floors high, boasting a mural of Lindbergh in the lobby ceiling. The building is arguably the most beautiful skyscraper in the city, and it’s inarguably a masterpiece of the art deco movement. It’s a gorgeous steel invitation to climb skyward and marvel at beauty, inside and out.

Once there, we torpedo through our tasks, confident we’ve made up for some of our lost time yesterday, and I’m hopeful we’re in first place.

I don’t want to win for me.

Or even for Leo.

I want to come out ahead for Ginny and Noah, these new friends who’ve brought me into the fold so easily, and for everyone else at Heavenly who gave me a chance.

Along the way back to Central Park, Ginny and Noah laugh and joke, teasing each other in a whole new way.

“You’re really telling me you’d just lift your pizza?” He mimes eating a slice, flat as a board.

“That’s how we do it down under.”

“And I don’t fold it when I visit my grandparents in Mexico City,” Noah says. “But we’re New Yorkers now. We gotta fold it. That’s how we do it here.”

She laughs. “I assure you, the lift works just fine for a slice.”

“Let me prove the fold is better. I’ll take you out to get pizza and prove it.”

“Fine. You can prove it.”

He pumps a fist. “It’s a date.” He glances at her nervously. “It’s a date, right?”

“It better be a date.”

I smile at Leo, a few steps in front of me, and he smiles back. Yes, all is right in the world as we return to Strawberry Fields. Kingsley stands near a pack of ducks, acting as if she’s tossing her sister’s popcorn to the local waterfowl. Her sister pretends she’s about to chuck chocolate at them. Kingsley grabs her arm before she can throw, then they laugh so loudly it carries to us, neither of them throwing of course.

I try to spot other teams, to figure out where we stand. As I scan the hillside, it looks like we’re the second team to return.

I slow my pace when a familiar face comes into view.

My heart rate spikes.

I squint.

It can’t be.

Am I seeing things?

Specifically, someone I haven’t seen since my ex-husband's funeral.

She’s toweringly tall, beautifully blonde, with carved cheekbones.

Pale-blue eyes somehow contain a sadness that will never be erased, alongside a strength I can’t even imagine.

Tripp’s mother.