Our hands returned to their respective owners’ sides.

We stood at the door to a special storage room in the basement of the Strand.

“Do you want to guess what’s in here?” I asked Dash.

“I think I’ve got it gured out already. There’s a new supply of red notebooks in there, and you want us to l them in with clues about the

works of, say, Nicholas Sparks.”

“Who?” I asked. Please, no more broody poets. I couldn’t keep up.

“You don’t know who Nicholas Sparks is?” Dash asked.

I shook my head.

“Please don’t ever nd out,” he said.

I took the storage room key from a hook beside the door.

“Close your eyes,” I said.

I needn’t have asked Dash to close his eyes. The basement was cold and dark and forbidding enough, except for the beautiful, musty scent of

books everywhere. But it felt like there should be some element of surprise. Also, I wanted to remove some Rice Krispies lodged in my bosoms

without him noticing.

Dash closed his eyes.

I turned the key and opened the door.

“Keep them closed just a lit le longer,” I requested.

I removed one more Rice Krispie marshmal owed to my bra, then extracted a candle from my purse and lit it.

The cold, musty room glowed.

I took Dash’s hand and guided him inside.

While his eyes were stil closed, I took o my glasses so I’d seem, I don’t know—sexier?—upon new re ection.

I let the door fal closed behind us.

“Now open your eyes. This isn’t a gift for keeps. Just a visitation.”

Dash opened his eyes.

He did not notice my new glasses-less look. (Or I may have been too blind to distinguish his reaction.)

“No way!” Dash exclaimed. Even with such dim visibility, he didn’t need an explanation of the stacks of bound volumes piled up against the

cement wal . He ran over to touch the books. “The complete volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary! Oh wow oh wow oh WOW!” Dash

swooned, with the palpable bliss of Homer Simpson exalting, “Mmmm … donuts.”

Happy new year.

Sorry to be so goofy and obvious about the declaration, but there was something just so … dashing about young Dashiel . It wasn’t the fedora hat

he was wearing or how nicely his blue shirt complemented his deep blue eyes; it was more the composition of his face, a mixture of handsome

and sweet, young but wise, his expression arch yet kind.

I wanted to appear cool and indi erent, like this kind of thing happened to me al the time, but I couldn’t. “Do you like it? Do you like it?” I

asked, with al the eagerness of a ve-year-old tasting the world’s best cupcake.

“Fucking love it,” Dash said. He took o his hat and tipped it to me in appreciation.

Ouch. Cursing—not so dashing.

I decided to pretend he’d said “frocking love it.”

We sat down on the oor and chose a volume to explore.

“I like the etymology of words,” I said to Dash. “I like to imagine what was happening when the word originated.”

“I like the etymology of words,” I said to Dash. “I like to imagine what was happening when the word originated.”

The red notebook was peeking out from my purse. Dash grabbed it, then looked up a word from the R volume of the OED and wrote it inside

the red notebook.

“How about this one?” he asked.

He’d writ en revel. I took the R volume from Dash’s lap and read up on the word. “Hmm,” I said. “Revel. Circa 1300, ‘riotous merry-making.’

What else? As a verb, ‘to feast in a noisy manner,’ circa 1325.”

Next to Dash’s revel in the red notebook, I wrote, Slop that trough, wench. ’Tis New Year’s! We shal revel in slaughtering that there poor

innocent pig and have bacon for breakfast! R-E-V-E-L.

Dash read my entry and chuckled. “Now you choose a word.”

I opened the E volume and chose a random word, writing down epigynous.

Only after I’d copied the word into the red notebook did I actual y read what it meant. Epigynous (i-pi-jә-nәs): having oral parts at ached to or

near the summit of the ovary, as in the ower of the apple, cucumber, or da odil.

Could I have chosen a more suggestive word?

Dash would think I was a trol op now.

I should have chosen the word trol op.

Dash’s cel phone rang.

I think we were both relieved.

“Hi, Dad,” Dash answered. His dashingness seemed to wither for a moment as his shoulders slumped and his voice became measured and …

tolerant was the only word I could think of for the tone Dash used with his father. “Oh, it’s my usual New Year’s. Booze and women.” Pause. “Ah,

yes, you heard about that? Funny story …” Pause. “No, I don’t want to talk to your lawyer.” Pause. “Yes, I’m aware you’l be home tomorrow

night.” Pause. “Awesome. Nothing I love more than our father-son chats about important mat ers in my life.”

I don’t know what boldness came over me, but the resolute heaviness of Dash’s demeanor threatened to crush my soul. My pinky nger crept

over and nestled against his, for comfort. Like a magnet, his pinky nger latched onto and intertwined with mine.

I like magnets a whole lot.

“Now, about that word,” Dash said after his cal with his dad. “Epigynous.”

I immediately jumped to my feet, in search of a new reference book with less embarrassing words. I picked up an edition of something cal ed

The Speakeasy Urban Dickshun-yary. I turned to a random page.

“ ‘Running lat e,’ ” I said aloud. “ ‘When you’re late because you stopped for a co ee.’ ”

Dash resumed writing in the red notebook.

Sorry I missed your bar mitzvah, I was running lat e.

I took the pen and added Sorry I just spil ed co ee on your tux, too!

Dash looked at his watch. “Almost midnight.”

My epigynous zone worried. Would Dash think I trapped him in the storage room to trap him into that awful (or wonderful?) midnight ritual of

a New Year’s kiss?

If we stayed in this room much longer, Dash might nd out how completely inexperienced I was in the mat ers I was desperately wanting to

experience. With him.

“There’s something I need to tel you,” I said quietly. I don’t know what I’m doing. Please don’t laugh at me. If I’m a disaster, please be kind and

let me down gently.

“What?”

I meant to tel him, I real y did. But what came out of my mouth was “Snarly Muppet has been returned to me by Uncle Carmine. It has asked to

come live in this storage room, surrounded by reference books. It prefers these musty old tomes to su ocating inside a nutcracker.”

“Smart Snarly.”

“Do you promise to visit Snarly?”

“I can’t make that promise. It’s ridiculous.”

“I think you should promise.”

Dash sighed. “I promise to try. If your curmudgeon cousin Mark ever lets me back into the Strand.”

I looked up to a clock on the wal behind Dash’s head.

The midnight hour had passed.

Phew.

January 1st

“This is a rare opportunity we have, Lily. Alone in the Strand like this. I think we should take ful advantage of it.”

“How so?” Was it possible my heart was shaking as hard as my hands?

“We should dance around the aisles upstairs. Pore through volumes of books about circus freaks and shipwrecks. Pil age the cookbooks for that

ultimate Rice Krispie treat recipe. Oh, and we must track down the fourth edition of The Joy of—”

“Okay!” I screeched. “Let’s go upstairs! I love books about freaks.” Because I am one. You might be, too. Let’s be freaks together?

We walked to the storage room door.

Dash leaned in toward me mysteriously. Flirtatiously. He raised an eyebrow and declared, “The night is young. We have volumes and volumes of

the OED to return to.”

I reached for the doorknob and turned it.

I reached for the doorknob and turned it.

The knob did not budge.

I noticed a handwrit en sign next to the light switch I hadn’t bothered to turn on when we rst entered the room, so intent had I been on