"Now, what's a nice girl like you doing in a time like this?"

Kairos hadn't had to do a lot to Sam to bring him up to the fashion standards of the day. Idly, I wondered if the seersucker suit had been from Sam's private collection—and if it wasn't, how in the world Wardrobe had managed to get one in his size on such a short notice. But regardless of who was responsible, I had to admit it was a clever choice. The blue stripe of the material was a near-match for Sam's eyes.

He leaned one massive arm over the cab door, grinning at me in a self-satisfied way that I had to remind myself wasn't endearing anymore. I didn't dignify him with an answer.

"Aw, c'mon, sugar. That was a pretty good line. At least give me a smile." He glanced further down the street. "Don't know where you're headed, but why don't you hop in? The meter's running."

"It's not too far away. I can walk." I could feel my stockings slowly rolling their way down my knees but I couldn't dare touch them. Not in front of Sam. "Besides, I wouldn't want to keep you from your appointment."

"Appointment?" he echoed before nodding in recognition. "Oh, that. Let's just say she wasn't my type. And if you don't mind me being a mite forward, I don't think that boy was your type none either, now was he?"

Sparing a glance behind me, I half-expected to see Henry emerge from the restaurant. The street was crowded with unfamiliar faces. "I guess not."

"C'mon, Ada." Sam slid his bulk over. "For old time's sake. Promised you lunch, didn't I?"

"It's a little past lunch, I think."

"Then I'll buy you dinner."

I puffed my cheeks, buying myself some time to think of another excuse. "No. I can't, sorry. Teddy would be furious."

"Only if he finds out." Sam gave a diabolical chuckle. "Boy's still keeping you in line, huh? How is he?"

"Teddy's all right." I was hoping a short answer would end the pleasantries, but Sam just looked at me expectantly. "He's working for Kairos, actually."

He nodded. "Thought I might have seen him when I checked in. What department?"

"Hair and Makeup." I waved a hand over my face. "He was my stylist today."

"That's a relief. I was gonna have a few choice words if he was working in Wardrobe." His gaze dipped down to take in my outfit, lingering a little too long on the hem of my skirt. "I think a nun's habit would've been more provocative."

"Gee, you sure know how to make a girl feel special." Somehow I managed to sound annoyed despite the telltale warmth spreading through my face. I shifted my weight, unsure if he was enjoying the view or if he could see that my stockings were slipping. "Look, Sam, I'm not sure what you're up to, but this isn't the time. I just got out of a bad date. All I really want to do is go home and eat my feelings."

"Sounds like fun." He extended his hand to me through the open window, expression softening. "Why don't you let me make it up to you?"

"What?"

"Seems a shame to let some no-count loser ruin your whole evening. C'mon." Sam patted the seat beside him. "I'll show you a good time. Maybe we'll find out why they call it the Roaring Twenties, huh?"

I hesitated.

It was a terrible idea, but the temptation was there. I'd seen Sam more in the past two weeks than I had the past two years and was curious to know how he'd been. Moreover, I wanted to know what his game was. While I seriously doubted Teddy's theory that Sam was behind the break-in at my apartment, I knew all too well that my ex was never without an ulterior motive. The coincidences were stacking up fast.

"All right." I opened the cab door and sat down. Despite the cool weather, the air inside felt uncomfortably warm. "But I've only got about three hours before I'm due back at Washington Square."

"You have my word."

I wasn't sure if I was ready to believe that or not.

Sam nodded at the front seat. "Driver, we're ready."

The car lurched forward, reentering the sluggish flow of traffic. Briefly, I made eye contact with our cab driver—a skittish-looking man who hid his red hair under a driver's cap—but it seemed like he was trying particularly hard not to eavesdrop. I searched for a seat belt only to remember they weren't mandatory yet. "Sorry, by the way. About before, in Little's office. You caught me at a bad time."

"So I'd gathered." Though Sam draped a casual arm over the back of the seat, he was working the ring on his right hand in circles. He always did that when he was nervous. "Gonna guess that date didn't end as planned, either."

"My 'eligible bachelor' turned out to be not as eligible as we thought. His lover threw a pot of spoiled chicken stock at me."

"Oh." Sam worked his jaw. "Yeah, reckon that'd do it."

The restaurant grew smaller and smaller in the distance. Rows of laundry fluttered on lines stretched between buildings, dark shadows against the jeweled sky.

I cleared my throat. "So, I guess you're single again."

"Yeah." He stared down at his ring, straightening it. "Penny got the farmhouse."

My stomach dropped out. "Oh, Sam. Your mother's farm. I'm so sorry."

It was strange to think that at one point, that farmhouse was almost ours.

"Don't be. Ain't the worst thing I lost in all this." He looked out the window. "If anything, I'm the one who ought to be sorry."

The last remnants of Chinatown had disappeared completely before I spoke again. "Why are you here?"

"Told you before."

"Yes, in that pithy one-liner double talk you're so fond of," I snapped. "I wrote your speeches, Sam. I know bullshit when I hear it. Why are you really here? In 1922 New York?"

His shoulders sunk with a deep exhale.

"Thought it was time for me to move on. But with my schedule, and my age, dating's been hard. Kairos fixes at least one of those problems. A whole evening out in just a couple minutes. Time travel is something else." He gave me some curious side-eye. "What about you?"

I couldn't tell him. The seat pulled at my skin like adhesive as I fidgeted. "I think I told you once about my grandmother."

He nodded. "The one you were named after, rest her soul."

My smile betrayed me. I hadn't expected him to remember such a small detail, though I should have. He'd always been good at making someone feel like they were the center of his entire universe. I guess it was a necessary skill for politics. "Maybe she was right after all. That's why all my relationships end in disasters. I was born in the wrong time."

"Maybe we both were." Sam thumbed his ring again.

"Really." I yanked at the tops of my stockings through my skirt discreetly. "Where you think do you belong?"

His eyes rolled to the ceiling in thought. "Well, don't know if I belong there, but I think I'd have an awful lot of fun in old Vegas. Say what you want, but the mob understood class."

"I shouldn't be surprised," I said around a laugh. "That sounds just like you."

The corner of his mouth quirked in a smile that turned bittersweet as he looked at me. "Where do you think you'll end up?"

"Oh, well," I began, at a loss of how to answer my own question. "I'm not sure. I'll know when I find it."

It was as though the words knocked the wind out of him. He settled back in his seat at that, breathing shallowly. A bead of sweat dripped from his hairline.

"Soon as I saw you in Little's office I knew I was only kidding myself," he said, voice hoarse. "I thought I could just say goodbye, but—you, with somebody else. It'll kill me. I can't move on. I don't know if I ever will."

"Sam." Was I pleased or nauseated by his confession? "No. If you're looking to start over, you're about two years too late."

A single window—front seat, passenger side—had been cracked open, but the tepid breeze that passed through smelled of exhaust belched from passing cars. Sam took a handkerchief and dabbed at his forehead. "Better check your watch. I'm not two years too late. I'm about ninety years too early."

"You're being ridiculous."

"You know what's ridiculous?" There was a bite to his tone as he stuffed the handkerchief back in its pocket. "A girl going back a hundred years in search of a beau that's probably gonna choke on a goldfish with a flagpole up his ass, when she's got somebody right here. Somebody who loves her. Somebody who'd do anything for her. Even chase her across time."

"Maybe we have gone back in time, because I've definitely heard this story before and I know how it ends." It hurt to see him flinch under my words, but I knew I had to stand my ground. "You made your choice."

"Adaliah, I am sorry." He reached for my hand but I jerked it away. His fingers curled closed, drifting back to his lap. "You were right. You were always right, you know, 'bout everything. But I was scared. No matter how much you love somebody, throwing away everything for 'em is a hard thing to do—"

"—Unless you've got nothing to lose," I finished. It was a hollow victory to see Sam blink away tears. Soon I was blinking them away too, the world outside the cab's windows turning to dripping oil paints. "Damn it. We can't do this. Things have changed too much."

"Can't we try?" he whispered.

The cab was pulling into a tall building framed by the dappled hues of Central Park. It was like a fairy tale palace in the middle of Fifth Avenue. Its many windows and pearl green roof glistened like a jewelry box in the last lights of the day.

He reached for my hand again. "Please? We've got a whole evening ahead of us. You deserve a lot more than whatever disappointment that sad sack doled out tonight. Let me do this. One night."

I tried to formulate a response, some reason to refuse him, but the stifling air of the taxi had turned my thought process to mush. His hand dwarfed mine.

"One night," he said again. He leaned closer, his deep voice so low that it registered in my core like the thump of bass on the dance floor. "And if you can so much as remember that boy's name in the morning, I'll never bother you again."

I shuddered.

This was insane.

It was reckless.

And it was easy.

"Okay," I exhaled as the car came to a stop beneath the palace's awning. "Okay. One night."

Before I could react, he kissed my cheek. The world paused, hanging on my halted breath. Stunned, I giggled reflexively, but it felt like it was coming from someone else.

Sam scrambled from the backseat, nearly hip-checking a valet out of the way in the process. With a curled lip, the uniformed man backed off, lingering awkwardly at the gilded double doors.

The rush of cold air almost stole my breath as Sam held the car door for me. The color of early evening settled over him, painting the laugh lines at his eyes; creases I'd put there myself years before, when things were easy.

"Welcome to the Plaza Hotel," he murmured against my neck as I stepped out onto the pavement. "Let's go. The concierge has been expecting us."

Maybe we really could go back.

***

The hotel suite removed any lingering doubt that Sam hadn't known exactly what was going to happen that night. Fire glowed from the hearth. Tiger lilies, my favorite, covered the marble mantelpiece. A matching bouquet rested on the baby grand tucked away in the corner. White packages topped with turquoise satin bows overflowed from the tufted settee and a pair of wing back chairs.

Sam had always been lavish with his gifts—especially for me, and especially when he was sorry.

His reflection grinned at me from the art nouveau mirror over the fireplace. With the click of the door behind us, he looked cartoonishly devious, as though he might swallow the key. "Like the arrangements? Not exactly easy to find here, but I think it was worth it."

I took off my cloche. Between it and the humidity of the taxi, my curls had turned to frizz. "Who did you bribe?"

Some of the smugness drained from his face. "You're killing me, Ada. The flowers came honest. All this came honest."

Scrunching my hair up did little to revitalize it. I sighed and threw the hat onto the entryway table. "I meant about Kairos. Whose palm did you grease to find out where I was going? Ms. Little doesn't seem the type."

He held up his hands defensively. "You know they keep their mouths shut over there. Terms of Service and all."

"Then how? You can't expect me to believe you just so happened to be driving by that particular street corner, of all the times and all the street corners in New York City."

"Stranger things have happened, ain't they?" He shrugged out of his seersucker jacket. Giving it a cursory glance, he beat the dirt off of it before hanging it on a rack by the door. "You know, it's funny. The whole time travel dating thing's awful convenient but it sure does take the magic out of chance happenings. Like when I met you."

With his outermost layer gone, I could tell that Sam was still every bit the over-sized brute I'd met in my second year of law school during my internship at the offices of St. Laurent & Broux. The picture of a former golden boy gone to seed, Sam had never really adjusted to a life that didn't involve loading up on carbs before a game. His body was a knot of muscle that hadn't disappeared; it was just buried beneath years of sinful excess. Me and my food blog inspired midnight binges hadn't helped matters. And judging from a generous swell of Sam's belly that I didn't recall—the divorce hadn't, either.

"I don't think there was anything chance about us." My gaze finally met his. I was fairly sure I saw his cheeks deflate, like he had been holding his breath while I was inspecting him. Sweet, but Sam was a little bit past sucking it in. "You were in a bad marriage. If it hadn't been me, it would've been someone else."

"Now that ain't true. I wasn't some common philanderer looking for a side girl, no matter what the papers said." He leaned heavily on the back of the settee. "Ada, a fella thinks he knows what love is until he falls head first into it. I love you. And I miss you."

The quiet became so clear I found myself picking out the punchlines from a radio show someone was listening to on the next floor.

Big, wonderful, generous Sam.

Secretive, underhanded, bag-of-dirty-tricks Sam.

I wanted to say I felt the same way. I really did. But years later, the wound I carried was still wet, still fresh, spilling blood and bile with every beat of my heart. I couldn't miss Sam. Not yet.

I could only miss that he was easy.

The silence whittled away his smile until there was hardly anything left of it. He gestured to the presents spread out on the furniture. "C'mon now, I wanna see your face when you open these."

The bow on the largest package fell away easily as I picked it up. Rose perfume rolled from pale pink tissue paper. Nestled inside was a dress.

The handkerchief hemline uncurled and pooled on the floor in soft chiffon and silk the color of peacocks. A smaller box revealed a matching feathered fascinator. Both were detailed with tiny gold beads and amber-colored stones that seemed to pulse in the ebb and flow of the firelight.

He looked at me with hopeful eyes. "You like it?"

I held the dress against me. Unlike the clothes Wardrobe had provided, this was not a sack. It was sleeveless, with thin, beaded straps. The back was scandalously low, even by modern standards, with nothing but a cape of gauzy material to lend me modesty. "You don't think I'll stand out too much in it?"

He picked up another box and took the seat it left behind. "As a matter of fact, I was hoping you would."

The next gift was a pair of silk opera gloves. Then stockings and a garter belt that provoked a blush from me and a darkly mischievous laugh from Sam. The rest contained jewelry—a choker and string after string of pearls dotted with pea-sized insets.

"Sam." I looked up at him, almost begging. "This must have cost a fortune."

"Yeah." He leaned back, arms folded over his belly. "But it's worth it. You know, I always saw a lot of myself in Jay Gatsby. Just a nobody chasing after unattainable women by throwing money at 'em 'til they can't help but trip over it."

Swallowing back an acidic reply, I sat down on the arm of his chair. It seemed cruel to pick a fight so early in the evening, and after Sam had gone through so much trouble. "Don't say that."

"It's true, though; a small wonder you climbed into that cab at all." The gentle weight of his hand on my hip coaxed me towards his lap but the flutter in my stomach told me that was dangerous. "You're too sweet for your own good."

I smoothed the pale brown gingham of his bowtie. "Or maybe I just know what I like."

Briefly, Sam met my gaze again. I flashed him a reassuring smile, but he looked away just as quickly. "Entirely too sweet."

The far-off applause of the radio show gave way to the soaring sound of a big band. One of his wingtips tapped to the rhythm absently in the ensuing silence.

That gave me an idea. "When was the last time you danced?"

He blinked in surprise, his eyebrows cresting and falling in thoughtful waves. "I might have done the Electric Slide for the Policeman's Charity Ball three months ago..."

"Okay, let me rephrase: When was the last time you danced and it wasn't for a publicity stunt?"

Sam could see exactly where this was leading as he pushed himself from the wing back, wincing as his elbow gave a sharp crack. "That would be three years ago, at the townhouse. With you."

"That's what I thought." I worked the heel off of one of my Mary Janes, kicking it off playfully.

With a wicked grin, Sam stooped to help me with the other. "It was your birthday, and we finally got around to those foxtrot lessons I'd promised you."

"It looked so much easier in Dirty Dancing—" I didn't get a chance to finish that thought, rendered speechless as I felt Sam hook his thumb beneath the roll of my stocking. I remembered how to breathe one inch at a time as silk slipped down my leg.

"You been fighting with these old things all evening, sugar," he growled slyly as he set to work on the other leg. His hands lingered on my calf just a moment too long, but I didn't exactly mind. "But as I recall, your dancing career came to a tragic end when you tried to two-step right through the coffee table."

"I might have come out of retirement last week." I cleared my throat, hoping it would return to its normal range. "I waltzed with my first Kairos date."

Sam's mustache twitched with an aborted laugh. "Mr. Chicken Stock?"

I winced. "That's the one. He wasn't too impressed with my footwork, either."

"That's only 'cause you never been taught." Pulling me to my feet, Sam's fingers laced through mine. His other hand moved to the small of my back. "Of course, it might be a little more timely if I taught you how to Charleston..."

"You know how?" I stifled a giggle.

"Not really, but I've seen enough to get the gist of it. There's a lot of head bobbing," he said as he took me through a few steps. Despite their simplicity, I found myself a beat off, dragged around more like a rag-doll than a dance partner. "Posture, Ada. Keep your head up."

I threw my shoulders back and feigned a haughty expression. "And remind me why you went for football in college instead of dance?"

"Two reasons." Sam cracked a wry smile at me as he corrected my hand placement. "One: They didn't offer full scholarships for show choir. Two: Penny wouldn't have been caught dead with a theater kid."

My eyebrows clenched. "You know, most women would be thrilled to have a partner that would take them out dancing."

"Yeah, but Penny ain't most women," he said with a deep sigh but he couldn't hide the grin that followed. "She said it was shameful watching a 350-pound man shimmy like a ninety-pound ballerina."

I tripped my way through another box step. "I prefer to think she just didn't like getting upstaged."

Sam rumbled out a laugh and pulled me in closer. "Why don't we pick up the waltz later? You go get yourself changed and we'll get a nice dinner. Got tickets for Seventh Heaven—"

"You really did plan a whole evening, didn't you?" I beamed up at him, but some of my enthusiasm faded as I started to count up the time. Thirty minutes to get here and thirty to get back. Twenty to get dressed. At least an hour and a half for dinner, knowing Sam. And a show on top of that? It wasn't adding up. "But—"

"But?" Sam pulled away, looking at me expectantly.

"The time." I unsnapped the jeweled corsage from my sweater, considering it for a moment before handing it over. "I've got maybe an hour and a half left."

He didn't take the forget-me-nots, instead closing my fingers around them.

"Right. The time. I was waiting until after dinner to ask you this but—" His smile dimmed, but wasn't completely extinguished, flickering between sentimentality and a tragic kind of hope. "Let's not go back."

I stared. "What?"

"We could stay here in the '20s," he whispered, a desperate laugh threatening to swallow his words. "Who needs a future when you've got a past? They won't find us. There's a statute of limitations on temporal crimes—"

"An expired temporal visa is a Class One Felony," I hissed, mind racing. "That's ten to fifteen years in the pen, easy. I've never even jaywalked before, how can I—"

"If you're going to do something, don't be half-ass about it, I always say." The joviality of his voice drained the longer he looked at me. "It ain't as hard as you think it is. I been gone for two days now. The ORAE have more pressing concerns than a couple of small-timers like us."

"Two days." I sunk into the settee with the realization. The radio upstairs still played, a single trumpet wailing desperately like an animal's death throes. "You've been gone for two days."

He crossed his arms. "Look, I know you're upset—"

I raised a hand. "No, I'm not. I'm a little overwhelmed by this, that's all. I was willing to let bygones be bygones tonight, for old time's sake. But running away with you. Forever. That's different. I can't just forget what happened."

"I'm not asking you to." He brushed a frazzled strand of hair from my face. "I'm asking you to let me make it up to you. Let me give you the life you wanted."

"But—here? In the 20s?" I gestured to our opulent surroundings. "In a few years, all of this goes away. The Great Depression, Sam? Remember?"

"Of course I remember." He cupped my chin and brought my gaze up to meet his. "That's the point. We know it's gonna happen. We can outrun it."

"What?"

"Economics, sugar," he said. "The Depression didn't hit everywhere at once, and not all of 'em got it as hard as the states. France doesn't feel it until the early 30s, and comparatively, they do all right. Unemployment is less than four percent."

I nodded slowly. "So we flee to France."

He gave a grim smile. "Told you I'd take you to Paris eventually."

"That's all fine and well, but how do we live?" I pulled his hand from my face to trace the lines of his palm. "Our education is meaningless here."

"I got that figured out, too. You just leave it to me." He studied me for a moment, the last remnant of optimism fading. "It's hard throwing your whole life away, isn't it?"

"That's not fair. I gave you a lot more time to make up your mind," I shot back. He recoiled, fingers drifting away from mine. I sighed. "Dinner. Let me think about it over dinner."

"Of course," he said. "If I had my druthers, I'd give you all the time in the world."

"Thank you." Gathering up Sam's gifts, I made my way to the bath. Closing the door with a heel, I lurched to the sink, nails gripping either side of the basin.

I felt nauseous with indecision. This was everything and nothing that I wanted; a beautiful and surreal nightmare that I could wake from, if I wanted to, but with the knowledge I could never dream it again.

Though I wanted to cry, the make up staring from my reflection stopped me. I touched my cheek, outlining the rogue circles Teddy had applied. If I stayed, this would be the last tangible evidence of my brother—and it was something as fragile and ephemeral as makeup. I hadn't even told him that I planned to emigrate, hoping for and yet dreading the day that Ms. Little would find a match for me that didn't involve being someone's mistress.

Again.

I turned the tap on, then off again, unsure if the water was safe to drink, before finally deciding against it. Taking down the frazzled remains of the faux bob Teddy had given me, I dampened my hands and finger-combed my hair. There wasn't much I could do with it at this point, so I rolled it up into a high bun and shoved a few leftover bobby pins in to hold it.

I shrugged out of the ugly sweater Kairos had lent me before I began to pick my way through Sam's gifts. My hands acted of their own accord, layering on silk and chiffon, clasping strings of pearls and donning dangling earrings. Twenty minutes may have passed by the time I recognized the woman giving me a critical once-over in the mirror as myself.

It was so much easier to face the problem from behind a mask.

I heard a distant knock.

"That'll be the last of the deliveries," Sam called from the sitting room. "What's a reasonable tip in this day and age?"

I felt a second wave of guilt at the thought of yet more gifts from Sam. "A dollar should be more than enough."

The door rattled again. Curious, I peeked out from the bathroom just in time to see Sam jam his wallet back in his jacket.

"Keep your pants on, son," he muttered, a wad of bills in hand as he threw the door open.

A trio of dark shadows stained the threshold. Their leader, black-eyed, grinned at Sam but there was nothing nice about it; head down, teeth bared like an animal as he flexed his hand around a pair of brass knuckles.

"Evening, pal," Henry said.