“Come on,” he said as the elevator doors parted.

I opened my eyes.

“Peter, we’re on the wrong floor.” The little brass plate said sixteen, not fifteen.

“No, we’re not.” He bent and retrieved a key from under the door mat in front of 16A.

“Peter, you can’t just take somebody else’s key like that. And this is the apartment right upstairs from mine. Whoever lives here can make things pretty miserable for us if we piss them off. Stomping around, dragging things, playing loud music. It can get ugly.”

He ignored me and turned the key in the door.

“Peter, this really isn’t funny. It’s dangerous to upset your upstairs neighbors.”

He started to pocket the key, and then he caught himself. “We’ll need to make a copy of this for you.”

“Have you not had enough interaction with law enforcement agencies today?”

“Come here,” he said, propping the door open with his foot.

“What are you doing-” I started to ask. Then he picked me up.

“It’s a little premature, but I’m carrying you over the threshold.”

“Of somebody else’s apartment.”

“No, it’s ours.”

“What?”

“I bought it. It’s ours. And we can build a staircase down to your apartment. I already checked with an architect.”

“How did you-I mean, when did you-” Was this what all of his phone calls had been about? And why he’d been here instead of at his office in the middle of the day?

“Shh,” he said.

And he carried me over the threshold.