It's a Tuesday, which means it's the one day Morrow is dark and Ellis Hall is legally forbidden from setting foot in a kitchen.

You know this because you've been planning it for three weeks.

He's standing on the corner of Canal and Mott in a black jacket, black jeans, and the boots he's had since before you met him, looking like a man who's been sent to identify a body. A cigarette burns between his fingers, unlit in spirit, lit in fact.

"I don't do tourist stuff," he says.

"You haven't been here yet."

"I've been to Chinatown."

"To buy produce at five a.m. That doesn't count."

His mouth twitches, barely. He takes a drag to hide it. "It counts."

"Ellis."

"It counts."

You hook your finger through his belt loop and tow him into the crowd. He lets you, which is the first small miracle of the day. He could stop you with one step. He just doesn't, and you try not to read into it.

The street is chaos. Fish on ice, crates of bok choy, a man yelling prices in two languages, steam rolling out of every doorway. You watch Ellis's face change. The deadpan holds, but his eyes start moving, cataloguing, the way they do at the pass. He stops at a stall and picks up a knob of ginger, turns it over in his scarred hand, smells it, and sets it down like he's disappointed it didn't lie to him.

"Good?" you ask.

"Fine." A beat. "Good."

You buy egg tarts from a window and he tears his in half with the seriousness of a surgeon. He studies the crust. He tastes. He chews for a long time.

"Too much lard," he says.

"Is that bad?"

"No." He eats the other half. Then, quieter, like it's a secret: "It's not bad at all."

By the fourth stop you've stopped counting the it's fines. You've started collecting the other things. The way he steps behind you to block the crowd without comment. The way his hand finds the small of your back when a scooter clips the curb. The way he reads every menu taped to a window like it's a contract he's about to sign.

The soup dumpling place is down a half-flight of stairs, fluorescent-lit, with plastic stools and a chalkboard menu. It's the kind of place Morrow's reservation list would never see.

"Absolutely not," he says, looking at the line.

"Absolutely yes."

"The health inspection grade is a B."

"Ellis."

"I'm just saying."

"You eat gas station coffee."

"That's different."

You make him stand in line. You make him hold your bag. When the tray finally lands in front of you, ten dumplings in a bamboo steamer, skin so thin it trembles, he looks at them like they've personally insulted him.

"Spoon first," you say. "Then bite a hole. Then drink the soup."

"I know how to eat a soup dumpling."

"Then do it."

He picks one up with chopsticks, steady-handed, a man who has plated forty-dollar scallops under pressure. He sets it on the spoon. He bites. His eyes slide to yours, wary, daring you to say a word.

Then he stops.

Not dramatically. He just goes still. The kitchen flush on his cheekbones deepens, the soup running down the spoon. He swallows and looks at the dumpling with something close to betrayal.

"Oh," he says.

"Oh?"

"Don't."

"I didn't say anything."

"You're about to."

You press your lips together. He eats another. Then another. He doesn't talk for a full minute, and you've never watched anyone enjoy something so thoroughly while pretending he isn't.

"The broth," he says finally, low and rough, almost to himself. "It's been reduced for hours. Pork, ham, maybe chicken feet. It's clear but it's deep. And the wrapper's been rolled by hand, you can tell, it's got this little pleat at the top, eighteen folds, whoever's back there has done this ten thousand times." He sets down his chopsticks. "It's perfect."

"You said you'd never say that word."

"I've never meant it."

You stare at him. He's flushed from the steam, sleeves pushed up, burn scars shining in the harsh light, dark hair falling into his eyes. And he's smiling. A full one, not the half-curl he gives people. It tips his whole face open, shows the crooked line of his teeth, makes him look younger.