It had been an eventful day. First he'd traveled on a plane for the first time in his life, for eight hours, then he'd traveled on a subway for the first time and gotten lost. He'd managed to finally find himself somewhere near where Riley's apartment building was and was now trusting his legs and feet only and walking.

He dragged his suitcase bumpily down the sidewalk behind him, a backpack secure on both shoulders. Hey Riley, good to see you! How'ya been? He grinned to himself at imaginary Riley's ecstatic reaction to his surprise arrival, and quickened his pace, scanning the building numbers for the one her letters had come from. Two real, actual paper letters, one with a tiny feather stuck in the envelope - an accident from one of the owls no doubt. He'd written one back in the middle but the second letter had arrived just yesterday. And of course text messages had flown back and forth there for a month, though the frequency had dropped off.

A small voice in the back of his head was warning him that surprise visits were bad ideas. What if Riley had another guy in her apartment? Not that she wasn't allowed to see other ....people... was she allowed? No, of course she was, they weren't going steady as Mama would say, and it had been months and he wouldn't blame her, of course, and Antonio's brow creased unhappily the more he thought about how fine he'd be if Riley was shacking up with some New York hipster.

Finally the correct building loomed beside him and Antonio took a deep breath and plunged inside to the warm lobby. New York in October had a cold bite to it he wasn't used to, and he quickly found the elevator and headed toward it.

"Excuse me. Sir. You can't go up there."

'Tonio turned around, an easy smile on his face, to find a uniformed doorman headed for him. "Sorry, what? My friend lives here. Well, up there," he added, pointing at the ceiling. "I'm surprising her, so -"

The doorman was shaking his head. "I'm going to have to call up to your friend, sir. You understand."

"But the elevators are right...there... okay, fine." Antonio grudgingly turned around and followed the man back to the front desk.

"Name?"

"Antonio Fer- wait, my name or hers?" He leaned his elbows on the chest high counter, peering with interest at the set up the doorman had on the desk.

"Your name," the man said. "Then hers, if you don't mind." He adjusted the computer screen so Antonio couldn't catch a glance of the screen.

"Right, of course." Antonio settled back down, examining the expensive looking interior of the lobby. "Antonio Fernandez to see Riley Grace."

"Mmhmm." The doorman picked up a phone and kept 'Tonio in place with his eyes while he waited for the resident to pick up.