She can guess what he's thinking when he pauses - mostly because of when he pauses, but she refuses to even think it. It can always be worse, that's sort of how the universe works, but she's hopeful.

"I want to be close," she says as they found the corner. "It's part of what makes it the right place." He's right, about the boardwalk - but she knows that if the best foot traffic was across town, she would rather be closer and have a little less. She stops and looks at the place when they turn the corner - she's done that almost every time, and twice she's just had a bad feeling from the first second, from the first moment.

Right now, though? She's got none of that. There's no bad feelings.

She sort of lapses into silence, even though the real estate agent is there - her greeting is distracted because she's already looking at it, at the way it gets afternoon sun, at the way that it just pours through the giant front windows. She doesn't mean for Joel to have to do all the talking, but the agent lets them in and Raleigh's sneakers crunch a little because the place is all but abandoned, but... the look on her face says it all. "Can we look in the back?" Because the front? The front is perfect, to her.