The pillow next to mine still held the indent of Adrian's head. The room smelled like his hotel shampoo, the scent I'd been breathing all night while he held me like he thought I might evaporate.
He'd held on too tight. I remembered that now. He kept his arms locked around me even after I fell asleep.
I should have asked why.
A note sat on the nightstand, propped against my phone. Adrian's handwriting—neat and deliberate, the penmanship of someone who planned everything except how to say goodbye.
Had to check on some work stuff. Call you later. —A
I read it twice. Work stuff. At 6:47 a.m.
The haunted chair creaked in the corner.
"Shut up," I told it.
It creaked again. The furniture was trying to warn me.
It was a game day. My body knew the routine even when my brain was off script, spinning disaster scenarios—Adrian on a plane back to Chicago, Adrian deleting my number, or Adrian explaining to his documentary friends that the hockey gremlin was fun but ultimately too much. There had to be a manual somewhere:How to Leave Noah Piatkowski, Step One: Realize He's Exhausting.
I showered too hot on purpose, the scald cutting through my spiral. I pressed my forehead against the tile and counted breaths the way Hog taught me.
In for four. Hold for four. Out for four.
Adrian wasn't Marcus Delacroix, lying about his fruit snacks in elementary school. He wasn't the parade of people who'd called me fun like it was a diagnosis. Adrian was—
He was a man who'd held me like something precious and then left before dawn with ten words that explained nothing.
I grabbed my jacket and walked out the door.
Not toward the rink.
Toward the hotel.
The hallway smelled like industrial carpet shampoo and burnt toast. I stood outside Adrian's door for forty-five seconds before knocking.
Footsteps. A pause. Then the door swung open and—
Adrian looked like someone had disassembled him overnight and couldn't find the instructions to put him back together.
The circles under his eyes had graduated from shadows to bruises—purple-gray. His hair stood out in four different directions. He wore yesterday's shirt, wrinkled, with the top twobuttons still undone from when I'd worked them open twelve hours ago.
"Pickle. I thought you'd be at the rink."
"Game's not for eight hours." He gripped the door frame as if it were the only thing keeping him upright. "You look terrible. In a concerning way, not a hot way." I paused. "Still kind of a hot way. You're annoyingly attractive even when you look like insomnia's punching bag, but I'm mostly concerned."
A smile died before it got to his mouth.
"Come in."
The room was worse than Adrian.
A laptop was open on the desk with the screen dark. Papers were scattered across the unmade bed. Clustered near the mini-fridge was a pile of coffee cups. I counted because I had to.
Five.
"Work stuff?" I asked.
"The network." He ran a hand through his destroyed hair, the gesture too jerky, like his body had forgotten how to be casual. "I've been on calls since four-thirty. Time zones. It's complicated."
