After turning off the lamp, I lay back on the bed, still dressed, staring at the dark ceiling.
Amid the silence in my room, I heard a sound from outside.
I'd been lying there for twenty minutes, maybe thirty, waiting for sleep that wasn't coming. At first, I thought it was nothing, but it didn't stop.
I was hearing footsteps. Pacing. The scuff of shoes on asphalt in an irregular rhythm, back and forth.
I got up and went to the window.
Two floors down, in the amber wash of the parking lot lights, a figure was walking in tight circles near my rental car. Lean frame. Messy hair. A hoodie pulled up.
He had a dog with him.
I watched for a full minute, maybe longer. It was Pickle. He paced. Stopped. Looked up at the hotel—not at my window specifically, but in its general direction. Started pacing again. The dog was Biscuit, Hog's ridiculous mutt.
Pickle checked his phone. Put it away. Pulled it out again. Put it away.
He was working himself up to something. Or talking himself out of something. I couldn't tell which.
I grabbed my jacket and headed for the stairs.
The cold hit the moment I pushed through the side door—sharp and dry. Pickle's back was to me. He was saying something to the dog, gesturing with both hands. I listened.
"—not weird. It's a normal route. We're just walking. This is a public parking lot, Biscuit, I'm allowed to be here, it's not like I specifically looked up which hotel he was staying at and then invented a reason to—"
"Pickle."
He spun around.
For a second, his expression went completely blank. Then he began explaining.
"Adrian! Hey! Wow, what a coincidence." He spread his arms wide, grinning. "Biscuit needed a walk. I volunteered. Hog's busy being disgustingly in love, so I said, sure, I'll take the weirddog out at—" He checked his phone. "—one in the morning, totally normal, dogs have schedules, you can't mess with their schedules—"
"This is nowhere near Hog's place."
"Biscuit likes variety."
Biscuit yawned.
"He's a very sophisticated dog," Pickle continued, the words coming faster now, tumbling over each other. "Cultured. He has preferences. He specifically requested this parking lot. I'm just honoring his wishes."
I could have called him on it, but I didn't.
I knew why he was there. It was the same reason I'd spent the last four hours watching footage of him instead of sleeping. The same reason I'd come downstairs instead of staying at the window.
We stood there in the cold, our breath fogging between us. The parking lot lights hummed. Biscuit's tags clinked as he scratched behind his ear.
Pickle's grin remained fixed, but his voice wavered as he spoke.
"I saw what Hog said to you after practice. I couldn't hear it, but I saw you guys talking, and then you looked at me, and I just—" He stopped. Tried again. "I wanted to know if he said something weird. About me. Because Hog gets protective, and sometimes he says stuff that's—"
"He said you're family."
Pickle blinked.
"That's it?"
"He said you're not merely content for the documentary. You're family." I paused. "And he wanted me to remember that."
