"Pickle." I moved from behind the tripod. Sat on the couch beside him—not close, but closer than the camera would have allowed. "You're not too much."
He stared at me. "Everyone thinks I'm too much."
"I don't."
"You've known me four days."
"Long enough. Can I ask you something?"
"You're the interviewer," Pickle said.
"Camera's off."
"Then yeah."
I reached out to touch his thigh. "The napkin holders at The Drop. The chair. The Zamboni blade." I watched his face. "What's that about?"
He took another deep breath. "You noticed that."
"I'm aware of everything."
"Right. Documentary guy."
"Not just that."
Pickle's knee started bouncing—that restless motion I'd seen a dozen times. He didn't try to stop it.
"Sometimes my brain gets loud," he said. "Really loud. Everything feels like it's spinning, and I can't make it stop. So I find something small. Something I can fix." He shrugged. "If the napkin holders are straight, at least one thing in the universe makes sense."
"Does it help?"
"Sometimes. Mostly it just—" He waved a hand. "Gives me something to do with my hands. Keeps them busy so the rest of me doesn't fly apart."
"The night you came to my hotel," I said. "The parking lot. You were pacing."
"Biscuit needed—"
"Pickle."
He closed his eyes. "Yeah. Okay. I was spiraling. Couldn't sleep. Kept thinking about you. My apartment was too small, and I needed to move. Be somewhere."
"So you walked to my hotel at one in the morning."
"With a borrowed dog as a cover story. I still don't know why Hog let me take Biscuit." He opened his eyes. "Not the best."
"I thought it was pretty fine."
His breath caught.
I didn't remember moving, but the cushion space between us had disappeared. His knee pressed against mine.
"Adrian," he said quietly.
"Yeah?"
"What are we doing?"
It was the question from the car. I still didn't have an answer.
