This was Alex knowing what the menu cost. Knowing what I had. Knowing that offering would be worse than the hunger and that letting me sit there calculating would be its own kind of cruelty. So he'd just—handled it. The way you'd hold a door for someone whose hands were full. Not because they couldn't open it. Because you were already there.
"Thanks," I said.
"Of course." He nodded, looking at the wine list he couldn't even order from. Like he hadn't just done the most intimate thing anyone had done for me all week.
Tyler stood up at the far end of the table. Glass raised. Water, not wine.
"Alright, listen up. I have a toast."
"Oh God," Jace muttered.
"To the first Riverside-Kingswell joint program team to race the Head of the Charles. To Coach Hale for building something out of nothing. To Coach Eldridge for—I don't know—havingnice facilities." Laughter. Eldridge's eyebrow twitched. "And to the two idiots who we all know are the real reason we're here." Tyler pointed his glass at me and Alex. "Don't embarrass us."
"We won't," Alex said.
"And we won't try that hard," I said.
More laughter. Tyler sat down looking satisfied. Jace shook his head but he was smiling. Derek raised his glass. Remy raised his. Ethan turned and smiled at me and Alex.
The food came. The rigatoni was good—better than good. The kind of food that made the Riverside dining hall taste like cardboard by comparison. I ate and didn't think about the price because Alex had already taken that away from me. I thought briefly about the Stats problem set due Monday and then didn't think about it again.
Beside me, his knee found mine under the table. The same steady pressure I gave him on the bus. The contact that meantI'm herewithout a word.
Through the restaurant window, I could see the hotel lobby across the street. And in the lobby, visible through the glass doors—a man in a grey suit, standing with two other men in suits, holding a glass of something amber.
Thomas Harrington.
I recognized the posture before the face. The way he stood — shoulders back, chin level, the stance of a man who owned every room he entered. Even from across a street and through two panes of glass, his presence had gravity.
Alex saw him too. I felt it—the slight stiffening beside me. The knee pulling back a fraction before returning.
"He's here," Alex said. Barely audible under the table noise.
"I see him."
"Having dinner with donors. Or alumni board. Or both."
"Let him watch."
Alex looked at me. Something in his eyes—gratitude and fear and defiance, all braided together. "Yeah. Let him watch."
***
The room assignments were posted at the front desk. Two to a room. I scanned the list.
Room 412: Ortega, R. / Moore, L.
Remy. Fine. Remy was quiet. Remy would review footage on his laptop until midnight and then probably sleep like the dead.
I grabbed my key card and took the elevator to the fourth floor. Room 412. Swiped the card. Pushed the door open.
The room was empty.
Two queen beds. A desk. A window with a view of the city—glass and steel and the distant glow of the Charles River somewhere beyond the buildings. Standard hotel. Clean. Anonymous.
But Remy's bag wasn't there.
My phone buzzed.
