"Because you'd already decided."
"Yes."
"Before we left Boston."
A pause. "Approximately," he said.
The hat was on the nightstand. The compression cubes were in the corner, repacked and organized for tomorrow's flight. The sunscreen was on the bathroom counter in a row with everything else. Nathan Cross, who prepared for things, who arrived at conclusions before other people had finished forming the question, who had looked at the reinstatement conditions at some point before we got on a plane and had decided what he was going to do about them and had not said a word.
"I was going to tell you when the committee called," he said. "Which I was expecting today."
"How did you know it would be today?"
"The timeline suggested—"
"Nathan."
"Yes."
"This is—" I stopped. Tried again. "You planned this."
"I prepared," he said. "There's a difference."
My heart was thumping against my chest.
"Let me do something," Nathan said. Quieter. "You've been—" He stopped. Started again. "Since the beginning you've been the one who showed up. Who knocked on doors. Who ordered food and stayed and said things to my father that I—" He stopped again. The jaw. "Let me do something. Let me be the one who figured it out first for once."
I looked at him for a long moment.
"You already did do it," I said.
"I know," he said. "I wanted you to know that I did."
The window was open.
The warm night was doing its last night.
I reached over and put my hand over his, which was on the bed between us, which was where it usually ended up.
He turned it over.
We sat there.
"Okay," I said eventually.
"Okay," he said.
"We should probably pack," I said. "We fly tomorrow."
"I already packed," he said.
I looked at the compression cubes in the corner. Of course he had.
"My bag—"
"I repacked yours as well," he said. "Your sunscreen was loose."
"Nathan."
