Page 119

everybody knew lmao

this is literally just two dudes in a hallway you people are insane

grumpy x sunshine was CANON???

if this is real hale is a massive hypocrite after nashville

the kid is 20. hale is 35. do the math. gross

I put the phone face-down on the bed. Two point one million. That's more people than live in the town I grew up in, times a hundred.

Next to me, Rémy's awake. He's pushed himself up on one elbow. He's looking at the phone, and then at my face.

"What is it?" he says.

I don't answer. He reaches over me and picks it up and turns it over.

I watch him look at it. I watch his face go through three different things. None of them is fear. That's what I notice. None of them is fear.

"It's blurry," he says finally.

"It's us."

"You can't see faces. It's two guys in a doorway. It could be anybody." He scrolls. "They don't have the video. Just the picture. Varga's friend must have sold them one frame." He's quiet for a second. "It's not proof, Owen. It's a rumor. People are going to argue about it for a week, and then somebody gets traded, and they forget."

"It says room 814."

"So?"

"So it's the room number. Our room number. It says captain and rookie." My voice is getting higher. I can hear it. I can't stop it. "It's the night before game three. It's the Final, Rémy."

My phone starts buzzing in his hand. He looks at the screen.

"Pruitt," he says.

Pruitt wants us in his suite at nine.

He doesn't say us. He says you, and then he says, and bring Castel, and then he hangs up. Before I can call anybody back, the phone buzzes again, and it's my agent, Gary, and then Nadia, and then Saul, who isn't even my lawyer anymore. I let them all go to voicemail. I sit on the edge of the bed with my elbows on my knees and look at the carpet.

"Go down separately," I say.

Rémy's standing by the window, already dressed. "What?"

"To Pruitt's. Take the stairs. I'll take the elevator. Five minutes apart."

He doesn't say anything for a long moment.

"Okay," he says. His voice is quiet. "Okay, Owen."

He goes into the bathroom and shuts the door, and I hear the shower start. A minute later, there's a knock on the hallway door, and it's Webb, in a hotel robe with his hair sticking up, holding two coffees.

"You looked," he says.

"I looked."

He hands me a coffee. He sits down on the other bed, Rémy's bed, the one we didn't sleep in, and looks at me.

"Pruitt?"