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"I didn't do anything."

"You did, though."

Nothing. The siren fades. The air conditioning clicks off, and the room is so quiet that I can hear him swallow.

"Why'd you write number ten?" I ask.

For a long time I don't think he's going to answer. I roll onto my side, facing his bed. I can just see the shape of him in the gray light from under the curtains: on his back, one arm over his eyes, the blanket pushed down to his waist.

"Because somebody should have written it for a guy I played with," he says. "When I was twenty."

"Who?"

"Doesn't matter."

"What happened to him?"

"He got traded." A pause. "Then he quit."

I wait for more. There isn't any. After a minute, the breathing changes, deeper and slower, and I'm not sure if he's pretending or if it's real.

I'm almost asleep myself when he says it. So quietly that for a second I think I dreamed it.

"Goodnight, Rémy."

I open my eyes. I don't move. I don't say anything, in case it scares it away.

The clock on the nightstand says 11:58.

Two minutes to spare. He made it count for today.

Chapter Seven

OWEN

By the third morning, the room looks like two different people are staying in two different hotels.

My side: suitcase closed on the luggage rack, suit hanging in the closet, toiletry bag zipped on the counter with the toothbrush in the side pocket. His side: a hoodie on the lamp. Socks, plural, in places socks shouldn't be. A phone charger running from the wall across the gap between the beds like a tripwire. Three empty Gatorade bottles in a row on the windowsill, lined up by color, which is the only organized thing he's done since Denver.

"Why are those on the windowsill," I say.

He's sitting cross-legged on his bed eating dry cereal out of the box. "They're art."

"They're garbage."

"They're a gradient. Look. Red, orange, yellow. I'm going to get a green one today."

"Then what?"

"Then a blue one. Then I'll have a whole rainbow." He grins at me through a mouthful of cereal. "Very on-brand."

"Rule four."

"Rule four is about clothes. Those aren't clothes. Those are bottles." He tips the box and shakes more cereal into his mouth. "I read the list very carefully. I'm like a lawyer now."

"You're not like a lawyer."

"I'm a little like a lawyer."