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"It happens to everybody. Guys in the league. Guys on our team. You'd be surprised."

"Not to me."

"Well," I say, "it just did. So now it's you, too. Welcome to the club. We have jackets."

That gets something. Not a laugh. A breath through his nose that's almost a laugh. His eyes open again, and this time they see me.

"Keep your hand there," he says.

I blink. "What?"

"Your hand." His voice is low. "Keep it there. For a minute."

So I do. I keep it right where it is, flat over his heart, and I feel it slowing down under my palm, slowing and slowing, until it's almost normal. Almost. It never quite gets all the way there.

He puts his own hand over mine.

I don't think he means anything by it. I think he's just holding on to something because he's been drowning and my hand's the closest thing. His palm is big and rough, and warm now, the cold gone out of it, and it covers the whole back of my hand.

We sit like that on the stairs. I'm crouched on the step below him. He's sitting on the step above. His hand is on my hand, and my hand is on his heart.

"They asked if there was someone else," he says, quietly.

"I heard."

"There wasn't."

"Okay."

"There was never anyone else." He's looking at me. Not at the wall, not at the floor. At me. "Twelve years. Not once. I never even⁠—"

He stops.

"Never even what?" I ask.

He doesn't answer. His eyes move over my face, slow, like he's reading something he can't make out in bad light. They stop on my mouth.

They stay there.

I stop breathing. I don't mean to. My hand's still on his chest, and under it his heart starts to speed up again, not panicky this time. Different. I can feel it happen.

"Owen," I say.

He pulls his hand away from mine like it burned him.

He stands up so fast he almost knocks me down the stairs. He grabs the railing. He's breathing hard again, but it's not the panic. It's something else.

"We should go up," he says. "Beth has the keys."

"Owen—"

"Fourteenth floor."

"We're in Santa Monica. There's only six floors."

He stops halfway up the flight. He doesn't turn around.

"Sixth, then," he says, and keeps climbing.