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"You never bought one thing?"

"I bought a coffee maker."

"Where?"

He points at the counter. It's gray.

I sit down on the gray couch. It's hard, like it's never been sat on. He sits down at the other end of it, and there's a whole cushion between us, and we look at each other across it.

"So," I say.

"So."

"We should make a list," I say.

He blinks. "What?"

"A list. You love lists. You made me a whole list. Two pages. Underlined." I get up and go to the kitchen and find a pad of paper by the phone, the kind apartment buildings leave, with the building's name printed on top. I find a pen in a drawer with nothing else in it. I come back and sit down, closer this time, right in the middle of the couch. "My turn. My rules."

He looks at the pad. The corner of his mouth moves.

"Okay," he says.

I click the pen. I write RULES at the top, in capital letters, and underline it twice. He actually laughs. It's short, but it's real.

"One," I say, writing. "Nobody knows. Until the season's over."

He goes still.

"That's what you need, right?" I don't look up from the pad. "Until the season's over. Then we decide. Together."

"Rémy—"

"It's a rule. Rules go on the list." I keep writing, because if I stop, I'll think about it, and if I think about it, I'll think about the guy in Rimouski who married a girl from his church. About the bus in juniors. About standing on a stage two hours ago telling a hundred kids don't hide. "Two. You don't lie to me. You can lie to everybody else. Brandt, the press, Moretti. Not me."

"Okay."

"Three. You say my name. Every day. That one's still in effect. No expiration."

"Okay."

"Four." I stop with the pen on the paper. This one's harder. "If you ever call it a mistake in front of anybody, it's over. I mean it. Not to Webb, not to your lawyer, not to yourself in the mirror. You don't get to do that."

He's quiet. When I look up, he's looking at me the way he looked at me in the stairwell.

"I won't," he says. "It's not a mistake."

I write it down anyway.

"Five," I say, and my voice comes out lower than I mean it to. "In here, I'm in charge."

He doesn't say anything. His throat moves.

"Out there," I say, and nod at the window, at the city, "you're the captain. You make the rules. I follow them. I'll even fold a shirt. But in here, when it's us—" I put the pen down. "You don't have to be in charge of everything, Owen. You don't have to hold it all up. In here, you let me."

The apartment's so quiet I can hear the refrigerator hum.

"I've never," he starts, and stops.