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It's not what I expect. I stand there.

"Seventeen years," he says. "I've played with you six of them. I've seen guys come through that room you didn't give a damn about. Rookies who got hazed a lot worse than a tutu. Remember Petrakis? We shaved his eyebrows off and duct-taped him to the goalpost, and you laughed. You laughed, Owen." He tilts his head. "This kid shows up, and suddenly you're walking into video rooms and closing doors. Suddenly it's printouts and Pruitt and the league. So I'm just asking. Why this one?"

I have an answer ready. I've had it ready for a month.

"Because he's a teammate," I say.

"So was Petrakis."

"Because it's different."

"How?"

"Because it's not a joke, what you did," I say. "Petrakis was a joke. Everybody laughed, Petrakis laughed. This wasn't a joke. This was you telling a twenty-year-old kid he doesn't belong in the room because of who he is. That's not hazing. That's something else."

Brandt looks at me for a long time. Longer than I'd like. His eyes go over my face like he's looking for something.

"Okay," he says, slowly. "If you say so, Cap."

He turns back to the screen. He hits play.

I leave the room. I close the door behind me. I walk down the hallway with my heart pounding the way it hasn't pounded since the stairwell, and I don't know if I just won that conversation or lost it.

That night, when I get home, the apartment isn't gray anymore.

Not all of it. Most of it's still gray. But there's a rug on the living room floor that wasn't there this morning, a big one, deep blue with a pattern of orange and yellow triangles that clash with everything. There's a plant on the windowsill in a pot shaped like a cat. There's a blanket on the gray couch, knitted, bright green, with a tag still on it.

He's lying on the rug on his back with his arms spread out, looking at the ceiling.

"I used the key," he says.

"I see that."

"You gave it to me. On Sunday. You said use it whenever."

"I meant whenever you wanted to come over."

"I did want to come over. I wanted to come over with a rug." He props himself up on his elbows and looks at me upside down. "Do you hate it?"

I look at the rug. At the cat-shaped pot. At the blanket.

"It's very bright," I say.

"That's the point."

"It doesn't match anything."

"Nothing matches anything in here. Everything's gray. Gray doesn't count." He sits up. "It's fine if you hate it. I kept the receipt."

I put my bag down. I cross the room and sit on the couch, on top of the green blanket with the tag on it. My knee's aching from the game. My chest is still tight from the video room.

"Brandt asked me why I care so much," I say.

He goes still. "About what?"

"About you."

He gets up off the rug and sits next to me on the couch, close, his shoulder against mine.