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"What did you tell him?" he asks.

"That you're a teammate."

"Okay."

"He didn't believe me."

"Okay." He's quiet for a second. "Do you believe you?"

I don't answer. I look at the plant on the windowsill instead. It's some kind of fern. It's very green. It's the only living thing in this apartment besides us.

"I don't hate the rug," I say.

He leans his head on my shoulder. His hair smells like the cold outside and whatever shampoo he uses, something with mint in it.

"Five in a row," he says into my shoulder.

"Five in a row."

"Say it."

"Rémy."

"Logged," he says. "I'm keeping a spreadsheet."

"You're not keeping a spreadsheet."

"I'm keeping a very small spreadsheet," he says, and I feel him smile against my shoulder, and for a while neither of us says anything at all, and the fern sits on the windowsill in its cat pot, being green.

Chapter Sixteen

RÉMY

The equipment room at the practice rink has a storage closet in the back, behind the skate sharpener, where Gus keeps extra tape and spare laces and a mountain of water bottles nobody's ever going to use.

It's not big. It's maybe five feet by six. There's a light bulb on a pull chain and shelves on three walls, and it smells like rubber and cardboard and the cleaning stuff Gus uses on the gloves.

It's perfect.

"This is insane," Owen says, into my neck.

"You're the one who closed the door."

"You're the one who pulled me in here."

"Only because you looked at me like that in the shower line."

"I didn't look at you like anything."

"You looked at me like I was a steak," I say, and he makes a sound halfway between a laugh and a groan, and his hands tighten on my hips, and a box of tape falls off the shelf behind him and hits the floor.

We both freeze.

Outside, very loudly, somebody coughs.

"Coming in the back," Gus announces, to nobody, at the top of his lungs. "Gonna grab some tape. Gonna take my time. Gonna walk real slow."

We spring apart. Owen smacks his head on the light bulb. It swings on its chain, throwing shadows all over the walls, and I have to put both hands over my mouth to keep from laughing out loud.