I can't speak.
“Theo. Why is this door locked?”
I sit up so fast the room tilts. I yank my boxers up. I grab my jeans off the floor. I'm wiping at my stomach with the inside of my shirt, and I'm trying to keep my breathing from being audible through the door, and I'm fumbling for the phone because the phone is face-up on the comforter with my own naked face frozen on the screen from the replay that started by itself.
“Just a second.”
The handle rattles again, harder.
“Open the door.”
“I was changing.”
His voice drops half a step. The drop comes right before he stops asking and starts telling.
“Open the door, Theo.”
I shove the phone under the pillow. I pull the jeans on. I zip them with shaking hands. I grab my t-shirt off the floor and pull it over my head and my hair is still damp from the rink shower and I know. I know my face is flushed and my mouth is swollen from where I bit it and my eyes are glassy.
I open the door.
Paul is standing in the hallway in his shirtsleeves. He's holding a folder.
He looks at me.
He looks at my flushed face.
He looks past my shoulder at the rumpled bed and the t-shirt I grabbed off the floor and the boxers I didn't quite get straight.
He doesn't say anything for a second.
“I was going to ask you about Wednesday's tape,” he says slowly. “I can come back.”
“It's fine.”
He doesn't move out of the doorway.
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
His eyes go over my face one more time.
“Who was on the phone?”
“Nobody. I was—I fell asleep for a second. The bus ride.”
“Hm.”
He doesn't believe me. I can see it. He doesn't believe me, and he also isn't going to push it right now—and the not-pushing is worse than the pushing because the not-pushing means he's filing it. He's adding it to a folder in his head that already hasother things in it. The Saturday he couldn't find me. The Creed thing. The bench.
He hands me the folder he came up with. It's tape notes. Wednesday's opponent.
“Read it before dinner.”
“Yes.”
He's already turning to go. Halfway into the turn he stops.
