He almost smiles. "Charger. That's all he wanted."
"A charger." I sit on the edge of the bed. The sheets are still warm from both of us.
He sits next to me. Not touching.
"I get why you think we need to hide this," I say. My voice is quiet. My feet still feel the cold from the tile, even though I’m on the carpet. “You think one or both of us will lose our spot on the team, that it will become a PR thing and then neither of us can play again.”
He doesn't answer right away. His hand finds the back of my neck, his thumb against the top of my spine.
"Come back to bed," he says.
"I am in bed."
"Come back to sleep." When I don’t move, he asks, "Do you want to go back to your room?"
"No."
"Okay." He reaches over and his fingers brush the back of my hand. We get back into bed. I stare at the ceiling until his breathing evens out.
When he wakes up an hour later, I am sitting in the desk chair by the window with my knees pulled up and the laptop screen glowing in the dim room. I have entered the ceviche into the spreadsheet. I have entered the appetizers. I am adjusting the service column when he rolls over and looks at me.
"What time is it?"
"After one."
He sits up. Rubs his face. "What are you doing?"
"Updating the spreadsheet."
He gets out of bed and comes to stand behind me. His hand rests on the back of the chair. He leans over my shoulder and I can feel his chest close to my back and his chin near my head and his breath warm on my ear.
"You gave the service a six-four?"
"The server forgot the water refill."
"The server was dealing with a full section. That's a six-eight at minimum."
"A six-eight for forgetting the water?"
"A six-eight for managing the rest of it. The water refill is a minor infraction."
"Hydration is part of the dining experience."
"You're penalizing a person for a water glass." His tone is easy, the way it always is when we argue about the spreadsheet. Except his hand moves from the back of the chair to the laptop and he reaches over me and changes the cell. Six-four becomes six-eight.
"You just changed my number," I say.
"I corrected it."
"You didn't correct it. You overrode it. That's my column."
"The column is shared."
"The column is shared for discussion. You don't get to reach in and change my rating because you disagree with it."
"A six-four for one missed water refill is punitive and you know it."
I close the laptop. The screen goes dark and the room goes darker and I sit in the chair and I don't know what is happening. But it is not about the water refill.
