Page 30 of Rookie Rules

Room 614 waited at the end of the corridor. Rowan unlocked it and entered first.

Two beds.

A desk beneath the window. One chair. A television. Rain struck the glass hard enough to erase the view. Their bags occupied the entryway, suddenly intimate simply because no teammates stood around them.

Rowan inspected the room in one sweep: beds, bathroom, thermostat, connecting door locked.

Then he placed Luca's key card on the desk.

"You take the bed by the window."

"Any captainly reason?"

"You're less likely to complain about the noise if you can see the cause."

Luca set down his food. "You've been studying me."

Rowan's hand paused near the thermostat.

Only for a second.

"Occupational hazard."

"We need the room colder?" Luca asked.

"We need to sleep."

"You say that like we're entering medical supervision."

"Given your relationship with recovery, perhaps we are."

Luca smiled, then opened his suitcase on the stand opposite Rowan's. Their belongings divided the room by instinct: Luca's charging cable coiled near the bed, Rowan's aligned along the desk; Luca's clothes lifted in one stack, Rowan's separated by morning and game.

The differences should have made the room feel larger.

They did not.

A knock came before either man could settle. Finn stood outside with two bottles of water and the expression of someone checking a volatile experiment without admitting it.

"Operations says pipes are moody," he said. "Hydrate now, complain later."

He handed one bottle to each of them and looked at the two beds.

"Everyone surviving?"

"Hale has lowered the temperature to preserve my organs," Luca said.

"Standard service. Try not to thaw before morning."

Finn left without a second glance. No wink. No implication. To the team, this was inconvenience and nothing more.

That should have removed the charge from it.

Instead, the closed door made Luca aware that the charge belonged entirely to him.

He turned the temperature down two degrees and began unpacking with the same precision he brought to a line change.

Luca watched him place his phone, wallet, and room key in a straight row on the desk. Watched him hang tomorrow's clothes instead of leaving them folded. Watched him create routine inside a room neither of them had chosen.