Page 32 of Rookie Rules

"Your body will not recognize the distinction."

Luca tossed the folded packet into the wastebasket and missed. He got up to retrieve it rather than leaving it beside the bin.

Rowan watched without intending to. Luca performed carelessness more often than he practiced it.

"Turn call tomorrow?" Luca asked as he returned to bed.

"If you see the feet."

"And if I call it late?"

"Keep the route."

"If Finn misses it?"

"I stay beneath the puck."

Luca settled against the pillow. "You always put yourself under the mistake?"

"It is the center's job."

It was true enough to end the conversation. It did not explain why Rowan had built most of his life around being the place other people's risk could settle.

Rowan turned off the desk lamp.

For several minutes, Luca filled the darkness with small observations that did not require answers: the rain sounded like loose gravel, Finn had cheated at cards on the bus, Jace was absolutely going to miss the first update despite having three alarms. Rowan answered two of them before realizing he had.

Then Luca went quiet.

Rowan closed his eyes and performed sleep until the performance had no audience left.

Rowan waited until Luca's breathing evened before he moved.

The room had been dark for forty-three minutes. Rain softened against the window, no longer violent enough to hide other sounds: the ventilation switching on, pipes ticking behind the bathroom wall, Luca shifting once beneath the hotel duvet.

Rowan lay on his back and counted breaths.

At twenty, the pull along his right side remained.

At forty, it had settled deeper.

He turned carefully onto his left. The mattress dipped in the wrong places. His hip objected. Lower back followed.

Available, Owen had said.

Not fine.

Rowan sat up.

Across the room, Luca did not move.

Rowan set both feet on the carpet and waited for stiffness to become information rather than command. His phone read 1:17. Morning update at six. Bus timing after that. Exhibition at seven that evening.

Enough time to sleep if he were someone who could decide to do it.

He took the reusable heat wrap from his bag and went to the desk. The room's only chair had a straight back and no support. He folded a towel behind his waist, fitted the wrap beneath his shirt, and opened his tablet at its lowest brightness.

Film did not require sleep.