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“Yeah,” his father said.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Hey, son.” There was a little pause on the line. “You all right?”

“Yeah. I’m good.”

“How’s Nicole doing?”

“She’s okay.” Drew looked at the bathroom door. “I think.”

“Your mother wants to know if you’re coming down. We’re leaving at nine.”

“I’m gonna ride with Nicole. Her flight’s right after mine.”

His father didn’t say anything. In the background, his mother asked something Drew couldn’t make out, and the line went muffled like his dad had put his hand over it. Then he was back. “Okay.”

“Tell Ma I’ll call her when I get home.”

“You should tell her yourself.”

Drew didn’t answer that.

His father let out a long breath through his nose. “Take care of that hangover, Drew.”

“Yeah. I will.”

He hung up. His mother would have plenty to say about it. She could say it on the phone next week.

His suitcase was still on the luggage rack, and the suit from last night was in a pile by the closet where he must’ve dropped it. He folded it like shit and stuffed it in anyway, then the tie, then everything else from the closet and the dresser. The white dress shirt Phallon had worn was on the floor by the bathroom door, balled up. He bent down for it, and that smell came right up off the cotton, and his stomach rolled over.

He crossed the room and shoved it in the wastebasket under the desk. There was already a bunch of paper in there, newsprint torn into pieces so small it was practically confetti, and he figured it was somebody’s mess housekeeping should’ve emptied. He almost didn’t look twice, but curiosity got the best of him.

Drew crouched down, which his head did not appreciate, and pushed the shirt aside. He picked through the newsprint with two fingers and found a sliver of black railing, a piece of the number off his jersey, and a scrap no bigger than his thumbnail with the curve of a cheek on it and the tips of his own fingers resting there. It was the picture from the front of the campus paper, him at the railing after the Auburn game with his hand on Nicole’s face, the one he’d cut out and folded up and carried all the way to New York, and there was no putting it back together.

He got up and went to the luggage rack and unzipped the pocket in the lid of his suitcase, and it was empty.

Phallon had gone through his shit like she had every right to. She’d sat in this room waiting on him, found the one thing in his bag that mattered, and ripped it to pieces. Drew stood there with his hand still in that empty pocket and his jaw so tight his cut started throbbing. That crazy fucking bitch.

In the bathroom, the water was still running.

He looked at the door for a long time. Then he went back to the wastebasket, opened his hand, and let the pieces go. He dropped the shirt back on top of everything else and shoved it down until it stayed, and then he zipped his suitcase shut.

Room service knocked while Nicole was still in the shower. The guy rolled the cart in, lifted the silver lids off the plates, and set a little bottle of Advil next to the coffee pot, and Drew signed the check.

Nicole came out in a long brown dress that clung to her right down to her boots. He had to make himself quit looking at her tits in it, and he felt like an asshole for even noticing, this morning of all mornings. Her hair was perfect, like last night never happened, and she’d put on lipstick and gold earrings. She looked like she was on her way to breakfast someplace with cloth napkins, not a cab to LaGuardia.

She coughed into her elbow, a deep one that went on a while, and sat down in the chair by the window. Drew sat on the end of the bed with his plate on his knees and shoveled it in. The grease helped. Nicole ate her toast in small bites, and a few spoons of the eggs he’d ordered.

He shook two Advil into his palm, swallowed them with half the orange juice, then leaned over the cart and set the bottle down next to her plate. She looked at it, then at him, before she shook out two and took them with some water.

She held the cup in her left hand. Her right hand was in her lap, and even from where he sat, he could see the knuckles, red and shiny and swollen up past where knuckles were supposed to go. Drew opened his mouth. He didn’t know what he was going to say. Ask if it hurt? Tell her she needed ice? Thank her for punching somebody in the mouth for him? He closed it again.

Nicole set her cup down. “I thought you didn’t drink.”

Drew stopped chewing. He swallowed. “I don’t.” That sounded stupid even to him, sitting there with his head splitting open and a bottle of Advil between them. “I mean, I used to. But I stopped about a year ago.”

She held his eyes. “I’m sorry you didn’t get it, Drew. I really thought it was going to be you.”