Page 26 of Rookie Rules

Luca had joined teams where travel separated stars from everyone assigned to carry things. Here, Rowan took the last equipment case by its broken side handle and moved it away from a leak beneath the window.

The action was too ordinary to be leadership theater. No one watched except Luca.

When Rowan sat again, Luca slid a sealed coffee across the table.

"What is this?" Rowan asked.

"Hydration with ambition."

"I did not ask for it."

"Then it remains a mysterious object between us."

Rowan looked at the cup, then at Luca. He took it.

"Thank you."

The words were quiet enough that Finn pretended to be asleep.

The delay lasted fifty-three minutes. Rowan counted them before boarding, again when the bus delivered them to the plane, and once more as the aisle filled.

Luca had the window seat beside Finn. Rowan sat across the aisle with Nolan. As the plane pushed back, rain struck the glass in diagonal streams.

Finn fell asleep before they reached altitude.

Luca tried film on his tablet, music, then the view outside. Clouds erased the world. The plane shifted under them as weather pressed against the wings.

Across the aisle, Rowan read the same page on his tablet for eleven minutes.

Luca noticed because he was not staring.

Turbulence shook the cabin. Rowan's hand closed once around the armrest, then released. His expression did not change. When a flight attendant passed with water, Rowan asked whether the rear rows had been served.

Captain even at thirty thousand feet.

"Do you ever stop working?" Luca asked.

Nolan kept his eyes closed. Rowan looked over.

"Do you?"

"I stop all the time. I'm excellent at it."

"You watched video during taxi."

"That was entertainment."

"Your own goals?"

"I know what I like."

Rowan's gaze held his for one quiet second before returning to the tablet.

Luca smiled at the clouded window.

Meal service never reached their row before the seat-belt sign returned. By then the coffee had worn off and the cabin lights had been dimmed. Luca found an untouched protein bar on his tray table.

He looked across the aisle.