Page 31 of Rookie Rules

The teasing answer arrived and stayed behind Luca's teeth.

For the first time since Rowan had walked into the locker room, no one else was there to receive the performance.

Not the captain's.

Not Luca's.

Rain closed over the window.

One night, Rowan had said.

Luca sat on the bed by the glass and wondered what Rowan Hale looked like when there was no room left to manage.

Chapter 6: Replay

The room had required negotiation before it allowed silence.

Luca claimed the bathroom first, then emerged in sleep shorts and a T-shirt with damp hair and no apparent awareness that most people carried shirts with sleeves. Rowan took his turn, completed the mobility sequence Owen had prescribed, and kept the bathroom door closed until the stiffness eased enough to make his walk back ordinary.

Luca was sitting cross-legged on the bed by the window, eating the last of the airport trail mix Eli had rejected.

"Team contraband?" Rowan asked.

"Strategic acquisition."

"You stole it."

"Eli traded it for information."

"What information?"

"Whether Jace actually uses that much hair product."

Rowan set his toiletry bag beside the suitcase. "And?"

"Classified."

The heat wrap remained buried beneath two folded shirts. Rowan left it there.

He checked the six o'clock operations update, set two alarms, plugged in his phone, and placed tomorrow's key card beneath it. Luca watched the sequence without commenting. That restraint drew more attention than teasing would have.

"Window side gets first alarm," Rowan said.

"Is that a hotel rule or a captain rule?"

"It is the side farther from the bathroom."

"Nature's hierarchy."

The operations message arrived while Luca folded the empty trail-mix packet into a precise square.

MORNING SKATE CANCELED. TEAM MEAL 8:30. BUS 10:00. OPTIONAL MOBILITY WITH OWEN 8:00.

"Optional," Luca read from his own phone. "A beautiful word."

"You should go."

"Then it becomes an assignment."