Page 34 of Rookie Rules

"It is a chair."

"Strong analysis."

Luca reached toward the folded towel, then stopped before touching it. "Can I?"

Rowan disliked the question more than he would have disliked the assumption.

It gave him a choice.

"No."

Luca's hand lowered. "Okay."

No argument. No joke about age. No look that Rowan had to manage.

Luca crossed to his own bed, took one of the extra pillows, and placed it on the empty corner of the desk within Rowan's reach.

"Hotel engineering department," he said. "Use it or don't."

Then he went to the thermostat.

"What are you doing?"

"It was freezing when we came in. You turned it down."

"It helps sleep."

"Clearly."

Luca raised the temperature one degree, not back to where it had been.

Compromise disguised as interference.

He crossed to the hospitality tray and inspected its inventory. Two paper cups, powdered creamer, tea bags, and a kettle whose cord barely reached the outlet.

"Does heat work better with water?" he asked.

"Most human systems do."

"That was almost a joke."

Luca filled the kettle in the bathroom. He did not ask whether Rowan wanted tea. He made one cup for himself, left the second empty, and set a sealed bottle of water near the tablet without pushing it into Rowan's hand.

The restraint was becoming difficult to dismiss as accident.

"Owen gave you a sequence," Luca said as the kettle began to hiss.

"Yes."

"Can any of it be done standing?"

Rowan considered telling him to return to bed. Instead, he named two movements: a supported hip shift and a slow lateral weight transfer. Luca moved the desk chair aside, then stopped.

"Enough room?"

Rowan checked the narrow strip of carpet. "If the suitcase moves."

Luca moved his own suitcase, not Rowan's. He cleared the shoes from the path and sat on the far bed with his tea, attention fixed deliberately on the rain.