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"Yes."

He stops.

"Yes, somebody takes a picture," I say. "Somebody sees the number-one pick coming out of a bar at midnight in Phoenix, the night before a game. They don't care it was a taco place. They don't care it was Sorel. They take a picture and it's on the internet before you're in bed, and Nadia from brand is in Moretti's office by nine, and Moretti's in mine by nine-fifteen."

"So this is about you."

"It's about you."

"It sounds like it's about you." He's quiet now, but it's worse than loud. "It sounds like you're scared of getting in trouble for me."

The fountain keeps running. The pool guy has decided to go skim somewhere else.

"I'm not scared," I say.

"Okay."

"I'm not."

"Okay, Hale." He walks past me toward the room. "I'm going to bed. It's after curfew."

I can't sleep.

That's not new. I haven't slept a full night since June. But usually it's the rental, the gray walls, the ice maker. Tonight it's him, eight feet away, not asleep either. I can tell from his breathing. He came in, brushed his teeth, got into bed without a word, and turned his back to me, and he's been lying like that for hours.

My knee's throbbing. It's been throbbing since Denver, deep in the joint, where the ice doesn't reach.

At three I give up.

I get out of bed as quietly as I can and take the ice bag out of the minibar freezer, where Dana made me put it. I sit down in the armchair by the window, prop my foot up on the edge of the bed, and hold the ice against the side of my knee. The cold goes in slow, then all at once, and I have to breathe through it.

A little light comes in around the curtains from the courtyard, blue from the fountain. Enough to see by.

When I look up, he's watching me.

He's still lying on his side, but he's facing me now. His eyes are open. I don't know how long they've been open.

Neither of us says anything.

"Go to sleep," I say finally.

"How bad is it?"

"It's fine."

"You said you'd stop saying that."

"I never said that. You said I should."

He pushes himself up on one elbow. The blanket slides off his shoulder. His hair's a disaster.

"Is it the thing from Denver? When you blocked the shot?"

"No."

"The dive, then."

"It's seventeen years, Castel. It's not one thing."