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It's fine. He's twenty years old, he's in a bar, he's allowed to dance with whoever he wants. It's none of my business. Moretti said keep him out of trouble. A guy dancing with him isn't trouble.

Unless the guy has a phone. Unless the guy knows who he is. Unless tomorrow there's a photo of the number-one pick grinding on a stranger in West Hollywood, and Nadia from brand is in Moretti's office by nine.

That's what this is. That's why my hand's tight on the bottle.

The guy leans down and says something in Castel's ear. Castel laughs and shakes his head. The guy says something else. Castel shakes his head again, slower this time, and steps out from under the hand, and says something with a smile that's polite but final. The guy shrugs, raises his hands, and melts back into the crowd.

Castel turns around.

He looks straight at me.

I don't know how he knew where I was. There are two hundred people in this room, and I'm at the dark end of the bar. He looks right at me anyway, across the whole floor, through the purple and the pink, like he's known I was here the whole time. Like he's been checking.

He grins. He points at me. He crooks his finger. Come here.

I shake my head.

He puts his hands together like he's praying. Please.

I shake my head again.

He mouths something. It's too far away and too dark to read. Then he turns back to Sorel and keeps dancing, like it doesn't matter, and it doesn't, and I sit there with my heart going like I just did a double shift on the penalty kill.

"What'd he say?" Webb asks.

"I don't know."

"He said something."

"I don't read lips, Marcus."

Webb doesn't say anything for a while. He just drinks his beer and watches the dance floor, and watches me, and watches the dance floor.

"Can I ask you something?" he says finally.

"No."

"How's Laurel?"

It's not what I thought he'd ask. I turn and look at him.

"She's fine," I say. "She wants the lake house."

"You going to give it to her?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because she wants it."

"Owen." He sets his bottle down on the bar. "I've known you twelve years. I've known Laurel almost as long. I love her. She made me soup when I had my shoulder done. But I watched you two, and I'm going to say something, and you can punch me if you want."

"I don't want to punch you."

"You will in a second." He takes a breath. "You never looked at her the way you've been looking at that dance floor for the last hour."

The music's still going. It's so loud I can feel it in my sternum. But for a second I can't hear any of it.