By eight o’clock the next morning, I’ve ordered enough room-service breakfast to feed a small family, showered beneath water hot enough to erase the last traces of sleep, and spent twenty full minutes staring at my phone without turning it on.
The silence had felt necessary last night.
But this morning, it feels different, temporary. Like the hotel room itself.
The suite is beautiful in the anonymous way expensive hotel rooms always are, all pale furniture and polished surfaces, without one single object that I can call my own, or Locke's.
No book left open on the sofa. No coffee mug beside the sink. No motorcycle boots near the door. No quiet man moving through the kitchen while pretending he isn’t checking whether I’ve eaten.
I push that thought away, and remind myself that Locke
