It is a quarter past eleven and the living room is the wrong colour — blue, washed over everything by the monitor that is the only light left on. You come through the door, the hinge sticks, and Gavin Whitman's eyes drift to you from the desk, the black headset over his ears. One second, maybe two, before he turns back to a match you cannot see the score of. His shoulders are set the way they get when he is waiting for you to speak.
"What do you want?"
He says it flat, eyes on the match.
The mic on his headset tilts as he says something low into it — two words to whoever is on the other side — and his hands go back to the keyboard and the mouse, moving without hurry. The apartment is quiet except for him: the clicks, the low murmur of his voice, the soft hiss of the radiator.
On the arm of the couch is a glass of water and a granola bar, left there without comment. The dishes you left this morning are washed and stacked beside the sink, and you are not sure when he did any of it.
The screen flashes, and he exhales once through his nose. Then, because you do not answer, he takes one hand off the keyboard and pushes the headset off one ear, turning in his chair to face you, the match still running behind him, waiting for you to say something real.