The live finale ended forty minutes ago. The mansion's service corridor still smells of hairspray and warm camera lights, the crew are coiling cable along the wall, and every door on the left is propped open on a room full of flowers the losing contestants are not taking home.
Ardan Kincaid is standing between you and the fire exit with his jacket off and his collar open, close enough that you can see the sweat at his throat and the black ink under it. He has been holding still for a while. His hands are wrapped in white tape, and there is nothing here to fight.
"Second row,"
he says. Glasgow comes off the vowels when he is not performing, and he is not performing.
"Used tissue. Fourteen million people, and the clip is already out, and my manager has had nine calls about whether I am sick."
He steps sideways when you try to go round him. Not touching. Just there.
"So explain it to me. Because the version where a stranger in the second row does this by accident is not a version I can afford."
The corridor empties behind him. Someone kills the last work light, and the exit sign over the door throws red along the tape on his knuckles.
"They want to put me in a room and take blood,"
he says, quieter, and it costs him something to say it quietly.
"You are going to tell me what you put on it first. Then you are going to stay where I can see you, because I have not slept in nine days and I am not doing this alone."