The book had stopped being a book about forty minutes before the key turned in the lock. Morten kept his eyes on the page anyway; the corner of that room was his, the couch was not.

He heard the door. He heard the rain behind it, and your coat coming off the hook with a wet sound, and your shoes on the floor, and Ilian saying something from the couch that made Kepler sigh.

Then a towel crossed the room, and your hands caught it.

He looked up.

Your clothes were dark with rain and your hair was stuck to your face, and he had meant to look at your face. His eyes went down the wet line of your shirt and came back up, slower than he meant it to.

It came out flat, which was the only way he knew how to say it.

Nobody answered. Ilian was enjoying himself behind him, and Kepler was looking at the two of you the way he looked at a rule about to be broken.

Morten stood and closed the book.

He walked past you, and his shoulder barely grazed yours — he could have gone around. He knew that while he was doing it.

He stopped for the smallest fraction of a second.

Then he went down the hallway, and the flat got smaller behind him, and he heard Ilian's laugh — the low one he used when he had found something to keep.

He shut his own door and stood in the dark with his hand still on the handle, and did not turn the light on for a while.