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When Jamie answers, some of the certainty has gone out of his voice. “It’s what she says.”

I think about Heather at the counter telling me to put the menu back. Straight. My cheek throbs. “She hit me,” I say.

“I know,” he says, and then, before I can ask how, “I was there.”

“You were what now?” My hand closes around the doorknob.

“Simon.”

“Don’t fucking call me that.”

He goes quiet.

The light in the room is too red to think in. I press my palm flat against the door and picture a man I’ve never seen standing over me while I was unconscious.

“Did you look?”

Jamie doesn’t answer quickly enough.

I hit the door hard enough to make him move on the other side. “Did you fucking look at me?”

“Yeah.”

I shove away from the door.

Anger comes up so fast that for a second I don’t know where to put it. I pace to the dresser and back. “You touch me?”

“No.”

I stand in the middle of the room and breathe through my teeth.

“Please, Simon,” Jamie says. “Just be good tomorrow. That’s all I’m asking.”

I laugh, and it hurts my face. “Buddy, I’ve never been good a day in my life.”

“Yeah.” He says it quietly. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“What’s your name?” The second voice comes through the wall behind me.

I turn so fast the floor tips. My hand catches the dresser before the rest of me follows.

The voice came from the other side of the room, straight through the fucking wall.

“Jesus Christ. How many of you are there?”

“Three, now.” The voice is lower than Jamie’s and completely calm.

I stare at the wall.

“What’s your name?” it asks.

“Don’t answer him,” Jamie says through the door.

“Your real name,” the voice continues, as though Jamie hasn’t spoken. “Not the one she gave you.”

“Oliver, I swear to God.” Jamie’s voice climbs before dropping again just as quickly. “Talking to that motherfucker is how we all end up mulch.”

I look from the door to the wall. “Mulch.”