Coach was standing in the elevator holding the door open when Marwan went back in. “You staying focused?” he said as Marwan stepped into the elevator.

“She’s a friend,” Marwan said.

It was a strange lie. He’d meant to make it sound like Eden was just a friend. But was she even that or was he reaching? How would he know for sure when they’d made that sort of leap? Would anything they’d shared matter at all when the device was gone?

“I wasn’t talking about her,” Coach said. “I was wondering what she just handed you.” He nodded at the towel. “Whatcha got?”

“It’s really nothing,” Marwan said. “It’s private, really. Of hers.”

The door closed and up they went.

“If I ever found out you were using any—”

“What? No. Never. It’s nothing like that.” Marwan had never touched drugs and never would.

“You’d tell me,” Coach said. “If you were in trouble? In over your head in any way?”

“It’s really nothing to worry about,” Marwan said.

Coach said, “If you’re sure.”

Marwan said, “I’m sure,” and wished it didn’t feel like a lie.

After cool-downs and a shower, he went out with wet hair and walked the half block to Panera. She was sitting in a booth with her earbuds in, looking at her phone. He slid in across from her, and she looked up and slipped her earbuds out—both of them this time.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” he said. He should tell her right now, super casually, that her mom had come into the restaurant last night. She probably already knew! But then wouldn’t she mention it? He couldn’t find the right words so he said, “What are you listening to?” Because maybe it was a podcast. Maybe they had something easy in common.

But she didn’t answer. She said, “You were right. We need to just get rid of it as soon as possible.”

“Why? What happened?”

It was crowded—like people at almost every table; some families with small kids, some people with laptops.

“I don’t even know where to start, but for example it sort of disappeared for a while,” she said.

“What?”

“Yeah, we walked away from our stuff for like—”

“Wait.” He was missing something. “Our?”

She shook her head, started over. “It was … the device was with me, and I was going to walk up to you to tell you that it told Ilanka not to trust Eli, but then I figured I shouldn’t bother you at work …”

She’d wanted to see him last night. Knowing that felt good.

“… but I guess I didn’t want to be alone with it, so I ended up meeting up with Eli at Socrates.”

“Did it say why it doesn’t trust him?”