The comparison to cockroaches was a little more self-aware than Dorothy expected of Mac, but she didn’t point that out.

“I’m not going to beat around the bush with you two,” he continued. “I’m on board with your little missions back in time, saving the city and all that. But I want to see my future. I’ve got to be smart about this, you see. I’ve got a few . . . business ventures in the works, and I want to get a sense of how everything’s gonna turn out.” He scratched his chin, frowning. “Does that sound like something you two might be able to help me out with?”

Business ventures. Dorothy could imagine what he meant by that. She stared back at Mac and waited for the usual revulsion to rise, but it didn’t.

A few trips into the future—that was nothing.

“Think about it,” Mac said, interrupting her thoughts. He turned, awkwardly, on his crutches and began hobbling down the hall. “We’ll talk again, soon.”

Dorothy opened her mouth to speak when she thought Mac was out of earshot, but Roman lifted a hand, stopping her. He was silent until Mac had rounded the corner at the end of the hallway, and then he entered the bathroom and closed the door with a soft click.

“What—” Dorothy started, but Roman moved past her, his gaze sweeping over the chipped sinks, the small, dark windows, the graffiti-covered stalls. There was something jerky and restless in his movements, like he was only just holding back his anger.

Dorothy frowned. “Are you all right?”

“Is he gone?” Roman asked. His voice was casual enough, but several degrees colder than it had been a moment ago. He lifted his eyebrows, unsmiling. “Or have you hidden him in some stall?”

“Who?” Dorothy asked, and Roman cut his eyes at her, nostrils flared.

“Don’t bother,” he spat, and Dorothy felt anger ripple through her.

How bitter he sounded, as though he had any right to judge who she spent time in bathrooms with. How many times had she seen him leave the bar at the end of a long night, arm in arm with some pretty girl? And she’d always known well enough to mind her damn business, thank you very much.

She drew her shoulders back, meeting his gaze. “Were you following me?”

A short, hard laugh. “Don’t be absurd.”

“Then what—”

Roman made a noise in the back of his throat, interrupting her. “I saw him standing in the crowd. The nerve of him, coming into my hotel—”

“You were following Ash?”

“And imagine my surprise when I found him with you.”

Dorothy felt herself begin to waver. She still didn’t think she had anything to apologize for, but she could see how, to Roman, this might look like a betrayal. Not that she’d been hiding in the bathroom with someone, but that she’d been hiding in a bathroom with Ash.

“You’re acting like you caught us with our clothes around our ankles,” Dorothy said. “We talked, that’s all.”