The elevator smelled of other people's perfume and warm metal. I had a key card in my palm and a rule I had made in the lobby because the alternative was another night of being a person with a name, an inbox, a life that photographed well. No names. No numbers. If he wanted the same thing, he would understand it from the way I held the door.

He did. A man, late thirties, coat over his arm, the kind of face you forget on purpose and remember anyway: mouth serious, eyes that had already done the maths. I had looked at him across the check-in and looked away. He had not looked away. When the doors started to close on my floor he was still outside them, and I…