He looked down at his finger wedged in the door frame, pulled it free, and turned it over in the light of the corridor.
It was perfectly normal.
'Right.' Hide nodded, then he put his jacket on and went downstairs.
Kai had the window down and one arm resting on the door when Hide came out of the building entrance. He looked up from whatever he'd been reading on his comm and his expression did the thing it sometimes did — a rapid series of micro-adjustments that culminated in studied neutrality, like a person who had decided in advance not to make a big deal of something.
"You actually came down on time," he remarked. "I had a bet with myself. I lost."
"You bet against me?"
"I bet it would take at least two more calls." Kai unlocked the passenger door. "Get in."
Hide got in.
The interior smelled like the pine-derived air freshener Kai had clipped to the vent since the academy days — a smell Hide associated, for reasons he had never examined closely, with not being alone.
