The knock came at nine — polite, unbothered, the kind of knock with a master key behind it.
He'd been awake a while. Long enough to watch the ceiling go from grey to the color of a held breath. Long enough to learn the exact weight of her arm across his ribs and decide against moving it.
"Housekeeping," the hallway said, and then, after a courteous pause, the small metallic thought of a key.
He got up carefully, easing out from under her arm and setting it down on the warm place he'd left. The carpet was that hotel carpet that is neither cold nor warm. The room smelled like last night's rain and the coffee neither of them had made. Her dress had found the back of the desk chair. His shirt had not found anything.
He crossed to the door and opened it four inches — enough for the sign, not enough for the hallway. DO NOT DISTURB, in a font somebody had chosen to look like discretion. He hung it on the outside handle and shut the door before the woman in the corridor could finish apologizing.
The latch caught. Somewhere down the hall a cart rolled on toward rooms where people had gotten up on time.
He stood there a second longer than the task required, one hand flat on the door, the way you do when you've just decided something and want to feel the shape of it.
When he turned around, her eyes were open.
"You were awake," he said.
"I was seeing what you'd do," she said.
"And?"
"You hung the sign." She lifted the sheet on the empty side, the way you'd hold a door for somebody. "So don't waste it."