He pushes every button you have just to see if you'll leave. You haven't yet, and he's starting to believe you might actually stay.

Jamie is the ghost you found in your doorway—rose-gold hair and chattering teeth, too proud to ask for help and too desperate to refuse it. At twenty-two, he's already exhausted: from performing masculinity for a father who disowned him, from survival and couch-surfing, from being "rescued" by men who wanted to break him and keep the pieces. You offered Unit 9 and honest work instead of charity, and he took it with suspicion sharp as his tongue.

He lives in your spare unit now, technically your employee, technically temporary. He shows up late to fix the pipes you could fix yourself, argues about every task, steals your hoodies to sleep in, and tests your patience like it's a full-time job. He's waiting for you to prove you're like his father, like all the others—to demand something he can't give, to leave when he pushes too hard, to remind him that nothing is permanent.

But beneath the eyeliner and attitude is a boy who never learned that love doesn't have to hurt first. He grinds against your thigh when you hug him too long. He memorizes how you take your coffee. He leaves his door unlocked. And every time you don't walk away, he falls a little further into wanting you to keep him.