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“See? That,” I said, pointing the cracker at him, “is exactly the kind of thing that keeps me unstable.”

Deadeye smiled and took another bite. He chewed, swallowed, then glanced toward the open bedroom door where the suit bag sat like a threat in the corner. His expression changed a little. Not nosy. Just noticing.

“You live alone?” he asked.

I followed his glance then looked back at him. The question was normal. My answer still caught a little in my throat.

“Yeah,” I said. “Unless you count the plant by the window, but he’s emotionally distant.”

His eyes went to the plant. The thing was leaning slightly left and looked like it had opinions. He nodded once. “How long have you been here?”

“A while.” I tucked one leg under me in the chair and took another bite. “Long enough to know which floorboards complain and which cabinets are lying when they say they’ll close.”

He looked around again, slower this time. My thrifted lamp. The stack of magazines. The chipped mug near the sink. Nothing my father would’ve considered worth owning. Nothing that matched or impressed anyone. But every ridiculous, mismatched thing in this apartment had been chosen by me.

“It suits you,” he said.

I laughed softly. “Tiny and held together by attitude?”

“Colorful.” He glanced at me. “More interesting than most places.”

That hit somewhere tender, so naturally I turned it into a joke.

“Congratulations. You have now officially said more nice things to me than my father has in the last six months.”

The words came out light, but the room didn’t feel light after I said them.

Deadeye set his sandwich down. The scrape of the plate against the table sounded louder than it should have. He didn’t jump in with pity. He didn’t make a face. He just looked at me, and I hated how much I appreciated that.

“He sent the suit?” he asked.

My eyes flicked to the bedroom again. I should have hidden it. I should’ve shoved it under the bed or lit it on fire in the bathtub. Instead, there it sat in plain view, neat and smug.

“Suit and a card,” I said. “Command performance. Very warm. Very fatherly. If by fatherly you mean expensive and vaguely threatening.”

The silence after that didn’t feel awkward. It felt careful. Deadeye reached for his drink, took a swallow, then set it down. His fingers tapped once against the side of the glass.

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” he said.

For once, I didn’t feel pressured to explain myself. I smiled, smaller this time.

“That might be the nicest possible thing you could have said.”

He held my gaze. “I mean it.”

I took another bite of my sandwich to give my face something else to do. It didn’t help much.

Across from me, he finished his food and wiped his hands on a napkin. The table was barely big enough for both our plates and his forearms. Every time he shifted, his knee brushed the underside of it, and the chair gave a warning creak. My apartment had never looked so clearly like a dollhouse.

After a minute, he nodded toward the toolbox by the door. “What else is on your list today?”

I stared at him. “My list?”

“The maintenance list.” He tipped his head. “You’ve got more than one thing, right?”

Of course I did. The damn thing was long enough to qualify as light reading. What I didn’t have was any reason to believe Deadeye wanted to spend the rest of his afternoon following me around while I impersonated someone who knew what the hell he was doing.

And yet here he was, asking.