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“How much to buy August off you?”

“You can have September. September’s wide open.”

Because September is a fool’s game. The damn thing barely works now.

Marcus is at my one window, checking the latch. Which is hilarious considering the office window’s been out of commission for what I assume to be years, and none of them did anything about it. This one actually latches and he seems almost disappointed.

“Carol sent food,” he says, running out and returning with a foil-covered dish. “It’s the chicken thing she prides herself on. Don’t tell her if you hate it, just lie to me and I’ll pass it along.”

“I’m not going to hate it.”

“You say that now. There’s a raisin situation you’re not aware of yet.”

They stay twenty minutes. Tommy hooks up the ancient window fan and tests all four speeds, three of which work.

Marcus tightens the hinge on a cabinet door using a kitchen knife, muttering some very unflattering things about Gus as he does it, then writes his and Carol’s number on the back of a receipt, sticking it to my fridge with a magnet shaped like a lighthouse.

“You need anything,” he says, “You call. Not the yard. The house. The yard phone gets answered by whoever’s most annoyed by the sound, so it’s a gamble who you’ll get.”

“Noted.”

“It’s usually the boss.”

“Ah.”

They clomp back down the stairs arguing about the rain.

From the doorway I watch them cross the street toward the harbor, and I keep looking at that lighthouse magnet all the way through breakfast.

This is only my third day here. These guys carry my boxes, feed me, hand over their home number, no questions, no invoice. I’d forgotten towns like this were real. Or maybe I never believed it, and drove four hundred miles hoping the rumor is true.

Carol’s chicken thing is excellent. The raisins are a choice, but a defensible one.

There’s a thumping at the door again around eleven.

Nobody’s there when I open the door. Then I look down.

Diesel’s sitting on the spot where a welcome mat would go if I had one, which he’s clearly decided is close enough, and he’s wearing the face of a dog who walked here on purpose and has no plans that involve leaving.

“Does he know you’re here?”

Tail thump.

“That’s what I thought.”

He walks in like Marcus does, no invitation required, does one lap of the apartment with his nose down, and then folds himself onto the strip of floor at the end of my bed like he’s been sleeping there for years. Within a minute he’s snoring.

I call the yard. It rings six times and then Aiden picks up with “What?”

One syllable. Pure gravel and bad manners, dragging straight down my spine, settling low and warm, which is ridiculous. It’s a phone greeting. It’s barely even that. My body doesn’t care what it barely is.

“Your dog’s at my apartment.”

A pause. Long one.

“He walked to town?”

“Unless he drove, yeah.”