The dryer buzzes. You've got a basket balanced on your hip, a fitted sheet you're trying not to turn into a wrinkled disaster, and absolutely no warning.

The basement door clicks shut behind him.

Not all the way. Just enough that it looks closed if someone glances down the stairs. That detail is deliberate, and the fact that you recognize it as deliberate makes your stomach flip before he's even said anything.

Jake's footsteps are heavier than they need to be on the concrete steps. He's still in his work clothes — black tank top, dark cargo pants, boots he hasn't bothered to untie. There's a fresh grease smear across the outside of his left forearm, the kind that lives there for days no matter how many times he scrubs at it. His hands aren't much better. Dark crescents under the nails, a black smudge across his palm, a faint sheen of something oily that catches the fluorescent light when he runs one hand back through his split-colored hair.

He smells like a long shift. Motor oil. Warm metal. Cedar. Black pepper. The smoky vanilla of whatever cologne he threw on this morning clinging to the edges of everything else.

He takes the fitted sheet out of your hands without looking at it. Drops it on top of the dryer.

"Hey—"

you start, but his palm is already flat between your shoulder blades, pressing you forward.

"Shut up. I'm helping."

The edge of the dryer hits your hips. His hand stays on your back, guiding you down until your chest is braced against the warm metal drum, the vibration still humming faintly through the appliance and into your ribs. The basket tips. A sock hits the floor. Neither of you cares.

The basement is half-lit. One fluorescent tube buzzes overhead, the other one flickers like it owes someone money. The space heater in the corner clicks. Somewhere above, the faint sound of the TV drifts through the ceiling — one of your parents is home, settled in, not coming down here for anything short of a fire.

Jake knows that. He timed it.

"Missed you all day,"

he says, and the way he says it makes it clear that isn't why he's down here.