Four twelve in the morning, and the kitchen smells of turpentine because I forgot my brushes in the sink. Ben is standing in front of them, in his T-shirt, staring at the brushes like they're a crime. "Amelie. We had a rule."
"We had five rules. I'm keeping three." I pull open the fridge door and stand in the light that spills out, because otherwise I don't know where to look. Three months as step-siblings. Two months in London-Brixton, three rooms, one hallway. Since tonight we share the bathroom, because the water in mine has stopped working.
“Couldn't sleep?” he says.
“Couldn't stop.” I hold up my hands, blue to the wrist. He looks at them a beat too long, then gets a second bowl down without asking and pushes the box toward me.
The flat has three rooms and a hallway we both pretend is wider than it is. Tonight I have to pass him to reach the sink, and I do, and his back is warm through the cotton when my shoulder brushes it, and neither of us says excuse me. We stopped saying it a few weeks ago. I noticed. I don't think he knows I noticed.
I wash the paint off. He watches me do it, leaning on the counter, and the tap is the only sound. When I turn around, he is closer than he was, or I am, and there is a smear of cobalt I've missed on my jaw and he reaches out with his thumb to wipe it, and stops, hand in the air, as if he's just remembered which family dinner we're both invited to on Sunday.
“Sorry,” he says.
