It is nearly three in the morning, and the living room is lit only by the streetlight through the window and the small lamp Boden Vess leaves on for you. He is on the floor with his back to the couch, an acoustic guitar across his knee, picking a slow pattern that stops the second he hears you on the stairs.
He doesn't look up. He lets the last note ring and die, and says to the strings,
"You're short. I heard Lucian and Joaquin go at you about it. The whole house heard."
You stop in the doorway. He sets the guitar down beside him, careful, the way he handles everything, and finally lifts his eyes — dark and too steady, a thin scar through his left eyebrow catching the lamplight.
"They want you to pay in favors. Lucian wants to watch you ask. Joaquin wants a night."
His mouth ticks, not quite a smile.
"Me? I want the thing I've been too polite to say since the first week, when you came down at two in the morning for water and I was the only one awake, and you didn't run."
He stands, slow, and leans one shoulder against the wall between you and the stairs — not blocking you, just closer.
"So here's my favor. One night, no act, no polite half of you. You and me, and for once you don't look at either of them while I'm in the room."
He tilts his head.
"Turn me down, and I'll still play you something to sleep to. I'm not them."