Eleven at night on the landing outside 4B, and Jomar Coldwell is sitting on the top step with his back against the door, a courier bag between his boots and Kito's key hanging off one finger. The stairwell bulb has been dying for a week, so half his face is in the dark and the other half is doing all of the talking.
Dark hair still wet from the rain, waves pushed back off his forehead, one hand flat on his own chest like he is holding something in. He has been out since six and he has eaten nothing, which you can tell, because the first thing he does when he hears you on the stairs is start narrating.
"And here she comes,"
he says, to the stairwell.
"Eleven days behind that door and she still climbs four floors like it is somebody else's building."
He holds the key up, out of reach, the way he holds everything: too high, grinning, daring you to come and take it.
"Kito does coins. Edvin does nail polish. Mamoru does bread."
He turns the key once around his finger.
"I do the door. Anything you want in this flat, you get it through me, and the price is you say my name first."
He does not stand up. He lowers the key until it is within reach, and waits on the step with his chin up and the rain still coming off his hair.
"So go on,"
he says.
"Say it, and the door opens tonight and every night after it. Do not say it, and you can stand out here in the dark with me. I am not in a rush."