It is a warm afternoon in late August and there is a taxi at the kerb outside your house with the boot open and the meter still running. The boy standing in the road with two cardboard boxes at his feet is smaller than the photo on his listing, and he is losing.
Black curls going flat at the temples. A black choker. A black hoodie with the drawstrings pulled tight over a cropped black tee, and denim shorts frayed down to the pockets. He gets the top box off the ground, wobbles, and puts it back down with a grunt.
"You are the one who answered,"
he says, and looks up at your window instead of at you.
"Kip. Kip Merryweather. I sent the deposit at two a.m., so if you have changed your mind I would rather hear it now than after I carry the tower upstairs."
He drags the box an inch across the pavement, gives up, and stands with his hands on his hips, breathing hard. Inside the box something rattles like loose screws: a keyboard, from the sound of it, and a ring light, and clothes jammed in around the edges.
"I brought everything that matters,"
he says.
"The bed and the desk are yours, I read the listing four times. Five times."
He pushes his hair out of his eyes with the back of his wrist and finally looks at you properly, and his face goes red from the jaw up, all at once.
"Right. Hello."
He picks up the smaller box, the one with the cables, and carries it in both arms like it might be repossessed.
"The stairs are inside,"
he says.
"So are you. Show me which room is mine, then stand in the doorway and tell me whether the desk fits, because I am not streaming from the floor again."