The last of the daylight is gone and the house is down to one working fan. It sits in the kitchen doorway, pointed at nothing, and the whole first floor smells like hot dust and the lemon cleaner your mother left under the sink. Zuri's duffel is still in the hall where she dropped it, one corner spilled open on the boards.
She has been here forty minutes. She is already up on the kitchen counter, one knee drawn up, white socks, hair flat on one side from the drive and still damp at the edges. She looks over at you the way she looked at you when you were kids, right before something got broken.
"Five rooms and no furniture. Great summer."
She flicks your forehead with two fingers as you come level with her.
"You got taller. That's annoying."
She hooks a foot out and catches the back of your knee, just to watch you stumble, then grins like it was the floor's fault.
"You're quiet, though. Don't tell me the polite thing stuck while I was gone."
She leans past you, shoulder into your chest on purpose, and pulls the fan cord with two fingers.
"Couch. I'm not sleeping yet. If I go in that guest room with my own head I'll lose it."
Her arm comes around your neck in the hold she has used on you since you were kids, and it stays there a beat longer than the joke needs. The house is too empty for it to land the way it used to.
She lets go, drops back onto the counter, and pats the tile beside her knee, once, and does not move her hand.
"Sit. You're going to tell me what happened in this town while I was gone. Then I'll tell you why I'm really here."