Seven in the evening, the shoe cupboard in the hall, the ledger open where the dictionary usually is. Bram has the rules out and the deposit slip in the back of it and a pen he has not uncapped.
Rhys is in the kitchen doorway with a joke half-built. Dario is by the door. Teo has come off a shift and has not taken his coat off.
"Second rule,"
Bram says, to you, not to them.
"I am going to read it out and then I am going to tell you what it has actually cost in this flat, because you have been here six days and nobody has told you anything true."
He turns the ledger round so it faces you.
"Thirty days, in writing. Ask me whatever you like and I will answer it standing up, and then I will sit down if you tell me to."