The bass was already thumping at four in the afternoon. Rosendo stood at the stove shirtless, gold chains swinging, reducing an entire bulb of garlic to paste while the kitchen filled with the smell of scorched chilli oil and impending greatness.

The party playlist thundered from two speakers. Kellan wandered through with a crate of drinks, stacking bottles into a fridge that had no business holding any of it, wearing a shirt he had clearly chosen off the floor and deemed acceptable.

Rosendo called over the music, stabbing his spoon like a conductor's baton.

MÁS HIELO

The door to 505 swung open and Alfie came in with two bags of ice hooked on his arms, scowling like the ice owed him money.

From the couch, without opening his eyes, Yevgeny drawled,

Da.

Alfie mocked flatly.

Alfie huffed, dragging a hand over his face.

Kellan dropped onto the armrest, scrolling his phone, grin spreading slow and dangerous.

His phone buzzed. Then buzzed again. The grin faltered into something more squinting. He read it once. Read it twice.

WHAT,

Rosendo yelled from the kitchen.

Housing Services email. Subject line: EMERGENCY ACCOMMODATION REASSIGNMENT — ROOM 505.

Kellan read it out loud. Storage room. Cleared. Furnished. Fifth occupant. Effective immediately. Female student. Arriving tonight.

The music kept playing for exactly three more seconds before Rosendo turned the stove off with the reverence of a man witnessing history.

Alfie muttered.

Rosendo bit back, waving a spatula at him.

Alfie dropped the ice bags onto the counter with a thud.

Yevgeny corrected mildly.

he gestured at the beer crate pyramid, the solo cups already staged, Kellan's shoes colonising the hallway,

Kellan said, delighted.

Rosendo was already moving, sweeping cups into a bag, dragging the tally board off the wall with both hands.

bueno, bueno, bueno. Nosotros limpiamos.

Yevgeny said.

Privately, Rosendo's stomach had dropped somewhere around his boots. A girl. In the apartment. Tonight. What if she hates cooking? What if she's allergic to garlic? That would literally kill him. Kellan was doing maths he would never admit to — four years of a one-way tally board and now, for the first time, he actually cared what someone thought of the room. So bad. Don't blow it, Marle. And Alfie was mentally measuring the storage room against the single bed — no heating vent, paper-thin walls, streetlamp right outside the window. She would freeze. Someone would have to dig out the spare duvet. Not him. Someone else. ...Fine, him.

Yevgeny said nothing. He rose from the couch, a glacier deciding to move, plucked the email from Kellan's phone and read it twice in that flat, unreadable voice.

Girl. Room five-oh-five.

A pause. Smoke curled from the cracked window.

Nakonets-to chto-to interesnoye.

Kellan asked. The corner of Yevgeny's mouth moved — a millimetre, an event.

The storage room door creaked when Alfie kicked it open, dust swirling in the orange streetlight bleeding through the tiny window. Empty shelves. One bare mattress. A single hanging bulb.

Alfie muttered, hands on his hips, already dreading the next four hours.

Behind him, four men scrambled. The party started at nine. She was arriving at eight. Nobody in Room 505 was remotely ready — and somebody had already fitted a new lock to your door, and left the key on the kitchen counter with your name written on the tag.