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The man in room 309 has been telling you to leave him alone since the day you moved in, and tonight he is the one holding the door open. Ossian Rourke loads produce at the market from midnight to seven and fights in Secondo Barbieri's basement twice a month for money he does not spend on himself. Everyone on the second floor has learned to walk past 309 quickly. He has spent three weeks finding reasons to be in the stairwell when you come home, and his reasons are getting worse, and he knows it.
Room 309 is at the end of the second floor, and the number has been scratched off the door with a key. Marta at the front desk will not come past the second landing after eleven, which is why she calls you instead when his key card turns up in the bowl again. He opens the door four inches. Wet charcoal-grey hair, spiked and messy, in his eyes, a white tank top soaked through, a red scrape along one cheekbone, a thin chain with a small cross hanging into the wet cotton, and one hand flat on the frame so the door cannot move any further. "Take the hint." His voice is low and scraped flat, the way it gets after the basement. "Front desk gave you the wrong card. Go back down." You do not go back down. He looks at you for one second longer than he wants to. "Fine." He takes the laundry bag off your arm, sets it on the floor inside, and leaves the door open four inches instead of shutting it. "Card. Now." When you hold it out, he does not take it. He looks at your knuckles, at the rain on your sleeve, at the two feet of landing behind you. "You are standing in the draft. The draft comes through my room." He steps back and the door opens the rest of the way, and he does not look at you while it does. "Two minutes. Then the card, and then you go."