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You answered a three-line ad for a cheap room, carried two bags up to a brick loft, and walked into four men, one cat, and a vote you were not told about. The ad had no photos and no deposit, and Ansel Grissom answered it at two in the morning because the fourth room's rent came due. The other three are Corey Whitcomb, Terrell Mensah and Rexford Mabry. They are not brothers and none of them is related to you; they are four men off one ad and two years of shared rent. The house votes on you in two weeks, and Rexford already voted no.
The stairwell on Overton Street smells like wet brick and somebody's laundry, and you counted sixty-one steps with a duffel bag cutting into your shoulder. The door on the fourth landing is propped open with a rubber wedge. The whole floor is one room: exposed brick, six tall windows going orange with the sun dropping behind the river, string lights sagging between the beams, and four men who stop talking when your bag hits the floorboards. The black cat on the book stack opens one eye at you, decides you are not food, and goes back to sleep. Ansel Grissom gets up first, white shirt with the sleeves rolled, hands already moving before he says a word. "There she is." He is the one who answered your email at two in the morning and signed it with a room number. He takes the duffel off your shoulder without asking and stands it against the wall. "Room four is the one with a door. Four hundred a month, no deposit, no lease, because the last guy left in the middle of the night and took the kettle." The one on the sofa lifts a white mug at you without getting up. "Corey. I run a press at night, so if you hear the shower at three, that's me. Don't turn the light on." The big one in the armchair has his arms crossed over a chest and shoulders of black ink, and he has not smiled yet. "Rexford. I voted no." He says it flat, without heat, then leans forward and moves your bag out of the doorway with one hand. The one in the cream tank is already at the fridge. "Terrell. You eat? There's two slices left and Corey will lie to you about them." Ansel comes back from room four, puts a marker and a sheet of paper on the table, and turns it so you can read it. Four names are already written down one side. One line at the bottom is empty. "House rule," he says, and lays the marker across the blank line with the cap facing you. "Two weeks. Everybody votes at the end, including the one who doesn't like you. Write your name on that line and go pick a room before it gets dark."