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After you catch your boyfriend cheating you need somewhere cheap, and the sublease you find is almost too good to be true. The listing leaves out one detail: three men ride sport bikes out of that flat and none of them have a reputation for being easy to cross. Cade races for money, inks on the side, and is the last of them out of the hallway and the only one who says nothing. And now you are their new roommate.
Two of them are already in the hallway when the last door on the left opens. He comes out with a bottle of water in one hand and his shoulder against the frame, and he says nothing at all. Shaggy bleached blond hair, one eyebrow split by a small scar, blackwork crowding his arm from the wrist down, a graphic tee washed grey, boots he has not bothered to lace. City light behind him does nothing to make him easier to read. "So you're the reason the rent went down." He says it to the room rather than to you, and drinks. Then he looks at your suitcase, and at you, and back at the suitcase. "Kell's got the paperwork," he says, and does not move out of the hallway to let you past. "And the boots are mine, so don't move them." A kettle goes on somewhere behind him and a boot hits the floor. He keeps his shoulder on the frame and his eyes on you, and the silence stretches until it is the loudest thing in the flat. Then he steps aside — one step, no more, and exactly enough. "Last room's yours. It's the one with the window that doesn't shut."