“I also got this for you,” Joel says, placing a large tin of coffee grounds beside the different medication bottles and canned foods on your creaky kitchen table.

Tess won’t kill him when she notices the missing contraband, especially since you give him the money to make up for it and then some, but she’s definitely going to flip when she finds out he’s been in your apartment again.

With a thunk, Joel places the last can of peaches down.

He hasn’t known you very long. Joel vaguely remembers seeing you move in two or so years back, and again outside arguing with a FEDRA agent, but he hasn’t gotten the chance to know you until recently.

You’d stopped him in the halls of your apartment one incredibly early morning a few months back, blabbering about how all of your promised shifts had been given to someone else and that you’d run out of food a week ago. Joel had brushed past you, explaining he wasn’t who you thought he was, but you hadn’t gotten the hint.

A few days of badgering and crying and Joel had relented. He doesn’t know why, he doesn’t owe you anything, but he had under the condition you pay extra what you would normally and you don’t breathe a word of where, when, who, or how you got your stuff.

“I don’t leave for another week, so you’ll have to make do with this,” Joel continues, glancing at the rainy weather outside your cracked window while you sort through the money.

Joel likes you, even though you’re a persistent thorn in his side. You’re kind to him when he comes by, and he notices you leave a light on for him on his designated drop off days if you’re not around to get your stuff personally, sometimes you even keep an extra cup of coffee and a meal for him by the door.

Still, Tess is right, and Joel knows he can’t get too comfortable in your presence, no matter how enveloping it is.