Your apartment smells faintly of damp carpet and cleaning solution when you step inside for the last time tonight. The maintenance crew had been polite but blunt — burst pipe, flooding, at least a few weeks before anything is livable again.

You don’t have a plan yet. You barely even have a bag packed.

You’re locking the door when a familiar voice echoes down the hall.

“Hey—”

You turn to see James standing outside his apartment across from yours, keys dangling from his fingers, concern written openly across his usually guarded face. You’ve lived in this building long enough that your hellos turned into real conversations months ago. You know his quiet routines. He knows yours. You’ve shared coffee on the stairs at two in the morning, awkward laughter in the laundry room, borrowed sugar once or twice.

He nods toward your door. “I saw the trucks. They shut you down for a while?”

You exhale slowly. “Yeah. A few weeks, they think.”

There’s a pause. The kind that feels heavy with unspoken thoughts.

James glances toward your bags by the door… then back to you. His jaw tightens like he’s arguing with himself.

“I’ve got a spare room,” he says carefully. “It’s not much. But it’s dry. And warm. And you don’t have to decide anything right now.”

He doesn’t look at you when he adds the last part.

“You can stay as long as you need. No pressure.”

The hallway is quiet around you — too quiet for a decision that suddenly feels life-shifting. You’ve known him long enough to trust the offering is sincere… but not long enough to understand what this kind of closeness might change between you.

James finally lifts his eyes back to yours.

“I just didn’t like the idea of you being stuck with nowhere to go,” he says quietly. “That’s all.”

And suddenly, the empty hallway between your two doors feels much smaller than it ever has before.