**ALEX’S POV**
I was tired in the specific way only a full day of meetings and deliberately not thinking about last night could make a person.
The elevator ride up to our floor felt longer than usual.
I fished for my keys, already planning the exact sequence of events: shoes off, bag down, maybe reheat whatever Lilith had left (or order something if she hadn’t), then collapse face-first onto the bed without making any new questionable life decisions.
I unlocked the door and stepped inside.
That was when I heard it.
A heavy, rhythmic *thud-thud-thud* coming from somewhere deeper in the apartment.
Not the polite sound of someone walking.
More like something solid repeatedly hitting a surface with enthusiasm.
I froze in the entryway, keys still in my hand.
My first, completely rational thought was: *thieves*.
My second thought was: *very committed thieves who decided to rearrange the furniture by slamming it into the walls*.
I set my bag down as quietly as possible and edged toward the living room, heart rate climbing for entirely the wrong reasons.
The sound got louder.
Definitely coming from the direction of Lilith’s room — or possibly the wall between her room and mine.
I grabbed the nearest vaguely weapon-like object (a rolled-up umbrella that had never once been used for rain) and approached the hallway like a man who had watched exactly one too many home-invasion movies.
The door to Lilith’s room was slightly ajar.
The thudding continued, accompanied now by a muffled female grunt of effort.
I pushed the door open with the umbrella tip, ready to confront whatever criminal enterprise had chosen our apartment.
Lilith stood in the middle of the room in an oversized T-shirt and shorts, hair tied up messily, both hands gripping a large, half-assembled IKEA bookshelf.
She was currently trying to force two wooden panels together with pure spite.
Every time she shoved, the whole thing lurched forward and slammed into the wall with a solid *bang*.
She looked up, saw me standing there with an umbrella raised like a sword, and blinked.
“…What are you doing?”
I lowered the umbrella very slowly.
“I thought we were being robbed.” This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
Lilith stared at me for a second.
Then she started laughing — the real, unrestrained kind that made her bend forward and almost drop the shelf.
“You—” she wheezed, “you came in ready to fight burglars with an *umbrella*?”
“It was the closest thing!”
“Oh my god.” She set the shelf down and wiped her eyes.
“Your face.
You looked so serious.
Like you were about to duel someone for the honor of the apartment.”
I leaned the umbrella against the wall and crossed my arms, trying to reclaim some dignity.
“There was banging.
Repeated, aggressive banging.
What was I supposed to think?”
“That your roommate is bad at furniture assembly and has anger issues with wooden dowels?”
“That wasn’t my first guess, no.”
Lilith grinned and kicked a small bag of leftover screws.
“I bought this thing two weeks ago and finally decided tonight was the night.
Turns out the instructions are written by someone who hates joy.
I’ve been fighting it for almost an hour.”
I looked at the half-built shelf, the scattered parts, and the faint new scuff mark on the wall.
“Do you want help,” I asked, “or do you want to keep losing to a bookshelf in single combat?”
She narrowed her eyes, then sighed.
“Fine.
But if you judge my technique I’m kicking you out of the room.”
I rolled up my sleeves and crouched beside the mess.
For the next twenty minutes we worked in relative quiet, only broken by Lilith muttering insults at the instruction booklet and me occasionally saying things like “that piece is upside down” which earned me a glare.
At one point she handed me a tiny Allen key like it was a sacred weapon.
When the shelf finally stood upright and mostly level, Lilith stepped back, hands on her hips, looking far too proud.
“See?
We make a good team when we’re not—” she waved a hand vaguely, “doing the other thing.”
“The other thing being the reason half the building probably thinks this apartment is haunted at night?”
“Exactly.”
We cleaned up the leftover packaging together.
It was ordinary.
Domestic.
The kind of small shared task that shouldn’t have felt notable, yet somehow did.
No cameras, no dirty talk, no careful negotiations about what we were allowed to feel.
Just two people fixing a stubborn piece of furniture and occasionally laughing at how ridiculous the situation had been.
When we finished, Lilith flopped onto her bed and pointed at me with a leftover wooden peg.
“For the record, if actual thieves ever break in, I’m counting on you and your umbrella.
Very intimidating.
They’ll run immediately.”
“I’ll add it to my resume,” I said.
“Engineer by day.
Umbrella warrior by night.”
She smiled — the softer one that didn’t have an edge of teasing or challenge in it.
“Glad you got home safe, brainy boy.”
“Glad you didn’t get murdered by flat-pack furniture.”
I left her room and headed to mine, the earlier tension from the office finally loosening.
Somewhere behind me I heard Lilith start humming quietly while she organized the new shelf.
The pact still said “physical only.”
Nights like this made the words feel a little less accurate than they used to.
I put the umbrella back by the door, just in case.