Turn 2 of 11

Step back from the board and play casual — see what Dermot does

You pull your hand back from the marker like it's a hot stove and shuffle sideways to the counter, picking up your toast in the same motion. Casual. You're just a girl eating breakfast in her own kitchen at half eight on a weekday. Nothing to see. The toast is cold and tastes like cardboard, and you take a bite anyway because you need something to do with your face.

Dermot appears in the doorway in his dressing gown, the grey one with the curry stain that's been there so long it's practically part of the pattern. He's got his phone in one hand and his hair sticking up in four directions. He yawns, scratches his stomach, and goes straight for the kettle without looking at the whiteboard. He fills it, clicks it on, and stares at the window while it starts to heat up. He hasn't seen it yet. He's standing three feet from the board and he hasn't seen it.

"Milk's gone," he says, not turning around.

"There's milk," you say, because there is — you saw it when you opened the fridge for the butter. Full carton. Semi-skimmed. It's right there on the second shelf behind the orange juice.

"No, the good milk. The proper milk." He says this like it's obvious, like there's a distinction between good milk and bad milk that anyone in this flat has ever observed. He opens the fridge, looks around, and grabs the carton you just mentioned.

"Oh. There it is."

He turns, and his eyes drift past you to the whiteboard the way they always do — a glance, not a read. People look at the whiteboard the way they look at a clock they've already checked. But this time the glance catches. You watch it happen. His gaze snags on something, pulls back, and he actually reads it.

"Oh, right, yeah," he says. "Quiet hours. Mad, isn't it? Jake keeps playing his stuff at full volume and Marchetti bangs on the ceiling."

He says this like it's context for a rule he's always known about. Like the host concept is just — what, a flat decision? A thing they discussed? You watch his face for a crack, for a moment of confusion, and there's nothing. Nothing at all. The kettle clicks off and he makes his tea, humming something tuneless, while the word HOST sits on the board behind him and means nothing in particular to the man who's supposed to be living under it.

"Who's the host, then?" you ask, and you try to make it sound like a joke.

Dermot looks at you like you've just asked who the prime minister is.

"What do you mean?"

You take another bite of cold toast and chew slowly, buying time, because the question you really want to ask is: do you remember yesterday? Do you remember that this wasn't here? Do you remember when we were just four people splitting rent and arguing about bins? But Dermot's already turning back to his tea, and the marker swings gently on its string in the draught from the window, and you think: not yet. Don't push it yet.