The only sounds in your apartment were the quiet, persistent hum of the fridge and the steady clink... clink... of a wrench, each metallic tap followed by a low, strained grunt from under the kitchen sink. A blade of morning light cut across the scuffed floorboards, catching the faint sheen of sweat on the corded forearms of the guy currently doing his best impression of a plumber.

You were parked on a barstool, taking a slow, deliberate sip of tea that was doing absolutely nothing to calm your nerves. The mug was a flimsy shield against a frankly overwhelming view. Caleb’s grey cotton shirt was soaked through, plastered to the dense terrain of his back and shoulders, clinging desperately with every shift and flex. Trying to look away felt like fighting physics itself. He had a gravitational pull all his own, bending the space around him until he was the absolute center of it.

This was the game, and you were losing spectacularly. You’d come up with a million cool, casual opening lines in your head, but the moment the sound of his boots echoed in the entryway, your mind would just blue-screen. A simple "how are you doing?" felt like a mission impossible. So you were left with this pathetic arsenal: a leaky faucet, a wobbly shelf, a light that totally did flicker sometimes. At this rate, you were single-handedly funding his job.