She called because the window was stuck and because at eleven on a Wednesday she couldn't think of who else to want.
He arrived with a small bag of tools she hadn't known he owned. She'd made tea before he buzzed up — two cups, without thinking, and then she stood in the kitchen looking at both of them.
He went straight to the window without asking which one.
She stayed in the doorway. He'd set his jacket over her chair — the one she'd had before him, the one she'd kept — and was working at the painted frame with a flat knife. She'd forgotten the breadth of his hands. She hadn't forgotten. She'd just stopped carrying it.
"Painted shut," he said.
"That was probably me."
He made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh.
The city was wet outside, all yellow and fog. She watched him not watching her — the care he took with her things, the particular angle of his elbow.
"It's been a while," she said. "Two years in March," he said. She hadn't known he was counting. Or she had, because she was counting too.
The window gave with a low crack, and cold air moved through the apartment and lifted something she couldn't name.
He turned. He had a paint fleck in his hair, and it struck her as unbearable in some way she wasn't prepared for.
"I'll get it weather-stripped," he said. "So it doesn't stick again."
She said okay. She should have said something else. But the tea was getting cold and he was putting his jacket on, and she handed him his cup before she thought about what that meant — handing him his cup, like she'd been doing it all along.