Diwa’s hand closed round his elbow. “Whoa, hey —”
Colin pulled his arm back hard enough that Diwa’s fingers slid off, and stepped sideways out of reach before he’d thought about it.
Diwa’s hand stayed where it had been, hovering between them. Then it dropped against his side.
“Sorry,” Diwa said. “Sorry, you went a bit grey, I just —”
“Tap next.”
The leaky tap was in the upstairs bathroom, and Colin sat himself down on the edge of the bath rather than crouching again. Diwa sat down on the closed loo lid opposite, knees nearly touching Colin’s. The drip was on the cold side, exactly as briefed.
“You’re doing this one,” Colin said.
“I’m what?”
“You’re doing it. I’ll talk you through. It’s a washer. Fifteen minutes’ job.”
“Colin —”
“Put the towel under the tap. Turn the water off at the isolator under the sink. Both of those are jobs you can do without me telling you twice.”
Diwa got down on his back on the bathroom tiles to find the isolator under the sink, and Colin watched him fumble with it for a moment before guiding him through which way to turn the little screwdriver slot. The tap went silent above them. Diwa came back out from under the sink with a smudge of dust across one cheekbone and his hair sticking up at the back, and Colin had to look very hard at the spanner in his own hand to distract himself.
“Right,” he said. “Now plug the plughole.”
“Why?”
“Because the bits you’re about to take off are small, and they will, on the laws of physics, fall down the plughole if you don’t. Plug it.”
Diwa plugged it with the rubber stopper on the chain. Colin handed him the spanner and walked him through unscrewing the chrome cover, then the brass nut underneath, and then lifting out the cartridge. Each step came in the same flat, unhurried voice, and each time Diwa’s hands moved a little slower than they needed to, checking back with Colin’s face before he committed to doing anything.
The old washer was hard and split across the middle. Colin held it up in the bathroom light. Diwa leaned in to look, his shoulder brushing Colin’s, and Colin breathed in through his teeth and put the new washer in Diwa’s palm. The man had no concept of personal space. Colin had worked in bathrooms smaller than this one and never once had trouble concentrating on the job.
“That goes in where the old one came out. Same way up. Then everything goes back the way it came off, in reverse order. Don’t crank the nut. Hand-tight plus a quarter turn on the spanner.”
Diwa worked. The cartridge dropped back in, the brass nut went on, and the chrome cover screwed down. He went under the sink for the isolator without prompting this time, and the tap above their heads gave a small gurgle as the water came back up the pipe.
“Turn it on.”
Diwa turned it on, let the water run for a moment, then turned it off. They both watched the spout. Four seconds passed. Eight. Twelve, and there was still no drip.
Diwa looked at Colin, with the same delight written clear on his expression that he’d shown with the light bulb.
“High five?” Diwa said, hopefully, holding his hand up.
Colin huffed out a breath that was almost a laugh, raised his hand, and met Diwa’s palm with his own.
Diwa stood up first, all six foot of him unfolding, and Colin registered, a half-second too late, that the bathroom doorway was now behind Diwa.
It was a small bathroom. Diwa wasn’t blocking the way out on purpose, he was busy admiring the tap. The bath was at Colin’s back, the sink was at his knee, and the only way out was past this densely-built alpha. Colin’s heart kicked up. For half a second the wall behind him was cold concrete, and he was thirteen again, in a stairwell that smelled of stale piss.
Then Diwa turned round and grinned at him, dimples and all, and the panic cut out.
“It’s lunchtime,” Diwa said.
Colin nodded.
“Have lunch with me.” Diwa was still standing in the doorway, oblivious to the momentary break in Colin’s composure. “There’s a place a couple of blocks down. My treat. To say thank you for schooling me.”
