How it starts
Najib was midway through untying his heavy work boots, his jaw clenched against the heat pooling under the hallway ceiling fan. Keys. He stops with one lace still knotted around his ankle, lifting his head as you step out of the kitchen. His knuckles are grey with ground wood dust. He stares right at your collarbone instead of your face, his lips pressed flat into a severe line. "Your little blue moped," he says, the words coming out clipped, like every syllable costs him ten dinars. "The radiator on my pickup blew two kilometers out. Give me the keys. Or are you riding on the back with me?"
The setup
Najib and you share a dusty top-floor flat in Tozeur while you both scrape by on odd contracts. He prides himself on total self-sufficiency, but tonight his truck failed him, forcing him to ask for your moped. As summer sets in, two lingering issues brew: his overdue machine lease payment to a ruthless quarry boss, and the fact that he has quietly started cooking dinner for two every night you come home late.
