The Housing Officer

I shouldn't be here.

Not as a housing officer visiting a client. That's my job. But I shouldn't be here at 8 PM, after my shift ended, with wine in my bag instead of paperwork.

Yet here I am. Outside Nur's door.

I met him six months ago.

Routine case—Somali man, twenty-nine, temporary accommodation in a tower block that should have been condemned. His file was thick with complaints: mold on the walls, heating that didn't work, neighbors who dealt drugs in the stairwell.

"I've been waiting two years," he told me in that first meeting. "Two years of forms and promises and 'we'll be in touch.' Meanwhile, I'm getting sicker from the damp."

I looked at his file. He wasn't lying—hospital visits, respiratory issues, all documented.

"I'll see what I can do."

I pushed his case. Advocated. Made calls I wasn't supposed to make. Within two months, I'd moved him up the list.

"How can I thank you?" he asked.

"Don't. It's my job."

But it wasn't just my job. Not anymore.

He opens the door in a vest and tracksuit bottoms.

"Layla." He looks surprised. Pleased. "I wasn't expecting—"

"Can I come in?"

He steps aside. The new flat is small but clean—one bedroom, decent heating, no mold. A massive upgrade from where he was.

"Wine?" I hold up the bottle.

"I don't drink."

"Right. Sorry. I forgot."

"But I have tea. And Ikram's mother made me sambusas." He moves toward the tiny kitchen. "Sit. Please."

I sit on his secondhand sofa, feeling like an idiot. What was I thinking? Coming here with wine, like this is a date?

He brings tea. Sits next to me. Close.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong."

"You came to my flat at 8 PM with alcohol. Something's wrong."

I laugh despite myself. "I came to check on you."

"You could have called."

"I wanted to see you."

The words hang between us. His expression shifts—from concern to something else.

"Layla—"

"I know. It's inappropriate. You're a client. I could lose my job." I stand. "I should go."

He catches my hand.

"What if I don't want you to go?"

I should pull away.

Everything I've worked for—the degree, the job, the years of grinding through council bureaucracy—it could all disappear if someone finds out I'm sleeping with a client.

But his hand is warm. His eyes are honest. And I've been thinking about him for six months.

"This can't happen," I say.

"I know."

"If anyone finds out—"

"I know." He stands, still holding my hand. "But I've been thinking about you since the first meeting. When you actually listened to me. When you treated me like a person instead of a case number."

"That's my job."

"It's more than that." He steps closer. "Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me you came here for a 'routine inspection.'"

I can't tell him that.

I kiss him instead.

He tastes like tea and possibility.

We stumble toward his bedroom—the bedroom I helped him get, in the flat I fought for. The irony isn't lost on me. Neither is the thrill.

"Are you sure—" he gasps between kisses.

"I'm sure of nothing." I pull his vest off. "But I want this anyway."

He lays me on the bed. His bed. New mattress, I notice—he invested in it. Then I stop noticing anything except his mouth on my neck, my shoulder, the swell of my breasts.

"Nur—"

"I've imagined this." He unbuttons my blouse. "Every meeting, every phone call. Imagined how you'd look without the council ID. Without the professionalism."

"And?"

"Better than I imagined."

He takes his time.

Like he's been waiting for this and doesn't want to rush it. Every piece of clothing removed slowly, reverently. Every kiss deliberate.

"Please—" I arch toward him. "I need—"

"What do you need?"

"You. Now."

He smiles—that same smile from our first meeting, the one that made me start breaking rules.

Then he gives me what I need.

He enters me slowly.

Filling me inch by inch, watching my face, adjusting when I gasp. It's been too long since anyone touched me like this—like I matter, like my pleasure is the point.

"Nur—"

"I've got you."

He starts to move. Slow at first, then faster as I demand it. The bed hits the wall—the wall of a flat I fought for, the flat I shouldn't be in like this.

"Yes—yes—"

"Layla—" He speeds up. "I can't—you feel—"

"Don't stop—"

He doesn't stop.

I come with his name on my lips. He follows seconds later, groaning into my neck.

We collapse together.

Sweating. Panting. Fully compromised.

"What happens now?" he asks.

"I don't know."

"Will you get in trouble?"

"If anyone finds out? Yes." I trace patterns on his chest. "But no one has to find out."

"A secret."

"Is that okay?"

He's quiet for a moment. Then: "I've been invisible my whole life. Another Somali man in the system, another number. You saw me." He looks at me. "I'll keep any secret you need if it means I get to keep seeing you."

"This isn't just—I don't do this. Sleep with clients. Break rules."

"I know."

"So why am I here?"

"Because sometimes rules are wrong." He pulls me closer. "And sometimes the right thing feels like breaking them."

We keep the secret for a year.

Meetings at his flat after work. Weekends spent in bed. A relationship built in the shadows of professionalism.

Then his case closes. No more housing needs, no more official connection.

I wait two months after his file is archived. Then I make it official—transfer him off my list, document the closure, create the paper trail that protects us both.

"We're clear," I tell him. "No conflict of interest anymore."

"So we can tell people?"

"We can tell anyone we want."

He pulls me into a kiss. Right there in the council car park. Where anyone could see.

I don't care.

I spent a year hiding. Now I'm done hiding.

We marry in the registry office where we met.

Not legally—they don't do ceremonies there—but symbolically. The same building where I pushed his paperwork. Where I started breaking rules for a man who needed someone to see him.

"To the housing officer who saved me," he says in his toast.

"To the client who taught me that rules aren't everything," I reply.

The few guests who know our story laugh.

The ones who don't wonder what's so funny.

We don't explain.

Some stories are better kept between the people who lived them.