Housemates

"Are housemates like a household?" Alex asked. 

"They can be," Claire hedged. She wasn't entirely sure how to explain this. "Housemates are people you aren't related to who share a space to save money and split the cost of rent and utilities. A household is whoever lives in a house so it counts even though that word typically applies to families."

"So we are already housemates then?"

She supposed they were though she hadn't been thinking of him that way. At first he had been trading his bodyguard services for food and shelter and now she was letting him stay with her for free because he was her friend and she had thought he had nowhere else to go. 

"Technically," she said with a shrug. 

Alex mulled this over. "I don't know what the household expenses are but since I am part of the household I should pay for half. Right?"