Page 45 of Dirty Boss

Water and painkillers would help—or at least they’d make me feel like I was doing something about it. I shuffled the scant three feet from my bed to the kitchenette and tugged open the drawer that held my ibuprofen. The box slid forward, bumping against the front of the drawer. I popped out two pills, then grabbed a couple of Tylenols as well for good measure.

The yolk-smeared plate was still in the sink, and all my glasses and mugs were dirty. My tiny studio apartment was a microcosm of my life; things were getting on top of me lately. I’d just reached for a glass of questionable cleanliness when my phone rang. Vaughn’s name lit up the screen, and my heart leaped. With the glass still in one hand, I grabbed my phone from where I’d left it on top of my blankets and stared at it for a second. I hadn’t answered his text. Maybe I shouldn’t answer his call?

Huffing at myself, I braced myself. If there was one thing I’d learned about myself this past year, it was that I was no coward. I swiped to answer.

“Vaughn” I greeted. “What can I do for you?”

“Hello, Alba,” Vaughn responded, and I was glad he couldn’t see the flush on my cheeks from the way my name sounded on his tongue. “I was just calling to let you know I’ve got an appointment with my tailor on Monday. I’d like you to come along.”

Good. We weren’t talking about the kiss. That was good. I straightened, relieved…and a little disappointed.

“I can do that,” I said, turning back toward the sink. My aches pulsed with every heartbeat, and I needed water to swallow those pills. The sink was a slightly outdated style, with two plastic knobs on either side of the faucet for hot and cold. They were stiff, caked with green corrosion, and I knew I’d have to put some elbow grease into it if I wanted to fill my glass of water. “What time on Mond—ahh!”

“What? What happened?” Vaughn’s voice called out from my phone, which now dangled from my hand near my thigh.

I screamed again, shielding my face from the spray of water coming from the sink. In my hand, I held a plastic knob with a blue ring around a black C. The cold water tap had snapped off entirely, with only a bit of the plastic remaining at the back, which directed the spray of water in a perfect arc toward my face.

I ducked and screamed again.

“Alba! Alba! What’s going on? Are you okay?”

I put my phone to my ear again. “My sink!” I screamed.

“Your sink?”

“My sink!” I confirmed. “It snapped!”

“What?” Vaughn sounded like he was on the move. I heard the outdoors, the sound of traffic, then sudden silence. “What’s going on? What do you mean, your sink snapped?”

“Not the sink—the—the thingy!”

“Slow down, Alba.”

I sucked in a deep breath and watched the spray of water. It fell just short of my bed but had landed directly into one of those drifts of laundry. A puddle spread and soaked my toes.

“Now, tell me what’s going on,” Vaughn said, his calm, warm voice piercing through the shock.

“I’ll show you,” I rasped, and my hands shook as I swapped the call to video. I filmed the fountain of water, then lifted my other hand into the frame to show him the knob.

“Turn the water off,” Vaughn exclaimed, like it was obvious.

I stared at the piece of plastic in my hand, then at the water. Feeling dumb and confused, I tried to plonk the knob back in place, which sent a spray of water blasting in all directions. I screamed.

“Under! Under the sink, Alba! There should be a shutoff valve!”

I dropped to my knees, opened the cabinet, and shoved away all the things I’d let gather there—cleaning products, odd pot lids, tomato-stained Tupperware—and looked at the network of pipes. It looked horribly complicated. White pipes and then copper ones. There was a flexible one snaking around the whole thing?—

“There should be a little brass valve,” Vaughn’s calm voice sounded from the phone in my hand. “Can you show me? Move out of the way so a bit of light comes through—there. See that little valve with the blue on the end of it?”

I blinked water away from my face and pretended it wasn’t a tear. I couldn’t even turn on a sink properly. Gulping, I focused on Vaughn’s voice and reached for the valve. “This?”

“That’s it, princess. Should just take a quarter turn—yep. Good work.”

The arc of water shrank above me, soaking my back and head, then turned to a dribble that went down the sink. I sighed out my exhale, then slumped onto the floor. Without thinking, I flipped the camera around and was momentarily stunned by the sight of my red cheeks, bloodshot eyes, wild hair half-plastered to one side of my head, and worn-out sleep shirt hanging off a shoulder, the other side of it soaked through. Another scream slipped through my lips and I slammed the phone on the ground, face down so the camera would be covered.

“Alba!”

“I’m fine,” I said, shouting at the phone without moving it from its spot on the floor. “Um. So what time did you say on Monday?”