“Nope. This is the last,” I tell him. I push up to my feet and join him as he takes in the mess in the garage. Soggy cardboard and ruin fill half of the space. “Really wishing I had made time to put all that crap away,” I mumble, stopping next to Miles.
“No doubt.” He peers up through the busted ceiling, pulling down the hanging chunk of drywall. “What’s above here?”
“My bathroom.”
“Anything funky been happening in there?”
It’s an innocent enough question. Although I’m sure he’s referring to pipes and plumbing, my face still heats at the memory of my shower last night.
“Toilet running, pipes clanking?” he adds.
“Um, they squealed last night when I turned the water off after my shower, but I didn’t hear anything after that. Didn’t see any leaks this morning.”
At least, I don’t think I did. With my lack of sleep last night and chatting with Jake this morning about visiting his cousins, I was distracted.
I follow Miles up to my bathroom, watching as he looks around.
He opens the access panel in my closet that backs up to the shower. “Yep, busted.”
Again, I’m pretty sure he’s referring to the pipes, but my brain goes straight to guilty thoughts.
EIGHT
Miles
Every time I ask about Chloe’s bathroom, the most beautiful blush pinks her cheeks. I almost want to keep mentioning it, just to see how deep I can get the hue to go.
“I’m going to need to make a run to the store and grab some supplies. Swing by my place to change, pick up my tools. We can get you up and running pretty quick—get the water back on in the house. But fixing the drywall and all of that will take some time. You need to pick up Jake from school, or does he ride the bus?” I glance at my watch, noting that his day should be about over by now.
“He’s at my brother’s house for the weekend with my mom and dad. I had a professional development day and was planning to drive up there to meet them tonight. That’s why when I saw the water gushing, I called Erin instead of my dad,” Chloe says, pulling her phone from her pocket. “I need to call and let them know I’m… not coming, I guess.”
Words tumble from my mouth before I can stop them. “You go ahead. Just give me a key if you’re comfortable with me beinghere, and I’ll work on it this weekend.” I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me.
I run through a mental to-do list and add, “I should be able to get a good bit of it done and put back together by the time you get home.”
The plumbing should be easy enough to fix. If I let things air out, maybe get a couple of blowers, I should have the guts dry enough to start drywalling tomorrow afternoon.
Maybe.
Chloe rolls her eyes at me and shakes her head as her call is picked up. “Mom, hey. No, I’m not on my way. Actually, I’m not going to make it.” She goes from talking to her mom to Jake and finally to her dad, explaining over and over again that she’s fine and getting things taken care of.
“Yeah, my friend’s helping. Jake’s rugby coach. Oh, for the love of… Dad, I’ve got it. Yep. I promise I’ll call if I need anything. ’Kay, love you.”
I roll my lips between my teeth biting away a smile and shove my hands in my pockets. “So, how long until your dad gets here?” I ask.
Her laugh is so much better than the tears I heard in her voice earlier. “It might just about kill him, but I think we have until early afternoon Sunday. And that’s just because my mom won’t let him pack them up and come right back home.”
It sounds like there’s more to it than just that.
“But?”
“But I have to send him pics and promise to call if we run into trouble,” she finishes with an eye roll. “I shouldn’t complain. This is part of why I moved back to Virginia—so Jake gets to grow up with his grandparents close and my dad doesn’t worry about me having to handle everything on my own anymore.”
“All right, I’m going to bolt. I’ll be back in, like, an hour,” I tell her, leading her dog back into the house by his collar.
Chloe digs into her wallet and comes out with a handful of cash. “Here, take this.”
She shoves it toward me, but I wave it away.
