“Burst pipes. At his dad’s house. We’re on it. It’ll be fine. I’ll call my crew if I have to get someone out.” Merit was already glancing around like he was getting ready to roll out. He slid my phone across the table to me, and I caught it before it could go sailing off the edge.
“Shit, he should have had me go with him.” Anger dug its poisonous claws into me, and I wanted to call Angel back to yell at him. I stuck my phone in my pocket instead.
Creed smacked my arm, his face serious and tense. “He’s allowed to do things without telling you.”
“I don’t want your shrink logic right now.” My words were loud enough that I hurt my own head with them.
Creed lowered his chin to look at me over his obnoxious neon green glasses, which pissed me off more. “I’m not going with you two yutzes if you don’t calm down.”
Merit shook his head. “Ignore Creedence. Angel’s your boy. He should just let you take care of shit. What’s he thinking?”
“Exactly.” I slapped the table and pointed at him. “You get it.”
“I’ll clean up. I’m not getting involved in this tonight,” Creed said, and he leaned over to grab a beer out of the box. With an arrogant glance at Merit and me, he settled back into his seat. Merit had to crawl over him to get out of the corner he’d been wedged in, and Creed ignored him like he was nothing more than a breeze. I wanted to knock their heads together.
“We could probably use you if there’s a mess.”
“Too bad,” Creed said airily. He drew what was left of the tiramisu back in front of him. Merit stopped to watch Creed lick the fork he’d been using and the longing I saw on his face made me even more furious than the call from Angel, and that was saying something.
“Leave him. Let’s go.”
It took a thump to the back of the head to get Merit moving, and he tugged his leather jacket tighter around his chest. I did the same as we rushed downstairs out into the cold and off the boat. We decided to take both vehicles since he had some tools in the back of his truck, even though one might have been faster. I texted him the address Angel had sent me, aware of how much time we were wasting. On the way I drove slow enough for Merit to follow me, as much as that made me insane because I wished I could teleport to Angel’s side.
When we arrived at his father’s—don’t think about Peter—the first indication something was wrong was that every single light in the small boxy house appeared to be lit and the front door hung wide open. One of the windows was completely smashed out with cardboard wedged into it. I hated the idea of Angel in a place that looked only marginally better than a trap house. The driveway wasn’t plowed, so I parked along the street. Merit pulled his truck through the snow into the driveway. He hopped out fast.
We jogged toward the front door together. The wooden ramp that led up to the stoop was a sheet of ice, and we ended up going around it to the side and climbing up onto the stoop that way. Ice had built up around the base of the door, and Merit crouched to study the buckled metal that didn’t look like it would sit in the frame anymore. Water poured out over the threshold in a steady stream from the soggy carpet and spilled onto the cement. Inside, I could hear water gushing and splashing along with Angel muttering to himself.
“Oh, shit,” Merit groaned.
“Yeah, no wonder about the ice.”
Fury burned hot and sharp in me and only spiked when I heard a pained “ow” from inside before the swearing resumed. Why hadn’t he called me the first microsecond he saw this mess? If I hadn’t texted him, would he have told me at all? I raced inside, my shoes splashing on the carpet, and Merit let out an awed “wow” as he followed me. Across the way, Angel’s peach of an ass was pointed in my direction. He banged around beneath the kitchen sink. The carpet squelched under my shoes as I headed toward him. I almost slipped when I stepped onto the tiles of the kitchen area.
“You shut off the main valve yet?” Merit asked, though it was clear Angel hadn’t with the way water poured out from where he had his head stuck under the sink. It was freezing in here, and his bottom half was soaking wet.
Angel popped out like a bunny springing from his hole. His hair was everywhere and there was a dark smudge of dirt across his forehead. Black lines had bled down his pale cheeks. “The neighbors called because they noticed all the ice forming around the door. It’s been flooding for fucking days.” His eyes were tinged pink and his nose was red. If I had to guess, he’d already had a breakdown over the magnitude of the issue and was on to trying to work it out, but again, that only pushed my anger higher. Why hadn’t he called?
“You knew there was a problem before you left work today, didn’t you?”
Merit stepped closer and shot me a low hand gesture that clearly said to relax. There wasno way.
“Yeah, but I didn’t know it was this bad. Give me a fucking break!” Angel yelled and tossed a wrench toward me. The tool didn’t go far, barely a foot, and it splashed when it landed. Obviously he wasn’t trying to hit me. But the fact that he threw a fucking metal missile infuriated me even more.
Merit said “no” as I stomped through water and went to a knee beside Angel. His pretty brown eyes gleamed with anger. My legs were immediately doused in freezing water. “I told you that you weren’t to go places that aren’t safe without me!” Our noses nearly touched.
My shy little cutie had disappeared. He leaned forward and his lips twisted down in a snarl. Angel laughed and had the worst expression I’d ever seen in my life. The familiarity of it dug into my brain and scrambled my senses. Mocking. Mean. Holy fuck, right now he looked like Peter, and I’d never noticed one real similarity between them since meeting him.
Merit swore from somewhere to my left.
“Dad’s not fucking here, dipshit!”
I clenched my hands to keep from touching him because all I wanted to do was shake him until he listened to me. “You had no idea what was going on, but knew it was bad. You didn’t fuckingtell me.”
Merit hunkered down beside Angel and peeked around his shoulder. “Is this the only point of breakage? That’s a lot of water out there. Why don’t you come show me around?” He gave me wide eyes, and I wanted to punch him.
“Bathroom, too,” Angel said and slapped his hand in the freezing water. “The fucking cops took Dad. Some helpful fuck must have flipped off the heat thinking he’d be back soon.” He pointed toward the busted-out window across the room. “It wasn’t a bad thought, but that made it get cold in here all the faster.”
“I would have come with you.” My mind wouldn’t even function. All I could think about was all the ways this could have been something else, something worse, and I’d have never known there was a problem if I hadn’t texted.
