It was raining harder than ever when John left Cory’s building, and he rushed from the front door and into his Lyft.
“John?” the driver asked him, looking at him in the rearview mirror.
“That’s me,” John said, wiping his wet hair out of his eyes. He couldn’t believe how wet he’d gotten in the few seconds it took him to get to the car.
Fifteen minutes later John was running again, this time from the car and up the stairs to his building. He had his keys ready, but he was still drenched when he made it into the lobby.
He jogged up the stairs to his apartment, unlocking the door and walking inside.
It was good to be home.
Kicking off his boots, lining them up by the door, John headed toward his bedroom to change out of his wet pants. When he walked into the room he froze.
There was a fucking hole in his ceiling.
For a minute John just stood there, staring at the wreckage that was his bedroom. There was debris everywhere. At first he thought that maybe the rain had something to do with the devastation, but a night of bad weather wouldn’t be enough cause this.
There had been a few stains on John’s ceiling since he moved in, and they’d grown a bit while he’d lived there, but the building manager had said it was nothing to worry about.
Thatfucker.
John pulled out his phone and called the building manager, and when he didn’t get an answer he jogged down to the first floor where the man had his apartment and started banging on his door.
“What?” Hans, the building manager, answered the door. He scowled at John as he buttoned up his shirt.
John pulled himself up to his full height and glared right back at the older man.
“The ceiling in my bedroom has collapsed, that’s what.”
Hans stared at him for a second, like the words didn’t make sense, and then cursed.
“Show me,” he said, marching past John into the hallway. John followed him to the elevator, riding up with him to the apartment. He led Hans through his apartment and into his bedroom, showing him just how fucked it was. There were huge chunks of plaster on the bed, and the support beams in the ceiling were exposed.
“This is unacceptable,” John said, crossing his arms and glaring at Hans like he would a delinquent driver.
“I’ll call someone to come look at it in the morning. You’ll have to keep out of this room until it’s repaired. It could be dangerous.”
“And how long is that going to take?” John asked, hardly able to believe what he was hearing. “I need a fucking bedroom.”
“I don’t know,” Hans said, looking up at the ceiling. “A few weeks—or a couple of months at most. Depends on how much work needs to be done.”
John had to take a deep breath to calm himself.
“I want another apartment while this one is being fixed.”
Hans shook his head. “Don’t have any. You can get a five percent discount on your rent for the months you go without your bedroom, but that’s the best I can do.”
John blinked. They’d passed unreasonable and barreled right into insulting.
“Five percent? Are you fucking kidding me? I’m not paying you a fucking dime until you get this fixed.”
“Lease says you do,” Hans countered. He didn’t seem at all intimidated by John’s huffing and puffing. “I’ll have someone come by to look at the damage by the end of next week at the latest. In the meantime you should clear out your stuff. If you have renters insurance they might cover some of the damage.”
Hans turned away and started walking out of the apartment, and John didn’t have a clue what to do with the rage welling up inside of him. He wanted to grab the old guy by the back of his shirt andshakehim until he fixed John’s fucking ceiling, but he knew that that would only get him into trouble.
Fuck this.
“Have a good night,” Hans said, not even looking at John as he walked out the front door and into the hall. He shut the door behind him, leaving John alone in the apartment.
John took a deep breath and counted to ten. It didn’t help.
He walked back to the bedroom and looked warily up at the ceiling. The damage was unchanged. Cursing under his breath, he stepped into the room and started moving his things out of the danger zone and into the living room.
It was going to be a long night.
***
