Chapter one
Grady
Lake:Doyouwantme to pick up dinner on my way home?
Grady:Not if your idea of dinner is grease and salt.
Lake:That hurts.
Lake:Fish and chips?
Grady:That’s literally the definition of grease and salt.
Lake:Is that a no?
Grady:Lake
Lake:I love you
I brace myself for the inevitable smell of fish and chips to hit my nose as I push open the front door of the house that I share with my fiancé, Lake. I don’t like having it half as often as Lake does. It’s greasy, terrible for arteries, and it stinks the entire house up, taking days to dissipate. I want to burn every fish-and-chip shop in Sydney to the ground in a coordinated arson attack.
I can smell something. Not the greasy telltale smell, though. Fuck, whatever it is, it better be edible. It’s been a long day, I have zero energy, and what I have left I want to spend getting naked with Lake, not finding something to eat that isn’t shit. There might be some eggs, cheese, and cream in the fridge for some scrambled eggs on sourdough bread. Anything more complicated than that is getting thrown out the window. The front one, so even the dog can’t eat it. We get to suffer together, like a real family.
Hades comes swinging around the corner, and I snap the front door closed so he can’t sneak past me. His tail wags madly, his three legs slipping on the floorboards in his excitement. Hard to be in a foul mood when someone’s this excited to see me.
I spend a long moment giving him attention and getting slobbered on in exchange for my efforts. My next problem isn’t so easily fixed.
Why isn’t Lake here to greet me? Do I want to know? Absolutely not.
“Lake?”
He isn’t in the kitchen. There’s an empty plastic bag that smells vaguely like burgers. An afternoon snack for Lake or dinner?
“Lake?” Did he get himself stuck somewhere again?
“In here!”
The word “help” isn’t accompanying the words; it’s a hopeful sign.
He’s not in the bedroom. Or the laundry room. Or the—I stop short in the bathroom doorway. Fucking hell, what happened to our bathroom? It looks like someone put C-4 in here and went to town.
“What are you doing?” I ask, exasperated.
Lake smiles up at me from where he’s spread out on the floor, one leg under him and the other stretched to the side. He’s surrounded by tools, a porcelain sink—ourporcelain sink that should be on the vanity, not on the floor—and the remains of said wooden vanity. Tiling that should be on the wall is also around him, like he’s a mosaic art piece. A stunning one, granted, but I’d prefer if the rest of the artwork didn’t include pieces of our bathroom.
“I saw this thing on Pinterest for renovating a bathroom, and we were talking about upgrading it because let’s face it, it looks like the 70s threw up in here, and I wanted to try it.”
Separately, all those words make sense. Together, they make me want to smack my head into the wall until I forget what our bathroom currently looks like.
“How long have you been home?” I’m sure it’s not that late. A discreet check of the time confirms that no, I actually managed to leave relatively on time today. Since I’ve been with Lake, I try my best because I have something worth coming home to.
“Uh… about thirty minutes?”
Zero surprise that he’s managed this kind of damage in such a relatively short amount of time. It’s a skill, and he’s a master. Our poor bathroom is the victim in this crime. I don’t even need to be a detective to work out the criminal.
Rapping my knuckles on the doorframe, I move into the room, careful not to step on anything and irreparably break it. As it is, everything should fit back together relatively okay. “Can I see it?”
Lake blinks adorably at me, his hazel-brown eyes big and way too innocent, considering the destruction he’s wrought. “See what?”
