Page 88 of Hired Husband

“This is unbelievable,” he murmured. “I can’t believe I’ve never been here before. From now on, I’m coming at least once a year. On my birthday.”

“I’m so with you,” I agreed, but when I glanced over at Jasmine to at least try to explain why this was so amazing, she was gone. I frowned at Zara. “Where did she go?”

Zara shrugged. “I have no idea. She didn’t say.”

I turned back to the guide, but I couldn’t relax again until she came back into view about ten minutes later. The satisfied smile on her lips said she’d been up to something and I arched an eyebrow at her when she rejoined us, desperately trying not to overanalyze why I’d been so very on edge while she’d been gone.

“What did you do?” I asked.

She smiled. “You’ll see. Come with me.”

“Come with you where?” Joseph asked. “The tour isn’t done ye⁠—”

“You can thank me later.”

She grabbed my hand and tugged me toward a security guard, where I quickly realized she’d finagled something again. This felt very, very familiar to me after the Pyramids.

The guard waited until all four of us were there. Then he tucked his thumbs into his belt and nodded for us to follow him. Less than five minutes later, we were standing inside the High Dam. I blinked at her, struck completely dumb.

“You…” I inhaled a deep breath and tried again. “Did you bribe someone?”

She shrugged but her soft smile and the twinkle in her eyes told me I was right. “You’re welcome, nerds.”

In a state of complete disbelief, I finally looked away from her and took in the corridors running in every direction. Pipes disappeared into massive chambers as the distant hum of machinery vibrated faintly through the concrete beneath our feet.

“This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” I said hoarsely.

“What a privilege to see it from here,” Joseph whispered, wide eyed as we drifted closer to admire one of the enormous turbine halls. “To think, my mother once banned me from using screwdrivers and look at where I am now.”

I laughed. “My mom banned me from taking apart our kitchen appliances too.”

“What did you dismantle?” he asked. “In my case, it was our toaster. Mom was not happy.”

“I started with the coffee machine, which is, like, her most prized possession,” I admitted. “At least, it used to be. Then I moved on to the vacuum cleaner. She was more okay with that, but also not really.”

He chuckled. “My mother’s final straw was the radio. When I put it back together, there were two springs left over and she missed her favorite show. It was a nightmare.”

“I still have the three screws from that vacuum cleaner in my desk back at my mother’s house. To this day, I have no idea where they came from.”

He nodded solemnly. “I know how you feel. I needed to know how those things worked and I genuinely thought I could put them back together.”

“It’s like they’ve regressed,” Zara murmured quietly. “They’re like little boys again.”

“What, we can’t reminisce about spending our childhoods taking toasters apart?” I asked, giving my head an exaggerated shake. “What is the world coming to?”

“Taking those things apart helped us build the skills we have now,” Joseph insisted.

Jasmine folded her arms and cocked an eyebrow at him. “Unless that skill also included putting them back together properly, the only thing it helped you build was your ability to break perfectly good appliances.”

“No,” I said. “They all worked again eventually. Just, uh, maybe not as well as before.”

“In my defense, I was six with the toaster thing,” Joseph said. “Mom said we needed a new one anyway.”

Zara sighed and glanced at Jasmine. “I can’t believe we’ve voluntarily attached ourselves to them.”

Jasmine shook her head, but I caught the smile.

I slipped my hand into hers as we followed our security guard tour guide farther into the dam. Surprisingly, she squeezed my fingers instead of pushing me away or hanging back with Zara, and even asked a few questions of her own as we progressed.