Page 24 of Chronicles of a Rockin' Mess

“Dude, she wins a round of drinks on us,” Coop says.

“Rain check,” Lincoln says.

“What? Why?” I ask, turning toward him.

“I need you back at the house to handle something,” he says.

“What?” I ask as I cross my arms.

“Band stuff,” he says.

I sigh. “How about this weekend?” I say to Coop and Mason.

Mason shrugs.

“I guess,” Coop says. “Lincoln, I love you, man, but beer-blocking our girl here is seriously not cool.”

Lincoln gives Cooper a hard look, and I can see Cooper visibly shrink away. Now, I know Lincoln Grant puts off that alpha lead singer ego on stage, but in real life, I don’t often see this side of him. I have to say that it’s both sexually appealing and also downright confusing.

“See you this weekend,” Coop says to me and leans in for a hug. As he kisses my cheek, I can feel the tension rolling off Lincoln. Whatever bug crawled up his ass and died must be a huge one. I hug Mason before following Lincoln to his car.

“Was that really necessary?” I ask him as he pulls out of his parking spot and heads toward his house.

“Yes, yes, it was,” he grumbles before turning on music. We don’t speak again as he drives us back.

When we arrive home, I follow Lincoln into the kitchen. He opens his beer fridge and pulls out a can of beer.

“So?” I ask.

“So?” he responds.

“What the fuck do you need?” I ask him. He stops opening the beer and looks at me. He opens his mouth and closes it, and then opens it again, but he’s cut off when Maria comes running up the basement stairs and throws the door open.

“Mr. Grant, Mr. Grant, I’m so glad you are here. We have a major problem!” she yells.

Lincoln sets the beer down. “What?” he replies as he walks toward her.

“Water!” she says and points toward the basement.

Lincoln takes off running down to the lower level of the house. It’s actually a walkout basement because the house is on a hill. There is a wine cellar though.

I follow Maria who follows Lincoln. We don’t get far because there’s water, and I don’t mean a puddle either. I mean a full inch of water covering most of the man cave.

“Shit!” Lincoln yells.

“Fuck,” I say slowly. I go to step down and try to figure out where the water is coming from but I’m quickly pulled back by Lincoln.

“What the fuck, Lark! The power’s on,” he says as he points to a cord on the floor.

I don’t waste another breath as I head back up the stairs. There are important phone numbers on my phone which I left on the counter a moment ago. I pull up the plumber’s number which is still saved on my phone for some unknown reason and hit call. Two minutes later, a plumber is being sent to the house.

Lincoln is standing in front of me with Maria next to him.

“Let’s all calm down. We’ll get this sorted out shortly,” I say to them.

“The basement has an unpermitted swimming pool, and you think we’ll get it sorted out shortly?” Lincoln asks with a raised eyebrow.

“Shortly-ish?” I respond with a shrug.

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