Page 47 of Say Something
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“I’ll see you tomorrow!” I called from the front porch as I stepped in my front door.
Mom and Melissa had just dropped me off after a day of shopping and pedicures. I lugged my seven—yes, seven—bags inside the cottage and dropped them unceremoniously on the living room floor. I wasn’t sure I had enough room for all this stuff, but there was a sale and you can never have enough soft towels and sheets, right? And blankets, and kitchen gadgets…I was so screwed. I didn’t have the space for this shopping problem I seemed to have.
I reflected on my totally awesome day as I kicked off my shoes by the front door. I had such a fun time with my mom and sister. Yet another reminder of what I missed out on while I lived in the city. I’d also narrowly escaped the third degree about Danny thanks to Melissa’s quick wit and ability to distract our mother with pretty, shiny things. Danny and I were hot Oak River gossip since we’d been seen around town together a handful of times. If Oak River had a gossip magazine, the headline would have read:Would Oak River’s golden couple get back together?That’s what they’d called us as teenagers...the golden couple. It was entertaining being the center of attention back when everything was sunshine and rainbows. Not so much anymore.
Deciding on some water and a pre-dinner snack, I headed for the kitchen. I stepped onto the tile floor of the kitchen and paused.
Squish.
That wasn’t right.
I looked down and saw that my entire kitchen floor was soaking wet.
“Shit! What the hell?”
I grabbed some old hand towels from a drawer in the kitchen and threw them on the floor. It was no use though, the floor was completely soaked. I wasn’t sure where it was coming from, but I guessed the sink. Thankfully it hadn’t reached the wood floor yet.
Damn it.
I dried my foot off as best I could with one of the sopping wet towels, then went to my purse for my phone, which was on the floor in the living room, buried amongst the shopping bags.I really do not want to have to use my new towels on this mess.
I dialed my little brother and waited as the phone rang three times and went to voicemail. “Damn it, Mikey.” I left a desperate message, “Mikey, I need you! Water everywhere! Help!” and hung up.
I looked at the mess on the floor and groaned. I had two bath towels that my mom had lent me. They weren’t brand new. Surely, she wouldn’t mind if I used them...I mean, I’d wash them...she wouldn’t even have to know where they’d been.
I pulled the towels out of my tiny linen closet and spread them out across the kitchen floor. There, that took care of that. I wasn’t going to pretend I knew what I was doing when it came to whatever was causing the leak, so I planned to ignore the kitchen until Michael returned my call.
I was almost finished unpacking my loot when there was a knock on my front door.Yes, thank you, Mikey!
As I pulled open the front door, I said, “Oh, am I glad to see you!”
“Likewise, Jessie.”
It wasnotmy brother.
“Danny? What are you doing here?”
“You mean you aren’t glad to see him?” Dean asked, smirking beside his brother. I hadn’t even noticed him there. Danny outshined pretty much anyone, even his mini-me younger brother.
“I’m so confused.”
“Mike called me,” Dean said. “You have a leak?”
“Yeah,” I said, gathering my senses. I stepped aside and let them in. “The kitchen floor was soaked when I came home.”
Dean headed into the kitchen while Danny hung back. “It looks nice in here,” he said. He hadn’t been here since he helped me paint.
“Thank you. It’s coming together,” I said, wringing my hands. I was nervous, and I wasn’t sure why. I’d been alone with Danny recently, and we were currently chaperoned by his younger brother who was the biggest cockblock when we were teenagers. There was absolutely nothing for me to worry about.
“Bad news,” Dean called out. I turned towards the kitchen. He was halfway under the kitchen sink. “We’ll need to completely replace the pipes under here. I don’t think we missed this crack when we did the walk through, my guess is it just happened from the stress of being used after all this time. I don’t have the equipment to do that tonight. It’ll have to be tomorrow.”
I sighed, wanting to yell outWhy not?“Okay, well, thanks for looking.”
Dean maneuvered out from under the sink. “Don’t use the sink until we can fix it. Or the dishwasher. The dishwasher draining through the sink pipes could have caused this mess.”
“I did turn the dishwasher on before I left this morning.”
