Page 125 of Love It or List It
“Breezeway,” Austin answered.“Bring me a towel from the linen closet?”
Will appeared a moment later.“Hey.”He handed over one of the rags they used for Pepa.
“Thanks.”He was kneeling to run the towel over Pepa’s legs and belly when he registered the state of Will’s clothes.His T-shirt clung to his scrawny chest and shoulders with damp.“What happened to you?”
Will winced.“I woke up like this,” he said.“I think the roof is leaking.”
Some part of Austin was vaguely impressed he’d slept through getting that wet.Teenagers really would sleep through anything.
Then the implications sank in, and he sighed.“Ah.”He finished drying Pepa and unclipped her lead.“Why don’t you put on something dry and I’ll make coffee and we can figure out how to handle Joe.”
WHEN JOEarrived home from a long day gardening, he found Will moping at the kitchen table with his textbooks splayed out in front of him, and Austin tossing a salad at the counter.
“Honey, I’m home,” Joe teased, and was rewarded with an eye roll from Will and a wink and a kiss from Austin.
Figuring he might as well eke out the one true joy of living with a moody teen, Joe jumped Will, wrapping his arms around his shoulders, kissing his head and ruffling his hair.
“Joe!Get—off!Joe!”
Cackling, Joe stepped away, and Will’s pouting rearrangement of his hair did nothing to dampen his grin.
“God, you’re so embarrassing.”
“I try,” Joe said amiably.“So what’s with the homework in the kitchen?Keeping Austin company?”
“Uh.”Will shot a look at Austin, who snorted.
“Subtle, kid.Will’s been temporarily evicted from his bedroom.”
Joe paused, his hand frozen mid-reach to steal a piece of pepper from the cutting board.“What?”
“The roof pissed on my bed.”
“What?”That statement was more nonsensical than Austin’s.
“Will kindly discovered a leak in the roof this morning,” Austin finally translated.
“It woke me up,” Will added.
“The roof leaked?”Dread curdled Joe’s stomach.Any roof leak powerful enough to wake someone up wouldn’t be a cheap fix.
“Yeah,” Austin cut in.“It’s not as bad as you’re probably imagining, but it’s not great.Before you start panicking, you’re going to sit down to eat dinner and I’m going to tell you what I learned today.”
“What you learned.”Joe had been one step behind on this conversation ever since the roof was mentioned.
“Go grab us drinks while Will cleans up his homework and I fill up plates.”
Figuring he might as well do as ordered, Joe saluted Austin and joked, “Sir, yes, sir!”
Five minutes later, they sat round the table and Joe picked up his fork and hesitated to tuck in.Austin rolled his eyes and motioned for him to eat.
“I already called Marco,” Austin began.“He swung by to take a look on his lunch break.He insisted.He stuck his head in the attic but couldn’t be sure about the full extent of the damage.He’s sending someone tomorrow morning to cover it with a tarp and take a closer look.”
Joe blinked, surprised.His uncle had already been by?
“He says we’ll probably have to decide between a patch job and a new roof, but if we go the patch job route, we’re probably just delaying the inevitable.”
“Makes sense.”Joe rubbed at his forehead.New roofs were expensive, but depending on the size of the patch, it probably made more financial sense to chuck the whole thing and pay now rather than later.“I don’t suppose the roof happened to leak gold or diamonds into Will’s bed as well.”
