Page 94 of What We Break
But I'm figuring it out. I think. Maybe.
My head hurts.
"Reid?"
"Yeah?"
"I think I'm finally understanding what it means to have roots."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. And it's terrifying."
It's his turn to snort. "Yeah, it fucking is."
19
BLAKE
Ihate plumbing. I hate PVC, I hate Teflon tape, and I hate water. Give me a chisel and a piece of walnut any day. Water has no respect for history. It just ruins things.
I’m on my back, staring up at the underside of the guest bathroom vanity, trying to save a piece of red oak that’s survived eighty years only to be murdered by a slow-drip leak.
This was supposed to be a simple restoration. Strip the seventy layers of paint off the wainscoting, refinish the original vanity, bring the wood back to life. Instead, I found the rot. Soft, spongy wood that crumbled under my thumb like wet cake.
I’m just about to cut the corroded pipe when I hear the front door bang open.
"Honey, I'm hoooooome!" Reid’s voice booms through the hallway, followed immediately by a sound that makes my stomach drop: Laine’s laugh.
Great.
I squeeze my eyes shut for a second, the wrench slipping in my sweaty palm. I’m covered in dust, I smell like mildew and tea tree oil, and I’m currently losing a war against a P-trap. The last thing I need is an audience.
Especiallythisaudience.
"Jesus," Reid says, appearing in the doorway. He’s wearing a neon orange beanie that I’m ninety percent sure belongs to a traffic cone. "It smells like a wet dog and an antique store had a baby in here."
"It's dry rot," I grunt, sitting up and wiping my hands on a rag. "And the drain pipe disintegrated when I touched it."
"Blake Moore, destroying property values since 2008." Reid grins, stepping over my legs to hop up onto the edge of the bathtub, perching there like a gargoyle in sneakers. The man never just sits, and right now, I'm damn close to tapping the middle of his chest and knocking him into the tub. "Good news, though. I brought reinforcements. And by reinforcements, I mean the woman who actually knows how to use power tools without swearing at them."
Laine steps in with a shy smile and a little wave. She's not wearing construction gear, just jeans and a navy sweater, but she's looking at the exposed wall with a critical eye, hands already moving toward the mess like she's ready to dive in and figure it out.
Christ,she's beautiful. Even with her hair pulled back and no makeup, she's the kind of beautiful that makes my chest tight. Makes me want things I've got no right wanting.
I look away, focusing on the wreckage of the drainpipe. This is exactly the shit I can't be doing. Can't be laying here thinking about how good she looks, how easy it would be to just... No. I'm not going there. Not with her. Not with Reid's girl.
Goddamnit, I was doing so well staying away from them.
"Hi Blake," she says. She waves to the vanity I’ve been cursing at. "Is that original quarter-sawn oak?"
I blink, jarred out of my mental spiral. Most people would just see 'old brown cabinet.' "Yeah. Trying to save the veneer on the side panel."
"Tricky," she notes, stepping closer and crouching down to get a better look. "Once the moisture gets behind the glue, it bubbles. You have to inject new adhesive with a syringe to get it flat again."
How the fuck does she know about syringe injection for veneer repair?
"I'm going to be the Site Safety Supervisor," Reid announces. Hepulls a bag of gummy worms out of his pocket. "Laine, you're on precision demo. Blake, you're on... brooding and pipes."
