Page 25

Chapter One – Pete

“ U h, Pete?” My thirteen-year-old foster son, Mason, sounds concerned as he calls for me from the kitchen. “The, um, the kitchen is flooding.”

From where I have just sat down in the living room to relax after a long shift at work, followed by cooking dinner for myself and the boys, I launch back up to my feet with a groan. My legs ache and my back protests.

I’m not unfit, but I’m definitely starting to feel the strain of my job. Then again, I am forty-three. Nearly officially in my mid-forties. Ugh .

“What do you mean the kitchen is— fuck .” I come to a standstill in the entrance to the room in question, gaping at the water gushing out from under my dishwasher (which I only loaded twenty minutes ago) and covering my polished wooden floors.

Beside me, with his brown eyes wide as saucers, Mason quickly says, “I didn’t do it.”

“I know, bud,” I assure him gently.

I’ve been fostering Mason and his older brother, Jack, for a few years now. Ever since my team of firefighters rescued them from a burning warehouse in Burleigh’s industrial area, where they’d been squatting after running away from their separate foster homes because they wanted to be together.

That whole rescue was a disaster, but after the boys’ story came to light, I called a social worker buddy of mine and threw my name into the hat as a volunteer carer for them. My job, as the Captain of the Burleigh Heads Fire Department, was a sticking point, given that I was —and still am— single and work unpredictable hours. However, with my sister offering to be available on nights when I’m not, I was granted foster custody by the time the boys were released from hospital.

The boys are good kids, but, even so, it has been a bit of a roller-coaster for all three of us over the past three years. Jack, being on the cusp of puberty when they first came to me, was angry and hyper-protective of his brother. And Mason was skittish and unused to affection from anyone other than Jack. Even now, after three years together, I still need to reassure Mace that he’s in a safe space and not in trouble.

“I just came in here to get a can of Coke and found it like this,” he hurries to add, ignoring my words entirely.

“No, I know, Mace. It’s okay.”

I curse myself for being so sharp as I came into the room, but even Mason’s therapist has said that he needs to get used to people raising their voices around him in certain contexts. I’m not sure I agree entirely with his assessment, but I do have to acknowledge that the real world is a noisy, unpredictable place. Still, I’m uncomfortable with simply expecting Mason to adapt or mask his reactions to meet the world’s demands.

Even though he’s thirteen, he seems younger. More sheltered and na?ve. I love that about him. He thrives on routine and hates getting in trouble, and for the most part, that has been a positive thing.

Besides, his brother is enough of a trouble-maker for the both of them.

“Jack didn’t do it, either,” Mason tells me, as if that was going to be my next thought.

“Well, he’s at Holly’s place at the moment, so I couldn’t blame him even if I wanted to,” I answer playfully. Then, understanding that Mason is not in the right headspace to understand that I’m joking, I add, “Which I don’t. Jack’s not like that.”

“Mister Tibbits probably would have blamed him.”

“Yeah, well, that’s because Mister Tibbits is a wanker.” I actually hate the principal of the local high school.

Now, I thoroughly respect teachers and educators. My sister is a teacher at a primary school, so I have heard how tough the job can be.

But Arthur Tibbits is a judgemental, holier-than-thou, conclusion-jumping fuckwit. Any time there’s any sort of disruption in one of Jack’s classes, he’s more than happy to lump the blame on my kid. He doesn’t stop to ask questions or to get the full story, he just gives Jack a detention —or a suspension— and I get the call telling me to get my kid under control.

Mason’s giggles tear me from my angry thoughts. “You should say that to his face. It would make Jack happy.”

“It would make all of us happy,” I grumble. Then I sigh and wade through the spreading puddle on my beautiful floors and yank the dishwasher door open, stopping its cycle.

More water, dirtied from the mess on the dishes, sloshes out over my feet.

“Gross,” Mason declares. When I turn around, I find that he has climbed onto the kitchen bench to peer across the space at the carnage. “Can you fix it?”

“I don’t even know what’s wrong with it,” I admit. “I deal with fires. This is the complete opposite.”

Mason looks at the clock on the wall and brushes his mop of dirty-blond hair off his forehead as he frowns. “Do plumbers even work at eight o’clock?”

“Emergency plumbers do,” I nod. “Do you have your phone?” I left mine on the couch and I’m not trudging my wet feet over the nice, relatively new carpet to get it.

Mason nods and fishes the device —his most prized Christmas present— from his pocket.

“Can you Google local emergency plumbers?” I ask him, while I take the opportunity to open the cupboard under the sink and turn off the water. “I can call if you’re not comfortable talking on the phone.”

His smile is grateful and he types at his screen and then, after I slosh the three steps over to the kitchen bench, he hands me the device with his findings.

I click on the first link I find and then press the green call icon to connect to the number associated with the listing. A chirpy sounding receptionist takes my details and tells me she’ll send ‘one of the boys’ out to help ASAP.

My bank account quietly cries about how much an emergency plumber is going to cost on a Sunday night, but this isn’t the kind of thing that can wait.

“I guess we should start mopping this mess up while we wait,” I say as I hand the phone back to Mason, and he scrunches his nose.

Good kid though he might be, he’s still a teenager and, like all teenagers, he’s allergic to chores.

“I’ll give you ten bucks for Robux or whatever game it is you’re currently addicted to.” I am not above bribery.

Mace springs into action, presumably heading to the laundry to get the mop and bucket. I shout after him to get extra sponges, too. “The thick ones we use to wash the car!”

***

When the doorbell rings at half-past nine, I’ve already sent Mace up to bed. Jack came home twenty minutes ago, just after his curfew, but I let it slide because his girlfriend’s mum texted to tell me that he was helping her clean up the mess her toddler, Holly’s little brother, made during playtime.

I am a mess when I get to the door. My jeans are soaked from kneeling on the wet floor to sponge up what the mop couldn’t, and I’m sweaty and grimy, but at least the kitchen floor has been saved from water damage. Well, I hope it has. I may need to get someone out to inspect it, just in case. The last thing I need is for the floors to warp, or for a mould problem to pop up out of nowhere.

Swinging the door open, I am not prepared for just how attractive the man on the other side of the doorway is. He’s about my height, lean, but with biceps that suggest his t-shirt is hiding an enviably toned frame, and dark brown eyes so soulful that I almost lose myself in them for a moment.

I have got to get laid , I berate myself, especially when I take in more of the details of the plumber’s very pretty face. He’s young. Too young for me. But his short beard is trimmed with meticulous precision, framing a jawline and cheekbones most models would kill for. And his lips…

Fucking focus, Pete.

“Hi,” I greet the young man lamely, then step back and run my hand through my greasy hair. I grimace at the feel of it, suddenly even more aware of how gross I must look. “Sorry, come on in. I’m a bit of a mess at the moment.”

The plumber smiles, flashing a row of straight, pearly white teeth, and shrugs. “Most people are when they call us.” He pats his chest, gesturing to his embroidered name tag. It reads ‘Neville’. He does not look like a Neville. “Nev,” he introduces himself. It’s a better fit than Neville, that’s for sure. Not that I can talk. There’s a reason I go by Pete instead of Peter. “Now,” he continues, cocking his head, “Trish said something about your kitchen flooding?”

“Yeah, this way,” I close the front door and lead him down the hallway from the living room to the kitchen at the back of the house. “I loaded the dishwasher as usual and then, next minute, the kitchen is flooding. I’ve switched off the water under the sink, and I’ve mopped up the mess, but I had no idea what else to do from there and, obviously, we’re going to need the water running again in the morning…”

Nev nods as I ramble, then carefully places his toolbag down beside the dishwasher. I brace myself as he pulls the door down to open it, but we’re not met with a wall of water intent on undoing all of my cleaning up. I heave a sigh of relief as he peers into it and then moves around to open the cupboard under the sink.

“Ah,” he says after poking around for a minute, while I do everything in my power to not check out his butt, “I think your hose has cracked.”

My hose is doing something…

I wince and clear my throat. “Sorry, what?”

“Your dishwasher hose,” he repeats slowly. “I think it’s cracked.”

“Oh. Is that…an easy fix?”

He smiles brightly and nods, and it’s only now that I realise he is on his knees and eye-level with my crotch and I really need to stop perving on the boy the plumbing company sent to me.

Thankfully oblivious to my thoughts, Nev answers, “It’s easy, and it’s not that expensive.” Those dark eyes take in the recently renovated kitchen and I know what he’s thinking. A house in this condition, of this size, in Burleigh? I must be a multi-millionaire.

He’d be wrong, of course. I bought this place when it was a dated disaster of a house, barely good enough to be a shell for the home I envisioned. I paid what I thought was too much for it even then but, ten years later, property prices here on the Coast have boomed and, if I sold it now, I could probably buy three little houses in Brisbane and still have cash to spare. That’s not going to happen, though. I like living near the beach.

Still, I just nod and thank him. “Can you fix it now?”

He grimaces and my heart sinks. “Unfortunately, no. I’ve gotta get the parts. But you’re safe to turn your water back on in the meantime. The sink and dishwasher run on separate plumbing lines.” I hadn’t known that. I feel a little dumb for turning the water under the sink off. Nev keeps talking, “Just don’t run the dishwasher. I’ll help drain out the stuff that’s left in the bottom of it so it doesn’t go all stagnant and gross, though.”

“Thanks.”

I leave him to it, not wanting to hover (or drool) while he works. When he’s done, he finds me in the living room and hands me a business card with his name on it and a mobile number underneath it. “Text me,” he says, and I blink.

“I…what? You’re a bit young for me, but—”

“What?” His voice goes up an octave and his cheeks turn a little pink. “Shit. No! That wasn’t a come on. Sorry, I sometimes get a bit lost in thought and don’t realise I haven’t said half of what I was thinking.”

Well, now I’m embarrassed. “Sorry, I…”

“No, no, that’s my fault. I was thinking about how I’ll get the parts tomorrow or Tuesday and then if you want to text me your number so we can arrange a time for me to come back and fix the dishwasher…”

I feel like an idiot. I will never, ever be able to look this man in the eye again. Nevertheless, I pull out my phone and text the number on the card. His phone trills in his pocket.

“For what it’s worth,” he says as I awkwardly shuffle him back out the front door. The sensor light comes on as he steps down onto the little stepping-stone path I set into the lawn not long after I moved in. The yellow of the light glints off his dark hair and eyes, making him somehow even more attractive.

I am a sucker for punishment .

“Yeah?”

Nev tilts his head and his plump, inviting lips tick upwards into a little smirk. “I don’t think you’re too old for me.”

Then he spins on his heel and hurries down the path and to the van parked on the curb.

I’m still staring dumbly into nothingness long after the van has pulled away and driven off into the night.