Page 20 of Claimed By my Frenemy

I make my way over to him and realize there is already standing water up to my ankles everywhere.

“Who’s responsible for this?” Steve asks as soon as I’m within hearing distance.

“Those contractors—Sun something. They’re done. Believe me. This is one mistake too many.”

“Why are they just standing around?”

I roll my eyes, disliking Steve’s tone when I already feel stressed. I purposely step a little harder than necessary on the last patch of grass as I reach him so a couple of mud droplets splash up on his pants.

“We have to wait until the main water valve is shut off. We don’t have access to that.” I hear a siren in the distance and watch as a fire truck comes down the street. It stops by a box, and someone hops out.

Another fireman comes over and begins talking to us about what happened. After a moment, the flow of water slows and then stops.

Even though I feel relieved it’s finally been shut off, the open space around Building A is swamped, and when I glance over at Mia’s property, I see a level of water in her backyard that makes me sick.

Once I’ve finished talking to the firefighter about what happened, I leave Steve to deal with firing the contractors and replacing them.

I need to make sure Mia knows she’s not going to have to pay to drain her yard or replace the grass. I’ll take care of all of it.

When I round the back of Mia’s house, I see she’s back on her porch. Her boots are soaked, and there is a layer of mud around the bottom inch of them. She stares catatonically at the pipe that is no longer spurting water.

“It’s off,” she announces.

“Yes, the water has been turned off. We’re going to have to replace the pipe completely before doing anything else.”

“What about my yard?” Mia snaps out of her catatonic state and turns angry eyes on me. “This place has been absolutely flooded. You can fix your pipe and move on with your life happily, but what about me? I don’t have a huge budget to deal with the fact that my backyard is a mud pit now.”

I realize simply offering money isn’t going to cut it. She needs action, not empty promises.

“Alright. Let’s fix this together.”

She blinks at me, clearly surprised. “You? Help fix a busted pipe?”

“Yes, I’m not just going to give you money and make you deal with contractors who may or may not know what they’re doing. I’m going to help you fix it.”

Mia hesitates, then finally nods. “Fine. If you are actually going to help me, then let’s do it. Did you see one of my pipes burst from the flood?” Mia points to a spot in the backyard where there appears to have been a whale spout coming up from the ground.

I follow Mia to the garage where she pulls out some tools. I grab a wrench, a shovel, and some pipe tape, my mind already running through the steps we need to take. This isn’t my area of expertise, but I’m determined to help. Together, we kneel by the busted pipe.

I dig away at the mushy ground so we can see the pipe clearly. Based on the color of the tubing, this is a direct offshoot from the large pipe that burst on my property. I wonder if this pipe burst first, then the huge one burst. We just didn’t notice this one because it was still fully buried. Maybe it has been quietly leaking into the soil since the first day my team messed up the pipe.

“Alright, let’s figure out how bad the damage is,” Mia decides, helping me push away the last of the dirt.

I’m relieved to see it’s a clean break, probably from the pressure of the digger. I glance at Mia, who’s already focused on the task at hand.

“Looks like we need to replace this section. I don’t have any pipes, though.”

“I’ve actually got some. Give me a second.” I jog back to my property and to the shed that is holding all the bits and pieces until we are done building. Sure enough, there is some extra piping from when the builders were doing the bathrooms in Building A.

I grab a few different lengths and sizes and hurry back to Mia’s property. She nods, accepting my peace offering. She pulls a measuring tape out of her pocket and begins measuring sections before she finds the one that is the closest both in length and diameter.

“I need the piper cutter. The waterisoff, isn’t it?”

“It stopped flowing out down there, so I think so.”

“Yeah, it also stopped flowing out of my sink.”

I pass Mia the pipe cutter and watch as she carefully cuts out the damaged section. I can’t help but admire her skill.

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