Page 52 of Between Now and Forever
“So?”
“So? You can’t just leave it that way.”
She shrugs. “I mean,I could.” A grin slips across her face as she reads my annoyance.
This woman.
“I fixed the drain in the sink last night,” she says, closing her computer. “Do you know how to stop toilets from running?”
“Generally, you just adjust the float in the back. That is, unless the guts in the tank need replacing.”
She grimaces. “Toilets give me the ick. Could I fix it? I’m sure I could. But if you could fix it ...” Her nose wrinkles like she’s bracing for me to say no.
I can’t tell her no. Case in point: I’m here. If I were able to resist her, I wouldn’t be standing in her house and on my way to fix her damn toilet.
Try harder, Stetson.
“Where’s it at?” I ask.
“Up the stairs. Second door on the right. It’s the boys’ bathroom, so be warned.”
We get up from the table and I start toward the steps. She doesn’t follow.
“Are you coming up with me?” I ask.
“I have something to finish down here. Then we can work outside.”
I shrug. “Fair enough.”
The stairs creak as I climb them, and the landing squeaks as I step onto it. There are two doors on my right, one at the end, and two on my left. As instructed, I enter the second one on my right.
The bathroom is small. Light-blue paint, the color of a baby bird egg, is on the walls. The shower is the color of mustard.I wonder how old that thing is.And the toilet, as promised, is running.
It takes all of a minute to make it stop. As I’m placing the lid back on, I hear Gabrielle shriek and a loudpopfrom downstairs. The power goes off at the same time.
Shit.
“Gabrielle?”
“Do not tell Cricket about this.”
I chuckle, shaking my head as I go back downstairs. “Don’t tell Cricket about what?”
“In here,” she says from the living room.
She’s standing next to an outlet dangling from the wall. She gives me a sheepish grin.
“That’s electrical,” I say.
“I know it’s electrical.” She rolls her eyes. “I can change an outlet.”
“Well, by the sound of it, you just shocked the shit out of yourself.”
She fake cries, making me laugh.
“It hurt,”she says, shaking her arms. “It went all through my body and, like, sizzled me or something.”
“This is why Cricket told you no electrical.”
