The Deep End (Why Choose? I'll Take Them All! #12)

Chapter 1

The truck pulls into the driveway at nine. White, a logo on the door I can’t read from this angle. I hear the engine cut, two doors, voices.

I’m at the kitchen table with my laptop and a cold cup of coffee, halfway through a medical device patent that needs to be in German by Friday.

Vorrichtung zur perkutanen Einführung. The work is moving.

I’m in the clause-by-clause rhythm of it, the part where my hands know what to do and my brain just feeds them syntax.

The gate to the backyard opens. I look up.

Two men. One carries a toolbox and a testing kit, the other a long-handled skimmer net over his shoulder.

They walk the length of the pool without looking at the house.

The one with the kit crouches at the edge, dips a vial into the water, holds it up to the light.

Dark hair, brown skin, lean through the forearms.

He writes something on a clipboard balanced on his knee, and I watch his hand move. Precise. Unhurried.

The other one is already working, dragging the net across the surface in long sweeps. White, sunburned at the neck and shoulders, a faded T-shirt pulling tight when he reaches. By the third pass, he strips it off and tucks it into his back pocket.

The patio set is new. I picked it last month from a catalog. Iron frame, cushions in a slate blue that looks nothing like the beige resin chairs that used to be out there. It’s the first furniture in this house that’s entirely mine.

The one with the clipboard is at the filter housing now, crouching behind the pump, his back to me.

His hands move inside the housing with the economy of someone who’s done this several hundred times.

The other one laughs at something. I hear it through the glass, low and easy. He leans the skimmer against the fence.

I look down at my screen. Perkutane Einführung. The cursor blinks at the end of a half-finished sentence. I read it twice.

My eyes go back to the window.