Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Mia
The universe does not appreciate being glared at before coffee.
The universe, in this case, is the gray two-story house next door with four insufferably competent men inside it and, allegedly, a secret panty shrine.
I squint at their kitchen window through mine while my ancient coffeemaker wheezes and groans. There’s movement. A shadow passing, a flash of a T-shirt. But no clear faces.
“Don’t look so smug,” I mutter into my empty mug. “You know what you did.”
Sierra texted me an hour ago: Any updates on Panty-Gate?
I haven’t replied. Because what am I going to say? “No, but I watched one of them prowling around at midnight and didn’t call 911 because he looked really good doing it?”
I put my phone down and force myself to open my laptop.
I have a Zoom meeting with my editor in five minutes. I need to look like a person who writes about lifestyle trends, not a person who is currently tracking a potential underwear theft ring run by local tech millionaires.
I go to the bathroom and splash cold water on my face.
“Pull it together, Mia,” I hiss at my reflection. “You are a professional. You are normal.”
I apply concealer to the dark circles under my eyes and put on a blouse that says I am reliable and keep on the shorts that say I am crying on the inside.
When I return to the kitchen, my reflection in the dark laptop screen is…
marginally better. Forty-eight hours of suspicion have taken a toll.
I stayed up half the night Tuesday listening for prowling alphas, then did it again Wednesday just in case underwear thieves keep a schedule.
My eyes feel grainy. My brain is a mush of caffeine fumes and worst-case scenarios.
The coffeemaker gives a valiant cough and starts dripping.
I brace my hands on the counter and, because I am a rational, grounded adult, replay Rhys in the dark under the moonlight like a scene from a nature documentary titled “You’re In Trouble, Girl.”
He was hunting. Searching for…what? Evidence? Stragglers? The matching bra?
“You’re dramatic,” I tell my reflection in the microwave door. “You’re—”
THUNK.
The sound comes from behind me, from the direction of the laundry room. It’s deep and dull, like something heavy just slammed into the wall. My hand spasms, the mug hitting the counter with a heavy porcelain crack, coffee sloshing over the rim. I freeze, mug halfway to my lips.
Then the hiss starts.
Not a polite hiss. Not a little snake of air slipping from a faucet. A full-body, roaring, white-noise blast.
“Uh oh,” I say, very intelligently.
The coffee is forgotten.
I sprint down the hall, nearly skidding on the laminate. The second I hit the threshold of the laundry room, icy droplets smack me in the face.
It’s like walking into a car wash.
A full arc of water is spraying from the wall behind the washer. No, not from the washer, from the pipe. A fist-sized bulge in the ancient metal main has finally given up and split open. Water rockets out, hits the opposite wall, rebounds to the ceiling, and rainstorms down on my floor.
“Oh my God,” I yelp, ducking instinctively.
My socks squelch in half a second. Water races past my ankles into the hall like I’m starring in a very low-budget remake of The Titanic.
“Okay, okay—valve.” My brain catches up, shoving panic aside for half a second. There’s a shut-off behind the machine. There has to be. Every DIY article says there is.
I shoulder into the spray like a linebacker, yanking at the washer to get enough space. It gives me approximately an inch.
“Come on,” I snarl, shoving harder.
The machine grudgingly scoots, scraping over wet tile.
Cold water nails my side, soaks my presentable blouse straight through. It hits the back of my neck and races down my spine. I can’t see; my lashes are heavy with droplets.
I jam my arm behind the washer blind, fingers groping. Pipes. Cobwebs. And, thank god, metal. I find the little wheel and twist.
It doesn’t move.
“You have got to be kidding me.” I plant my feet, try again. The valve laughs in crusty defiance. It’s rusted solid, decades of neglect welded into place.
“Turn,” I groan, putting my whole body into it.
Nothing.
Water pounds my arm, my face, the front of my thighs. It’s pooling under the door now, spreading into the hall, creeping toward the kitchen like a horror movie monster.
“Okay,” I gasp. “Okay, okay.”
New plan.
Main shut-off. Outside. Every house has one near the street. I yank my arm back, slip on my own treacherous socks, and go down on one knee in six inches of cold water.
It’s enough to knock the breath out of me.
“I hate plumbing,” I wheeze at the ceiling.
The pipe answers with a steady, roaring hiss.
I scramble to my feet, shove my soaking hair out of my face, and bolt for the back door.
It takes longer than it should, the water fighting me all the way.
It pours around my ankles, slaps against my calves with each step, makes everything more slippery than usual.
Three times I nearly slip and meet my maker.
When I finally reach the back door, there’s a sea around me. I grip the lock, tugging, but the deadbolt sticks because: Murphy’s Law. My hands slide on the knob.
“Open,” I snarl, yanking. “We do not have time for this!”
After a few tugs, it finally gives, and I burst into the backyard.
Out here, it’s already turning into a swamp.
Water sprays out behind me like a jet; meanwhile, the large flow the door was holding back empties into the yard.
The ground squelches under my feet, cold mud oozing through my socks between my toes.
What’s worse is the morning is bright and suburban and offensively normal.
Birds chirp. Somewhere, a car door slams. The universe looks me dead in the eye and says, You wanted domesticity?
I sprint along the side of the house toward the front where the street shut-off is probably buried under decorative landscaping rocks and HOA paperwork.
Every step is a slip-n-slide. Mud splashes up the backs of my calves.
My teeth chatter; I’m soaked through with what feels like glacier runoff.
Behind me, the pipe hisses like a vengeful dragon.
I make it three steps before my foot hits a slick patch and betrays me.
One second I’m vertical; the next my legs shoot sideways. I hit the ground with a full-body splat, palms slamming into cold mud.
“F—” The swear dies halfway out because I inhale a faceful of wet grass.
“Mia!”
The shout isn’t in my head. It’s behind me, over the hedge.
I push up on shaky arms, hair pasted to my cheeks, and look back. I don’t even have to call them. They heard the pipe. Or me. Or both. The first body clears the hedge like it doesn’t exist.
Eli vaults, one hand on the top, legs tucking up and over with infuriating, parkour ease. He lands in my mud lake in a perfect crouch, takes one look at the water streaming out of my back door, another at me.
He’s there in a second, hands gripping my elbows, hauling me upright with a strength that feels effortless. He steadies me on the slick grass, his gaze sweeping over me once like he’s checking for injury.
“Main’s blown,” I sputter, breathless, clinging to his forearms as if the evidence isn’t currently baptizing my entire house.
“I hear it,” he says, releasing me only when he’s sure I won’t fall again. Then he’s gone, sprinting toward my back door, where the water is still gushing out.
“I’m going inside to check the breaker panel,” Eli shouts over the noise. “We need to kill the power before the water hits an outlet.”
“The panel is in the laundry room!” I yell back. “Right next to the leak!”
Eli swears and plunges into the house. I watch him disappear into the spray.
There’s a second thud as Knox hits the ground beside me, this one less graceful and more impact.
He’s barefoot, jeans rolled, T-shirt already darkening where stray spray catches it.
Rhys drops after him, hoodie, blue-light glasses still on like he walked straight out of his office and into my disaster.
Declan brings up the rear, headset dangling around his neck, socked feet splashing onto my lawn.
For one disorienting second my backyard looks like the action shot from some weird alpha-bro superhero movie: The Avengers: HOA Edition.
Then everything moves at once.
“Dek, call a plumber,” Eli shouts from inside. “Tell them emergency, broken main.”
Declan’s phone is in his hand before Eli finishes the sentence. “Yeah. On it,” he says, headset swinging as he jogs for higher, drier ground.
Knox doesn’t hesitate. He goes straight for my open back door, wading against the tide of water rushing out over the threshold, and takes it in with one sharp glance.
“Knox—”
But he’s already kicking off his already bare feet so he doesn’t track extra mud in. Then he’s inside, wading through the torrent and ankle-deep water like he’s late for a meeting.
“Don’t move,” Rhys tells me, voice flat, eyes scanning my whole body like he’s looking for a compound fracture. “Where’s your street shut-off?”
“Front,” I say, teeth chattering now that adrenaline is letting cold in. “By the mailbox, I think, I haven’t—”
He’s already gone.
A few strides and he’s at the side gate, yanking it open so he doesn’t have to vault another fence. The back of his hoodie is already soaked, plastered to muscles I have absolutely never noticed before, no sir.
I stand there, dripping, heart pounding, watching my yard turn into a pond.
Inside, heavy footsteps thud against the floorboards. Furniture scrapes across the wood.
“Mia?” Knox’s voice floats out, muffled but brisk. “I’m going to have to move some stuff. Otherwise they’ll get soaked.”
“O-okay!” I shout weakly, absolutely not processing that he is inside my house, moving my stuff like we’ve rehearsed this.
“The couch is too low,” he calls back. “I’m putting it across the dining chairs.”
“Okay!” I yell again, then sag a little because… what else can I say? No? Please let my Ikea textiles drown?