Chapter 38
J ericho
The rooster’s back. I see the TikTok star when I walk to the window.
He’s sitting right on my porch railing in hopes of antagonizing me. One foot tucked under, chest puffed, beady eyes fixed on my front door.
“You again?” I mutter, squinting through the screen.
He cocks his head. At this point, I’m sure the cockblocker understands everything I’ve ever said. I open the door, step out onto the porch, and he crows—loud, confident, like I’m the one trespassing on his territory. Maybe technically that’s true since he was here before I moved in.
“Unbelievable.” Unbelievable that I even entertain the idea of me being an intruder, but I guess Big Love is rubbing off on me.
He hops down to the steps and starts walking toward the door. What does he want? To break in ?
I take a long sip of coffee and wonder, not for the first time, if he’s been sent here for all my past sins.
My phone buzzes in my back pocket. I fish it out without looking. “Yeah?”
“Jericho?”
Nora’s voice is rushed. Worried. My spine straightens without thinking. “What happened?”
“Just this thing in the diner.”
“Is he back?”
“No.” Her laugh is breathy. “No one has seen him in a mile radius.”
“What happened?” I ask, calmer this time. I got so riled up over just her worried voice on the phone. I glance at the rooster, waiting for her reply. He crows again, taking another step toward the door. Looks like he stopped approaching when I stopped paying attention. Damn bird.
“Something in the kitchen. The pipes.” Her tone is higher than usual, like she’s on the verge of yelling. “They’re hissing and dripping,” she continues, while I analyze every bit of her cadence.
I grab my coat and car keys. “Is it gas?”
There’s a moment of silence and then a shushing argument with Roman before she returns. “I don’t think so. I mean—it smells like water? Does water even smell? Or metal. I don’t know, but it sounds like it’s about to geyser our whole diner into the skies.”
“Turn off the oven and don’t put it back on until I get there.” I start the engine.
“Okay. Roman, turn this whole thing off.” She talks off the phone while I listen for the hissing. She’s right, it’s loud, but it’s definitely not gas. Better be safe than sorry though. Then to me, “Can you come here when you have a chance?”
“I’m on my way already.”
A loud sigh of relief is music to my ears. “Thank you.”
The front entrance to the diner is propped open with a bucket and a sign that says “CLOSED UNTIL THIS STUPID THING IS FIXED.” I step inside, the scent of coffee and burned sage greeting me like an old comfortable blanket.
Nora probably burned it to cleanse the space of some mean spirit she thinks is playing around with her pipes.
“In here!” Nora calls from the kitchen.
I find her crouched near the industrial sink, hair up, apron splashed with coffee, water, and who knows what else, and an expression like she’s been fighting a battle for months.
Roman is crouched next to her, not looking even slightly better.
There’s a giant puddle in the middle of the kitchen with no particular source.
“Thanks for coming,” she says, pushing up to stand. Her eyes almost brighten when she sees me. At least I think they do and it’s not just wishful thinking.
“How long have you been at it?”
“For days,” Roman replies grouchily while Nora says, “A couple of hours.”
“Days.” Roman shoots her a stare. “I told you it was broken, and you’re too damn stubborn to believe me. Just like your grandma.”
She points a finger at him. “I take that as a compliment, thank you very much.” Then she turns to me, her hair is a wild mess.
She has raccoon smudges under her eyes and a black patch on her cheek.
In one word, she looks totally edible, and for a moment I forget what I came here for.
“To be fair,” she starts in a lower voice.
“There’s been a slight noise from the pipes for a couple of days. ”
“Weeks,” Roman mumbles.
“Fine! Weeks.” She throws her hands in the air.
“Weeks. We’ve been having these issues for weeks, but the only plumber we have around here is working at Dick’s Diner.
There’s no chance in hell I’ll be calling him to come and check it out.
The whole town will know that something is broken. And Moons’ is not broken.”
Roman watches her for a few seconds before speaking. “Hours. It’s just been going on for a couple of hours. Contractor.” He points his meaty finger at me. “Pipe.” He shifts it toward the hissing pipe. “Nora.” His finger moves to Nora while he levels me with a stare. “Fix this.”
I chuckle. “Was going to.” Dropping my toolbox next to the sink, I crouch to look under it.
The pipework is a mess—old, patched together, half rust and duct tape. I see the slow drip, hear the faint hiss. Looks like a pressure issue, maybe a cracked seal.
After cutting off the water, I pull out my multitool and get to work. The bolts are old, corroded. I brace myself and give the first one a good twist. It budges, leaking nasty fluids on the bottom of the cabinet. The whole thing needs changing if Nora doesn’t want to have a flood on her hands.
She hovers behind me while trying not to hover . Needless to say, she fails miserably as her presence is loud. I know where she is at any given moment even when she’s not moving a finger.
“What’s the problem there?”
“You mean besides the duct tape holding everything together?” I answer while droplets of stagnant water land on my face.
“Yes, besides that,” she giggles.
“It needs changing.” I press the tape back together and crawl out. “I’m gonna run to the hardware store and buy everything needed.”
Her face falls.
“What?” I search her expression, trying to read the sudden change. It’s like she’s giving me bad news.
“The store is closed.”
“It’s Monday. ”
“Exactly.” She gives me a lopsided smile, and I wonder if I missed yet another joke. It wouldn’t be the first one.
“So, what?” I ask, still at a loss. “Why is the hardware store closed on Monday?” I know stores sometimes close on Sundays in small towns, but I swear I’ve never heard of this kind of thing before.
She laughs at my confusion, and something in her eyes softens. “When else would it be closed?” she asks, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
“Not on Monday. People work on Monday.”
Her laughter grows as she shrugs, pretending to be helpless against the town’s quirks. “Not here.”
I blink at the stupidity of this ‘full of love town’ before I head to my truck.
“You’re leaving?” The disappointment in her voice is so loud, it nearly knocks me down. Right after it lifts me up cause it sure as fuck feels good to be so needed.
“No. I’m gonna drive home to check if I have anything left at my house and be back. We need to fix this before the whole town riots without coffee and pancakes.”
The smile stretching her face might be the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in my entire life, and I forget to actually walk. Instead, I stand and watch her not blinking.
“Okay, Jericho.” Her smile grows wider. “I’ll see you soon.”
Her voice jerks me back from nirvana, and I start moving again. “Yeah.”
I get to my truck and start driving. My usual road back to the house is blocked—there’s roadwork going on, and I have to find another way around. See, someone is working on Monday, I think to myself since this nonsense of a hardware store taking a Monday break still doesn’t sit well with me.
For some unexplainable reason, I’ve never driven this way before, and this part of town is new to me. There are a few businesses and more houses. A gas station. A hair salon. A spa. A diner. A small convenience store.
Hold on a minute.
I press the brakes.
A diner. O-o-oh. The dick’s diner. And sure enough, the literal logo on top of the building says Dick’s Diner.
I pull off from the road and park across the street from it. It seems they’re doing some remodeling still, and Nora was right—there’s a plumber’s vehicle parked on the side, an open-bed truck with Better Call John written across the side.
John’s got some good pipes. Exactly the ones I need. They’re currently sticking out from the back of his truck bed.
I watch the front and wait for him to come out to see if I can buy just two pipes from him. He’s bound to come out at some point. And sure thing, a tall, rugged man walks out of the front door and heads to John’s truck. Must be the man himself.
I stop the engine and get outside.
“Hey,” I start friendly because the man did nothing wrong besides working for a known town dick.
John regards me with furrowed brows and a sour expression on his face. “You the new contractor everyone’s talking about?”
The friendliest town my ass. Thanks a lot, Jonah.
“I don’t know what they’re talking about, but yes, I’m a contractor. I don’t mean to step on anyone’s toes though—I work out of town,” I say, trying to smile. I’m sure it comes out as a grimace, but I doubt John would care.
“Too good for the town folks then. Hm,” he hums under his nose.
Guess I’d better forget about the pipes being sold or handed to me in any capacity. I make a beeline around his truck and walk down the street, trying not to look like an idiot.
John gets into his truck and moves it to the back of the diner while I walk into the convenience store (at least something is open today) and start browsing the shelves, keeping an eye on John’s truck the whole time.
He stops the engine, climbs out, scratches his junk, and heads toward me. Toward the store, to be precise.
He grabs a bag of chips and a beer and heads to the cashier where a very young girl, maybe of barely legal age, is ringing up another customer.
Once it’s John’s turn, he walks up to her and leans the top of his body on the counter.
“You’ve grown, Lucy.”
Lucy smiles politely and carefully takes the items from the counter.
“You’ve grown quite a lot. You know.” He mimics having boobs with his hands.
What the fuck?
Lucy’s face pales as she pushes the items back to him.
“What are you doing in the evening?” the leech asks.
I step up to the counter and smack my hand on it in front of him. “Probably eating dinner with her parents.”
His face turns the same level of sour from before. “You again?”
“Pay and go.” I nod shortly toward the exit.
“I’ve heard you’re trouble.” He tsks his tongue. “If you keep this up, Richard will make sure you don’t live in this town anymore.”
“I’ll deal with Dick. Now go.” I level him with a stare until he pushes his credit card into the reader, takes his purchases, and walks outside.
“Thanks,” the girl mumbles.
“Does he do that a lot?” I watch her scared face which should be answer enough on its own.
“It’s gotten worse since the diner started having plumbing problems, so he’s always around,” she says, glancing at the door as if expecting him to come back. When he disappears into the diner next door, she adds, “It’s fine. I’ll deal with it.”
“Don’t.” I wait for her to lift her eyes. “Let police deal with that when he gets nasty.”
Her face shuts down. “Police won’t do anything.”
Even though I don’t know Cheryl that well, I can’t imagine her standing by while a man like that clearly rolls his balls toward this young girl. “Ask for Cheryl, she will.”
“Cheryl?”
“Yes, Cheryl Moon.”
“Moon? As in Moons’ Diner?”
“Yes, one of them. You don’t know her?” I had the impression she was from here if the perverted plumber knows how she’s grown.
“I go to a boarding school in Vermont and am just home for the holidays to help my parents in the store.”
“That’s cool.” I can’t come up with anything else since I’ve already used up all my social buffer for today.
After paying for a chocolate bar, I go outside.
My truck is across the street. The pipes so conveniently sticking out from John’s truck are right here.
The pipes Nora needs to fix her place. The pipes he’s planning to use at Dick’s place.
Normally, I wouldn’t even think about something like this, especially considering my past. But Dick, his diner, and this asshole John’s advances toward a child are making me feel a little reckless.
I slowly walk up to my truck, trying not to make a fuss out of anything, start the engine, and make a U-turn. After parking the truck in front of the store, I keep the engine running and wait for the path to be clear.
Once no one’s around, I open my door and carefully close it without shutting it all the way.
I don’t think I have much time, so I start jogging toward the plumber’s vehicle.
When I’m next to it, I do a quick turnaround to check for anyone watching me.
There might be a surveillance camera somewhere, but I hope two missing pipes are too much of a hassle to report, so no one will miss them.
Especially from two douchebags like that.
I grab the pipes and take off jogging back to my truck when a cop cruiser slows down next to me. The passenger window rolls down, and Cheryl’s face is peering at me from the driver’s side. She pulls her glasses down to her nose.
“Do I want to know?”
“No.” I clutch the pipes tighter, ready to fight for them if needed.
She pushes the glasses back with one finger. “All right then.” And drives off, leaving me sort of caught in the middle of the road.
I throw the pipes inside my truck and jump in, hoping there will be no more witnesses.
I see the girl’s face in the window bay when I take off. She’s smiling a shark smile and showing me two thumbs up. I think I can count on her.