10. Sabrina
— ? —
Sabrina
The pipe under the sink chose the worst possible moment to betray me.
I was already on my knees on the grimy linoleum, wrench in hand, cursing the cabin’s ancient plumbing and my own stubborn refusal to call someone who actually knew what they were doing.
Ivy was in the living room watching cartoons, and I’d promised myself I’d fix this one small thing, prove that I could handle life without Killian swooping in to solve problems I was perfectly capable of solving myself.
The wrench slipped. The fitting I’d been trying to tighten gave way entirely. And a jet of water blasted me directly in the face.
I yelped and scrambled backward, but the damage was done. Water sprayed across the cabinet, the floor, my shirt, my hair. I grabbed for the shutoff valve and cranked it hard, and the spray sputtered to a stop, leaving me kneeling in a puddle of cold water with my dignity in shreds.
“Mommy?” Ivy’s voice drifted in from the other room. “What happened?”
“Nothing, baby. Just a little water.”
“It sounded like you said a bad word.”
“I said duck. I said duck very loudly.”
“Oh. Okay.”
I sat back on my heels and surveyed the disaster. My shirt was plastered to my chest, my hair was dripping into my eyes, and the cabinet was now a small swimming pool. The fitting I’d been trying to fix had come completely loose, which meant I’d somehow made the problem worse instead of better.
Fantastic. Just fantastic.
I was wringing out my hair when I heard it. A low buzzing sound, mechanical and insistent, coming from somewhere outside.
At first I thought it was a lawnmower or a weed whacker, one of the neighbors doing yard work. But the sound got closer, louder, and then Ivy shrieked with delight.
“Mommy! There’s a robot outside!”
I stood up too fast and cracked my head on the underside of the counter. More cursing, more Ivy asking if I’d said duck again, more of this day being absolutely determined to destroy me.
I staggered to the window and looked out.
A drone was hovering in the front yard. Not a small camera drone, but a proper delivery drone, the kind that tech companies were always promising would revolutionize logistics.
And trailing behind it, rippling in the breeze, was a banner made of white fabric with black letters painted across it in what I recognized immediately as Killian’s terrible handwriting.
SAbrINA IS THE MOST AMAZING HUMAN BEING THAT’S EVER WALKED ON THIS EARTH.
I stared at it. The drone wobbled slightly, compensating for the weight of the banner, and below it dangled a basket wrapped in cellophane and ribbon.
“It’s a present!” Ivy was bouncing at the door. “Can I go see? Can I?”
“Wait here.”
I walked outside, still dripping, still furious, still absolutely refusing to be charmed by this ridiculous display. The drone descended as I approached, lowering the basket toward the ground with surprising precision.
Then a gust of wind caught the banner.
The drone lurched sideways, overcorrected, and flew directly into the oak tree at the edge of the yard. The propellers whined in protest as they tangled in the branches, and the whole contraption shuddered to a halt, the banner wrapped around a thick limb and the basket swinging precariously below.
From somewhere behind the hedge, I heard laughter.
Sully emerged from the bushes with his phone in his hand, recording the entire disaster. He was doubled over, tears streaming down his face.
“Oh my God.” He gasped for breath between laughs. “Oh my God, his face is going to be incredible. He spent three hours programming that thing.”
“You’re filming this?”
“For posterity. This is the best day of my life.”
I crossed my arms over my wet shirt. “Did Killian send you to spy on me?”
“No, he sent me to make sure the drone didn’t crash. Which.” He gestured at the tree. “Mission failed, I guess.”
The basket swung in another gust of wind, and I heard the cellophane crinkle. Despite myself, I was curious about what was inside.
“Can you get it down?”
“I can try.” Sully pocketed his phone and approached the tree, reaching up to grab the lowest branch. “Fair warning, I’m not great at climbing things. That was always Killian’s department.”
He hauled himself up with more enthusiasm than skill, his foot slipping twice before he found purchase. I watched him struggle toward the trapped drone, swearing under his breath the whole way.
“You okay down there?” he called. “You look pretty wet.”
“I’m fine. Just a leak.”
“In the cabin?”
“Under the sink. I was trying to fix it when your brother’s robot attacked my yard.”
Sully laughed again, the sound echoing through the branches. “That sounds about right. He’s been in full obsessive mode since you left. I’ve never seen him like this.”
I didn’t want to ask. I asked anyway. “Like what?”
“Like someone who finally realized what he was about to lose.” Sully grabbed the basket and worked it free from the tangled banner. “Heads up.”
He dropped it, and I caught it. The cellophane was slightly torn, but the contents seemed intact.
“The drone’s stuck,” Sully called down. “I’m going to need reinforcements.”
Right then, a car pulled into the driveway.
Killian got out with a toolbox in one hand and a look of barely concealed panic on his face. He spotted the drone in the tree, then Sully in the branches, then me standing in the yard holding the basket.
His eyes traveled over my wet shirt, my dripping hair, the puddle forming at my feet.
“What happened to you?”
“Your cabin’s plumbing is a disaster.”
“That’s not my cabin.”
“Your family’s cabin. Whatever. The point is, the sink exploded.”
“Did you try to fix it yourself?”
“Don’t say it with that tone.”
“What tone?”
“The tone that implies I shouldn’t try to fix things myself.”
“I didn’t have a tone.”
“You definitely had a tone.”
Sully’s voice drifted down from the tree. “Are you two going to flirt all day, or is someone going to help me get this drone unstuck?”
I felt my face heat up. “We’re not flirting.”
“You’re absolutely flirting. It’s painful to watch. Killian, get up here and fix your mess.”
Killian set down the toolbox and climbed the tree with an ease that shouldn’t have been attractive but absolutely was. His arms flexed as he pulled himself up, and I looked away before I could notice anything else.
The basket in my hands was heavy. I peeled back the cellophane and looked inside.
My breath caught.
The specific crackers I loved, the ones from the fancy grocery store in the city that cost too much and were worth every penny.
The weird ginger soda I’d been obsessed with since college, the kind that was so spicy it made my eyes water.
The good chocolate, the dark one with sea salt that I only bought for myself on really bad days because it felt too indulgent for everyday consumption.
There was more. A candle in the exact scent I’d mentioned loving once, years ago, at some dinner party I barely remembered. A paperback novel by an author I’d been meaning to read. A small jar of the fancy hand cream that I’d run out of months ago and never replaced because it seemed frivolous.
Every single item was specific and personal, exactly what I would have chosen for myself.
He’d been paying attention. All this time, when I thought he’d stopped seeing me, he’d been cataloging every preference, every casual mention, every small thing that made me who I was.
I stood there with the basket in my arms and felt my anger crack down the middle.
“Got it!” Sully’s triumphant shout broke through my thoughts. He tossed the freed drone down to the grass, where it landed with an undignified thump.
Killian climbed down from the tree. There were leaves in his hair and a scratch on his forearm, and he was breathing hard from the effort. He stopped in front of me, his eyes searching my face.
“The banner was supposed to unfurl dramatically while the drone lowered the basket. I had the whole thing programmed.”
“The tree had other plans.”
“Apparently.” He shifted his weight. “Did you look inside?”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
I clutched the basket tighter. “It’s very comprehensive.”
“I have a list.”
“A list?”
“Of things you like. Things you’ve mentioned over the years. I’ve been keeping it since we started dating.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. The anger was still there, simmering beneath the surface, but it was fighting with a softer pull now, one that wanted to lean into him and let him hold me and pretend none of the last few weeks had happened.
I couldn’t do that. I wouldn’t.
“The sink is still broken,” I said.
“I can fix it.”
“I don’t need you to fix it.”
“I know. But I’m here, and I have tools, and you’re standing in a puddle.” He held up the toolbox. “Let me help. Please.”
I should have said no. I should have sent him away and called an actual plumber and maintained the distance I’d been trying to build.
Instead I said, “Fine. But you’re not staying for dinner.”
“I’m not asking to stay for dinner.”
“Good.”
He was already reaching for the toolbox.
I turned and walked back into the cabin. Ivy launched herself at Killian the moment he stepped through the door, wrapping her arms around his legs and chattering about the robot and the tree and how cool it was that Daddy was here.
He picked her up and held her close, his eyes closing for a moment with pure relief.
“Hey, ladybug. I missed you.”
“I missed you too. Are you going to fix the sink? Mommy said a bad word at it.”
“She said duck. I heard her.”
“That’s what she told me too, but I don’t think ducks are that loud.”
Killian set her down and looked at me. I looked away.
“Show me the leak,” he said.
I led him to the kitchen, where the puddle had spread across most of the floor. He surveyed the damage with a critical eye, then got down on his knees and opened the cabinet.
“Jesus. When was the last time anyone looked at this plumbing?”
“I’m guessing never.”
“The fitting’s completely corroded. I’m surprised it lasted this long.” He started unpacking his toolbox. “I’ll need to replace the whole thing.”
“You just happen to have replacement plumbing parts in your toolbox?”
“I stopped at the hardware store on the way here.”
“Because you knew the sink would be broken?”
“Because these cabins are old and I wanted to be prepared.” He glanced up at me. “I wasn’t planning the drone disaster. That part was supposed to be romantic.”
“It was absurd.”
“Absurd can be romantic.”
“Absurd can also be ridiculous.”
“You’re splitting hairs.”
I sat down at the kitchen table and watched him work.
He’d rolled up his sleeves and put on the wire-framed glasses he only wore when he was concentrating on something with his hands, the ones that always slid down his nose, and I found myself tracking the flex of muscle in his forearm as he wrenched at the fitting, the tendons in the back of his hand, the strip of lower back that showed every time his shirt rode up.
Water dripped from the residual spray and the fabric clung to him, going nearly transparent across his shoulders, and my mouth went dry so fast it was humiliating.
I hated that I still noticed these things. Hated that my body remembered his hands even when my brain was trying to forget.
It was a specific kind of betrayal, the way my brain kept offering up unwanted footage.
His hands, three summers ago, doing this exact thing under a different sink while I sat on a different counter and he told me to stop distracting him.
The weight of him. The heat of his mouth on the inside of my knee.
I was supposed to be furious with this man.
I was furious with this man. And still some traitor part of me was cataloging the way his throat moved when he swallowed and thinking, unhelpfully, mine.
I picked at a splinter in the table and ordered the thought to leave. It didn’t leave.
“Tell me about your day,” he said, not looking at me.
“My day?”
“What did you do? Before the sink attacked you?”
“I don’t want to make small talk.”
“It’s not small talk. I want to know how you’re doing.”
“I’m doing fine.”
“Sabrina.”
“What?”
He pulled his head out of the cabinet and looked at me. There was a smudge of grease on his cheekbone and water in his hair, and for a moment the man I’d married surfaced in him, closer than he’d been in months.
“I know you’re angry. I know you have every right to be. But I’m trying here. I’m trying to show you that I still care about the small things. Can you just… let me try?”
Ivy appeared in the doorway, her elephant blanket trailing behind her. “Mommy, can I show Daddy my hermit crab drawings?”
I looked at her hopeful face, then back at Killian.
“Go ahead, baby.”
She grabbed his hand and tugged him toward the living room, and I was left alone in the kitchen with a half-fixed sink and a basket full of things I had mentioned out loud exactly once.
The anger was still there. But underneath it, fighting to be heard, was the small, stubborn voice that whispered maybe.
I picked up the chocolate he’d remembered, and I held it in my hand and didn’t put it down.