Chapter Twenty-Four
The basketball clangs off the rim.
Max groans, collapsing onto the driveway. “You’re watching wrong.”
I toss the ball back at him. “You’re breathing wrong.”
The air’s a wet fist in my lungs, and Max is sprinting suicide drills on the driveway like a kid who mainlined Mountain Dew. His basketball’s been dead for days, but he swears it’s just ‘broken in.’
He chucks it at the hoop. Misses. Again. “You suck at fun.”
“Fun’s overrated.”
I flick the ball at his ribs. It bounces off and rolls into Mom’s corpse of a flowerbed. Max groans louder.
I should care. I don’t. Mom’s been on a bender, slurring about Max’s ‘rat-faced genes’ and how the AC’s stealing her life savings. Fourth time this week I found her passed out on the couch—vodka bottle still in her hand.
Across the street, a moving truck’s parked in the driveway of that yellow house. Two of the movers are trying—and failing—to maneuver a loveseat through the front door. The third’s arguing with a twenty-something woman holding a clipboard, looking two seconds away from homicide.
Her red hair’s loose, straight with a lazy wave. Pale legs under cutoff shorts, tank top sticking to her skin. Her voice carries—yelling at them as if they just keyed her car.
Max shields his eyes. “Who’s that?”
“Trouble.”
“She seems tough. Think Mr. Petrovski’s gonna haunt her?”
I push my glasses up. “Doubt it. Ghosts have standards.”
The woman turns—spots us. And, like every other human on the planet, she immediately beams at Max.
“Should we tell her to stay away from his bathtub? What if—”
I hush Max as she marches over. Up close, her eyes are this insane green. Fuck knows how she can be this sunbright and furious at the same time.
“Hey,” she says, slightly breathless. Nods at Max. “Wanna help me move a dresser? I’ll pay in cookies. Or pizza. Or eternal karmic reward.”
She smiles like that last one is legally binding.
Max’s hand shoots up. “Sure. I’m in.”
She glances at me. “You his dad?”
The question shouldn’t sting. Dad’s been dead fifteen years. As for the useless sack of shit Mom married next, well, he’s been gone 731 days. Good riddance.
“Stepbrother,” Max corrects, before I can say ‘unfortunate babysitter.’ “Kade’s grumpy.”
“Not grumpy,” I mutter. “Tired.”
“Of life,” Max stage-whispers.
The woman grins. “I’m Payton.”
“I’m Max. I’m ten. I like dinosaurs and NASA and I can do a backflip on the trampoline.”
“Impressive,” Payton says, dead serious. “I like people who can do backflips and lift heavy things. So … Kade, you in too?”
Max grabs my arm. “We’re in.”
Hell no. I should drag Max inside, fix him a half-decent dinner, make sure Mom’s still alive and hasn’t mistaken bleach for vodka. But the redhead’s already turning toward the house, and the little shit is practically vibrating.
“Come on,” he begs. “I’m hungry.”
Payton glances back. “I’ve got Oreos.”
Max gasps. “Double Stuf?”
“Obviously.”
He bolts after her like she offered him a pet T-rex.
The redhead trips on the curb, catches herself with a muttered fuck—and for half a second, I’m not scowling.
***
The door swings open.
Payton grins. “Welcome to my baking accident-slash-printer exorcism.”
Denim shorts hitched high on long legs. Tank top clinging in all the worst places—for me, anyway. Bleach stain be damned. Her hair’s twisted up, neck bare, flour dusted on one cheek like someone dragged their thumb there mid-kiss.
I don’t stare.
Not at the legs.
Not at the curve of her waist.
Definitely not at the freckle on her collarbone I shouldn’t remember from last time.
She lifts a plate. “Cookies are only mildly carcinogenic today. Also, my printer’s screaming in error codes. Think you can fix it, or do I need to perform a ritual sacrifice?”
When she texted ‘emergency,’ I assumed blood. Or fire. Not a bitchy printer. I eye the cookies. “Trying to poison me first?”
“Only if you fuck up the printer.” She steps back, waving me in. “Come on. I’ll upgrade you to whiskey.”
My feet don’t move. Neither does the part of me that knows exactly how this ends. Me, fixing shit I didn’t break. Her, getting under my skin with snacks, smiles, that damn freckle.
“What, scared I’ll chain you to a radiator and force you to explain how USB ports work?”
“I’ve had worse afternoons. But I’m more worried about your definition of ‘whiskey.’ Last time you called tap water ‘vodka.’”
She laughs, and something stupid twists in my chest. “It’s real whiskey. The kind that peels paint. And if that doesn’t work …” She leans in—enough to make my pulse kick. “I’ll tell Max you volunteered to help.”
Damn. The kid would never let me hear the end of it.
I step inside. “That’s blackmail.”
“Nuh-uh, that’s leverage.” She closes the door. Trails after me.
The boxes in the living room are mostly gone now, but there are books stacked sideways on every surface. A monstera already half dead.
The hallway opens into the kitchen. Smells like burnt sugar. Two fresh packs of Double Stuf Oreos. The rest of the island’s buried under bags of flour and half-used eggs. That window unit above the sink is doing its best, but it still feels like a damn sauna in here.
Payton fishes a couple of mismatched glasses from a cabinet.
The printer’s wedged between a grease-stained pizza box and what might be a router.
PC LOAD LETTER. ERROR CODE 0xFU2B.
Payton pours from a half-empty whiskey bottle and slides one to me.
The liquor burns all the way down. I cough.
Her laugh somehow fills the whole damn kitchen.
I tap the input tray. “You’re out of paper.”
“Bullshit. I loaded it yesterday.”
“With what? Napkins?” I pull out a crumpled, half-printed lease agreement. TERMS OF SURRENDER—barely visible under the coffee rings.
She snatches it from me. “It was working until—”
A single, crisp page spills out.
TEST PAGE SUCCESSFUL.
We both stare at it.
“See?” Payton says, recovering first. She smacks the side of the machine. “Just needed some encouragement.”
The printer spits out its ink cartridge.
Payton bends to pick it up—giving me a full view of legs I’ve spent the last week trying not to notice.
I drain my glass.
She straightens, fingers smudged with ink, the other hand swiping at her temple. She must be roasting too. Her tank top’s nearly translucent. A bead of sweat rolls down her collarbone, into the valley between her—
I jerk my gaze up. She’s smirking.
“The printer.” I grab a screwdriver from the counter. “I think I can fix it. Five minutes.”
She slides over the plate of cookie casualties. “These are actually edible. Ish. You sure you don’t wanna try one?”
I glance over. The edges are black. One of them has a hole in the middle.
“Nah. I’m good.”
“Come on. Just one.”
“I’d rather not go to the ER, thanks.”
“Rude,” she mutters and sets the plate next to me anyway. As if proximity will wear me down.
I crouch to fiddle with the printer cables. She crouches, too, unnecessarily close.
“So,” she says casually. “Are you always this grumpy?”
“This is me being friendly,” I deadpan.
She snorts.
The silence stretches. Thank fuck she doesn’t fill it with nervous chatter. She just waits.
Maybe I don’t mind this either.
Her scent slips under the whiskey. Something vanilla and fruity. It sticks in my chest. In the back of my throat. In places I don’t want to think about.
I stand. Loosen the screws.
She rises beside me.
I don’t have to look to know she’s propped against the wall, arms crossed, every move a quiet tease.
She tips her head toward mine. Too fucking close. The hair on the back of my neck rises—
My jaw tightens. Her stare is something I refuse to meet. Don’t give a damn how green her eyes might be. Don’t care if they still gleam.
I wrench the casing off. Something in the innards cracks.
Fuck.
“Careful there, Mr. Fix-It. I’m on a renter’s budget.”
I glance sideways—in time to see her bite into one of the charred cookies. Her face goes through all five stages of grief.
A rough sound punches out of me. Not quite a laugh or a cough. The kind of involuntary noise you make when someone steps on a rake. “Keep mocking, and I might start charging by the hour.”
I reach back into the printer, fingers finding the jammed roller. Twist. Tug. Pop.
The tray shifts. The screen clears.
READY.
She blinks. “Wait, did you actually fix it?”
I shrug. “Told you. Five minutes.”
“Okay, show-off. But thanks, IT Guy.” She takes another bite of the blackened husk, grimacing harder this time. “One more question. Is my bathtub really haunted?”
I lift a brow. “Who told you that?”
She licks a crumb off her thumb. “Max.”
Of course he did. “Kid’s got an overactive imagination.”
She leans a hip against the counter. “Said some guy died in there. Slipped and cracked his head. Left a dent in the tub.”
My jaw works. “It’s called calcium buildup.”
“Right. What about the dried blood?”
“It’s rust.”
“And the way the faucet drips exactly every twenty-three seconds?”
“Bad plumbing.”
She leans closer, voice soft. “And the cold spot by the drain?”
“Coincidence.”
She grins like she’s winning. “You suck at lying.”
The truth? Seventy-two years old. Ex-Marine. Taught me all about guns. Found him three days after he drowned, one hand clawing at the shower curtain like he changed his mind halfway to hell.
“The tenant before you died of a heart attack. Not in the tub.”
“But you did find him.”
“I was the only one who ever checked in on him. So yeah—his landlord called me.”
She tilts her head. “And?”
“And he was dead. That’s it.”
Payton goes still. A cookie crumb falls from her lips. Not grinning now. “Where? The couch? Bedroom?”
I look away. “Does it matter?”
“Kade …”
Something in her voice makes me meet her gaze.
“Did he die in the tub?”
The confession comes out rough. “Yeah.”
“Well …” She snorts. “That explains why the showerhead’s fucked.”
A laugh huffs out of me.
“Guess I’m showering at your place now.”
***
2:17 pm. Payton’s calendar said ‘Client Hell Session 1-4PM,’ which means I have exactly 103 minutes to violate several federal laws.
Her spare kitchen key is under a garden gnome with a phallic hat. Classy.