Rock Bottom: A fake-dating, slow-burn, brother's best friend book (The Da Silva Siblings Duology 1)

Chapter 1

Nikita

It can’t get any worse than this, right?

I refuse to believe that it is possible for it to get any worse than this.

As I stare down at my now soaked sneakers I feel water seeping through my shoes, soaking my cotton socks, and making my toes curl. And not in the way that would suggest you were enjoying a particular activity - but in a way that made you shudder from the inside out.

I stood in the hallway, pushing the door of my apartment further open revealing the deep layer of water that had taken up residence across my floor as far as the eye can see.

My apartment is flooded.

Taking a deep breath in, my eyes fall shut as I beg the universe to send me some kind of explanation for these tests being dealt to me. I was barely handling the fact that the airline I worked for had to let me go due to ‘budget cuts’, and now I arrive back home to my apartment filled with water.

And it smells fucking awful.

The smell of dampness in the air permeates my senses. My stomach drops as I think about the water damage I am going to have to deal with. How in the world is any of my furniture surviving this?

I lean forward to peek my head inside.

“Oh, Nikita! Thank goodness you’re back!” Hector, my overzealous, theater-loving neighbor exhales. “Your apartment…” He pauses, thinking how to break the bad news to me as if it was not blatantly obvious, “It’s flooded.”

“It is?” My eyes widen to accompany my sarcastic response. “Where?”

“Sarcasm?”

I ignore his question. “What happened, Hector?”

“Another burst pipe in the building.” His hands gesticulating frantically. The only way Hector can speak is if his hands are moving. “Our entire floor has been affected.”

Upon hearing a commotion coming from one of the lower levels of the apartment building, I turn away from my apartment, watching as Hector moves towards the staircase. He leans over the banister of the stairs before letting out a sign of relief. “Oh! That’ll be Curtis. He’s evacuating everyone on our floor.”

“He’s what?!”

The last time I saw our landlord, Curtis, was when I first moved in almost a year ago. I was desperate to find somewhere to live after my boyfriend at the time, Duncan, pulled the plug on our relationship and forced me out of the apartment that we had shared. I returned only to find that my things had been dumped in storage with nothing but an address and a number to call to arrange for collection. There wasn’t much time before I was confirmed to start at my new job at Altitude Express Airlines, so I wasn’t in any position to question this place when I found it. It would do. I remember thinking that, and since I have never spent more than three consecutive days in the apartment over the last twelve months or so, I didn’t realize how bad things have gotten. This isn’t the first pipe to burst, but it is the first on the floor that I live on.

Fucking wonderful.

Hector glances back at me with a dumbfounded expression. “We can’t stay here, honey. Just think about the mold mutating in these walls.”

“When did this happen?” As I ask, my heart is beating erratically in my chest; the claustrophobic feeling of my anxiety skyrockets.

“This morning. Thank goodness you didn’t go through what Lana had to.” He uses his head to gesture to the door at the end of the hallway where my older French neighbor, Lana, lives. “I heard that water burst through her ceiling while she was asleep!” His eyes begin to widen as he relays the story. “Can you imagine? There you are sleeping peacefully and then suddenly, swoosh! Water, everywhere! What if you were busy making love? That’s not the kind of wet you want to be.”

With Hector rambling on about all the worst possible scenarios when being flooded, I tune out to what he is saying and turn back to my apartment, trying to rack my brain on how I am going to keep it together.

A moment later, I’m sitting outside my apartment building, realizing that I am doing a horrendous job at it. I am not even sure how I got out here in the first place. The curb that I am sitting on gives me the perfect view to stare at the commotion at the entrance as people make their way in and out of the building.

I need a game plan.

That’s who I am. A do-er. A go-getter. A glass half-full kind of girl. Not in a Susie Sunshine kind of way, but in a ‘get-up-it-isn’t-that-deep-bitch’ way instead.

But right now, I am down in the metaphorical dumps.

Emotion tightens around my throat as the helplessness weighs down in my stomach. I have two options - sit and cry on the curb or get up and find somewhere to stay tonight.

I have never been more thankful to live in the same city as my older brother than right now. There was a time where I couldn’t be further from him and my family, but when he told me he was moving to San Francisco four months ago, I was thrilled to have him close by again.

Grabbing my phone, I dial Jo?o’s number and rest it against my ear. Leaning my elbow on my knee and dropping my head I try to take a deep breath in, begging my brother to answer the damn pho-

“Kita?”

“Jay, it’s me.” My voice is cracking with emotion, but I cough to hide it.

“I know, I have your number saved.”

Please give me strength.

Before I can berate him, he continues. “You never call me. What’s wrong?” I can hear the concern in his voice, along with the chorus of voices in the background of wherever he is.

“Can I come to you? I’ve had a really, really crappy day and my apartment is floo-”

“Mana, espera,” he shouts in Portuguese, omitting the ‘e’ as he switches languages. “I can hardly hear you.”

I pull the phone from my ear and rest it against my chest, closing my eyes and opening my mouth to let out a silent scream, not wanting to frighten my brother or an innocent passerby, but needing to get rid of the frustration inside of me.

Taking a deep breath in and bringing the phone back to my ear, I hear my brother call my name. “What happened?” he asks.

“My apartment is flooded.”

“Foda-se.”

“Sim, foda-se.” I laugh, but there is no humor in it. “I also got let go so there’s that too.”

“Let go of what?”

“My job, you dumbass.”

“Kita, meu deus, I’m so sorry. What can I do to help?”

That’s my brother for you - Jo?o Inácio Ribeiro Da Silva will do anything for the people he loves. Whenever I’ve needed him, he is always there, no matter what. He’s the one person I can rely on for anything and right now, I need him.

“Can you come and get me, please?” My voice is small. “I’m sitting outside my apartment building. My entire floor has been evacuated while they sort the situation out. I didn’t even have a chance to check the damage inside, but I can tell you now, it’s fucked. Like fucked, fucked. You know how water damage can be. Do you remember when our-.”

My brother’s laughter stops me mid sentence. “You need to learn to breathe between your sentences.” His voice is now muffled as he says something to whoever he was with. “Stay where you are. I’m downtown, so I’ll be there soon.”

My eyes swell with tears, the warmth of them stinging my cheeks catches me off-guard. This isn’t something I do very often. I can count how many times I have cried in the last year on both hands. So it is safe to say that the fact that I am on the brink of tears makes me even more anxious than I already am. “Thanks, mano,” I manage to get out smoothly. We say our goodbyes and a small part of me, a minuscule part, feels better.

When I arrived back home after my sixteen-hour flight from Dubai, I had planned to soak in a hot bubble bath with my favorite vanilla bath salts. My feet were aching, I smelled of sweat and I had been carrying around a deep disappointment in the pit of my stomach, ever since I was told there would be no contract extension for me.

It doesn’t matter how long you work for a company or how dedicated you may be to your job, there is always the possibility that in the blink of an eye - poof, you’re out!

Inhaling a deep breath, allowing for the petrichor to fill my senses, I do my best to try and calm my heart rate, but it is when I feel a drop of water fall from the sky, I can feel the invisible string that is holding me together completely snap.

Within seconds, the clouds burst open and that is it for me.

Scrambling to grab my bags and rush undercover, I conclude that now there was absolutely no way things could get any worse than this.

Rock bottom, meet Nikita Da Silva.