Page 1 of One More Chapter
one
penelope
They saythat when it rains it pours, but they never quite prepare you for the onslaught of that deluge.
Specifically when it’s coming from the walls of your house.
I wish it would have happened at a more opportune time—like, you know,notat four in the morning. But you never can quite decide when your life is going to fall apart. I guess it would have been too much to ask for it to not happen while I was fast asleep.
Still, the steady dripping against my cheek didn’t exactly rouse me right away. In my dreamy stupor, I initially assumed it was my roommate, Claire’s, new puppy. Bilbo had spent a few nights with us when he wasn’t over at his dad’s—my friggen boss’s—house. That little pup can slobber. So, instead of waking immediately, I just assumed it was the dog, and I rolled over.
Face down into a puddle in the middle of my mattress.
Thatcertainly popped the bubble on my dreamland.
By the time I realized that the pipes between my bedroom and the en suite bathroom had burst, setting off a chain reaction throughout the entire upstairs portion of my home, it was too late.
And I was a very wet mess.
Not in the fun way either.
That thought makes me chuckle through my chattering teeth. Despite the month of July on the calendar, the fact that I’d been soaked before I could wake has me standing on my front lawn waiting for the fire department to finish with their inspection in my sleep shorts and a ratty old T-shirt from high school.
Of course, I’m alone.
Because Claire and Bilbodidn’tstay over last night—she and Harding—Nathan, I can call him Nathan now—were painting their new place, and she just decided to spend the night with her beau.
The rest of my friends are married with kids or merging onto that highway. At thirty-three, I didn’t exactly foresee myselfbeingalone, let alonestandingalone, dripping wet on my own front lawn as part of my teacher-on-summer-vacation itinerary.
Then again, things have never really gone my way. The roller coaster in my life looks less like your predictable loop-de-loops that eventually pull into the station, and more like the one in Disney World that dead ends at ripped up tracks and then launches you backwards at an upwards-shooting ninety-degree-angle.
My mom gets pregnant at twenty-one? My dad leaves us, homeless and penniless.
Mom finally gets on her feet, and we have a place to call our own? Welcome baby brother Connor to the picture.
I bust my ass to get myself through college, pay it off, get myself a stable teaching career,andkickoff a successful—albeit secret—author career that has me sitting on a nest egg larger than I ever could have imagined?
Well. I guess I was due.
A handsome, sweat-stained firefighter exits my front door, not bothering to shake out the water from his boots as they squish over the small patch of grass for him to reach me. Theslowly rising sun paints the sky behind him in Neapolitan colors. If I wasn’t currently awaiting the status of my home, I’d pull out my phone to take a photo as book inspiration.
“Sorry about your home, Ms. Barker,” he says with a sympathetic shake of his head.
I shrug, arms still crossed. “Hey. Shit happens.” We both laugh without humor, and I ask, “So, what’s the damage?”
He sighs, scrubbing a hand over his brow before he answers.
“Your pipes were corroded, likely before you bought the place. You’ll probably need to replace a good chunk of the plumbing system.”
That would explain why the sale price was so low, and why they offered to wave the inspection fee if I signed sooner.
“Electrical is shot. We killed the power, but that will need to be gutted too.”
Strike two.
“You’re looking at a couple of months at least, and that’s just the guts. You’ll probably need to rip her down to the studs. You’ve got good insurance, yeah?”
Batter’s out!