Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 92668 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92668 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
It was the first real indication I’d had that Steph could have well killed him.
I didn’t want to believe it. She was my friend, and given the circumstances, I couldn’t say I blamed her if she had killed him. He’d made her life a living hell, reducing her to nothing more than something pretty on his arm, then dragged her through thorny bushes during the divorce. Not to mention it was clear that she absolutely loathed the man.
If she’d finally snapped and killed him, then good for her.
I’d extend that sentiment to anyone who did the same thing to their abuser.
It seemed a reasonable reaction to me.
I sat back and looked inside the cupboard. It was finally clean. It wasn’t much progress, but it was progress.
I closed the door and moved to the other cupboard, the one just under the sink. I knew for a fact that the pipe was blocked here, and I’d watched seven hundred YouTube videos on unscrewing them to unblock the little u-bend thing, and this was going to be my moment to shine.
If I couldn’t do this, then this whole renovation was doomed. I wanted to be able to do minor things like this myself, so I rolled up my sleeves and got stuck in under the sink, but not before putting a bowl there to catch any lingering water.
That turned out to be a good idea, because the second I removed the bendy part of the pipe, water and gunk gushed out of the pipe into the bowl.
Ew.
This was gross.
And it smelt just as bad as it looked, too.
I wrinkled up my nose and went for it, using a fork to scrape out whatever was blocking the pipes. It turned out to be a giant gloop of fatty mush, which definitely explained the smell.
Jesus Christ.
Nobody had lived in this annexe in years.
How long had that been there?
I switched to the dessert spoon and continued scraping out as much as I could, then reattached the pipe and turned on the tap. The water looked like weak tea, and I wrinkled my face up at it, then got back under the cupboard to check for leaks.
If I’d reattached this pipe properly, I would be unstoppable.
“What are you doing?”
I jolted at the sound of Noah’s voice and smacked the back of my head on the top of the cupboard opening. “Owwww!”
“Shit. Sorry. Are you all right?”
I ducked out of the cupboard and looked over at him, rubbing the back of my head. He was wearing a white shirt with those stupid sexy rolled up sleeves and black trousers with the shiniest shoes I’d ever seen in my life.
“Jesus Christ. What are you doing here?” I asked, moving away from the cupboard. “Oof, that hurt.”
“Sorry.” He winced. “What are you doing under there anyway?”
“Looking for the Holy Grail. Isn’t that what everyone does under their sink?”
His lips tugged to the side. “Anything I can help with?”
“Yeah, get under there and smack the back of your head on this ledge.” I tapped the one I’d just hit my head with.
“What will that achieve?”
“My amusement,” I replied, turning off the tap that was still spitting out weak tea coloured water. Great. “I unblocked the sink and was checking I’d screwed the pipes back on properly. What are you doing, creeping about here?”
He held up his hands. “I’m on my break and saw your car when I drove past. I wanted to talk to you.”
I begrudgingly rinsed my hands under the tea water from the tap and grabbed a tea towel to dry them off with. “Something tells me this is another scenario where I don’t want to talk to you.”
“We have to talk about last night.”
“We don’t have to, no. You want to, but that doesn’t mean we have to.”
“Charlotte—”
I sighed heavily and put the towel down, leaning against the counter. “What’s it going to achieve, Noah? Do you want me to tell you that I didn’t mean it? Because I’m not going to. I regret saying everything I did, but it doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
He shook his head and came inside a bit further, glancing over his shoulder outside before focusing on me again. “I never mentioned it because I don’t have a good excuse for ghosting you the way I did. It felt like no matter what I said, you wouldn’t accept it anyway.”
“That’s for me to decide, don’t you think?”
“It is. You’re right.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t have a good excuse.”
“Is that all you came here to say? What a waste of time—for both of us.” I turned around and grabbed the sink unblocking stuff to make sure I got every last bit of yuck in the pipes.
“I knew you felt the same way. Even if you didn’t say it back.”
I stilled, one hand on the bottle, the other gripping the top.