Awk-Weird (Ice Knights, #2)(15)

“Kahn,” Tess said at half volume as she bent down to pet the little fluff ball. The top of his head was wet and so were his paws. “Have you been hanging out in the bathroom sink again?”

She really needed to follow up with her uncle—again—about the building’s plumbing. Mr. Martinez upstairs had been in an intense battle with her uncle about the low water pressure; meanwhile she’d been dealing with leaky faucets that came and went.

Of course, she or Mr. Martinez would move if they could afford to rent another building in Waterbury’s competitive rental market—thank you, Harbor City rich kids moving across the harbor for its working-class ambiance, that prices had gone through the roof. That meant their landlord was not only being a shithead about fixing things but was making noises about jacking up the rents on the two apartments in the building along with her flower shop on the ground level. That was if he didn’t just sell the building outright. He was such an asshole—even if he was her uncle.

Kahn rubbed his wet little noggin against her shin and let out an I’m-hungry mewl.

“Yes, my overlord, I will feed you now.”

A few minutes later, she was pouring cat food into his bowl and checking the kitchen sink for drips. There weren’t any signs of a leaky faucet. It had to be the bathroom. Grabbing a wrench from the junk drawer—let’s hear it for growing up in rental housing and learning at least some rudimentary plumbing skills—she headed for the bathroom to search for the leak. That sink was dry, though, too. The bathtub and shower were just as much a desert. She turned around in the tiny bathroom, her attention landing on the toilet. It was the only other option. But the lid was down and the cover over the tank hadn’t been shoved aside.

What the hell?

Had Kahn learned to turn the faucet on and off? Was he house-training himself to use the toilet? Did he try to go swimming in his overpriced continuous-pour-water-bowl fountain?

“How did you get soaked, Kahn?”

The kitten didn’t answer. Instead, he rubbed his fuzzy body against her legs as he did a figure eight between them, purring loudly enough that Mr. Martinez upstairs would have heard if he hadn’t gone to Florida to visit the sun and his daughter—in that order, he’d told Tess with a chuckle before leaving yesterday morning.

“Whatever it is,” she said as she bent down to pet the car engine in feline form, “don’t do it again.”

Kahn meowed his agreement and they crossed the narrow hall to her bedroom. Yes. Sleep. She’d just take a short nap, above the covers so she wouldn’t fall into deep sleep, and then have dinner later.

Best. Plan. Ever.

And it was, right up until she fell back onto her bed, arms outstretched and eyes already closed, right into the middle of her soggy comforter. Cold wet soaked her from her shoulders to the top of her ass and a giant drop of water splattered against her forehead.

“What the fuck?” She jackknifed into a sitting position, face tilted upward toward the huge stain on her ceiling dripping what she really hoped was water directly onto her bed.

With catlike reflexes brought on by the serious ewww factor of mysterious liquid coming from her ceiling, she scurried off the bed and swiped her phone from the nightstand where she’d dropped it before falling onto the bed. Kahn stood there looking at her like she’d lain down on the wet bed despite his very clear warnings as she dialed her uncle. She wasn’t shocked when her call went to voicemail. The man had been dodging her and Mr. Martinez’s complaints for weeks. She hung up and called again, and again, and again until he finally picked up.

“I know, I know,” her uncle Raymond said. “You’re still mad about the water pressure.”

“Oh no, now I’m mad about the leak in the ceiling right above my bed.” Her bottom lip trembled. Stupid fucking hormones. She was pissed not sad and yet here she was starting to turn on the waterworks like she was mimicking the damn ceiling.

“Put a bucket down,” he said, sounding totally unimpressed. “I told you the plumbers in this town were booked up.”

The number of drips had gone from light morning traffic to the full-on hellscape of the bumper-to-bumper morning commute variety since she’d started this call, and it didn’t show any signs of slowing. In fact, it was getting worse. She couldn’t even call it drips anymore. It was a definite stream emptying onto her favorite place in the world right now, her bed!

A bucket? For that?

“The ceiling is starting to sag,” she said, working hard to keep the damn hormonal quiver out of her voice. “We’re not talking a little bit of water here.”

“You ladies and your exaggerations.”

Okay, she might kill her uncle. Surely the jury would take her side. Maybe she could get someone on Gina’s questionable, probably mob-connected family tree to hide the body where no one would ever find it.

“I’m not exaggerating.” Frustration stomped the tears that had been threatening into oblivion and she swiped the audio call over to video, pointing her phone up toward the ceiling that was definitely drooping now. “See?”

Uncle Raymond made a dismissive grunt. “It’s barely a bubble.”

“There’s obviously a busted pipe,” she said, gesturing toward the growing lump in the ceiling as if her uncle could see her. “You need to get a plumber here right now.”