Good Girl Complex(Avalon Bay #1)(67)

“Who’s this?”

“Mackenzie. Cooper’s out with Evan and Levi. He left his phone at home.”

“Damn,” she says with a frustrated huff. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of Evan, but he’s not answering either.”

“What’s going on?”

“There’s water coming in through the ceiling of the bathroom. We heard something that sounded like a tree falling on the roof, and then suddenly water’s running down the wall.”

“You okay?”

“We’re fine, but we need to fix this before the entire house is flooded. We’ve got towels down, but there’s too much water and we don’t have any way to stop it.”

Shit. If they can’t reach Evan, it probably means the twins are still wrapped up helping their uncle. The storm is really wailing now, thunder and lightning coming every few minutes and the wind and rain battering the windows. And according to the radar on TV, this thing isn’t passing quickly. Which means Steph and Alana are going to need a raft soon.

Pausing for a moment to think, it occurs to me Cooper’s truck is still here, and his keys are sitting on the coffee table. I bet he’s got all kinds of stuff in the garage—a ladder and tarps.

A plan forms in my head.

“Okay. Write down my phone number and text me your address,” I tell Steph. “I’m coming over.”

“Uh …” There’s muted chattering in the background that I assume is Alana. “I’m not sure if that’s—”

“I’m going to grab some supplies from Cooper’s garage and head over there. Trust me, this’ll work.”

“Alright,” she finally relents. There might even be a hint of relief in her voice.

After we get off the phone, I borrow a rain jacket from Cooper’s closet then grab his keys and dash through the rain and mud to his garage. Inside, against the wall, he’s got all sorts of building materials stacked up from the renovations he and Evan have been doing on the house. Among them, some black vinyl-type material and rope. Thankfully, Cooper keeps his tools well organized and I find a hammer, nails, and a heavy-duty staple gun with little effort. Good enough.

Ten minutes after hanging up with Steph, I back Cooper’s truck up to the door of the garage, get everything loaded into the bed, wrestle with the twelve-foot ladder, and then head to Steph and Alana’s house.

Everything looks normal when I pull up to the little blue house. No obvious signs of damage from the front. As soon as I ring the doorbell, Steph flings the door open and pulls me inside with the rain trailing after me and a puddle around my feet.

“It’s this way,” she says after brief hellos. She takes me to the screened-in rear porch. From there, I see the branches of a tree hanging off the back corner of the house. “We were lucky to make it through the last hurricane with those branches overhanging the house. It was only a matter of time.”

“Evan kept saying he’d come trim them back.” Alana steps onto the porch with an armful of wet towels. “But of course he forgot.”

Steph glances at her. “Maybe toss those in the dryer so we can have something to put down when the others soak through?”

Alana sighs. “Hope no one wanted a shower tonight.”

“Give me a hand outside,” I say to them. “First thing, we’ve got to get on the roof and pull those branches off. With the wind and everything, leaving them up there could make it worse.”

“What?” Steph looks at me, aghast. “You’re not going out there?”

“What’d you expect?” I give a wry laugh. “You weren’t calling Cooper for more towels.”

“But it’s dangerous. There’s lightning.”

Steph has a point, of course. The alternative is flooding their whole house and ending up with a massive hole in their roof. Anyway, I spent three years of high school on the stagecraft crew with the drama department. I can be pretty handy when I need to be.

“I’m going to get up on the roof and tie a rope around the branches to lower them down to you two. Then I’ve got some stuff to cover the hole. It’ll be quick.” I’m lying. It won’t be quick. But it’s got to be done, and the more Steph keeps us standing around worrying, the worse it’ll get.

“Just tell us what to do,” Alana says, nodding. This might be the most words she’s said to me that weren’t accompanied by a sarcastic smirk. That’s progress, I suppose.

Together the three of us trudge through the downpour to get all the supplies positioned in the backyard and stand the ladder against the side of the house. RIP their living room carpet. I know I’m taking my life into my own hands climbing a metal ladder in the middle of a thunderstorm, but it’s been several minutes since the last flash of lightning, so I take my chances and climb up with the rope over my shoulder.

Wearing a borrowed pair of Steph’s hiking boots, I walk across the slanted roof. Every step is like being on ice skates for the first time, except here I can’t hug the railing for support. Careful not to make any sudden movements, I manage to tie the rope around the huge, forked branch of the tree, then ball up the slack and make my best Hail Mary pass at throwing it over an exposed limb of the tree to act as a pulley. I succeed on the first attempt. Hell yeah.

On the ground, Steph and Alana take up the weight as best they can as I gingerly help push the branch off the side of the house. As they lower it to the ground, I immediately see where some shingles are missing and a foot-wide dent has been punched through the roof, water pouring inside.