Page 19 of My Brother’s Best Friend

Not that I was after anything morally upright or pure here. No, the point of meeting up with Quincy was to engage in meaningless, anonymous sex. To feel slutty and whoreish in a bone-deep way, pun fully intended.

Sure, Quincy was just one guy, and this was his first time, but if I did my job well enough, I could potentially have a truly irresponsible amount of sex before I went back to New York. I might not have a career or boyfriend or functional family life, but if there was one thing I knew I could do, it was get on my knees in a public restroom and suck off a stranger.

And that was what I wanted…right?

Levi’s apartment, where I was staying, was located above The Roastery. I’d just gotten out of the shower and was toweling off when he shouted up the back stairs, his voice panicked.

“Fuck, fuck! Jordy? Hey, Jordy, can you—shit!”

I grimaced. That nickname again. I knew he was trying, but could he try a little harder? Then again, it also sounded like Levi’s hair was on fire, so maybe now wasn’t the time to nitpick.

“Coming!”

I threw on sweatpants and a T-shirt and bounded down the stairs. Whatever Levi needed had better be quick, because I was scheduled to do a different kind of coming in half an hour. But that thought flew out of my head when I reached the chaos at the bottom of the steps.

The Roastery’s kitchen sink was exploding.

That was the only word for it. The door to the kitchen was swinging wildly back and forth, and through it, I could see a fountain—no, a jet—of water spewing from the sink like a fire hydrant, getting everything wet. Well, wet-er. The floor was already an inch deep in water.

“What the hell happened?” I yelled, hovering on the second-to-last step.

“No idea!” Levi called back, looking harried. “I tried turning the faucet off after washing up, and it started gushing.” He grimaced down at the pipes below the sink, and a wrench lying uselessly next to them. “I’ve tried to turn the water off here, but the valve won’t move. Can you grab my old waders and help?”

“Don’t you want your waders?”

Levi shook his head. “I’m already soaked.” His long-sleeved Henley, apron, and jeans were pretty wet. “And I need to go shut the water off at the curb. But if you can stay here, and let me know when I get it—”

“Yeah, yeah.” I was already dashing upstairs. “No problem.”

We didn’t have a lot of money growing up, and almost everything we owned was second-hand. That hadn’t stopped Levi from holding onto anything he thought might be useful, though, including a decrepit pair of army green waders with stretched-out suspenders, stashed in the closet behind a croquet set that was missing two mallets and a tennis racket that needed to be restrung.

I threw them on and ran downstairs, taking Levi’s place at the sink while he went outside. There was another inch of water on the floor by now, and it smelled curiously salty. Which was better than some things it could have smelled like, I supposed.

I tried sticking my hands over the drain to keep the water in, but it just squeezed around the edges and sprayed me in the face. I shook my head and stepped back, letting the water arc up through the air before spraying back down to the tiled floor.

It reminded me of the splash pads they had in city parks for kids to play in. Almost cute, except that coffee shop kitchens weren’t supposed to include water features for toddlers.

Finally, the jet of water began to shrink, growing shorter and shorter until it disappeared completely. The sink itself was still full, and still smelled like the ocean, but at least nothing new was pouring out.

I had no idea where Levi was, but the kitchen wasn’t going to clean itself, so I sloshed out to the back hall and grabbed the shop vac from the storage closet. I’d filled the drum, emptied it outside, and filled it halfway up again by the time my brother came back in. I was on my hands and knees at that point, trying to get the hose into a far corner underneath the kitchen counter.

“What are you doing?” Levi asked.

“What does it look like I’m doing? Trying to keep your business from becoming permanently Atlantis-themed.”

“Yeah, but you need a rag for the corners. You’ll never get it all up like that.”

I rolled my eyes. Of course I was doing something wrong in Levi’s estimation. Of course I was.

“Here.” He pulled the hose from my grasp. “I’ll empty this out. You can find rags in the mop bucket in the back.”

“I know where to find rags.” I did my best to contain a sigh. “You showed me yesterday.”

“I wasn’t sure,” Levi said, like he was being nothing but reasonable. In his eyes, he probably was. “You haven’t lived here in six years.”

“Yeah, but I’m not an idiot.”

“Okay, okay.” He didn’t contain his sigh, which only annoyed me more. He began rolling the shop vac out, only to stop at the door. “Oh, and Jordan?”