Charlie

I am on fire!

Not literally, of course. But right now, my brother, Jace, is on a critical mission, and it’s the final task in what has been a very long operation to take down an evil mastermind, Callid Aragundi, along with his entire network. So many of us here at the Clandestine Services Agency have been working for months to get to this point, so everyone in this room is holding their breath and watching the big screens as I support Jace in the field.

Or, in this case, a super yacht docked in Monaco.

“You’ve got about ten seconds before that camera resets,” I say through my headset to Jace. “So unless you want the ship’s security to catch you in that two-sizes-too-small uniform, you might want to—”

“Got it,” Jace says as he gets the door open and slips inside.

The urgency in this room is thick as everyone’s eyes flick between the big screens at the front and analysts and operatives murmur updates.

So, I’m on fire, and all eyes are not on me. Which is exactly how I like it.

But, I guess that means I’m not figuratively on fire, either, or all eyes would definitely be on me. It’s more that I’m in my element. Maybe my element is fire.

This is the final phase of the operation, and somehow, I’m the calmest person in the room. I don’t look around because I’ve got everything I need on the three screens at my workstation and in the data coming from the comms. One shows Jace’s glasses cam, one has both the yacht’s heat signature map and a live feed of every hallway camera I’ve overridden in the last six minutes, and the third has my screen where I make all the magic happen.

“Take your next left,” I tell Jace. “The guard on your right just broke pattern. You’ve got maybe fifteen seconds before he comes back around.”

He moves silently through corridors as I scan my screen for potential problems while getting everything we need for the break-in. I glance at the screen that shows Jace’s glasses cam and the heat map.

“You’re two doors away from the brain of Aragundi’s criminal empire. Maybe even the key to unlocking who’s behind the smuggled artifacts.”

“Glove on,” Jace says as he finishes tugging it into place.

Seven weeks ago, when we first found this super yacht but Aragundi wasn’t on it, my brother, Miles, snuck in and placed a relay node into the ship’s network junction at a maintenance panel, cleverly disguising it. A little ghostie in the wires. It’s been quietly collecting biometric traffic and system behavior information ever since.

Now it’s going to do exactly what we created it to do—make Jace look like a trusted associate of Aragundi’s, so we can get past security. I scan the heat map once more as Jace flips open the cover for the fingerprint scanner. I’ve already loaded Aragundi’s print to the reader using the spoof relay, and my finger hovers over the enter key as Jace’s gloved hand nears the fingerprint scanner.

The moment Jace touches his finger to it, I press Enter to accept the fingerprint as valid. I think everyone in the room is holding their breath just like Jace and I are. The moment the fingerprint scanner lights up green, we let out a collective breath.

“Okay,” I say through my comms, bringing up the retina spoof, “time to dazzle the scanner with your windows to the soul.” Timing on these is everything. If I’m off by even a half-second, the system will flag it as a breach. I watch Jace’s glasses cam as the scanner does its thing, and I press Enter the same moment it finishes.

A second green light appears, and I can feel the adrenaline coursing through me, clarifying my focus as Jace brushes the ring that’s been spoofed to mimic Aragundi’s against the proximity sensor on the side of the door frame. The door unlocks with a hiss.

“Boom!” I say as Jace walks in, closing the door behind him. We made it in, but there is no time to celebrate. We’ve got work to do. “Head to the center rack—row three, second bay. That’s the control core. No sudden movements or the temperature sensors might flag you as a ‘non-whitelisted presence.’”

Aragundi is an important take-down because he’s got his fingers in so many pies. And one of them deals with the fencing of priceless artifacts and aiding in antiquities trafficking. Ancient objects have been getting stolen in large numbers while being transported, usually from archaeological sites to museums or from one museum to another. We’ve found a few buyers of individual pieces and a few of the couriers, but we haven’t been able to find the person behind it all. We haven’t even figured out who it is.

But we think that among the information about Aragundi’s criminal empire, we’ll find more information about the thefts and smuggling. Possibly even the identity of the person orchestrating it all.

When Jace gets to the core, I say, “Okay, insert the jammer first. Move to the left a bit…” I’m squinting to find what I’m looking for. “There! That green port on the far left.”

Jace inserts the signal jammer, and I say, “That buys us twelve minutes of blackout.” Now, if anyone off-site tries to ping the system, they’ll think the yacht hit a dead zone. Which is super important when you know the bad guys will just shut down the system remotely if they catch wind of you tampering with it.

And that would be bad. First, because Interpol is moments away from a raid to capture Aragundi, and we don’t want him getting any advance warning. And second, because before he’s captured, we want to get that information about the antiquities smuggling, the buyers, and the guy at the top, and we want to take down Aragundi’s entire network so it won’t live on even without him. And taking it down will surely alert his off-site computer geeks, so we have to get this timing perfect.

Things are getting intense. I feel it. Everyone in this room feels it. Based on Jace’s heart rate, he’s feeling it, too.

“Okay, the jammer is live. Drop the download drive in that port to the right.” This sucker’s pulling everything—contacts, transfers, asset routing, call logs, shipment manifests, museum transport schedules, even grocery lists if they’re in their system.

A progress bar lights up. 12%, 29%, 41%…

Jace’s heart rate is still a little high, so I start talking to help ease the tension. “If you were wondering, this part of the plan is officially called Operation: Don’t Let Aragundi’s Evil Influence Carry On Even After He’s Gone.”

“If this doesn’t work—” Jace says.

The bar ticks past 70%.

“It’s going to work. Remember when we were kids and I rigged the backyard with trip wires, and you still made it to the tree fort with the intel? It’s going to work just like that did.”

“Even the bee sting extraction part?”

I laugh. “Even the bee sting extraction.” The progress bar reaches 95%, but as it is counting up, our twelve-minute window is counting down. “Get the virus drive ready. When I say go, pull out the download drive and put the virus drive in the back slot. Not the blue one. Stick it in there, and the whole bay shuts down before the virus releases.” I keep my eyes on the download timer until it gets to 100%. “And…go!”

Everyone in the room watches as the progress bar on the virus ticks up, so I narrate. “Erasing mirrors, corrupting backups, frying the OS… It’s basically lighting this place on fire with code.” Oh! Because I’m on fire. See? “He’s going to feel this.”

“It’s nice to know that when Interpol drags Aragundi off this yacht,” Jace says, “his empire goes with him.”

“Interpol is on their way,” my mom, the CSA director, says.

Aragundi’s computer geeks are going to discover there’s nothing left and know what we did any minute now, which means they’ll notify their boss moments after. We don’t want them to get that chance.

“And, it’s done! Now, unless you want a front-row seat to your own arrest or capture, you need to get out of there now.”

I watch Jace’s glasses cam and the heat map as I direct him through the maze of corridors and up out of the belly of the ship, trying to keep him away from obstacles as Kella remotely guides the eVTOL to the yacht’s helipad. It’s what will ferry Jace away to safety.

As Jace ascends the stairs to the main deck, I frantically scan the dozens of people I see on the heat map. “Oh, monkey bolts! A hornet’s nest has been overturned.” I am checking ship schematics against heat maps, looking for any way to get him to the extraction point, but all paths up are blocked. There isn’t one. I can’t even get him to the upper deck, let alone the top deck.

“Jace, there isn’t a way to get you to either of the other two decks. You’re going to have to leave from the deck you’re on.”

Jace is looking casual as he strolls through the crowds of people, heading in the general direction of the stairs leading up, when he sees an officer blocking them and takes a quick left. “You’re just going to send a passenger drone right here, to where all the people are?”

I look over at Kella. She nods. “Have him jump. I’ll catch him.”

I relay the message to Jace.

“She’ll…catch me?”

“Tell him not to worry,” Kella says. “I’m the reigning Microsoft Flight Simulator champion.”

I mute my comms and ask, “Like, worldwide?”

Kella shakes her head. “Against my brother.”

I unmute and say to Jace, “She seems confident.”

I glance at the director, and she nods.

“Okay, then,” Jace says, “let’s do this.”

I guide both Jace and Kella to the side of the ship furthest from where Interpol is pouring aboard. When Jace looks over the edge of the ship toward the water, everyone in this room can see the drone soaring toward him. He climbs up onto the bulwark, waits a beat as the drone nears, and then he jumps overboard.

All of us, me included, hold our breath as he falls. My eyes keep flicking between Kella, whose sole focus is on manning the drone, and the video I’m getting from Jace’s glasses. Kella does, indeed, manage to catch Jace on top of the cabin and swoops him away.

A few quick minutes later, seconds after we get word that Interpol successfully captured Callid Aragundi, Jace and the drone land at Héliport de Monaco, where he’s going to get into a CSA helicopter and start heading toward home. The operations room here at the CSA erupts in applause. And, honestly, relief. Aragundi has been on Most Wanted lists worldwide for ages. After so much tireless work, we just took him down.

I am so relieved that it’s Jace they’re cheering for, and that they’re all looking at the big screens as they’re cheering. He’s the one who will get credit for the mission, which is just how I like it. With me, not in the spotlight, just executing everything in the background like a boss. I take a moment to revel in the win.

And, since Monaco is six hours ahead of us, we’ll all be home in time for dinner. Well, except for Jace.

I meticulously plan for every possibility in every mission. But not all of them go this smoothly. Sometimes one doesn’t, and I have to mask a helicopter extraction with a symphony flash mob or remotely reprogram a smart refrigerator to send out a false distress signal to distract some guards. But when it does go this smoothly?

I definitely feel like I am on fire.

***

I step into my apartment after work, and the first thing I notice is water. “No, no, no!” I say as I drop my bag and keys by the door and race over to the big puddle on the floor of my kitchen, right in front of my sink. I fling open the cabinet doors but can’t immediately find the source of the water. I race up the stairs to the bathroom and grab all the bath towels, then run back downstairs and start laying them on the puddle.

At work, I may feel like I’m on fire, but at home, I usually feel like I’m drowning. Real life and I don’t get along so well. Somehow, a water leak right now feels appropriate. So maybe my elements are fire and water. Fire by day, flood by night.

I pull out my phone, my finger hovering over my family group chat. No, I decided I was going to stop running to my mom or my brothers whenever I need help. I am going to get better at figuring things out on my own.

That had been my plan. Right now, my plan doesn’t feel like the best idea ever. But still, I manage to not text my family and instead tap on my browser and type in What do I do if my kitchen is leaking?

Maybe it’s because I’m so flustered right now, but nothing I’m seeing feels like it makes sense. But I do get the gist that I need to turn off the water to my place, find the source of the leak, and clean up the mess.

Not only can I not find the shutoff valve (I have a great need to always be prepared in case of emergency, so I have no idea how I overlooked learning this detail when I moved in), but I also can’t find the source of the leak.

I’m in the middle of pulling out everything from the cabinet under my sink when my roommate, Reese, comes home. She’s hanging her keys and her Cipher Springs Middle School lanyard on the hook when she says, “Got a sudden urge to clean enthusiastically?”

Then, she must notice that I’m still in work clothes, the bottom half of my slacks are soaked from kneeling in the water, my sleeves are pushed up to my elbows, and I probably look as rattled as I feel. She rushes over. “It’s leaking?”

“Yes. I just can’t figure out from where.” I’ve got the cabinet emptied, but none of the pipes I can see are the culprit. Reese sticks her head in, too, but can’t find anything.

Then both of our heads turn in the direction of the front of our house as we hear the now familiar sound of our new neighbor’s truck pulling in.

Reese grabs my shoulder. “You should go ask Owen to come and look at it! He’s in construction. He probably knows just what to do.”

I shake my head as I stand, hands on my hips, as I look down at the water mess that is continuing to grow. “We’ll figure something else out.”

Reese is silent for a beat, so I look over at her. She gives me a sly smile. “You know, they have therapists you can talk to about your fear of people.”

“I don’t have a fear of people! I just don’t like all their attention on me.”

“So it’s a vulnerability thing.”

“Which makes it just your run-of-the-mill human nature issue. No big deal.”

Reese must not like my plan of figuring something else out because she walks straight to our front door. I follow because I’m curious about what she’s going to do. She opens the front door, waves, and calls out, “Hi, Owen! Perfect timing.”

And then she gives me a push out the door.

Owen

I pull off one of my work gloves and wipe my forehead with the back of my hand before I move to the next seat in the historical theater we’re restoring. My guys and I have a good assembly line going. They unbolt the chair, remove the armrests, and pull off the seat and back cushions before it comes to me. Then I inspect it for wood rot, broken springs, rusted fasteners, and the status of the upholstery before bagging and tagging, and another of my guys hauls it off to the appropriate storage container for restoration.

We do it all to some of my favorite sounds—the whine of a power saw, the screech of a nail being removed, the groan of a bolt being turned for the first time in over a century, the whir of a power drill. They’re the sounds of exciting things happening.

I flinch when I hear a clatter and a muffled curse before twisting to see a strip of molding fall to the ground and break into pieces. “Oops,” Luis says as he climbs down his ladder.

“Careful,” I say, “this molding is older than your great-grandma.”

“She was one tough lady,” Luis says. “She probably would’ve told it not to be so brittle.”

I shake my head, chuckling. I found a manufacturer who can match the design of the molding exactly, and their work is beautiful. So we’ll get this place looking like its old, glorious self, only without all the wood rot.

A bit of movement draws my eyes up to one of the ornate balcony boxes, and I squint. It was probably a mouse. Again. Luckily, we’ve finished all of the foundation stabilizing, roof repairs, window replacing, and fixing most of the masonry work on the outside of the building. Except for days like today when we’ve got doors open to the outside to haul out the seats, we’ve got this building all closed up, so we shouldn’t have a problem for too much longer.

“We should name them,” I say. “The mice. Like tiny theater goers.”

“That one in box two is definitely a Harold,” Grady says as he removes an armrest.

As I finish up with a seat, I stand to give my back a stretch and give my old knee injury a break. I look at this theater that’s been around for more than 112 years, at the high, arched ceiling with its medallions, the hand-carved posts piled against the wall, waiting to be stripped and refinished. The ghosts of chandeliers long gone. The way the afternoon light hits the curved back wall, the delicate relief work just waiting to be uncovered after a century of aging.

It all makes me feel the familiar flicker that I love. This place is going to be beautiful again—I can see it already. Even if no one else can.

I don’t notice Luis coming up behind me until he says, “It’s starting to come alive again.”

I nod. “She’s waking up.”

“You really do love this part, don’t you?”

There’s so much potential in broken things. It’s hard not to love it. I shrug and say, “Everyone deserves a comeback. Even buildings.”

From where he’s working to free a bolt connecting one of the seats to the floor, Trent says, “Does your opinion on putting down roots deserve a comeback, too? Because I think Cipher Springs would grow on you if you gave it a chance.”

I chuckle and give him a practiced smile. Then I reach out and run my hand gently along the edge of a plaster medallion on the front of the stage, feeling the bumps of its ornate design beneath my fingertips.

Don’t get too comfortable.

That’s my rule. My very firm rule. I’ll be here, restoring The Shadowridge for maybe eight months. Then it’s packing tape, a new zip code, and a new project for me. That’s what the job is. That’s what my agreement with myself is. Well, with myself and with the contract I signed to restore a historic train station in Philadelphia as soon as I’m done here.

I look up again at the faded velvet of the balcony boxes and the light filtering through the upper windows. I might not stick around to enjoy it, but this place is going to be beautiful again.

***

I pull into my driveway, and the moment I get out of my car, I look at the townhome connected to mine on the left, just as one of my neighbors, Reese, waves, says hi, and pushes her roommate, Charlie, out the front door. They’re both looking at me, Reese with a pleased expression and Charlie with a shocked one.

“Hi,” I say as I start walking up our common sidewalk before it splits off to our separate stairs. “I’m not used to having a welcoming committee.”

Charlie laughs nervously, and I smile. I like Charlie. Ever since the first time I met her, I’ve found myself smiling whenever she’s around.

“We, uh, have a water leak,” she says. “I know you’re just getting home from spending all day doing things like this,”—she shoots Reese a look—“but do you mind checking it out?”

Do I mind assisting someone who needs my help? Especially if that help is something I’m skilled at and gives me a chance to be impressive in front of a woman I’m attracted to? No, no, I do not mind. “Lead the way. I’ve been battling legions of dust all day, so a water mystery will be a nice change.”

We walk into their townhome, and I can immediately see that the layout is an exact mirror image of mine. I’ve only been living in mine for a little over six weeks, and I don’t plan to stay long-term, so the walls are as plain as the day I moved in. This place, though, is instantly warm and welcoming. Plus, it smells good. And here I am, bringing the scent of old wood, a whole lot of dust, a hundred years of stories, and my best attempt to do them justice with me. But it’s not like I can say, “Hang on. Let me go shower and get smelling nice first.”

We head past what I know are the laundry room and a bathroom on the right and the backside of a flight of stairs on the left on our way to the kitchen. I’m guessing Charlie and Reese came home and discovered the leak not long before I pulled up, because it looks like they are in the middle of cleaning up the water. A few soaking wet bath towels are spread on the floor, and a couple of smaller towels are draped over the divider between both sinks. The doors to the cabinet beneath the sink are open, and it looks like everything normally stored there has been moved to the countertop.

“Sorry about the mess,” Charlie says as she moves the towels to the sink and grabs an unused one from the counter to dry the floor in front of the cabinet.

“It’s okay,” I say as I kneel down in front of the sink. “This is what a water leak looks like.” There isn’t an obvious leak from the water lines or the drainage pipe, so I grab another towel from the stack and dry the water lines leading from the hot and cold shut-off valves to the faucet. I give it a moment, and then I test the lines—they’re completely dry. I check, and they hadn’t already turned off the valves here, so if it was from these lines, they’d still be leaking.

I pull my head out from under the sink to see that water is slowly seeping from under the cabinet onto the floor where Charlie had just dried. I look up at the two women. “Do you want the good news or the bad news first?”

“Bad,” Charlie says, biting her lip. “No, good.”

I stand. “Well, those flexible, braided stainless steel supply lines are in good shape. So are your drain pipes. The shut-off valves look good, too.”

Both Charlie and Reese nod warily, just waiting for the “but.” And it’s a big one that’s hitting me at least as hard as it’s going to be hitting them in about two seconds.

“But that means that the leak is either in the wall or coming from my side.” My kitchen sink and theirs are back-to-back, connected to the same wall that separates our townhomes.

Reese’s eyes go wide, and Charlie gasps, a hand flying to her mouth. As they both stand there, stunned, I ask, “Can I go into your laundry room to shut off the water to the house?”

“Yes, of course,” Charlie says as she hurries back toward the front door, I’m assuming to open the door to their washroom. Instead, she races inside first. I come in just as I see she’s flinging a few items of clothing into a laundry basket that’s sitting on top of her washer.

I smile, just thinking of the first time we met. Her washer had been broken, so she’d gone to the Laundromat and washed her laundry there, then brought the wet clothes back home in a couple of garbage bags to dry them in her dryer. One of the bags caught on a rose bush by our sidewalk, and as I pulled into the driveway, she was leaving a trail of clothes, all Hansel-and-Gretel-breadcrumb-like behind her, including a few unmentionables.

I can tell by the blush on Charlie’s cheeks that she’s thinking of the same thing. If nothing else, the incident had given me a chance to introduce myself to my ridiculously cute neighbor.

I open the panel in the wall, shut off the valve, and then the three of us head out of their townhome, down their steps, and up the steps to mine. And as we do, I start wishing I’d washed that pan I’d cooked eggs in this morning, along with the plate and fork I used. Maybe wiped down the counter and scrubbed my sink. Is it weird that I’m hoping for water on my floor to distract them from things I haven’t cleaned?

The second we get to my kitchen, which is an exact mirror image of Charlie’s and Reese’s, we spot water. This time, both Charlie and Reese gasp. The puddle is a good five feet wide.

I run my hands over my face. I take my desire for a distraction back—I’m no longer hoping for water. I open the doors to my under-the-sink cabinet. It’s clear it’s not coming from my hot and cold water supply lines, which means it is coming from the wall.

I step up to the puddle, stopping right before my boot touches the puddle so I have a marker to make it easier to tell if the size of the puddle is increasing, and I make myself stay still for a good thirty seconds as I watch. Slowly but surely, it gets bigger.

I hurry to my washroom, grateful that Charlie and Reese didn’t follow, because with the load of laundry I’ve got waiting to go in, the room also smells like hard work and buildings that refuse to quit, and I turn off the water to my townhome.

When I go back out to the kitchen, Reese is on the phone with our landlord, explaining the problem. I paste on a smile and say to Charlie, “Well, I have more potentially good news for you. It looks like the pipe coming to my side of the wall is leaking, which means that yours likely isn’t. So you might be able to turn your water back on tonight without it causing any problems.”

Charlie is looking at me with what I can only describe as a relieved grimace. I’m guessing the relieved part is for her situation, and the grimace is for mine. From what I’m hearing on Reese’s end of the line, it sounds like the landlord is going to get someone on it quickly.

So I paste on a smile and say, “I’m sure it’ll be fixed in no time. And don’t worry about me—I can shower off the scent of ‘restoration grit with a side of progress’ at the gym.”

Charlie

Right now, three things are making me sing along at the top of my lungs to the car radio. I’m adding dancing in my seat at every stoplight, too.

One: I’ve got a box of lemon lavender cookies on the seat next to me from the cutest little bakery.

Two: Right now at work, we’re in the calm between storms. Which means storm prep, for sure, as we work through all the data we downloaded from Aragundi’s servers. Being a good intelligence operative means being adaptable, and the only way an operative can really shine at being adaptable is if the person behind the scenes running things—me—has over-prepared. But storm prep also means that I get off at a very predictable time.

And three: Workers showed up at my townhome to get the water leak fixed before I even left for work this morning. I’m a little freaked out to have people working in my apartment when no one is there, but at least everything should be ready to go for the get-together with friends that I’m hosting in a few minutes.

When I get home, I have to park out front. The Lord of the Leaks truck, with its cartoon plumber wearing a crown, is gone. But a truck with the name Demo Daydreams is parked in my spot in the driveway. This cannot be good. Especially since it means I had workers in my home that I hadn’t even met (or vetted) before I left for work this morning.

I grab my box of cookies and head up to my front door. As soon as I open it, I know something is off. Not only am I hearing voices I don’t recognize, but everything just sounds weird and echoey. I walk past my laundry room and bathroom to where I can see the kitchen fully, and I gasp, one hand flying to my mouth, eyes wide. My kitchen wall is gone!

The cabinet below my sink, as well as the cabinets on either side of it and the two upper cabinets in the same area, are in the space to the side of my living room, stacked by my small table and on my chairs. The countertop has been removed, too, and it’s lying face down across my table, both ends going out well beyond my table, the upside-down sink, along with part of its pipe, just sticking up like a periscope on a turtle’s back.

And not only is the Sheetrock missing on my side of the wall, but it’s missing on Owen’s side, too, so I can see right into his townhome. I hadn’t seen Reese pull up, but she rushes in only seconds later and joins me in gasping and staring in horror.

Two workers—one in his mid-thirties and one who looks twenty—are busy taking down the last of the wall on Owen’s side, and as soon as the older one sees me, he steps between the upright wood pieces of the wall’s frame to come to my side. “Things look a little different than when you last saw it, huh?”

“What happened?” I ask.

“Your plumbers had to cut into the wall to get to the broken pipe, and when they did, they found water damage. That’s when they called us.”

“And so you decided to take out the whole wall?” Reese asks.

“Not the whole wall,” the man says. “We’re leaving the frame. And it’s better this way, trust me. You’ll want this fully fixed, not just covered with a bandage that’ll cause problems later.”

“I have people coming over any minute,” I say, my voice coming out more like a squeak.

As if being summoned by the words “people coming,” Owen walks warily into his townhome, taking in the destruction with a shocked look on his face that mirrors my own.

“Oh, and there’s our other occupant! I was just explaining to your neighbor that we had to take out the wall because of water damage.”

When Owen’s eyes cut to the side, I notice for the first time that he’s got a pile of cabinets and a stretch of countertop on his table, just like I do.

The man turns back to me. “I’m Leandro, by the way. This is Josh. And having guests over is no problem. You won’t even know we’re here. And look—your landlord left jugs of water for you. We’re close to finishing up for the day, but we’ll get some plastic sheeting up before we go.”

“Plastic sheeting?” I say, not believing I’m actually hearing any of this.

“Yep! It’ll basically be a wall. It’ll be fine.”

Owen and I are staring at each other. I’m feeling a mix of commiseration that we’re both in this scenario that I never could’ve guessed we’d be in just twenty-four hours ago, and feeling incredibly exposed. When surrounded by your home’s walls, having your next-door neighbor (who is also surrounded by his home’s walls), being able to see you, is just wrong.

I don’t get much more than about two seconds to take it in, though, before a knock sounds at my door. Reese takes the box of cookies from me, and I walk in a daze to open the door for my sister-in-law-to-be, Mackenzie, her best friend, Livi, and who I’m convinced will eventually be another sister-in-law, Zoe. They are each holding a big box containing everything we need to put together the wedding favors for Mackenzie’s and my brother Jace’s wedding. I just say, “Come in.” No need to explain—they’re about to experience it.

The moment they reach the kitchen, they all freeze, mid-step.

“Charlie!” Livi says. “Why does your kitchen look like it lost a fight with a wrecking ball?” Then she turns to me. “Was it the Kool-Aid Man?”

The guy in charge waves. “It’s a fun and unexpected twist, isn’t it? You ladies just go about whatever you have planned. Pretend we’re invisible.”

As I’m directing my friends around the construction mess to put their boxes on my coffee table, Owen starts talking with the construction worker. I keep sneaking peeks at him. He’s dressed in a T-shirt and well-worn work jeans, and has a carpenter’s pencil tucked behind one ear and a tool belt slung low on his hips. His boots are dusty, and there’s a smudge of drywall powder on one forearm and a streak of something—possibly caulk?—on his bicep. Based on the faint white flecks in his hair and the thin layer of sawdust clinging to his shirt, I’m guessing he was cutting or sanding something at work today. He just looks… I don’t know. Manly and adorable at the same time.

He must feel me looking because his eyes shift to me, and it feels like he’s seeing right into me. I duck down behind the cabinets that are piled up beside my kitchen table. Do you know what? A bandage over the problem sounds way better than “fully fixed.” Let’s just go ahead and put my wall back up. What’s a little water leak? That’s what buckets are for, right?

I have got to somehow overcome my instinct to duck. It’s not as if Owen—and everyone else in the room—didn’t see me do it. So while I’m down here, I pick up a little chunk of Sheetrock that they missed when hauling out our old wall and stand, pretending that was all I was crouched down on the floor for. Then I go to toss it into the garbage and join the others around the coffee table.

Mackenzie is taking things out of boxes, explaining how we’re putting together seed packets. She’s got craft envelopes, seeds to scoop into them, a hole punch, ribbon, a stamp for one side that has their names and wedding date, and a stamp for the other side that reads, The beginning of something beautiful.

The whole time we work, I keep sneaking peeks at Owen through our suddenly open-concept neighbor situation as he goes in and out of the kitchen area. Whenever he’s not visible, I feel both immense relief at having eyes off me and a little touch of letdown that I can’t just, you know, see him while I’m in the middle of doing something that has nothing at all to do with him. Which is weird, but I have to admit that I do like seeing his face.

I look again, right when he’s looking at me. And I don’t duck! I do look away quickly, as one does, but I still think I just scored one for me.

We are all chatting, stamping, and filling seed packets when Leandro and Josh get to the point of putting up the sheeting. I was wondering if the sheeting Leandro said they’d install might be hard plastic sheeting. Like Plexiglas, except solid instead of see-through.

But nope. He was talking about the kind that’s as bendy as fabric and comes on a big roll. They roll out a section long enough to cover the open area left to right, then unfold the sheeting and staple it to the wood frame at the top, adding a few staples to the side, too. I’m getting pretty nervous because although the sheeting isn’t transparent, it is translucent—barely—and I can see body shapes on Owen’s side. Which means he can see them on my side, too.

This feels like such a security breach. And not just that, but a security breach designed to poke at my specific insecurities. I take a deep breath. I can handle this. I can.

They add the sheeting to Owen’s side of the wall, too, and I pretend that I can’t see exactly where everything is on his side of the wall. The two men clean up, and then the one in charge comes over to tell us that they’re finished and leaving for the night. Then, just before he turns to leave, he says, “We’ll see you again bright and early on Monday morning. Have a great weekend!”

Reese and I turn to each other. “Monday?” she says.

“We have to go all weekend with a fake wall?” I’m trying not to panic.

“It probably won’t be too bad,” Zoe says. “It almost feels like an actual wall. I had blankets hung instead of walls in one place I lived as a kid.”

I can handle this.

“I still can’t believe they took out the whole wall,” Livi says.

Reese nods. “Well, their name does suggest they dream about doing demo. Otherwise, their company name would be Restoration Daydreams.”

“Maybe they should rename it Open Concept Daydreams.” Mackenzie spreads her hands like she’s picturing it on their van.

Zoe says, “I think they should’ve named it Collateral Damage Daydreams.”

“Or Oops-All-Demo,” Livi says.

The hostess in me hates that the disaster surrounding us happened on the same day as this get-together, but I’m glad everyone is here, talking and laughing about it. I might be freaking out right now if they weren’t. Or, I might be freaking out more. I still am a bit.

Can Owen hear us talk? He might be able to, which would be more than I can handle. Although the double layer of the plastic is probably enough to muffle sounds. Plus, I can see shadows on Owen’s side enough to tell when he’s in the room, and he’s currently not.

Livi is Mackenzie’s best friend, and I’m Mackenzie’s best (and only) sister-in-law. She asked both of us to be co-maids-of-honor, which is great because Livi is fun and doesn’t mind being in the spotlight. Plus, the girl has an almost magical ability to never let a bad boyfriend experience dampen her enthusiasm for hunting down her Mr. Right. And oh, boy, has she had some doozies when it comes to bizarre boyfriend experiences.

Eventually, the conversation turns to guys, and I peek over at the plastic wall. I don’t see any Owen-shaped blobs, so I think we’re good. Livi tells us about how she and a guy she’s been dating had plans to go walk around a park where a bunch of artists were painting. Before they got there, though, he asked if they could go to the hardware store instead. “And he pulled out his growly voice to ask, so of course, my resolve turned to jelly and we went to the hardware store.”

“Ah, yes, the growly voice,” Reese says. “Gets me every time.”

Zoe shakes her head. “Not me. I’m immune.”

“I’ve met Ledger,” Livi says, “and he seems like the kind of guy who’d have a great growly voice, so I don’t buy that for one second.”

“What’s the growly voice?” I ask. Surely I can’t be the only one who doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

“It’s when they use that deep, kind of gravelly voice that’s also kind of sultry.” Livi clears her throat, then says, “Like this,” which is kind of deep and gravelly but not at all sultry, especially when you factor in the waggling of the eyebrows that she’s doing.

“No,” Reese says, and then changes her voice, “it’s more like this.”

We’re each trying to pull off the growly voice and all failing, but we’re all laughing so much that it makes me forget about how exposed I’m feeling when it comes to my neighbor.

“Does Jace ever use the growly voice?” Zoe asks Mackenzie.

I’m not at all sure I want to know this information about my brother.

Mackenzie gives a sly smile and says, “Why do you think I said yes to marrying him?”

Maybe it’s from doing the same task over and over as we make these, but we’ve all apparently reached the stage where everything is funny, and I find myself laughing just picturing it. And, of course, talking about Jace and Mackenzie brings up the subject of the wedding that’s happening in just two weeks.

“Who are you taking to the wedding?” Zoe asks Reese.

“Miles and I are playing the best friend card and taking each other. I’m not dating anyone right now, and he doesn’t want to bring a woman he’s only going to take on one date to a big family event, so it works out perfectly for both of us.

“Oh, but it was so funny. We had gone out to lunch, and just as he was taking a drink of his soda, I asked, ‘Hey, do you want to be my date for the wedding,’ and he nearly choked on his soda! I was like ‘Relax, big guy. No one is trying to endanger your prized bachelor status.’ It was the greatest. I think I really had him going for a second.”

Then, of course, Mackenzie asks me, “Do you know who your plus-one is, yet?”

No. No, I do not. “I haven’t figured out if I want to bring someone. I’m not sure I even want to date at all right now.” I say it casually, like it’s not stressing me out in the least, even though it totally is. I’m thinking of just telling her to seat me at the single table.

“You should ask Owen!” Reese says.

I motion for her to keep her voice down while we’re without a wall.

“You should,” Mackenzie adds in a (thankfully) quieter voice. “I’ve seen that look on your face every time your eyes land on him.”

“And make all of this…” I motion at our lack of a wall, “even more awkward?” Being seen—either through a wall or because someone like Owen has X-ray eyes that feel like they can see into a soul—feels unsafe. “‘Hey, Neighbor,’” I say in some voice that just comes out weird. “‘Since we can see what’s going on in each other’s place, what do you say to dating, too?’ Yeah, that’s not going to happen.”

Reese shakes her head slowly. “I just don’t understand you.”

Without even taking her eyes off the ribbon she’s trying to tie, Zoe says, as if it’s nothing, “It’s because she was kidnapped as a preschooler. That kind of thing has long-term effects.” Then Zoe looks up, notices everyone’s reactions, and says, “Oh, do we not talk about that?”

“No, it’s okay,” I say. I wouldn’t have brought it up, but it’s not that big of a deal. “But that’s not what’s going on here—I mean, the kidnapping happened over two decades ago!”

Zoe raises an eyebrow and goes back to tying the bow.

“You were kidnapped?” both Reese and Livi say nearly in unison. Yeah, I guess I really don’t bring it up.

“Why?” Reese asks. “For money?”

I shake my head. “They wanted information from my dad.”

“Information?” Livi asks. “From someone with a business solutions company? What information did they need? Steps on creating a spreadsheet?”

I laugh just picturing things through Livi’s eyes. Her best friend, Mackenzie, knows all about the Clandestine Services Agency and our cover as Lancaster Business Solutions because my brother told her. I mean, I guess it’s important information to know before you marry a guy. Mackenzie swore she’ll never tell the secret to another living person, and based on Livi’s reaction, it’s clear she’s kept her word. Of course, being obsessed with spy movies has probably made it easier for Mackenzie to cover for any minor slip-ups.

Reese doesn’t know about the agency or that our “family business” and my job as an IT systems coordinator are covers, either. Zoe does, of course, since she works for the CIA and has had a lot of mission crossovers with my brother, Ledger. That was how they met. But she can keep a secret with the best of them.

I don’t talk about my kidnapping often. I have before, though, so I know the cover story to use well. “No, not spreadsheets. Our company has secure servers that house sensitive data from our clients’ companies. The kidnappers wanted him to turn over information belonging to our clients that they didn’t want shared.” It’s not exactly the truth, but it’s close enough.

“Okay,” Reese says, looking like she’s still working through details, “I guess I kind of see how that relates to feeling exposed when you’re in the spotlight.”

I really don’t want to get into this in more detail with Reese right now, in front of everyone. So, instead of letting her continue to think about it and come to conclusions that don’t have anything to do with anything, I redirect. “I’m fine having eyes on me—it’s not that.” Okay, it’s definitely part that. It just isn’t related to the kidnapping. “And I have nothing against dating. I date for fun all the time. But I don’t feel like I’m old enough for a serious relationship. I’m only twenty-four.”

“Almost twenty-five,” Reese cuts in.

“Plus,” I say in a voice I’m sure is low enough that it won’t carry, “I’m the youngest of six, and Jace is my first brother to get married. So I’ve got four brothers older than me who aren’t getting married yet. It’s not my time.”

“Whoa, girl,” Livi says. “Who’s saying anything about getting married? We’re just talking about going out with the guy.”

“Oh, I know. It’s just that we’ve established that it’s not going to end in marriage, which means, eventually, there’ll be a breakup and much awkwardness. You know how things are with an ex! Now, imagine if he lived next door.” I can tell by everyone’s flinch that they get it.

“But for the record,” Mackenzie says, “I think you’re plenty old enough for a serious relationship.”

“Thanks. I think I don’t feel like I am because everybody else seems to have everything figured out, and I just… don’t. I mean, you’ve seen my life.” I gesture at our kitchen. “It’s kind of got the flooding theme going on. I’m not good at any part of it, including relationships—they all kind of crash and burn.” I pause. “Wait. That doesn’t really go with the flooding theme… They all capsize. Like Ty! And I don’t want to date our neighbor, deep six our relationship, then have to see him daily.”

Reese shakes her head. “Ty can’t be used as evidence because you didn’t deep-six your relationship with him. That relationship flopped like a dead fish all on its own. It was obvious from the start it was going to happen because he wasn’t a good fit.”

Livi tilts her head. “Is he the guy who thought your nickname for Charlotte should be Chuck instead of Charlie?”

“That’s the one.”

“Owen, though?” Reese says. “He seems like a good fit. Plus, he’s super cute.”

“He is. And maybe someday, when I get life things figured out more, he might be a good fit. He isn’t right now.”

***

Saturday morning, I stumble my way down the stairs from my room after staying up way too late laughing and chatting with the girls, and then convincing Reese to inspect our place with me. We had workers in our house all day—two different sets of them. One could’ve left the doors unlocked when leaving for lunch, and someone snuck in. And yes, after Reese went to bed, I used my equipment to sweep the place for bugs because any of them could’ve planted one of those, too. It’s better to be safe than sorry.

The only reason I’m up already and wearing running shoes is that I’d already promised Reese I’d go jogging with her, and the girl has a magical ability to wake up at the same time, regardless of when she went to bed.

I’m most of the way down the stairs before I remember the state of my kitchen. And more importantly, my kitchen wall. At least our landlord left us water. The cabinet that holds the water glasses is on the floor by my table, so I crouch down to open it and grab a glass.

As I’m pouring water from the jug into my glass, I hear Reese coming down the stairs at the same time that my attention is pulled to the plastic sheeting. I can see the blob that is Owen coming toward his kitchen, and I can hear something. After a second or two, I realize he’s listening to a podcast on his phone.

Then he gets even closer to where his kitchen cabinets usually are, and I realize I can hear every word of his podcast. Every. Single. Word.

I turn with wide eyes to Reese just as she gets to the bottom of the stairs and point frantically toward our plastic sheeting wall. I mouth, I think he could hear everything we said last night!

Her eyes go wide, too. Probably thinking about how very much we talked about Owen.

She doesn’t say anything—she just follows my lead and gets a glass from the floor cabinet, pours herself some water, and drinks it, looking cute in her navy and honey yellow running outfit and her navy glasses with the little honeycombs on the sides. Then she nods toward the front door. Yes. Let’s wait until we’re out of this space where Owen can hear everything to talk about it.

Except he has managed to get outside even before us. He’s about ten steps ahead of us, heading toward his truck, when we step out onto our porch. He hears me pull our door shut and turns as we’re walking down our steps.

He gives us a nod and then says in a growly voice, “Good morning,” before he gets into his truck and pulls out of the driveway.

Reese nods as she watches him back up. Then she turns to me. “Yep. He definitely heard us.”

My face is flaming hot.

But I’ve got to admit, my friends were right—that growly voice is definitely irresistible.