The Wrong Way to Rock Bottom | UPDATES Fri/Mon

36

He doesn't make me wait long. The next day, I'm in the laundry room when I hear Jamie call my name. His voice interrupts the daydream I'm having about my future electrician boyfriend Giuseppi. Giuseppi, a short Italian with dark hair and impeccable fashion sense, is my new ideal: he's Jamie's polar opposite, and he's wise to all the mysteries of the fuse box in front of me. In my favorite fantasy, he sets up an EMP pulse that knocks out all the electricity in the house right when Jamie's about to turn on his power saw. Then we have a romantic candlelit dinner while Jamie weeps bitterly in the background.

Sadly, since Giuseppi and I haven't found each other yet, it's down to me to make this dream a reality. If only I knew a single thing about fuse boxes.

"Lissa!"

Jamie calls my name the second time, and I decide to take the out. I can blame him for my failure—clearly I was just another two minutes away from a breakthrough—and tonight I'll log onto Reddit to ask Barney's friends what might have made the power in his house go out and not be able to be turned back on for days. That should give me a few ideas.

Ready to go off on him for interrupting my very important and productive work, I stomp out of the laundry room and into the hurricane disaster zone that is the living room. Jamie's redoing the drywall that got damaged in the bathroom flood, so everything is covered in tarps and a layer of white powder that has been the source of a lot of crack cocaine jokes. Across from that whole mess, the front door hangs open, and Jamie stands half on the front porch, half inside the house.

"You summoned, master?" I drawl.

He waves his hand impatiently. "Come here for a sec."

My warning bells go off. I've been expecting his revenge all morning, and this definitely smells fishy.

"No, thanks." I take one step backwards. "I'm good."

Jamie frowns. "What? Come on, it'll just be a second."

"No, no that's okay." Another slow, careful step.

Jamie lets out this frustrated huff, and before I can decide between fight or flight, he stalks over to me, grabs my good hand, and drags me all the way outside.

The sun blinds me so I can't see what he's pulling me towards. I'm squinting and defenseless, my whole body zinging with nervous energy, waiting for the blow to come. When Jamie finally stops and lets me go, I snap my arms up around my head to protect my face. If I'm going to die, I at least want to die pretty.

"What are you doing?"

I peek through my shield to see Jamie looking at me with clear you're being ridiculous energy. Slowly, I lower my arms. "Um. Nothing. Why did you bring me out here?"

"Jamie!"

A gorgeous woman dressed in a sharp blazer and jeans combo climbs out of the car I hadn't noticed parked in our driveway. Something about her strikes me as vaguely familiar, but it isn't until she's close enough to give Jamie a hug that it clicks.

"Priya?" I gape.

"Oh my goodness, Lissa!" Without hesitating, she leans forward and hugs me as well. "I can't believe how long it's been!"

"I can't believe you remember me." I hadn't seen her in the eight years since that one disastrous evening on Point Bridge, when Jamie and I had babysat a dementia patient. "That was so long ago!"

"It was a pretty memorable evening," she laughs. Somehow, she seems not to have aged at all, aside from the hint of crow's feet appearing around her eyes. "I won't lie, though, Jamie's the one who reminded me of your name."

"But..." I look between her and Jamie. They're not acting like two strangers who randomly happened to bump into each other again. They're acting like old friends. "Why are you here?"

"I called her." Jamie says it like it's obvious, and I suddenly remember the business card she handed us. I never used it. It hadn't occurred to me until this moment that he might have.

"You two kept in touch?"

"Not the whole time." Priya smiles a little wistfully. "We ran into each other at Mary's funeral."

"I'm so sorry," I say automatically. "I heard about that." I don't know why I feel like I have to explain my absence, but I do. "I was out of the country."

Priya waves this away. "Don't worry about it. Honestly, I was pretty shocked to see Jamie there, but then he told me he'd been visiting her at Golden Years."

I stare at Jamie. He never told me that. "You did?"

He shrugs. "Just dropped in every now and then."

"It was more than that," Priya says warmly, placing a hand on his shoulder. "It meant a lot to her."

It's so much to absorb at once. The fact that he was apparently checking in on Mary, the fact that he didn't mention it even when we were dating, and whatever his relationship is with Priya. I don't mean to let it show, but I think Priya can see my suspicions in my face.

"Jamie's been a godsend," she tells me. "My husband's on his second deployment, and with two boys at home and a full time job, property upkeep is just one more thing that gets overwhelming on my own. If it weren't for him, my yard would be so overgrown the Amazon delivery guy would never find us, and that would be a real tragedy." She laughs at her own joke, and I find myself relaxing. She's as nice as I remember. This isn't anywhere near the nuclear bomb I was prepared for.

"Well, I'm glad he asked you to come over," I tell her genuinely. "It's really nice to see you again."

"Priya's not here on a social call." Jamie slings an arm around her shoulder in a way that strikes me as almost brotherly, and then grins at me. "She's here to take some pictures."

The look he's giving me trips my warning system. In our mental battlefield, the lookout gives the high sign. Something's coming.

"Pictures?" I repeat warily. "Pictures for what?"

"For the article." Priya frowns. "Didn't he tell you?"

"I wanted it to be a surprise." Jamie winks at me, and I swear I hear a rifle shot.

"What article?" I'm trying to keep the panic out of my voice.

"The magazine I work for is doing an article on the house," Priya explains. "We like to do stories on historic houses in the Lake Ontario area, and when Jamie told me about this place, I convinced my boss we had to feature it. This issue gets published in August, so you'll probably have offers before the house is even finished!"

The missile goes off. I take shrapnel to the leg. General Lissa screams at the troops to return fire, but we've got no ammo. How did we miss this?

"But—the house is a mess," I stammer. "If you take pictures of our living room, the narcotics division is going to have a field day."

"We'll avoid the messy spots," Priya promises. "I just want to get some good shots of the historic aspects. Jamie says he's finished the outside, and he told me about this gorgeous staircase tower that I'm dying to look at." She starts up the front steps, and all I can do is watch helplessly as she walks through the front door. "Now, I hear this place has quite a story."

From behind me, Jamie leans down until his voice is almost directly in my ear, and whispers, "Touchdown." But he's got his metaphors all wrong. This isn't some silly sports game. This is war, and I'm bleeding out, while he's gaining territory by the second.

I consider refusing to help with the article, but then she'll get all her info from Jamie, and there's no way he'll tell this right. I can't let him butcher Aunt Meryem's legacy. With the reluctance of a sentenced prisoner, I follow Priya into the house.