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I tucked that offer away in the same mental drawer where I’d stored his number. The one labeled “things that feel too good to be real.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” I was smiling softly, as if Deadeye was standing right in front of me. He’d stayed with me through my panic, walked me through it, and sounded proud of my accomplishment, even though it was a tiny faucet fix.

A guy could get used to that feeling.

“Please do,” he said.

Mrs. Howell offered me tea again when I hung up. This time, I accepted. Sitting at her kitchen table with a chipped mug in my hands, I felt something unfamiliar settle inside of me. It might’ve been pride. It might’ve been relief. It was definitely the lingering warmth of Deadeye’s voice telling me I’d done a good job.

The sparkly shorts had survived their first crisis. So had I.

When I got back to my apartment that evening, I pulled out Deadeye’s number and stared at it for a long moment. Then I added it to my contacts. Under the name field, I typed: Hypothetical Help.

It felt appropriate.

The suit bag still lurked in my bedroom corner. My father’s dinner still loomed on the horizon. My bank account still hovered in the danger zone. But for the first time in weeks, something had gone right. Something I’d done myself—with help, but mostly myself—had actually worked.

I celebrated by eating cold pizza over the sink and not thinking about charcoal suits even once.

Chapter Three

Niles

For three days, I called Deadeye for help with maintenance problems I had no clue how to fix. A toilet that wouldn’t stop running in 1A. A garbage disposal that made sounds like it was digesting gravel in 3B. A light fixture in the hallway that flickered whenever someone sneezed too hard. Each time, he talked me through it with the same easy patience, the same dry humor, the same way of making me feel like I wasn’t a complete fraud.

Mrs. Calloway had started looking at me with something approaching respect. I didn’t have the heart to tell her my expertise came with a very attractive mechanic on speed dial.

Then I found the water tank.

The basement of the apartment building smelled like old concrete and mildew. A single bulb hung from the ceiling, throwing shadows into corners that hadn’t seen sunlight since the building went up. The water tank sat against the far wall, a massive metal cylinder that hummed with low, constant vibration.

Water pooled beneath it. Not a lot. But enough to warrant concern.

I stared at the puddle for a full minute, waiting for it to explain itself. The puddle declined.

“Well,” I said to the tank, “you’re not a faucet.”

The tank continued humming.

My phone was already in my hand. Three days of calling Deadeye for every little thing had worn a groove in my pride, but this wasn’t a little thing. This was a catastrophe waiting to flood the basement and ruin Mrs. Calloway’s tentative respect forever.

I hit Call with an expression of someone expecting the device to explode at any second.

“Hypothetical question,” I said when he answered.

“The sparkly shorts are back.”

“They’re practical shorts today. Very professional.”

“Uh-huh.” His voice carried that familiar warmth. “What’s broken?”

“My spirit. Also possibly a water tank.”

The pause on his end lasted a beat longer than usual. “A water tank.”

“A big one. In a basement. With a puddle.”

Another pause. Then the sound of him shifting, maybe standing up from whatever he’d been working on. “You’re in over your head.”