Episode 6

Lucas

"Jasper?"

My brain was still catching up with the whole not-falling-to-my-death thing. Heart hammering, legs shaky, standing way too close to someone who'd just sprinted over to save me from my own stupidity.

I took a step back from the ladder. Then another. Solid ground. My legs wobbled but held.

Jasper kept one hand on the ladder, watching me like I might bolt back up it.

"How—how did you know I was up here?"

Jasper grinned, holding up the empty bags he was carrying. "Recycling run. Looked up and there you were, auditioning for the Flying Wallendas."

Heat crept up my neck. "You saw that whole thing?"

"Oh, I had a front-row seat. Very dramatic."

I groaned. Of course he did. Of course my neighbor got to witness me clinging to a ladder for dear life, probably making pathetic whimpering sounds. "Great. Glad I could provide the entertainment."

"Entertainment?" Jasper's grin dropped. "That wasn't entertaining, that was terrifying. What the hell were you thinking?"

The shift in his tone caught me off guard. "I—the satellite dish wasn't—"

"So you climbed up on that ancient piece of junk?" He looked genuinely rattled. "Do you understand how badly that could've gone?"

I did now. The adrenaline was fading, leaving just the sick awareness of how stupid I'd been. Standing there in my cold, broken house, having nearly died over bad TV reception.

"Yeah," I said quietly. "I'm getting that."

Jasper's expression softened a little. He exhaled.

I cleared my throat. "So... I think I need to call a professional for this stuff. Do you know anyone local who does repairs?"

"What needs fixing?"

I hesitated. Embarrassing didn't even begin to cover it. "Well... the satellite dish. And the heater hasn't worked since I got here. And..."

I trailed off.

Jasper's eyes twinkled with barely contained amusement. "And?"

Deep breath. Might as well commit. "I might have made the kitchen situation a little worse."

His eyebrows climbed. "How worse?"

"...significantly worse."

His expression shifted to something between concern and curiosity. "Show me?"

We headed inside. My heart was still hammering, and I was trying to figure out how to thank someone for saving your life without making it weird.

"Hey," I said as we walked. "Thank you. For—you know. Catching the ladder. That was—"

"Yeah, no problem." He looked at me. "Just don't do it again?"

"Wasn't planning on it."

I led him through the house toward the kitchen. Each step closer, my stomach sank. He was about to see exactly how incompetent I was.

We reached the doorway and Jasper stopped.

"Oh."

I winced.

His eyes swept the scene. Soaked towels. Tools in puddles. Water dripping from the cabinet. The overturned bucket.

"Oh," he said again.

My face went hot. "So. Yeah. This is—"

"What happened?" He stepped carefully into the kitchen, avoiding the worst of the flooding. Crouched down to look under the sink. Stood back up. "Lucas, what did you do?"

"I watched a YouTube video?"

He turned to stare at me.

"I tried to fix the tap," I admitted. "It... didn't go well."

"I can see that." He was trying not to laugh—mouth twitching, eyes bright. "Walk me through what you did."

I gestured at the flooded mess. "The guy in the video made it look simple."

"Did it work?"

I looked at the flooded kitchen. "What do you think?"

He started laughing. Couldn't help it. Full-body laughter.

I crossed my arms. Smiled anyway.

Jasper shook his head, still grinning. He crouched down by the sink and pushed some towels aside. "Let me see."

"Wait, you don't have to—"

"Too late. Where's your wrench?"

"Jasper—"

"Wrench. Now." He held out his hand without looking up.

I found one and handed it over. "You really don't have to do this. It's Sunday, and you've already—"

"Lucas." He glanced up at me. "I just watched you almost fall off a roof. There's no way I'm leaving you alone with home repairs."

"I'm not that bad."

He looked pointedly at the flooded kitchen.

"Okay. I'm that bad."

"Yeah." His expression softened. "Let me help. Please."

I stopped protesting.

"Okay," I said quietly. "Thank you."

I handed him a wrench.

He got under the sink and examined the pipes I'd somehow made worse, tightening connections one by one.

"Can you hold this pipe steady for me?" He glanced up. "Right here—just keep it in place while I tighten the fitting."

I crouched down beside him in the cramped space, our shoulders touching. I held the pipe where he indicated while his hands worked with quick confidence, knowing exactly what needed attention. What had taken me hours of chaos, he made look effortless.

"Got it. You can let go."

"Okay, that should handle the flooding." He stood up and moved to the tap itself, turned it on. Water still dripped from the spout. "Now let's fix what you were actually trying to repair."

He worked on the tap assembly, removing the handle and replacing the worn washer inside. I watched him work, the same steady competence, no wasted movements.

"Want me to turn the main water on?" I asked, hopeful.

Jasper checked the connections one more time, tested the tap handle. "Yeah, go ahead."

I went to the basement and carefully turned the main valve, then came back up.

Jasper gestured at the tap. "Go ahead. Do the honors."

I turned it on. Water flowed clean and steady. Turned it off. We both waited.

No dripping. Nothing.

"Jasper, you're a hero."

He grinned. "Shh. It's a secret." He leaned in conspiratorially. "Can't let word get out or every disaster-prone American in the village will be knocking on my door."

I laughed. "Fair point."

We mopped up the kitchen together. Jasper found a squeegee and pushed water toward the back door while I wrung out towels and soaked up the worst of the flooding.

"You don't have to—" I started.

"I know." He glanced up with a small smile.

I grabbed a towel and started soaking up water while he worked the squeegee across the floor. There was something oddly peaceful about it—moving through the kitchen in this quiet, practical rhythm. No conversation needed.

My mind drifted while my hands worked. Wring out the towel. Find the next puddle. Soak it up. Move on. The simple repetition was almost meditative.

A tune pulled me out of it.

I blinked. Looked around. The kitchen was almost dry. Just a few damp patches near the cabinets—barely any trace left of the lake I'd created hours ago. When had that happened?

Jasper was pushing the last puddles toward the door, humming something I didn't recognize.

"What song is that?"

"Hmm?" He looked up. "Oh—Singin' in the Rain. You know it?"

I shook my head.

He stopped and stared at me. "You've never seen Singin' in the Rain?"

"No. What's it about?"

"Old Hollywood musical. Gene Kelly dancing in the rain, making it look easy and joyful." He glanced around the nearly dry kitchen with a slight grin. "Shame we just mopped up all these puddles. Would've been perfect for a dance routine."

I laughed. "Pretty sure my performance would've been less Gene Kelly, more... flailing disaster."

"Fair." He was still grinning. "But that's what makes the movie great—it's one of those films that just makes you feel good. Like everything's messy but you keep dancing anyway."

"Sounds like a really nice movie. I should watch it sometime."

"You should." His grin widened. "Perfect for days like this."

The floor gradually dried, the tap worked perfectly, and the kitchen looked almost normal again—better than it had since I'd arrived, actually.

Jasper stepped back and surveyed our work. "Anything else broken around here?"

"No, you've done more than enough. Really. I can't keep—"

He gave me a look. "What else?"

I sighed. "The heater hasn't really worked since I got here. But you've already spent your entire Sunday—"

"Show me where it is."

We headed down to the basement together. I flicked on the overhead bulb—dim light, but enough to see the old heating system hunched in the corner like some dusty, complicated beast.

Jasper crouched down to examine it. "Need some light. Can you use your phone's torch?"

I pulled out my phone and turned on the flashlight, crouched beside him.

"Right there." He guided my hand to angle the light where he needed it.

He pointed at a small metal cylinder deep in the mechanism. "See this? Pilot light sensor. If this gets dirty, the whole system shuts down as a safety measure."

"So... clean it?"

"Exactly."

He traced his finger along the pipes, explaining as he worked. "Water flows through here, gets heated by the burner, then goes out to all the radiators throughout the house."

"Makes sense."

"But if the pilot light won't stay lit..." He carefully pulled out the sensor and held it up to the light, showing me the gunk built up on the tip. "This is your problem. Sensor can't detect the flame through all this buildup, so it thinks there's no fire and shuts everything down."

He examined it more closely, turning it over in his hands. "I can clean this, but it'll take a bit of work."

I glanced at my phone. We'd been at it for over an hour now, and he'd already fixed my plumbing, saved me from a ladder, and was now diagnosing my heating system.

"Hey, do you want to take a break? I have some cookies I picked up at the store, and I could make coffee."

Jasper straightened up, stretched his back, and smiled. "That actually sounds great. Lead the way."

A few minutes later we were walking through the back garden, coffee mugs warming our hands. The November air was cold but not freezing, weak sunlight filtering through bare branches overhead.

The garden was completely overgrown—wild grass and untamed shrubs everywhere, paths barely visible under the growth.

"This could be really nice, actually," Jasper said, looking around. "With some work."

I laughed. "Add it to the list."

He grinned. "Good thing the boys didn't find this yesterday. They'd definitely love it—feels like an adventure playground. Would've been impossible to get them out of here."

We walked further into the garden, following what might have once been a path.

"Oh yeah, how are they doing?"

"Probably driving Anna crazy by now." He took a sip of coffee. "They can be a handful when they're completely overstimulated after some days away from home."

I stepped over an overgrown root. "They don't live with you?"

He stopped walking. Turned toward me with a puzzled look.

"They're my nephews." He shook his head, grinning. "Anna's my sister. They live in Stuttgart."

I stopped too.

The words took a second to land.

Nephews.

Not his kids.

My face went hot. I looked down at my coffee, watching the steam rise.

"Oh!" My voice came out higher than I wanted. "I just—on Halloween, you were all together, I assumed—"

"Nah." He was still grinning. "Just the fun uncle who takes them trick-or-treating."

He started walking again and I fell into step beside him.

"They come visit every few weeks," he continued easily. "Anna likes getting them out of the city. I like not having to be responsible for keeping them alive full-time."

I laughed. "Best of both worlds."

"Exactly."

We reached the far end of the garden where the overgrown path stopped at a crumbling stone wall.

Jasper looked around at the overgrown wilderness. "This garden is massive. It'll probably take days to see everything back here." He grinned. "Wouldn't surprise me if you found a hidden castle somewhere. Or a sleeping dragon."

The fantasy reference made me glance at him—I'd gotten used to checking if people were hinting they recognized me from Crimson Throne—but he was just gazing at the garden, completely casual, just making a joke about the overgrown wilderness.

"Yeah," I said. "That would definitely make the property more interesting."

"Any idea what you're going to do with all this?"

"No clue. Still trying to figure out the inside."

He laughed. "Yeah. One disaster at a time."

I took a sip of coffee. The mug was starting to cool in the November air.

Jasper drained his and turned back toward the house. "Ready to tackle that heater?"

"Yeah." I turned with him. "Let's do it."

Back in the basement, the air felt warmer after the cold November wind outside.

Jasper knelt beside the heater.

"Need light?" I pulled out my phone.

"Yeah, right here." He guided my hand to angle the flashlight where he needed it.

I crouched beside him, close enough in the cramped space that our shoulders pressed together. Some faint warmth—maybe his shampoo, maybe just him—I couldn't tell.

"Okay, pilot light sensor." He loosened a bolt carefully.

He extracted a small cylindrical component, held it up to my light. The thing was covered in black gunk.

"Wow."

"Yeah." He pulled out a small brush. "No wonder your heater wasn't working."

I watched him clean it, his hands moving with the same steady competence I'd seen upstairs. "You really know what you're doing."

"I've fixed a few of these." He glanced at me with a slight grin. "Grew up helping Oma with her place. Old buildings, always something breaking. Plus I run an outdoor shop—bikes, hiking gear, guided tours. You learn fast when it's your business."

"How long have you had it?"

"Almost five years." He kept working while he talked, brushing away decades of buildup. "Took it over when the previous owner retired. Started with just the basics, added the tours later."

"Hold this?" He handed me the sensor.

I took it carefully, held it steady while he cleaned a different part. Our hands touched briefly.

"The tours sound great," I said.

"Yeah, I take people up into the mountains—mountain biking, hiking, depends what they want." He took the sensor back, checked it against the light. "Good trails up here. Most tourists never see them."

He started reassembling the mechanism. "Run them a few times a week in summer. Less in winter, obviously."

He positioned the cleaned sensor, tightened the connections. "Can you angle that light a bit lower?"

I adjusted my phone. Our shoulders pressed closer in the cramped space.

"There." He sat back. "Let's see if this works."

He pulled out a long lighter and relit the pilot light. The flame caught immediately, steady and blue.

The heater rumbled to life, vibration traveling through the concrete floor under our feet. I could hear the water starting to circulate through the pipes.

Jasper stood up and dusted off his knees. "Give it an hour or two. Should warm the whole place up."

I stood too, grinning. "You're a miracle worker."

"What can I say?" He was grinning back. "I'm collecting superpowers."

"Plumbing, heating, ladder rescue... that's at least three."

"Three's a good start."

He headed for the basement stairs.

"Where are you going?"

"The dish still needs fixing."

"It's okay, I can do it tomorrow. Buy a new ladder and try again."

"No way." He glanced back. "I feel better making sure you won't be climbing anything for a while."

We headed back outside into the dark.

I positioned the ladder and held it steady while Jasper climbed. He pulled a wrench from his back pocket and worked on the satellite mount. Adjusting, tightening.

It didn't take long, and he came back down. A satisfied look on his face.

"Can you check the TV?"

"Yeah. Sure." I went inside. The living room was still cold. But there was a smell of warm dust in the air. I grabbed the remote, turned on the TV.

The screen was blinding me, but the channels loaded. Actual channels. I flipped through several just to be sure.

All working.

When I came back out, Jasper was already putting the ladder away, back to the shed where I had found it.

"Working," I said.

"Good."

I glanced at my watch. It was already past seven. A low rumble rolled across the mountains. Distant thunder, but getting closer.

Jasper looked up at the sky, then at me. "Should probably get inside before it starts."

The radiators ticked and pinged as they slowly warmed up the kitchen.

"Thank you," I said. "Really. I'd still be sitting in a flooded kitchen if you hadn't shown up."

"Glad I could help." He glanced around at the now functional space. "Place looks good."

Jasper shifted his weight, angling toward the door. Right. He'd already given up his entire Sunday to rescue me from my own incompetence. He probably had things to do.

The words came out anyway.

"Do you want to stay for dinner? I could make something. Or we could order something. Watch a movie on the newly functioning TV?"

He stopped. Looked at me for a moment, then pulled out his phone to check the time.

"I wish I could." He met my eyes. "But I have to get home. Early start tomorrow."

"Oh. Yeah, no, of course. You've already—"

"I'm free tomorrow, though. After work?"

I blinked. "Yeah?"

"I could come by around six. We can figure out what else needs fixing."

"Or we could just hang out? You've done enough free labor."

He grinned. "I don't mind. I like fixing things."

"Tomorrow, then."

He headed for the door. "Tomorrow."

I walked him out.

"Thanks again," I said. "For everything. You literally saved me today."

He laughed. "Just don't climb anything else before I come back."

"No promises."

He shook his head, still grinning, and started down the path.

The first drops hit cold on my face.

At the corner he stopped, turned back, lifted his hand in a wave.

I waved back.

He disappeared around the bend. The rain picked up, steady now. I stood there another moment, feeling the drops, before heading back inside.

The door clicked shut behind me. I pulled out my phone and texted Marcus: Update: didn't die. House has heat. Neighbor saved me from falling off a ladder.

The phone rang before I'd even set it down.

"You WHAT?" Marcus's voice came through loud enough that I had to hold the phone away from my ear.

I walked into the kitchen. "I'm fine. The neighbor caught the ladder."

"Lucas, you—" He stopped. Took a breath. "Okay. You're actually okay?"

"Yeah. He helped me fix everything. The house actually works now." I leaned against the counter. The radiators ticked softly as they warmed the room for the first time in a long while.

"Good. That's good." A pause. "And you made a friend already?"

"He's coming back tomorrow."

Marcus's voice warmed. "I'm glad you're not alone out there, man."

Becca called something in the background. I caught "miss you."

"Miss you too!" I called back.

"Now go eat something," Marcus said. "You sound exhausted."

"Yeah. I should."

"Love you."

"Love you too."

I hung up and looked around the warm kitchen.

Rain drummed against the windows, steady now. I grabbed the pasta I'd bought at the supermarket, filled a pot with water, set it on the stove.

While the water heated, I turned on the TV. Flipped through channels until I found something—some superhero movie dubbed in German. I'd already seen it back in LA, but why not. Good way to practice German.

The water boiled. I drained the pasta, dumped some sauce on it, brought the bowl back to the couch.

I ate pasta, half-watching explosions and German dialogue I maybe understood a fifth of. But dialogue wasn't really the movie's strength anyway.

I yawned. I was warm and full and getting sleepy. Probably wouldn't make it through to the end. I forced myself to get up from the sofa while I still could. With a sluggish movement, I gathered up the dishes and shuffled to the kitchen.

The living room was still a mess—tools scattered everywhere. Should clean up before Jasper came back tomorrow.

I washed the pasta pot in the sink, watched water swirl down the drain. The tap didn't drip. Everything else could wait.

Upstairs, I brushed my teeth and climbed into bed. Rain drummed against the roof.

I fell asleep listening to it.