My Cone and Only (King Family #1) - Susannah Nix Page 0,27
living room and grabbed my laptop. Plopping down on the couch, I flipped it open and started doing some research. I looked up my HOA and found a list of the current officers. None of the names were familiar to me, so I started looking into them online.
It never ceased to amaze me how much stuff you could find out about people on the internet. Their employment history, their friends and family, their hobbies and interests. People should really be more careful about what they put out into the world.
It didn’t take long before something clicked. I remembered something, and when I put the pieces together, I thought I might have a guess as to what was behind this—or who.
I knew what I needed to do next.
I needed to call Wyatt.
6
Wyatt
“Thanks for doing this, man. I really appreciate it.”
I shrugged as I crouched beside Josh’s bathroom toilet to connect the water supply hose to the new valve. “It’s nothing. You know I don’t mind.”
Josh finished tightening the mounting plate bolts on his side of the toilet and straightened, wiping his hands on his jeans. “I thought I’d be able to install it myself, but then I started doing some research. Once I realized I’d need to put in an electrical outlet, I figured I better call in an expert.”
I shot him a grin over my shoulder. “And then you found out all the experts were busy, and that’s why you called me, right?”
He prodded my leg with the toe of his work boot. “You shouldn’t run yourself down like that.”
“It’s just a joke,” I muttered under my breath as I tightened the connector on the hose.
“You might think you’re just joking, but a habit of negative self-talk can affect your sense of your own worth over time and invite other people to view you negatively too.”
I glanced up again, raising my eyebrows at the surprising collection of words that had just come out of my taciturn best friend’s mouth—the same guy who thought yoga was “touchy-feely nonsense.”
He ducked his head in embarrassment and rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s what my therapist says, anyway.”
The comeback I’d been on the verge of offering—that the ship had already sailed on everyone’s negative opinion of me—died on my tongue. It was a big deal that Josh had finally started therapy after too many years of trying to ignore his issues and cope on his own. So while I wasn’t exactly hankering to put my own emotional well-being under a microscope, I was too proud of him for overcoming his reluctance to seek help to undermine the progress he’d made by belittling his therapist’s advice.
“You’re right,” I said, dropping the bullshit for once. “It’s a bad habit. I should try to cut it out.”
He nodded, and I turned back to the valve I was tightening.
Once I’d finished connecting the water supply, I turned the water to the toilet back on and plugged in the brand-new bidet attachment we’d just installed for Josh’s girlfriend.
“Let’s see if it works,” I said as I hauled myself to my feet.
Josh pressed a button on the control panel and a small chrome wand extended from the seat and shot out a jet of water. “Have you ever used one of these things before?” he asked, giving it a dubious look.
“I went home with a girl once who had one. I nearly rocketed through the ceiling when the damn thing hit me in the balls.” I cast a sidelong look at him. “Mia talked you into getting this?”
He shook his head. “It’s a surprise. She doesn’t know I bought it for her.”
“Well it’ll definitely surprise her the first time she uses it.”
“She saw some video on Twitter about how they’re better for the environment and more hygienic, and how Americans are behind the rest of the world and missing out because we have a cultural anti-bidet bias, or something like that.”
“A cultural anti-bidet bias?” I repeated with a raised-eyebrow grin.
The corner of his mouth twitched as he shrugged. “She’s been talking about it ever since.”
I nudged his arm with my shoulder. “She talked you into getting it.”
“I thought she’d like it,” he said with another shrug as he bent down for a closer look at the water jet. “I don’t know how I’m gonna feel about it though.”
“You’ll have the cleanest pooper in town, that’s for sure. And I can tell you from firsthand experience that it’s really nice if you’re about to engage in a little back door—”