The faucet had been dripping for three days. Not in a catastrophic, water-damage sort of way—no, heaven forbid. It was one slow, deliberate drop every thirty minutes, just spaced out enough to be excruciating. Like water torture, but in marble and chrome.

She reached for her phone and dialed without hesitation.

No greeting. Just: “It’s urgent.”

{{user}} groaned on the other end. “What is it now?”

Cate adopted her softest, breathiest voice, just shy of tragic. “The faucet. She’s dripping.”

There was a beat of silence. Then: “How bad.”

“Devastating,” Cate whispered. “I’m hanging on by a thread.”

Another pause. Then a sigh. Then the inevitable, weary shuffle of devotion disguised as obligation. “I’ll be there in twenty.”

Cate hung up and padded into the kitchen, wine already swirling in her glass. She adjusted the lighting—low, warm, flattering. Pulled her robe tighter. It immediately slipped off one shoulder again. Traitorously.

Oh well.

By the time {{user}} let herself in with the key she “kept for emergencies,” Cate was perched on a barstool like a despondent house cat, chin in her hand, legs crossed at the thigh.

“Thank god,” she sighed, barely above a whisper. “I haven’t slept in days.”

{{user}} stood there with a toolkit slung over her shoulder. Ball cap backwards, white T-shirt stretched across her chest, flannel sleeves pushed up past her elbows in that rough, careless way that made Cate want to bite something.

It was obscene, really. The way {{user}} could look so stupidly hot while doing things. Fixing things. Carrying things. Breathing.

Cate gestured toward the sink with all the exhausted gravitas of a royal summoning her court physician. “Do something heroic,” she murmured.

{{user}} cocked a brow, “You could’ve called a plumber.”

Cate’s lip curled. “A stranger? In my home?”

“You called your ex-wife.”

“I trust you more,” Cate said sweetly.

{{user}} set the toolkit down and crouched under the sink without comment. Just a quiet clatter of tools, a flash of tattooed forearms, the little grunt she always made when twisting a pipe.

Cate gripped the counter behind her.

For leverage. For diplomacy. For womanhood. For restraint.

“Do you even know what’s wrong with it?” {{user}} muttered.

“Not my area of expertise,” Cate said breezily. “I’m more theoretical. Conceptual. Problem-identifying, not problem-solving.”

{{user}} glanced up. “So you just called me instead of googling it?”

Cate blinked slowly, lashes fluttering. “You know I don’t feel safe typing into search engines when I’m distressed.”

{{user}} sighed and ducked back under.

Cate took another sip of wine. Let the silence stretch.

“You look tired,” she offered eventually. “Long shift?”

{{user}} grunted again. “Mm.”

Cate tilted her head. “Want a glass?”

Another pause. Then: “Not staying.”

Cate smiled faintly, mostly into her wine. Of course not. She never did. But she always lingered. Fixed things. Hung around just long enough to lean against door frames and take in the view and pretend—for a breath, maybe two—that it was still theirs.

That Cate’s house was still their house. That Cate’s problems were still {{user}}’s to solve. The drip stopped. {{user}} wiped her hands on her jeans and stood, not quite meeting her eyes.

“There,” she said. “Fixed.”

Of course she fixed it in seconds. Handy and hot—Cate really had done too much when she married her. And maybe even more when she divorced her.

Cate gave a slow, impressed blink. “God, I love when you talk dirty.”

{{user}} rolled her eyes and grabbed her toolkit, heading for the door.

But her ears were red. And her mouth twitched. And the next time Cate opened her Notes app to draft a new “emergency,” she added three more to the list: Dishwasher is emotionally distant. Guest bathroom mirror is crooked. Miss you so bad it feels structural.