Running For It by Allyson Lindt

Four

Iadored Luna. She was my best friend and frequently my link to sanity. She wasn’t always great under pressure, though.

One of last night’s shelter volunteers called in, and as she frequently did, Luna offered to step in. She was more of a night owl, especially since she was having trouble finding a steady job in her field, so she promised it was no problem.

“Luna”—I kept my tone kind but firm—“take a deep breath. What’s going on?” There’s water everywhere,sounded far less serious than, There’s blood everywhere, so I wasn’t ready to panic.

Luna sighed. “The boiler broke. Or exploded. Or something. What do boilers do? It’s leaking. The basement is flooding. Why is the water a nasty color? That’s not normal. The kids are freaking ou—”

“Luna.” This was so not what I needed this morning. Not that it was her fault, or that I wanted something like this on any morning, but today I’d hoped to spend a couple more hours wrapped in warm fuzzy memories before I had to face reality. “The water shut-off valve is under the stairs, in the wall. Turn it off. Have Oliver help you if it’s stuck. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“Okay. And Violet? Thank you.” She already sounded less panicked.

I smiled at the genuine gratitude. When I disconnected, I found Hunter watching me with a mix of amusement and concern.

“I’m guessing whatever that was, it means you don’t have time for breakfast,” he said.

An ache of regret pinged in my chest. “No. Crisis at the shelter.” I climbed out of bed and paused, suddenly hyper aware of my lack of clothes. What was I doing? He’d held me down and fucked my face last night, and I cared if he saw me naked this morning?

Apparently so.

He didn’t seem to have the same hang-up, as he stood at the foot of the bed gloriously naked.

Goddess, he was handsome.

I forced aside the sudden burst of modesty, and gathered my clothes. My panties were a wreck, but I could go without. The strapless bra would be less than comfortable, but it would do for now. “Fuck,” I muttered when I grabbed the dress.

“What’s wrong?” Hunter had pulled on a pair of boxers. That was moderately better, but no less distracting.

I held up the dress. “Not exactly made for flood clean-up, and I don’t have time to go home.” I didn’t care if anyone saw me in last night’s clothes, but wet, skin-tight satin would be impossible to work in. Worse, if it ripped, I’d expose my panty-less ass to a house full of teenagers.

“I got you.” Hunter rummaged through a suitcase near the bed.

The last thing I wanted was to be in something of Ramsey’s. “I’ll be—” I stopped when Hunter straightened and handed me a Westminster College T-shirt and a pair of jogging shorts.

Ramsey went to the U, like any proud local boy whose family’s name was on at least one of the school’s buildings. I know—I met him in college. I was there on an academic scholarship. He wasn’t.

These were Hunter’s clothes.

Only slightly less awkward, and far more curious, but I needed something. “Thank you.” I took the clothes from him and tugged them on. They were a few sizes too big, but drawstrings on the shorts kept them up, and a knot at the waist of the shirt prevented it from turning me into a human sail.

“I thought this was Ramsey’s room.” That he was only in for one night.

Was that hesitation? “It is,” Hunter said. “But we’ve been doing a lot of strategy planning for the primaries, so I made myself at home.”

Sounded reasonable, but I felt like there was more to the story. An unformed question tickled my tongue.

My phone chimed. The text from Luna just read, SOS. It’s getting worse.

“I need to go.” I grabbed my purse. “Where are my shoes?”

We spent a moment searching for them, but they were nowhere to be found.

How did I lose my shoes? It didn’t matter, since I couldn’t work in the heels anyway. I’d buy a pair of slippers in the hotel gift shop and borrow someone’s shoes when I got to the shelter. I was out of time. “Thank you. For everything.”

Hunter squeezed my fingers. “Any time. Good luck. Call me if you need anything.”

“I will.” I wouldn’t.

On the elevator ride down, I raked my fingers through my hair and pulled it back into a ponytail. It was early enough the lobby was nearly empty. Fortunately, I had the day off from Loading Java because of last night’s event, so I didn’t have to let Lyn down by calling in.

I dialed the emergency plumber as I drove, and made arrangements to get someone out to the shelter in the next couple of hours.

Any other calls would have to wait until I saw the actual damage.

I pulled into the small strip of asphalt on the side of the building—aka the parking lot. Luna’s car was here, along with a few belonging to the residents. There wasn’t room for more.

The shelter was actually a converted pair of houses, some of the oldest in the city. A polygamist had built on the adjoining properties for his two wives, with a corridor connecting the homes, so he could more easily split his time between his families.

The main house was on the corner of the block, and that was where the entrance was, as well. I walked in, to find the main common area strewn with mattresses, water pooling around each, creating a series of mini lakes on the hardwood.

“The basement is flooded,” Luna explained. “So I had the mattresses brought up here.”

We were more crowded than normal due to the cold weather, so there were temporary rooms downstairs.

I couldn’t complain that she’d started on cleanup, even if the results weren’t quite ideal. The situation was shitty, regardless. I pointed at a couple of older teenagers. “You, haul these outside and stack them near the dumpster.” I singled out another lurker. “Grab the mop, ring it out in the bucket, and get as much water as you can.”

The bulk of the damage would be in the basement, but I needed to do a quick tour of the rest of the house, to make sure every room that needed attention got it.

The main floor was common area, with several tables, chairs, and sofas, for people to gather and be social. The other house held the kitchen and dining room.

It was the top two floors that made this shelter different from the larger, state-funded ones. The smaller, original bedrooms were still intact and slept two people each. I did a quick survey of the individual rooms, careful not to invade any more of the residents’ privacy than I needed to.

Since we only allowed minors here who had left home or had been kicked out due to their sexual orientation or identity, we wanted to give them a new home. A place where they could go without worrying for their safety, so they could get back to life and growing up.

That also meant everyone helped out, because this was their home.

My sister, Eva had been ten years younger than me, so I was gone and out on my own before she hit her teens. She and I hadn’t been close enough for her to come to me when she started struggling with her sexuality.

Instead, she’d gone to our parents. The people who should have protected and loved us. They sent her to conversion therapy, and less than two weeks in, she’d taken her life.

I never forgave them or myself. But at least here, these kids would have the kind of acceptance she hadn’t.

The upstairs was undamaged by today’s event. A few of the rooms looked like hurricanes had blown through, but that was status quo. A chill was setting in, though, and an overall musty smell permeated the building.

I told everyone to bundle up, to grab clothes from next door if they needed layers, and promised the heat would be back soon.

“How can I help?” Jesse—one of our older guys—leaned against his doorframe. Dark circles were under eyes that bugged out when he tried to hide his cough. He’d been sick for a couple days but refused to rest. There was always something more he felt he had to do.

I pointed him back into the room. “You can get some sleep. I’m ordering you.”

His chuckle faded in a cough. “You ever take your own advice to slow down and let others help?”

“Nope. And when you’re in charge, you can exempt yourself from the rules.”

“If growing up means working myself to the bone, no thanks,” someone behind me said.

I turned to kindly shoo them away, but they’d already run off.

Basement next. I took a few deep breaths, to steel myself for what I’d find, and headed in.

The water was almost up to the bottom step.

I hollered four names and handed out more tasks. “Grab some tarps from the toolshed. One goes at the top of the stairs, one out under the pavilion. Two of you haul boxes up the stairs and set them on the first tarp, the other two finish taking the boxes outside. The moment you’re done, out of the wet clothes and into extra layers, to warm up.”

I hated asking them. If any of them got sick because of this, I’d feel so bad. But the work needed to be done quickly.

While I picked my way through the basement to make sure I hadn’t missed anything, cold biting into my ankles, I called the place we got our beds from. They’d have replacement mattresses for me in a couple of days.

It was too long—we were already past capacity—but yelling wasn’t going to magically increase the available supply.

My phone rang, and I answered. The plumber was running behind. Go figure. I had a basement full of water, and he had more important things to deal with.

I could call other places, but I’d worked with this one enough that I trusted them and they gave us a good rate.

“If you have a sump pump, you can start getting the water out before I get there,” he said. “I’ll do it once I arrive, if you haven’t, but this will make things go faster.”

“Where am I supposed to get a sump pump?” I was asking myself as much as him.

“I-bet-Oz-has-one.” Luna’s rush of words startled me, and I spun to find her standing at the bottom of the stairs. Pink dotted her cheeks, probably not all from the cold.

Cole—he only let Luna call him Oz—had a hard exterior and a soft heart. He’d been a huge name in tech more than a decade ago, but decided he was tired of the grind. One of his rentals had a lot of basement-flooding problems because the property sat on a water table.

He was also a beast of a grump with almost everyone but Luna. Who would be happy to call him, based on the way she was biting her bottom lip.

“I’ll get started on water removal,” I told the plumber. “Get here as soon as you can.”

The plumber sighed. “You should know, if anything big is broken, I can’t start work today anyway. Your boiler is so old, there’s a good chance I’ll need to order parts. It’s going to be a couple of days.”

So I had a house over full of people, without enough beds and with no heat.

Wonderful.