The only thing I didn’t love was how much it was going to cost to fix it all up. I’d been fresh out of college when Meemaw died, and I’d had to borrow money from my parents just to cover the taxes on the house the first few years. Aunt Birdie had let me live in her garage apartment rent-free so I could save my money to fix up the house. It had taken three years just to get the place inhabitable enough that I could move in, and I still had a lot of work to do on it.
I’d get there though. Slowly but surely.
On my way in the front door, I fetched the mail out of the mailbox. I headed into the kitchen and grabbed a beer out of the fridge as I flipped through it. Most of the mail was junk, as per usual. The only thing I didn’t throw straight into the recycling bin was a letter from the homeowners’ association. I opened my beer and took a long drink before I tore open the envelope to see what they wanted.
A black, oily tendril of anxiety wrapped around my stomach as I read the letter. By the time I’d gotten to the end, that tendril had been joined by a dozen others that had twisted into a giant knot of panic in my gut.
The letter claimed I’d been delinquent in paying a number of previously assessed fines for violations of HOA rules. Except I’d never received a notice of any fines or violations. I definitely would have remembered something like that.
Owing to this alleged delinquency, the attorneys for my homeowners’ association were writing to inform me they’d be filing a lien on my house on the HOA’s behalf unless all fines, fees, and late charges were paid within thirty days.
They’d included a list of the violations, all of which had to do with exterior property maintenance, and all of which I fully admitted I was guilty of. But it wasn’t like the condition of the house was anything new. Most of the cited issues had existed for years—long before I’d even inherited the place. Why had they suddenly decided to enforce the HOA rules now? And why was this the first I was hearing about it?
The worst part was that I’d been assessed late fees on each and every fine on an ongoing monthly basis going back three years. Three years! Without a single word to me, they’d been quietly ratcheting up my debt until the number was so unimaginably large I’d never be able to pay it.
I could barely even stand to look at the total, it was so big.
I felt myself start to hyperventilate and sank down on the floor, pulling my knees to my chest. Pressing my cold beer bottle against my forehead, I tried to calm myself down.
This had to be a mistake. It was fixable. There was a way through this, and I’d figure it out.
I didn’t understand how they could spring this on me out of nowhere. It wasn’t fair.
Not that fairness mattered. People got away with shitty stuff all the time that wasn’t fair. They intimidated and threatened and bullied their way through other people’s lives, banking on the fact that most folks wouldn’t have the resources to fight them.
Just like I didn’t have the resources to fight this. I didn’t have a lawyer to protect me or the money to hire one. My family would be willing to help me as much as they could, but none of them were exactly swimming in extra cash. My parents needed their retirement savings to live on. Birdie worked three part-time jobs to pay her modest living expenses. All of Josh’s money went right back into the farm.
As I stared at the letter, the question that kept running through my head was why now? When I’d owned this place for years, and it had sat here empty and ignored for a good long while before that. I hadn’t heard a peep from the HOA before today. I’d honestly forgotten there even was one. So why had they suddenly come at me, guns a-blazing?
There had to be a reason.
I went into the 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.”