One Night Stand novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Four Screws

Callie's POV

He came back at six in the morning, in jeans and a work shirt, with a toolbox in his hand and no driver.

I watched from the front window while he parked a dusty gray car at the curb.

"He's got a toolbox," Dottie said behind me.

"I see that."

"What kind of man brings his own toolbox to a custody fight?"

"I don't know."

"I do," said Dottie. "The kind who's been told something by a three-year-old."

She was right.

When the bell rang, Otto had woken and come down in his pajamas.

He had told Mateo something in the hall that I was too stunned to hear.

Mateo came up the steps and stopped on the third one.

It tilted under his boot.

"This is what he said," Mateo told me. "He said, the step is broken, and Dottie says it's going to eat somebody."

"It's been broken since March."

"I know. I watched a man step around it on my way up."

He knelt, set the toolbox down, and began taking the board off with a claw hammer.

I stood in the doorway with the legal envelope still in my hand.

"You can't fix this," I said. "You've got a vote on Friday."

"I can fix this. It's a board and four screws."

"Mateo."

"He asked me." He did not look up. "It's the first thing he ever asked me for."

I could not answer that.

Otto came out in his pajamas and sat on the top step with his chin on his knees, supervising.

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