“Whatever happens, don’t regret.” Monica set her pizza back down without taking a bite. “Here is the thing. We all know you. It’s not like he can casually date you, treat you like crap, and none of us hear the details. I mean . . . I like to think we’re friends.”

“We are.”

“And I’m super close to Walt and now Dakota. And you and Dakota are tight. So the grapevine is woven in ways none of us want to change.”

Mary really hadn’t thought of it that way. “And if things aren’t cool between Glen and me, or get ugly . . .” She hated personal conflict. She could handle it in her professional life. But she had enough as a child and avoided it as an adult whenever possible. “Maybe I should cancel before anything gets—”

“No! That’s not . . . no. Listen, I’m not going to deny that Glen has been a player. But I haven’t heard of him being a jerk to the women in his life. And every player eventually calms down.”

“Some pretend to calm down but still play.”

Monica acknowledged her with a nod. “I’m not convinced that’s Glen. From what I’ve been told about his mom and dad . . . they instilled integrity in their marriage.”

“I’m going on a first date, Monica. No one is talking about that kind of thing.”

“So date. And unless there is a conversation about monogamy . . .” Monica’s words trailed off.

“Then assume it’s not monogamous.”

Her lunch date didn’t confirm or deny.

Could she do that? Assume Glen was seeing other women while seeing her? She knew it happened all the time, but . . .

Monica pushed her plate aside, giving up on the pizza. “And another thing.”

“More words of advice?”

“More statement of fact. Whatever goes down between you and Glen. We’re still friends. He’s family . . . but you and I are friends, and I don’t want anything to wiggle between that.”

“Deal.”

Dakota’s in-laws and parents all shuffled off to the airport Friday afternoon. By two, Mary was finished with her clients and heading home. Leroy met her at two thirty with a crew of men.

“See here.” The same camera was snaked down her plumbing that she’d seen the first day he showed up to her house. “The pipe is crushed at this point.”

Mary glanced at the screen, saw the pipe in question.

“Okay . . . what does that mean?”

“Means we need to replace the pipe or you’ll be calling us back out here in no time with the same problem.”

“Roots in the plumbing.”

“Yeah. As long as the roots find their way into the pipe, and they find water . . . you’re going to have this issue.”

Mary glanced beyond her bathroom. “So where is the pipe?”

Leroy walked outside of the bathroom and into her living space. He stopped about six feet in front of her front door and pointed down. “Here. Under the slab.”

Mary glanced at the tile entry and the carpet that filled her living room. “How do you get to the pipe?” She hated to sound blonde, but she knew she did anyway.

“We have to dig it out. My guys have saws to remove the slab. Once we unearth the pipe we’ll cut apart the bad section, replace it with new . . . then fill in the slab with new concrete.”

Mary’s jaw dropped. “So you have to rip up my floors?”

Leroy removed his baseball cap and scratched what was left of his hair. “The tile has to be knocked out. We can try and pull the carpet up at the seam, but there is a chance it will be damaged and need replacing.”

Mary shook her head at the magnitude of a simple clogged-up toilet.

“So you rip it up and put new tile down?”

Leroy shook his head. “We take care of the pipe, ma’am. We don’t lay tile.”

Oh, great. “And how long will this take?”

“We can pull out the tile and rip back the carpet today . . . mark where we need to cut. Might even get some of that cutting down before five. Then we can be back on Monday to pull the rest out. Once I get in there, fixing the pipe is quick. But then we need to fill it all back in. So I should be done by Wednesday unless I find a bigger issue.”

“Bigger issue?”

“Yeah . . . there is a junction here that comes from your kitchen. I’ll wanna pull the camera up that way, make sure there isn’t any issues.”

She did not want to think about pulling up her kitchen floor.

“Got it . . . okay. How much is this going to cost me?”

He started to talk about the steps, the things he’d already done. “Cut to the chase, Leroy.”

“About five.”

Mary blinked . . . “Five?”

“Thousand.”

She choked.

“You might try and check your homeowners policy, see if this is covered.”

“And that doesn’t cover fixing the floor once it’s all torn up.”

Leroy shook his head. “You might have an insurance claim.”

“Do I have to get their approval if I have a claim?”

“Nope . . . it’s not like medical insurance. If you’re covered, you present them with a copy of the bill and they reimburse you.”

That was marginally better.

“So are we good to go?”

“I guess.”

After three hours on the phone with various people at the insurance company, Mary determined that the destruction of the floor was covered, where the pipe and every one of those five thousand dollars to fix it was not. She had an emergency savings for things like this, but five grand was going to seriously cut into that account.