#Definitely present in the line right bestie? 😏

[harwin-breakbones-strong]

"I'm sure there'd plenty of women lining up to spend Mother's Day with you, if they could see how good you are with that baby." Ryan Corr as Simon Beecher in The Secrets She Keeps (2020 - 2022)

[c-e-d-dreamer]

Prompt request: nesta breaks her washing machine and Cassian is the hot maintenance guy who comes to fix it 😏😏😏

Nesta using her sharp wits to purposefully break various home appliances totally counts for Day Two: Sharp of @nestaarcheronweek, right? Let's all just squint and pretend it does! Anyways! Thanks to the besties for helping me plot this (and for enabling me, let's be honest.... y'all know what you did), for sending this ask to remind me of, and of course, thanks to everyone who reads. I hope you enjoy :)

Read on AO3

Water.

There’s water, pools of it, covering the floor around her washing machine.

Nesta lets out a string of curses, quickly rushing to grab towels from the linen closet. She drops the towels to the ground, trying desperately to soak up as much of the water as she can before it starts to seep through the floor and into the apartment below her.

This is the last thing she needs this week, but of course, that’s just her luck. She supposes this is what she gets for putting off doing her laundry as long as she did. She hates having to do it, hates having to stop whatever she’s doing to switch loads, else she’ll be waiting for dry sheets until late into the night, hates having to fold everything afterwards. And now that she’s held it off until she’s down to her last pairs of clean underwear, her washing machine has decided to break.

With towels covering her floor and hopefully helping keep the water damage to a minimum, Nesta grabs her phone, searching for handymen near her. She clicks the first place that Google spits out, Illyria Handymen Services. Thankfully, when she calls, they say they can send someone out for a consultation today. She lets out a breath of relief and hangs up, trudging back to her laundry unit and beginning the painstaking task of cleaning up the remaining water as best she can.

She’s not sure how much time has passed when there’s a knock at her apartment door. She clambers up to her feet to answer it, and when she pulls open her front door, she realizes that the Mother, the Cauldron, and every other deity are most definitely laughing at her. Her hair is thrown up in a messy bun atop her head, strands already breaking free from her effort to clean up the water, she’s wearing an old, oversized tee that now has various water patches bleeding through the fabric, and there standing in front of her is probably the most gorgeous man she’s ever seen.

He’s tall, almost a whole head taller than her, and large, all broad shoulders and muscle under the blue work jumpsuit he’s currently sporting. Dark curls fall down to his shoulders, perfectly framing a strong cut jawline and bright hazel eyes. For a moment, Nesta is distracted by the scar cutting through his right eyebrow, but then the man smiles in greeting, a small dimple popping in his left cheek, and she swears her knees almost buckle.

“Hey, there,” the man says easily, glancing down at the clipboard in his hands… his large hands. “I’m Cassian with Illyria Handymen Services. You called about a washing machine?”

“Yeah,” Nesta answers, the breathless quality to her voice finally jarring her back to the present. She clears her throat and steps back, allowing Cassian to enter. “It’s this way.”

With a nod, Cassian steps inside her apartment, quietly closing the door behind him. He follows Nesta to where her laundry unit is, eying the array of towels still placed all around the washer. He steps closer and pulls a flashlight from his belt, shining it down into the washer to look.

“I was running a load, and when I came back to check if it was almost done, there was just water everywhere,” Nesta explains, trying and failing not to trace her eyes along the expanse of Cassian’s back, to follow the line of his spine down to his ass, while he leans over her washing machine. “I’m not really sure where it came from or what happened.”

“And was there any standing water in the washer?” Cassian asks, stepping back and crouching down in front of the machine.

“No. All my clothes were fine. It was like it had run the cycle as normal.”

Cassian hums in understanding, as he continues to examine the space around the washing machine. “There’s a lot of lint and dust back here.”

Nesta can feel a flush of embarrassment at the comment threatening to creep up her neck, and she crosses her arms in indignation even though Cassian can’t see her with his back turned. “Yeah, well, it’s kind of hard to clean back there with the way the unit’s built in.”

Cassian chuckles softly, and Nesta hates the way that small, simple sound has goosebumps skittering up her arms. She hates how warm and welcoming it is, quickly filling the space around them and wrapping around her limbs. She hates that she wants to hear it again, wants to hear him laugh for real.

“It’s a good thing actually,” Cassian explains, standing back to his full height. “If it was an issue with the washer’s drainage, you’d have standing water in the washer. An issue with the plumbing, with the water coming back up, that would have washed away all the lint and dust.”

“So then what’s the issue?”

“Could be the machine itself… is the dryer acting up too?” Cassian pulls open the dryer door to check, and Nesta winces as her clothes start to tumble out the opening. “Oh. Sorry.” Cassian quickly shoves her clothes back and closes the door again. “Was all that in the washer?”

“Yeah, I… I sort of put off doing laundry too long.”

“Well there’s your problem, sweetheart,” Cassian tells her, switching off his flashlight and turning around to face her again. “You can’t overstuff the washer. Otherwise, the water has nowhere to go and it can leak out the top, dripping down and flooding your floor.”

“Oh.”

“The good news is, your machine is fine, so you don’t need to repair or replace it.”

“That’s definitely good news.”

Cassian slides his flashlight back into his belt and pulls out his phone, offering her a sheepish smile. “It is still $45 for the consultation though. Sorry.”

Nesta waves him off with a hand, more than happy to just pay the consultation fee rather than needing to buy a whole new washing machine. She goes to grab her purse and digs out her credit card, handing it over for Cassian to slide through the card reader on his phone. She signs what needs to be signed on his clipboard, accepting her copy of the paperwork, and then she’s leading Cassian back to her front door.

“Thanks again for your help and the quick turnaround,” Nesta tells him, pulling the door open.

“No problem at all. And maybe next time, consider smaller loads.”

“Maybe I like large loads,” Nesta dares to remark, biting her lip suggestively and staring up at him.

The way the hazel of his eyes spark, a smirk tugging up the left side of his lips, has Nesta’s heart flipping over itself in her chest. “Then I guess you better make sure you keep plenty of towels on hand.”

~ * * * ~

Nesta can’t stop thinking about Cassian for the rest of the week. She tries to focus on her work, even goes out for drinks with Emerie and Gwyn Friday night, but every guy in the bar is too short, too small, too blonde, too lacking of hazel eyes and a cheeky grin and that damned dimple. The way he seems to haunt her is both infuriating and intoxicating.

By the time the next week rolls around, Nesta finds herself standing in her kitchen, tapping one of the screwdrivers from the simple toolkit Feyre gifted her when she moved in against her lips. She eyes the different appliances before settling on the microwave. She opens the door and looks inside, noticing the two screws near the door. She gets to work loosening them, and when she tries to close the door again, it doesn’t quite lock correctly. She steps as far back as she can, using her screwdriver to press the start button on the microwave and braces for the worst. It lights up for barely half a second before everything shuts off.

Perfect.

“We meet again,” Cassian greets when Nesta pulls open her door a few hours later. “I hope you’re not overstuffing your washing machine again.”

“Actually, it’s my microwave that’s acting up this time.”

Cassian hums and steps inside her apartment. His eyes sweep over her frame, and Nesta practically preens under the intensity of his gaze. She made sure she was presentable this time. Her hair is braided back and pinned in a crown around her head, two curls pulled free in the front and framing her face. She put on her tight, blue sweater, the v cut of the neckline just teasing enough and the color the perfect shade to bring out her eyes.

“So, where’s the problem then?” Cassian asks, his voice gruffer than she’s heard it and sending a shiver up her spine.

“This way,” Nesta offers, turning and leading him toward the kitchen.

She leans back against her counter while Cassian looks at her microwave. She can’t quite take her eyes off the way his fingers curl around his flashlight, of the peek of tattoos she gets when he pushes the sleeves of his work jumpsuit up to his elbows, of the veins and muscles of his forearms now on full display. And she especially can’t take her eyes off the way his lips curl into a smirk like he can feel her gaze on him.

“It looks like you just have some loose screws,” Cassian says, gesturing toward the screws like Nesta doesn’t know exactly which ones are loose. “When the door can’t close properly, the microwave shuts itself off as a fail safe, so I can just tighten these for you, and you’ll be good to go.”

“Oh, okay. That sounds good.”

“It was probably just wear and tear that caused them to loosen,” Cassian continues, pulling a screwdriver from his belt and turning back to tighten the screws. “Do you use your microwave a lot?”

“Yeah, I use it for most of my dinners unless I’m ordering takeaway. I was actually making dinner when it stopped working.” It’s a half truth at least.

“Didn’t feel like cooking?”

“Oh, I can’t cook.”

Cassian pauses, turning his head toward Nesta again. “At all? I mean everyone can at least make pasta. Boil some water, pour the box pasta in. Can even get those jar sauces.”

“Trust me, I’d burn a boiling pot of water.”

Cassian laughs, that same light and warm sound, and finishes the last screw, sliding his screwdriver back into place along his belt before leaning his hip against the counter and facing Nesta fully. “Well, if you ever want some pointers, not to brag, but I’ve been told I’m a pretty good cook myself.”

“Is that so?” Nesta asks, daring to move closer. “And what’s your specialty dish then?”

“Chili actually. I have my own recipe that I’ve perfected.”

“Perfect? Maybe you should enter it into the annual chili competition that the firehouse sponsors.”

“I’ve already placed every year, sweetheart,” Cassian shoots back, his smirk wide and his eyes turning almost molten with the way they glint under her kitchen lights. “Of course, you have to be able to handle the heat.”

“Don’t worry. I can handle the heat,” Nesta assures him, not even bothering to bite back the sultry, suggestive undertones to her voice, smirking herself.

“Good to know.”

~ * * * ~

It becomes a push and pull between them. Different appliances around Nesta’s apartment surreptitiously have issues or need repair, and each time, she calls Illyria Handymen Services. Her dishwasher not draining has Cassian finding bits of paper towel blocking the filter and drain at the bottom. Her toilet not flushing leads to Cassian rehooking the chain that somehow came loose.

Whenever he’s in her apartment, Cassian smiles and laughs and makes suggestive comments. Nesta gives as good as she gets, and she finds she looks forward to each repair, each interaction she gets with him. She looks forward to seeing those hazel eyes and that dimple. She looks forward to their teasing back and forth. She looks forward to the way his grin grows with each of her barbs, to the way her heart always stutters around him.

But despite their flirting, despite the way Nesta is sure that Cassian is as interested in her as she is in him, he’s yet to make a move any further. They got close with the last repair. Cassian had encouraged Nesta closer so he could show her exactly where the chain was meant to be in the toilet tank. She had to press closer in order to see, which had resulted in her getting a strong whiff of the woodsy, pine scent of him, had resulted in their faces being barely a breaths apart when they turned to make eye contact, had resulted in Cassian’s gaze dropping to Nesta’s lips for a moment.

And yet…

Nesta knows that she might need to up the game. Perhaps if the next repair is in her bedroom, Cassian will finally get the hint. She stands in her bedroom doorway and assesses her options. She doesn’t have much in the way of appliances that she can break. Her eyes land on her bed, tilting her head consideringly. Is it too on the nose? Probably. But sometimes, a woman’s gotta do what a woman’s gotta do.

Nesta makes sure that her screwdriver is well stashed away before the knock to her apartment door comes. When she pulls it open, Cassian is leaning against the door jamb, a smile pulling slowly across his face.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this, Nes,” Cassian greets, the twinkle in his eyes betraying the teasing nature of the words.

“Are you going to do the repairs or am I going to have to call another handymen service?”

“Just show me where the problem is, sweetheart.”

Nesta leads Cassian down the hallway and into her bedroom, gesturing toward her broken bed frame. Cassian hesitates in the doorway, his eyes dancing around the space, taking in the overflowing bookshelf, the polaroids on the wall, the navy bed sheets. He clears his throat and finally strides inside, kneeling down in front of the bed to examine the damage. Just that sight alone has Nesta biting her lip, and she knows it will fuel plenty of fantasies to come.

“It looks like there’s some screws missing here,” Cassian explains, gesturing toward the frame. “I have some spares that should fit no problem, so it’ll be an easy fix and your bed will be good as new.”

“That’s good. It’s important to have a fully functioning bed.”

Nesta can just spot his smirk as Cassian pulls out fresh screws and gets to work, knowing her suggestive comment hit its mark. “I have to admit this is the first bed I’ve ever had to repair. How exactly did you break it?”

Nesta is glad that Cassian can’t see her face, can’t see the heat that floods into her cheeks. A lump starts to form in her throat, the words drying up on her tongue. It’s the first time he’s directly asked about her many broken appliances and items around the apartment. What is she meant to say? I broke it myself because you’re hot and I wanted an excuse to get you in my bedroom?

“Well, how else does one break a bed?” Nesta shoots back, hoping her voice sounds sufficiently sultry and not at all panicked.

She expects Cassian to make a suggestive remark right back, hopes that maybe this time the back and forth and flirting will finally lead to them tumbling right onto the newly fixed bed. Maybe, even, they can break it for real. She would definitely not complain about that turn of events. But instead, Cassian’s hands pause where he was working on the new screws, his shoulders tensing.

A moment passes. And then two.

Then, Cassian merely clears his throat and goes back to the task at hand. The silence that settles in the bedroom is uncomfortable, stifling, and Nesta wonders if she should say something more, but she can see the frown Cassian now wears as he finishes up fixing her bed frame in record time.

“All finished,” Cassian declares, sliding his screwdriver back into his belt and standing up. He won’t quite meet Nesta’s eyes as he digs his phone from his pocket, jaw clenched. “It’s $100 for the repair.”

It’s Nesta’s turn to frown. For all her previous repairs, Cassian had only charged the consultation fee. She swallows hard and goes to grab her wallet, replaying the past few minutes over and over in her mind. She tries to figure out what’s changed, what’s gone wrong. It’s as if a switch has been flipped. Gone is the smiling, laughing man that flirted with her, and in his place is this man who looks almost annoyed, some emotion Nesta can’t quite place swimming in his hazel eyes.

“Here,” Nesta offers quietly, holding out her card for him.

Cassian is quick to swipe it through the card reader on his phone and hand it and her copy of the paperwork back. “Have a good day.”

Without a glance backwards, Cassian walks out of her bedroom and her apartment. The snick of the front door closing behind him echoes with finality all the way down to Nesta’s bones, leaving her standing there in her bedroom and still reeling from what just happened.

She lasts all of two days before she’s standing in her kitchen again, anger and determination steeling her spine. She eyes the different appliances before settling on her refrigerator. She tugs it away from the wall enough that she can shine the flashlight of her phone behind it. She spots a line of some kind going from her refrigerator to the wall, so she reaches and unscrews it from the wall. With a satisfied nod at her work, she focuses on her phone again, dialing an all too familiar number.

And now she waits…

Nesta all but sprints to her front door when the knock sounds. She yanks it open, but it’s a different pair of hazel eyes that greet her, a head of short dark hair rather than long, a thinner though still athletic build rather than the large, wide one she was expecting. The disappointment that settles in her gut feels like a stone weighing her down.

“Hello. I’m Azriel with Illyria Handymen Services. You called about a repair?”

“Where’s Cassian?” Nesta asks before she can stop herself.

Azriel starts to smirk, an almost knowing look passing across his face, before he schools his expression again. “On another job. Sorry. But I’m sure I can fix whatever the problem seems to be.”

“Fine,” Nesta clips, turning on her heel and leading the way to the kitchen. “It’s my refrigerator.”

Azriel nods and pulls the refrigerator out from the wall, shining his flashlight behind to examine it. “Your water line came unscrewed from the wall it looks like. I wonder how that could have happened.”

“Yeah, I wonder,” Nesta grumbles, crossing her arms. She can’t believe her plan didn’t work, can’t believe she has to deal with this man instead of Cassian. Annoyance is red hot where it sears through her veins. Now she’ll have to figure out another appliance she can break. Cassian already fixed her washing machine. Maybe she can try for the dryer tomorrow.

“Maybe the mysterious man that lives with you broke it,” Azriel continues, reattaching the water line to the wall.

“Mysterious man…?”

“The one who broke your bed.”

“I broke my bed,” Nesta corrects with a roll of her eyes before she thinks better of it.

Azriel lets out an amused snort, standing up and readjusting her refrigerator back to its original position. “My mistake then. I guess it was two men. Perhaps named Black and Decker?”

“How much for the repair?” Nesta scowls, narrowing her eyes at the blatant smirk Azriel is now shamelessly sporting.

“No charge,” Azriel explains, clicking his pen and scribbling on his clipboard. “We actually have a new deal going. Four fake repairs, get the fifth free.”

Nesta knows that he’s teasing her now, so she snatches the clipboard when he holds it out to her, quickly signing her name and handing it back. She expects him to leave now, but after tearing off her copy of the paperwork, he takes a moment to continue scribbling on the page. Finally, he folds the page in half and hands it over, offering Nesta a final smirk, a knowing glint to his hazel eyes, and heads for her front door.

When the door finally closes behind him, Nesta rolls her eyes at the whole exchange. She goes to crumble up her paperwork of the repair, ready to forget this ever happened, when writing in the bottom corner catches her eyes. Slowly, her heart beginning to stutter in her chest, Nesta unfolds the paper, taking in the ten digits scrawled there.

Next time, put down the screwdriver and just call the idiot personally

—

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