20/09/2026
🔥Part 1 - My Sister's Number?! (Read the Story)🔥
Julie Parris had a good life in Boca Raton, Florida, and she knew it. A big house behind a gate; and a husband whose last name opened doors before she even knocked. Gino Sheen. Everyone in that town knew the Sheen name, because Gino's mother, Cecilia Sheen, had built half the shopping plazas on the east side of the county. Julie married into that world five years ago, and most days, she still couldn't believe her luck.
She'd grown up nothing like this. Her and Theodora shared a bedroom in a rented duplex in Jacksonville until Julie was seventeen, two girls splitting one closet, one bathroom, one dream of getting out. Julie got out first. She met Gino at a charity gala she'd only attended because a client needed a plus-one, and within a year, she was wearing a ring that cost more than the car her mother used to drive. She never forgot where she came from. She just liked, very much, where she'd landed.
It was a Tuesday morning when the pipe under the kitchen sink gave out.
Water crept across the tile, slow and quiet, the way trouble usually starts. Julie grabbed towels first, then her phone. Dead. She'd left it charging in the bedroom the night before and forgotten it there, still plugged in, still black-screened.
Gino's phone was sitting right there on the counter, next to his coffee mug. He'd stepped out to take a call from his brother, Gentry, about a property closing. Julie didn't think twice. She picked up his phone, swiped it open — she knew the code, 0219, his mother's birthday — and went looking for the plumber they always used.
She found the contact. "Plumber – Dave." Saved with a little wrench emoji next to it, the kind of small detail that made a contact feel real, feel harmless. She hit call.
It rang twice.
A woman answered. "Hey you," the voice said, soft, almost laughing, like she'd been waiting for this exact call. "I was just thinking about you."
Julie froze with the towel still in her other hand, water soaking into her socks. "I'm sorry — I think I have the wrong number. I'm calling for the plumber?"
There was a pause on the other end. A pause just a half-second too long.
"Julie?" the voice said.
And Julie's stomach dropped, because she knew that voice. She'd known it her whole life. It wasn't a stranger's voice. It wasn't a plumber's wife, or a receptionist, or anybody's assistant.
It was her sister. Theodora.
"Theo?" Julie said, and her voice came out smaller than she wanted it to. "Why are you— why is your number saved as the plumber?"
Theodora laughed, but it was the wrong kind of laugh, the kind people use when they're buying time. "That's so weird. Maybe Gino saved it wrong by accident. You know how his phone is a mess."
Julie stood there in the wet kitchen, the pipe still dripping behind her, and something in her chest went very still and very cold, the way water goes still right before it turns to ice. She looked toward the hallway where she could hear Gino's voice, low, finishing his call.
"Yeah," Julie said slowly. "Maybe."
She hung up. She didn't call the real plumber. She didn't clean up the rest of the water right away either. She just stood there, staring at the little wrench emoji on the screen, and for the first time in five years of marriage, Julie Parris felt something in her home that didn't belong to her — a name, hiding in plain sight, wearing somebody else's job.
👉The complete story plus exclusive full-length stories and bonus content is available on my Patreon. Link in bio❤️
đź“–This story is told in parts. This is Part 1 of 6. The story continues.
