“Hmmm,” she murmurs, tilting her head. “Shaky. Unstable. And is that… tape holding the back leg together? Covered with foundation?”
Sarah goes pale.
Joe’s smile collapses.
“We were missing a screw!” he protests, his voice cracking.
“Honey, love doesn’t hold together with tape,” Tina says flatly. “And neither does Swedish furniture. Poor workmanship. All show, no substance.”
Ecstasy.
I’m ecstatic.
I have never enjoyed anything as much as watching him crumble.
Joe shoots me a poisonous look.
I answer with a full, bright, thirty-two-tooth smile and bask in his humiliation.
Finally, Tina reaches us.
Sloane and I are standing close. My hand is still on her back—a subconscious claim I can’t seem to release.
Tina gives our vanity a shake.
Solid as a rock.
(Thank you, biceps—and Sloane’s organizational neurosis.)
Then she studies us.
Her sharp gaze tracks from Sloane’s rumpled hair to the dust on my shirt, then to the way our bodies angle toward each other—like magnets that physically refuse to separate.
Her eyes dip to Sloane’s neckline… then to my crotch (Christ, I hope I adjusted)… then back to our faces.
She smiles.
“Well, well, well,” she says into the mic, in that auntie tone of someone who knows far too much. “The furniture is perfect. But the atmosphere here is…sizzling.”
She steps right into Sloane’s space.
“Sweetheart, your cheeks are on fire. You sure you two were only tightening screws?”
Sloane lifts her chin—bold again, cool again. “We worked hard, Tina.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” Tina snorts, fanning herself dramatically. “I’m awarding the DIVA BONUS: FIRE & FLAMES!”
She turns to the main camera.
“Because I swear, if I hadn’t called time, these two would’ve used that table for anythingbutmakeup. And then we really would’ve tested its stability…”
The room erupts in cheers and whistles.
Sloane hides her face against my shoulder for a second, laughing in embarrassment—then looks up at me.
In that look, there’s a promise that wipes out the rest of the world.
I grin, proud as hell, and pull her closer.
