“I don’t want subterfuge,” Astrid went on, meeting her eyes again. “I want... I want a partnership.”
Her words fluttered between them, and Jordan suddenly had a hard time getting a full breath.
A partnership.
A partner.
“Yeah,” Jordan said. “Me too.”
They stared at each other for a moment before Astrid shook her head, bangs brushing her eyelashes, and rolled her shoulders back. “Okay, then.”
Jordan held out her hand. “Partners.”
Astrid’s throat bobbed in a hard swallow. She slid her fingers over Jordan’s—way slower than Jordan thought was necessary, but shit, she wasn’t going to complain—and gripped her palm.
“Partners,” Astrid said softly.
They stayed like that for a second, hand in hand, but then Astrid’s slight smile dimmed. “There’s still the question about the show.”
Jordan frowned, pulling her hand free. “What about it?”
“What do we tell them? Are we co-designers now? And will they even be okay with that? We have all this footage where you’re the grumpy carpenter and I’m the uptight designer. Natasha and Emery seem to like that dynamic, but if we’re working together, it’s only fair you get credit.”
Jordan sliced a hand through her hair. Honestly, all thisInnside Americabullshit stressed her the hell out. She didn’t care about camera crews and interviews. She didn’t even care about credit. She was only doing this to make sure her family home remained true to its roots. Any other project, she’d just be following the contractor and designer’s orders, building and hammering and nailing.
But her family needed the show to do well, and she wasn’t willing to risk Natasha—or worse, the higher-ups at the network—getting pissed that Jordan and Astrid blew up the dynamic they’d spent weeks establishing.
Plus, notoriety was Astrid’s thing. Natasha Rojas was her design icon, and she had an actual design business that could benefit from the kind of exposure the show would provide. Jordan just needed that exposure to save an inn, not make her a star.
“Can we just keep going like we have been?” Jordan asked.
Astrid’s brows lifted. “As in... exactly like we have been?”
Jordan nodded. “Grumpy carpenter, uptight designer.”
Astrid put her hand up. “Hang on, just so I’m clear. You want me to continue to act as lead designer, even if we use a lot of your design?”
The whole plan sounded a bit off when Astrid put it like that, but Jordan forged ahead. She was so close to locking this down. “Look, we both need this show. I see no reason to change things around now, especially when Natasha and Emery like what we’ve got going. We’re already going to change up the design, which is probablygoing to push their limits a little. Anything more than that would just complicate things.”
Astrid pressed her mouth flat, but Jordan could see her wheels turning. Jordan might not fully understand Astrid Parker, but she knew that working as the lead designer on the show was important to her.
And Jordan wanted to give that to her, which was perhaps the bigger revelation here.
This time, Jordan reached out and took her hand. “Just take it, Astrid. You’re helping me; now let me help you.”
Astrid squeezed her fingers and nodded. “Okay,” she whispered, then louder, “Okay. So we’re doing this.”
Jordan grinned. “We’re doing this.”
Chapter Twenty
A FEW DAYSlater, Astrid stood outside Iris’s apartment door for an impromptu movie night with her friends. She was exhausted, she and Jordan pretty much burning all the midnight oil working on their new design plan. She was looking forward to a calm night with her best friends, a little wine, Iris’s squashy couch, and a bad movie they could mock mercilessly on the screen.
She’d just lifted her hand to knock when she heard it.
Moaning.
Coming from inside Iris’s apartment.
