“Then keep walking.”
Not wanting to alienate yet another crew member, she hid her frustration behind a bright smile and said, “Yes, ma’am.”
More sounds of demolition echoed down the hallway.
Panic in full effect, she picked up the pace and walked through the house and into the kitchen. She still had twenty minutes before everyone arrived, giving her plenty of time to mark what was staying and what was to be demoed.
Red and green painter’s tape in hand, she entered the kitchen, and every last ounce of hope she’d had that this morning would be different knotted in her stomach—tight, hot, rising like she’d swallowed a fist.
The air felt heavier the moment she crossed the threshold, thick with the kind of tension that made her shoulders curl and her pulse quicken in self-defense. It was the same old choreography: one step inside, and her body already braced for impact.
Not only was she the last to show up, but the entire crew was already swinging their sledgehammers. At the helm of this premature demo was Thor himself, directing traffic.
His construction-site-appropriate shirt stuck to chest, and his hair had speckles of Sheetrock dust. Then he lifted his sledgehammer and,holy moly,Thor indeed. If she wasn’t so pissed off, she might have noticed the way his biceps were on the winning side of a war with his sleeves.
Suddenly, his bicep flexed three times in a row. She looked up and he was watching her watch him. To make matters worse, he wore a cocky grin on his face.
“So nice of you to join us, Angel,” he said.
At the sound of her voice, Taters looked up and, with a two-by-four in his mouth, came rushing over. He dropped the wood at her feet like it was a twig and then looked up at her with puppy dog eyes, begging her to throw it.
She hefted it into the other room and he took off, his nails skidding across the wood floor.
She met Decker’s gaze head on. “This was not the time I was told.”
“That was hair and makeup, but we all skipped it so we could get an early start.”
She glared at Kiki who just grinned. “A girl needs to look the part, remember?”
“I’m not a girl.”
“You don’t need to tell me that,” Decker said, and again he flexed his arms.
“Can someone hand me a sledgehammer so I can hit him?”
Clive winced as if the tale of the Wasim-Gate now included premeditated murder.
Decker held out a Barbie-sized sledgehammer with a pink handle. “We all chipped in and got you this.” In his other hand was a bubblegum pink toolbelt with matching tools inside.
She glared at him and decided murder wasn’t off the table after all.
“It’s pink,” she said with horror.
“It matches your lip gloss.”
Don’t let him get to you.
Reciting that in her head like a mantra, she walked over to him and instead of grabbing the pink one, she snatched his. He laughed and the sound made that knot in her belly flip over and do a somersault.
Stupid somersaults.
“It’s not the size that matters, it’s how you use it,” he said.
“That’s what men with tiny pink tools say.”
He walked close to her and whispered, “If you want to see my tool all you have to do is ask.”
A boom mic–shaped shadow moved across the wall and, praying that she was wrong, she looked up to find the fuzzy black monstrosity dangling above them. He followed her gaze and grinned.
