“It’s kind of like mistletoe. Does this mean we should kiss?”
“Are you crazy?” she hissed. “They are filming everything we say.”
He shrugged. “Every show needs a little chemistry.”
“He’s got a point,” Kiki said from behind her.
“Again. Not helping.”
Decker stood there, under the boom mic, as if waiting for a kiss. She jabbed a finger at his chest, only for it to ricochet off the kind of solid muscle that made her immediately regret the attempt.
With a shrug he said, “No need to rush things. We’ve got time.”
Before she could respond, he spun on his heels and, like a world champion MMA fighter, lifted a cabinet and tore the entire wall of shelves off in one go.
“Slow down, Thor,” she said, trying to hide how impressed she was. “This isn’t a Rage Against the Machine video. We’re salvaging as much as we can to repurpose it.”
“You want to repurpose this avocado green island?”
“I was just pointing out that we need to go slow.”
“Agreed,” he said, his tone thick with innuendo.
She ignored him. “Actually, can we put a halt on things so I can use this colored tape to identify what goes and what stays?”
Decker laughed. “Sure, Angel, let us stop demo so you can micromanage the process.”
If she could spit fire she would. “It’s just my process.”
“We can’t save every scrap. This is about preserving what we can while bringing it into this century so a family can actually live here. And this island is way too small for modern day living.”
“I agreed, but these are original 1950s hand-crafted curved panels made from milled mahogany. They’re an architectural masterpiece. And the…” Her heart literally stopped mid beat as Clive took a sledgehammer to the underside of the counter.
“Wait,” she yelled, but it was too late. The sound of shattering terra-cotta tile echoed through the room and her chest as a three-square-foot block of tile bounced onto the floor.
“What?” Clive winced with surprise.
“That’s a keep,” Thor said, his eyes on Poppy, probablywatching as she fought the water building deep behind her lids. Her aunt loved that tile. Always teased Poppy that it matched her eyes.
“Anything original to the house is always assumed a keep unless we say differently.”
“I just assumed that since the island was going…” Clive said sheepishly.
“Always ask,” Decker said with a quiet sternness to his voice.
Poppy stared at him like he’d just recited Shakespeare or solved the Riemann Hypothesis. Decker, taking her side? Well. Mark the calendar, alert the press—miracles clearly happened before noon.
Poppy’s chest tightened as she admitted, “It’s my fault.” If she’d skipped makeup like her gut had told her, none of this would have happened. “I meant to get here before the crew and tape everything with coordinating colors to prevent things like this from happening. I just want to preserve as much of the tile as possible to use on the new island. They’re handmade terra-cotta square tiles from Italy in olive from the mid-fifties and hand carried over by the builder.”
“We had no idea,” Clive said. “You know a lot about this house.”
“I started studying Pierre Stark when I was in middle school. Probably because I grew up in this house. So it’s special to me.” It was more than special. It was imbued with charm. It had been her safe place in a scary tumultuous time in her young life.
“Why don’t we give the lady a moment to do her taping, so this doesn’t happen again. And just to be sure, the entire kitchen is all a soft demo,” Decker said. He turned to Poppy with remorse. “Sorry about the tile and the BS about micromanaging.”
She looked at the partially demoed backsplash and her heart sank. It was unsalvageable.
“This is my fault,” she whispered again.
