Page 130 of Ten Hammers

“Beautiful sentiment, but since you seem to have forgotten, the network doesn’t like the shows littered with bleeps so anything with an f-bomb in it is likely to end up on the cutting room floor.”

“Well,” he says. “I definitely want that to end up on the air. So let me say it again in a more family-friendly way.”

“And where are you now, Win?” Goldie asks, once she’s gotten a take she can use from Leo.

“Well, I’m ridiculously in love for starters,” I beam. “But that’s nothing new. I’ve been in love for a very long time. I just wasn’t in a place where I could accept that a Hammer brother could love me in return.”

“And you can now?”

I nod. “Oh, yeah. This reno didn’t just transform this house. It transformed me. Every day, little by little, the voices that tormented me grew quieter. And every day, I learned that those aren’t the voices that matter.”

“Great,” Goldie turns off the camera. “That’s almost all I need for now. Just one more thing and this is off the record… who’s the best cunning linguist, if you know what I mean?”

“Me, obviously,” Leo says, then he laughs. “We gotta find you ten men of your own, Golds.”

“I wish!” she laughs. “Can one of you send Jack in next?”

Though Leo and my relationship is a major storyline in the show, obviously it’s about the reno, too, and the fans are going to want plenty of the boys, so that’s what they’re going to get.

“Lordy, Winnie, you are flushed!” Sam, here to make sure we’re always camera-ready, is coming at me with her powder puff of doom.

I’m flushed because Diesel’s at the staircase, caressing the banister in a fairly obscene way, going on about how they were his favorite part of the house. “You can really get a workout on these stairs,” he says into the camera with a matter-of-fact nod.

“Oh, how I’ve missed you, Sammie,” I say and I realize that I have. I’ve missed this. I’m glad we’re doing this.

As she de-flushes me, I give a little squeal when I catch sight of Jonesy, the cameraman who overheard and filmed me lamenting to Goldie that I wanted to lose my virginity to a Hammer brother but they would never see me as more than a friend. And that didn’t happen that long ago at all. Yikes. He could totally blow our cover and confirm that Leo and I have not, in fact, been together for awhile a la the story Jack sold to Lexie.

Dammit.

I’m about to rush over to him and… do what? I have no idea when I’m summoned upstairs.

Axel and Diesel are flanking the outside of the door to the room that used to be my dad’s. I haven’t been allowed inside it almost since the very beginning of the reno, but the padlock is gone now. I notice cameras at either end of the hall, so I know that whatever is happening here, it’s important. They don’t want to chance missing my reaction from any angle.

“As I was saying,” Axel says. “This is a room we’ve already completely finished but Winnie hasn’t seen it since demo day.”

“This used to be her father’s room so we wanted to turn it into something really special,” Diesel takes over, with that natural charisma that all the boys have and all the fans adore.

“Damn,” Axel snaps his fingers, “We should’ve brought a blindfold for this.”

And all the work Sam did on my cheeks is completely undone. They grow hot at his words, the insinuation in his eyes as he glances at me, and I hope to God the camera doesn’t catch it.

“I’ll close my eyes,” I say, doing so.

I don’t hear the door open–it no longer creaks–but Axel, no, it’s Diesel, guides me into the room.

“You can open those baby blues, love,” Leo says. So he’s here too.

I open my eyes and draw in a breath. “This is so…”

I can’t find words. Not even one. The room where my dad spent his nights doing God only knows what after days making me miserable is completely transformed. It’s not even a bedroom anymore. There are floor-to-ceiling mahogany bookshelves on the two side walls, complete with a ladder. On the back wall, surrounding the huge window, are built-ins, with what look like endless drawers. In the center of the room is a large round table.

“It’s a library-slash-gameroom,” Cruz, who is also present now, tells me, although the library part is pretty evident. “The built-ins are storage for games so that the room won’t get cluttered. It’s unfinished because we wanted to let you pick out the chairs for the table and the furniture for the reading nook, which will go in that corner.”

“I lobbied for a pool table, but these fools, apparently, don’t know how much fun a pool table can be,” Mason says, with no innuendo in his voice. But there’s definitely a secret just the two of us share in the smile he gives me.

“What do you think, darlin’? I mean, Winnie. I mean…”

Bring on that powder puff, Sam, my Cruzie is flushed.

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