Page 131 of Ten Hammers

Leo laughs, good-naturedly, “You’ve always called her darlin’, Cruz. It’s fine.”

“It’s… amazing. You all are amazing.” I glance around at each of my guys, who are all present and accounted for. I give them each a big, friendly hug. But I want to give them each a big, sexy kiss, of course.

I walk around, skimming my fingertips over the woodwork, taking it all in. I glance up. “I love the chandelier. It looks familiar…? Have I seen it before?”

“We used an identical one on the Tanner reno,” Cruz says. “Season five. You loved it then, too.”

I grin. “Right, we used it in their dining room.”

“Yep,” he grins.

“Okay,” Jack says. “Everybody back to it. This reno ain’t gonna finish itself. Everyone not in the kitchen needs to head out to the backyard and help Axel so we can stay on schedule.”

“Winnie’s not allowed in the backyard,” Axel says.

“Another surprise?” My cheeks ache from grinning already.

“Jack,” says Marcus, our director, who mostly just makes sure we’ve got all the footage we need and the right confessionals to turn it into a cohesive story but has always given us plenty of leeway. “Do you think I can steal our happy couple to get some B-roll of them being a happy couple?”

“No problem,” Jack says.

So I spend the morning sitting on the porch with Leo, walking up the street with Leo, holding hands, kissing Leo in my childhood bedroom…

“Thankfully you had the forethought to take the before-and-after pictures,” Marcus says. “We can use inserts of those before we show the afters. By the way… Don’t want to be nosy, but… this is meant to be a young girl’s room, right? Are we thinking about little Hammers pitter-pattering around?”

“When we designed this room, we hadn’t decided we would be living here yet,” Leo says, smoothly. “My girl was going to give the house away to a family who needed it. But now that we’ve decided to stay here… Well. We’ll just use this as a guest room for now.”

“Okay,” Marcus says. “I think that’ll do for now. Since craft services won’t be here ‘til tomorrow, what’s good to eat in this town? Let’s break a couple hours for lunch.”

“Tino’s Bistro is Win’s favorite,” Leo says. “But I love the Sub Emporium.”

Once Marcus calls it, everyone clears out fast.

Jonesy was the one who was filming the B-roll so I ask him to wait a minute. Leo shoots me a questioning look but when I tell him it’s okay, he says he’ll be out in the backyard seeing if Axel needs anything.

“Jonesy, I need to ask you a favor…” I begin.

“You don’t need to ask me anything, Winnie. Your private business is your private business.”

Huh. I guess I’m not the only one who has been transformed recently.

“Oh. Okay. Thanks. I mean it.”

He gives me a nod and says, “That Tino’s got good lasagna?”

“The best lasagna.”

I go downstairs and try to find Goldie but she doesn’t seem to be around. So I head across the street, planning to lie down for a few minutes and rest my eyes. I’d forgotten how exhausting shoot days were.

I’ve barely gotten into my room when the door opens again and Jack slips in.

“We don’t knock anymore?” I tease.

“This isn’t a visit, it’s an ambush,” he says.

I laugh and raise my eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

And then my mouth goes dry when I see he’s holding bungee cords.

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