Page 129 of Ten Hammers

“Yes, love, absolutely anything at all,” he agrees, winking at me.

“I just wish there was some way to tie your romance into the storyline about the house and Winnie’s past…” Lexie muses. “That would really sell it.”

“Well, the lovebirds are planning on moving into the house when it’s done,” Jack says with a shrug at the WTF expressions on all of our faces.

“Yep,” I go with it. “I couldn’t be in the house at all without feeling like I was going to puke with this journey started, but now… well, we’ve turned it into a home.”

“Okay. Give me a couple of hours. No, give me one. One hour.”

“Live in Gram’s house?” I ask Jack incredulously after I end the call.

“It’s a really nice little house now,” he says. “I wouldn’t mind living here.”

“Keyword being little. There’s two bedrooms. I’m more than down for threesomes but no way am I waking up spooning one of you douches,” Diesel says.

“You couldn’t have said it was me and Win?” Theo grumbles.

“Leo comes first alphabetically. Besides, it’ll only be a couple weeks, tops. In fact, we might have to undo some stuff to give us enough to fill a couple weeks.” He’s already looking around, planning.

By the end of the day, we have expedited contracts in hand for 1 Girl & Her Favorite Hammer: Renovations & Romance.

Chapter 45

Winnie

The superpower of any great reality show producer is getting the cast to cry, but Goldie hasn’t even asked me a single question yet, and my eyes are leaky faucets.

“Happy tears,” I tell Golds. “They’re all happy tears.”

“Off the record,” she whispers. “Are you going to be able to pull this off? Pretending you’re strictly platonic with all the guys except Leo for an entire week?”

During the day, when the cameras and crew are around, I’ll sure as hell try. At night, when they’re gone and we’re back in the Hammer house, just the 11 of us? I wouldn’t bet on it.

“Hey, love,” Leo comes into the partitioned off confessional area and squeezes my shoulder. “Are you two ready for me?”

“I’m always ready for you, stud,” I say, saucily, even though there are no cameras on yet.

“Ooh, redo that and I’ll catch it,” Goldie says, reaching over to her camera and the red light starts blinking.

Once Leo is sitting next to me, holding my hand, Goldie transforms from Bestie!Goldie to Producer!Goldie and doesn’t pull any punches. She knows all about what we need to accomplish here and why.

“So, Winnie, tell me where you were, mentally, when this journey began and where you are now,” she says.

I take a deep breath. Leo gives my hand a squeeze.

“This is the house I grew up in. When we first arrived to start the reno…” I swallow hard, thinking about that night with Gavin, when I gave him the grand tour of the disaster this place was, and told him about the disaster I felt like. “My grandmother and father’s voices tormented me. They were both cruel. Mostly about my weight, but they were very skilled at making me feel worthless, period.”

I glance at Leo and he gives me a nod of encouragement.

“By the time I got out of here, when I was eighteen, my self-esteem was nil. And Grams’ and Dad’s voices weren’t the only ones I let tear me down. I’m sure most of the people watching this saw the picture of me with Leo and Theo out dancing. That was mortifying. People can be cruel. So that’s where I was at the beginning. I wanted to take a wrecking ball to this place, the way all those voices took a wrecking ball to my confidence, to my soul.”

Goldie nods. “You need a break?”

I shake my head. I’m tearing up, but am surprisingly okay. Leo hands me a tissue and I dab at my eyes with it.

“Awww, honey, it looks like you need a tissue too,” I say to him. His eyes are wet.

“The thought of anyone making her feel that way,” he swipes at his eyes with his fingertips, “breaks my heart. And really, really fucking pisses me off.”

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