Page 26 of When in December

“A week,” I repeated. There was so much left to do. “Only a week?”

I had the list written up, and suddenly, I wished I had it on my tablet, which had become the singular thing keeping me together and everything straight. There were the bathrooms, of course. The mold needed to be dealt with. I was happy it had been caught. But there was also putting the final touches on the kitchen once the appliances made their way in. There were the floors that were never refinished, as was part of the prior contract. The bookshelves weren’t built in the living room. None of the walls in any of the rooms, besides the kitchen, were painted and couldn’t be by the team I hired until the rest was complete!

Uncertainty brewed high in my chest. No team was ever going to be able to do all of that before they left. They wouldn’t be able to.

“We can finish up the bathroom and floors if you already have the stain picked out, but that’s the final part of our job here on this project,” said Frank. “The rest is up to you. I’ll let your boss know what’s going on.”

I shook my head. “It’s all right. I’ll make sure it’s covered.”

A huff sounded behind me. As I turned around, I noticed Aaron moving away from us toward his bedroom. The door shut quickly afterward.

At least I wouldn’t have to worry about him. Maybe, if I was lucky, he’d stay out of the way entirely.

Frank seemed to understand immediately. “We’ll get started right away.”

When it came to renovation, things often got worse before they got better. It was just how things went.

I’d watched the up-and-down process secondhand when shadowing other designers. It wasn’t out of the ordinary that when they were in deep with a project, they got a little more than they’d bargained for. Creaky floorboards, lost shipments of throw pillows, cracked paver patios no one noticed until the day before everything was set to be complete for a final walk-through. It was rare that when it came to a home project, everything went right.

A good interior designer was calm, cool, and collected. I took a deep breath with each new heartbreak and news.

That didn’t mean I didn’t want to cry about it.

Just a little.

I was starting to doubt anyone in the history of Home Haven had ever had to deal with a renovation monster like this project.

For so many reasons.

“What do you mean?” My voice shook in a way that warned everyone around me that I was about to be reduced to a full-on mental breakdown.

I didn’t think anyone would blame me at this point.

Not even Frank could hide his disbelief at the chaotic mess this project had become in record time.

He and his men had been working nonstop on my to-do list. Bathrooms were being completed, light fixtures were being wired correctly this time before being hung, and the floor was re-stained the correct color after I’d realized it was incorrect on my second day—and not just because Aaron Hayes wandered by to second-guess if I wassureabout that color. Luckily, I wasable to reorder it by the third day in the correct shade. But then the painters had to wait to come in since they couldn’t paint the walls when there was a tacky floor. There were still no appliances in the kitchen for some unknown reason. Not even the distributor could give me a decent answer for that one when I forwarded my email that matched my calendar, saying that they were supposed to have arrived on Tuesday.

Now, Frank took off his hat and rubbed his nearly bald head. How could men be bald on top but have a monster of a beard growing a few inches down? Was that a genetic thing that just affected the scalp or due to a hormonal problem? Either way, it was never a good sign.

“We need to tear down the tile along the one wall in the bathroom to fully remove the mold. It went further than we thought.”

My eyes flicked back and forth between his naked scalp and sincere expression.

“The main bed and bath are complete now, which is a positive from where we started. The walk-in shower is set. Fixtures are in, spick and span. The tile is immaculate. My workers didn’t cut corners, like the last crew.”

I hadn’t gotten to see it. Every time I snuck in, our not-so-gracious homeowner huffed about an invasion of privacy before I could get a good enough look.

But the foreman had taken a few shaky photos of the bathroom for me on his phone that proved they had gone above and beyond what I had pictured. It was clean and airy while managing to pull off dark graphite colors to give a cozy, masculine look.

It was so much better than the hack job before.

“Okay. I understand. You can do it?”

“Already started. There was no time to waste and figured you wouldn’t want to,” said Frank.

He was right.

“We’re already halfway through.”

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