Page 91 of Trusting Fate (Hope Falls: Brewed Awakenings 2)

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“Welcomeback to the live finale of Home Sweet Flipping Home Vets versus Virgins! I’m your host Oliver Knight.”

The small studio audience which included her sisters, Asher, Blake and Easton’s brothers, wives, cousin, her husband and his parents all applauded. Grace was pretty sure she heard Connie give an extra whoop. Oliver Knight hosted quite a few shows on the Home Network and she’d told Grace on Thanksgiving that he was her hall pass.

The studio lights were bright. All the couples were seated on the left side of the stage and Lauren, Ben, and the two other expert judges were seated on the other side. Most of the time the host was center stage, but he floated around when he was asking questions.

Grace was wearing a red cocktail dress and her favorite pair of black red-bottom Louboutin shoes. She’d treated herself to a Brazilian blowout and she’d had her make up professionally done. She’d thought she was going to be nervous for the live taping but when she was getting ready she felt like she was putting battle armor on.

This was the most dressed up she’d been since she’d walked out of the offices of Cunningham, Cohen, and Pace. For the past six weeks she’d lived in jeans and T-shirts. Maybe a sweater here and there. But now she felt like herself again. She was back.

She’d thought she was going to be terrified on the live show, just based on how she’d felt when she’d been interviewed by Christian the first day of filming. But she wasn’t the slightest bit nervous. When she walked out on the stage, she was ready for war.

“We are here with our four couples, all of whom were given six weeks and fifty thousand dollars to renovate a property. We have two teams who are flipping veterans with over thirty years’ experience between them. And two teams who are flipping virgins! The virgin teams completed Ben and Lauren’s new course Flipping Made Easy prior to starting the flip. The teams were judged in three categories by the experts: increased appraisal value, project management and design. And the teams were judged by you, our studio audience, in three categories also: favorite couple, favorite transformation, and favorite design.

“Now comes the twist, all of the judging was blind. That’s right, the judges viewed these properties blind. And you at home were all voting each week without knowing which teams’ house you were voting for. Voting is now closed, and the results are in!” Oliver held up the white envelope. “The names of the winners of Home Sweet Flipping Home Vets vs. Virgins are in this envelope!”

There was more applause from the crowd and Grace felt her heart pound wildly.

“When we come back we’ll see never before seen footage of these couples working on their homes, we’ll reveal which team worked on which home, and most importantly we’ll name our runners up and the first ever Home Sweet Flipping Home Vets versus Virgins grand prize winner!”

The red light on the camera went off and Grace exhaled. She wasn’t nervous about being on live TV or even about the show. She just wanted to find out who the winners were. This taping was taking forever.

“You okay?” Easton rubbed his thumb along her upper arm.

“I’m just getting antsy. What about you?”

“I’m good,” he smiled.

He hadn’t been nervous during any of this. Nothing seemed to rattle him. Not having a tree crush his truck. Not being stuck in a snowstorm. Not being asked-slash-bribed-via-IOU to be on a reality show and pretend that he was with a woman he’d known less than twenty-four hours. And definitely not being at that show’s finale.

* * *

Easton wasnervous as hell but it had nothing to do with the show, or anything that was going on around them. It had to do with the expiration date on the situationship with the woman sitting beside him.

“Okay, folks, we are back! And now we are going to take a peek behind-the-scenes of these four amazing teams’ journeys.”

There was a large screen at the back of the stage and Easton and Grace both turned toward it. He kept his arm around her, he didn’t want to let her go. She’d been busy getting ready for tonight’s show and he hadn’t seen her for about six hours today. It was awful.

He’d missed her. Badly. Six hours away from her, even with the knowledge that he’d be seeing her soon, had been miserable.

When he arrived at the studio, she was already in hair and makeup. He wasn’t sure what had changed since the morning when she left to go get her hair done, but she’d definitely put a wall or two back up.

He had a feeling that might happen. He’d just thought it would happen after the show finished, not before. Grace hadn’t wanted to talk about the show, or the future, or anything this past weekend. All she’d wanted to do was stay in bed and enjoy each other. So that’s exactly what they’d done. And the past few days had been…magical really. It had been like a dream come true.

But he knew that one weekend wasn’t going to take all of Grace’s doubts away. He knew they might still have a long road ahead. And he was determined to be as patient as she needed him to be. He wasn’t pressing her for answers about their relationship. He hadn’t even told her how he felt because he didn’t want to scare her.

The screen lit up and the first couple featured were the twins from Minneapolis. They seemed to work well together. They both had their strengths and they stayed in their lanes. He wasn’t a huge fan of some of the choices they made though. They’d turned a three bedroom one bath home into a two bedroom, two bath by converting one of the bedrooms into a large spa-like bath with a huge walk-in wet room and standing tub. He understood why because they had limited square footage but he wasn’t sure whether or not the choice would pay off in the appraisal.

Next up were the childhood friends from the Midwest. The women took a completely different approach than any of the other teams and made the interior of the house livable, but nothing special, then spent a large amount of their budget on exterior landscaping. They put in large covered deck, but it wasn’t enclosed. It did have a kitchen, fire pit, spa, and an outdoor screen and projector for movie nights. In a warmer climate area, he thought that their gamble would have paid off in indoor/outdoor living. But in the mountains, he honestly didn’t know how much that deck would be used.

The third couple that came on the screen was Michelle and Michael. Their behind-the-scenes was a lot of footage of them fighting, but Easton was pretty sure they played that up for the camera. He’d been around the exes several times when they weren’t being taped and they seemed to get along fine. When he watched the footage of their house, he was impressed. They’d taken a three bed, two bath cabin, and made it into a four bed two bath by closing in a non-descript den area. All of their finishes looked like they were high end but he knew they couldn’t have been on the budget they all had. He could tell from the judges faces that they were as impressed as he was.

And when it was revealed that the cabin was their house, he heard his mom gasp in the audience. She’d texted him several times asking if he was working on the cabin because she loved how it was coming along. He hadn’t responded because he couldn’t say which property was his, but it was clearly her favorite.

Easton almost gasped himself when the next package started rolling and he and Grace appeared on the screen. He’d never seen any of the footage and it actually shocked him how they looked together. Not their appearance, he was taken by how much they looked like a real couple. A couple who was happy and had been together for years.

He watched as clip after clip showed sweet and touching moments the cameras captured. Living the experience was one thing, seeing it from a bird’s eye view was something completely different.

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