Page 37 of The Beach Trap

“If you need a YouTube video, you shouldn’t be doing it on your own.”

“What, areyougoing to help?” Blake’s eyebrows are raised as if she’s daring me.

“No,” I snap, annoyed. “We’ll get someone who knows what they’re doing. A professional.”

“I know what I’m doing,” Blake says, her eyes flashing with anger.

“The kitchen floor would beg to differ.”

Blake rolls her eyes. “We can hire someone for the big stuff like plumbing and electrical work,” she says, “but I can handle the small stuff.”

I’m about to question her definition of “small stuff” when she makes one final point.

“It’ll save us a lot of money,” Blake says. “And I’ve done it before.”

She’s not wrong about the money. A renovation is expensive, and even though Blake’s experience seems sketchy, we can’t afford to pay for all the help we’ll need.

I think of Henry’s “helping hands” and wonder if this is the type of project his business handles, and if there might be a friends-and-family discount. I’d feel better if we hired someone I knew I could trust to keep an eye on Blake. God knows I can’t leave her to her own devices. The kitchen floor is proof of that—and the hideous paint on the cabinets. Which reminds me...

“Whoever does the work,” I say, “I need to weigh in on all design decisions.”

“Fine,” Blake says, a little too easily. But I want to make sure she knows I meanalldecisions.

“That includes anything that affects the aesthetic of the house,” I say, and Blake nods as if she hadn’t already made a pretty big design decision on her own. “I want to make sure everything aligns with my brand.”

Blake’s face cracks into a lopsided smile, and I know she’s stifling a laugh—just barely. There are a lot of things I cantolerate, but being the punch line of someone’s joke isn’t one of them.

“That includes anything you paint,” I tell her, trying to get the conversation back on track. “Like the kitchen cabinets.”

“Have at it,” Blake says. “You can pick the color.”

“Good. Because the one you picked won’t work.”

“I haven’t picked a color yet.”

Now it’s my turn to laugh. “I saw the cabinets—they were painted.”

“Oh,” Blake says, recrossing her arms in front of her chest. “That’s just the primer—you do know what primer is, don’t you?”

“Of course,” I tell her. And it’s not a total lie. I know a lot about the kind of primer you put on your face before applying concealer. “But this primer is ugly.”

Blake shrugs, not disagreeing with me. “It exists to be covered up, so it’s not meant to be pretty.”

“Everything has the potential to be pretty,” I inform Blake, who could be a lot prettier herself if she put an ounce of effort into it—if she got a good conditioning treatment on her hair, wore some lipstick and maybe mascara.

But good for Blake if she’s okay getting her hands dirty and doing manual labor. She can do that, and I’ll make it all look good. Not just good. Runway-worthy.

After all, life is a fashion show.

CHAPTER TWELVE

BLAKE

It’s halfway through my second week at the beach house, and despite Kat’s insistence on approving every single minuscule change, it’s going okay. Better than I expected, to be honest. Partly because Kat’s handyman friend, Henry, is helping out.

He came over today to look at the plumbing and electrical work I need done in the kitchen, and I’m sitting at the kitchen table making a list of supplies to refinish the floor. Contrary to Kat’s assumption last week, I didn’t just YouTube how to do it. A few days ago, I FaceTimed Granddad and he talked me through the whole process. He’s surprisingly sharp when it comes to remembering construction-related details. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about remembering my name.

A lump forms in my throat and I clear it away.

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