Page 20 of His Hot Mess

Then I remembered the underwear.

I shrugged. “Maybe if you put your laundry away like a mature adult we wouldn’t have run into that little problem.”

Her mouth fell open, then clamped shut again as she glared.

A pang of guilt hit me. She had a chip on her shoulder about the state of her apartment.

“Listen,” she said. “How about I don’t tell you how to do your job, and you don’t get into my personal business, okay? It’s the only way this is going to work.”

“Suits me,” I said, feeling like an ass. And sounding like even more of one. But I didn’t know how to backtrack now, so I kept going. “Are you going to let me in so we can get started?”

She took a breath. “Fine. Welcome to Sadie’s Vintage.”

Even though I knew I’d pissed her off, I caught the excitement in her voice.

“Fun to say out loud, isn’t it?”

“A little too fun. There’s so much to do…”

“That’s why I’m here.”

She smiled and something warm spread through me. Maybe if we quit pissing each other off every half-second—and if I stopped putting my foot in it—we could figure out how to be civil.

I wanted to keep making her smile.

“So how much do you know about renos?” I asked as I stepped inside.

I needed to leave my feelings at the door. I was here to help on behalf of Grayscale. That was it.

“Enough.”

I frowned. “How much?”

“I’ve… seen a lot of shows.”

“Not at all the same thing.”

Sadie scowled.

So much for keeping it friendly.

“Of course they’re not the same thing,” she said. “But I’ve hammered a nail and rolled paint before. It’s not like we’re rebuilding this whole place. Besides, you’re the one who’s supposed to be handling all the major stuff.”

I pulled out my clipboard. “You’re going to have to be able to take some direction.”

Sadie huffed. “What kind of direction?”

I shouldn’t have worried about this job going too quickly. At this rate, it would take us two weeks just to get the measurements done. Especially if she insisted on being so obstinate.

“Sadie, I do this for a living, okay? I’m not going to give you any design direction—this is your store. But I’ll need to tell you what to do to get this part done.”

Sadie pinched her lips. “I can take direction. I don’t have to like it though.”

Despite myself, I laughed. “Alright then, let’s at least make an attempt to get going.”

It ended up taking us an hour to go through and confirm everything that was on her design. By the end, I had a final list of inventory to purchase on Friday, and we did an okay job of not bickering too much along the way. As it turned out, the shop was going to look pretty close to the one on her Pinterest board. Sadie even suggested some ways where she could save some money, bringing the estimate down by replacing some material.

“I don’t want to take advantage of Charles’s generosity,” she said. “I feel kind of bad for tricking him into paying for the whole thing.”

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