Page 98 of Mr. Fixer Upper
“We don’t have the air compressor hooked up yet,” he murmured against her palm.
“I hope you fall through all four floors of this hellhole,” Paige snapped and started to walk away. But she spun around, stomped back. “You’ve told me that you love me twice. Once when I found out you’d lied, and again making a joke in front of my crew. For future reference, that’s not the best way to do it.”
She whirled around, snapped her headset back in place, and strode out the front door.
“Got your work cut out for you,” Eddie said, clapping a hand on his back.
“I don’t mind getting dirty.”
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Gannon’s sledgehammer bit through the plaster sending dust and chunks flying. He yanked it back out of the ragged hole he’d created and swung again. Flynn was muscling away on the other side of the opening to the kitchen. They had a bet. Whoever busted out their side first won. Loser had to strip down and sit in the claw foot tub upstairs on camera.
Gannon struck again and heard the unfortunate clang of metal. “Shit.”
The clang was followed immediately by a different noise. An explosive gushing. Water—thankfully not sewage—spewed forth from the broken pipe, soaking Gannon and spraying in all directions.
Chantay, in cargo pants and work boots, danced sideways out of the blast zone and continued to roll.
“Who the fuck didn’t turn the water off?” Gannon yelled, stripping off his shirt and wrapping it around the busted pipe. His job, his house—it was his responsibility to double check that the water was off. At least it wasn’t a gas line.
Flynn, a shit-eating grin on his face, continued hammering away at his portion of pipe-less wall. Mickey, a scrawny high school drop out with piercings all over, hustled down the basement stairs in search of the shut-off valve.
The water mushrooming out of his shirt slowed to a trickle and then a seep.
“Done!” Flynn flipped his sledgehammer in the air, caught it one-handed. “And you’re already halfway to the bet.”
Gannon flipped him the bird and caught Paige’s smirk from where she watched the footage on a little monitor. It would end up on the show, pixelated of course, but Gannon found she seemed more interested in letting him be himself on this set than any Kings episode.
He winked at her, and she rolled her eyes, but Chantay grinned behind her camera. He was winning them over, one-by-one. They’d all be Team Gannon by the time they wrapped, he predicted. And he was going to need all the help he could get.
So far, Paige was proving to be resistant to his irresistibility. But he’d win. He had no intention of losing now. Not with so much at stake.
While his guys cleaned up the mess, Gannon trudged upstairs to pay up. Chantay followed with Paige, and the women didn’t bother hiding their laughter as he stripped out of his soggy jeans. He kept his safety glasses on and did a slow turn in his boxer briefs. He saw the spark in Paige’s eyes as her gaze skimmed him head to toe and back again before she tamped it down.
Yeah, she wasn’t quite as walled off as she pretended to be.
Gannon climbed into the stained tub. “There. Happy, asshole?” he asked Flynn.
“Pretty roomy,” Flynn mused.
“Bet you both could fit in there,” Paige said innocently.
Flynn, still wearing his tool belt and work boots, obliged. He climbed in the opposite end, sending Gannon scrambling up the back of the tub to get out of his way.
“I think we can fit more in here,” Flynn said slapping the side of the tub.
The abandoned claw foot was a clown car for construction workers. In the end, they fit six of them in the tub doing an off-key rendition of “Rubber Ducky.” Paige laughed so hard off camera she was crying, and Gannon’s gut did that slow roll into happiness watching her.
They were making so much noise they all almost missed the warning creak of the floor under the tub.
“Abandon ship,” Gannon ordered, sending bodies scrambling for safety.
“Better shore that up,” Flynn said.
“Add it to the list,” Paige said, wiping her eyes.
“That list gets any longer, we’re gonna be here for the next twenty years,” Flynn predicted.
