Chapter 11
“Ineed you closer. Even closer. So close you can touch it,” Jack said, smooshing his hands in the opposite direction of “I once caught a fish this big.”
“I don’t know how much closer I can get without toppling over,” Poppy said, balancing on the third rung of the ladder.
Her hands were blistered from gripping the sides so hard.
Perspiration was building between her shoulder blades.
And sheer terror was surging through her body.
Even though she was only three feet off the ground it felt as if she were thirty stories up.
“Yeah, that isn’t happening,” she said.
“Can you at least go up a few more rungs so we can get you in frame painting from the trim to the baseboard?” Jack asked as if it didn’t feel like scaling Everest. “One seamless roll of the brush. Then we’ll do the next color option.”
She looked down and the room began to spin. The ladder shifted and it took everything she had not to cry.
“Is there a problem?” Diana asked.
You can do this, Poppy told herself. You are strong and powerful and likeable. And this is a chance to show the crew that you know what you’re doing.
“Nope. No problem at all. I was just thinking it might be hard for viewers to see the difference with it being a single stripe of color.”
“It’s original,” Jack said.
Original didn’t mean it was better. In fact, sometimes things were a way for a reason, and paint samples were done in squares for a reason. But she’d pick her battles, and right now her battle was getting off this ladder.
“This shot might be better if it was done with me standing on the ground and using the roller brush from the top down,” Poppy insisted.
A pregnant silence fell over the crowd. Poppy looked over and everyone was staring at Diana. Diana was staring at Poppy. This was where Diana would rip her a new one.
Instead she shocked the shit out of Poppy and said, “The girl has a point.”
“I agree,” Decker said from the threshold of the dining room. He nearly dwarfed the oversized entry. He was dressed in sawdust-covered cargo shorts with a million-and-one pockets that held a million-and-one secrets, and a soft gray shirt that clung to his body with the day’s heat.
In unison, everyone gave an enthusiastic, “Hey, Deck!” Even Diana.
Poppy would have rolled her eyes if she wasn’t afraid it would cause her to lose her balance and topple over.
“I agree with Poppy. Color choices lower on the wall in squares make it easier for viewers to see the difference. Also, they feel like they’re a part of the decision making. And since we’re in decision-making mode, can we add a pale pink to the mix?”
Poppy looked over at the swatches. “Spring Blush?” she asked. “Is this a joke?”
“No.”
“It will make the room too feminine.”
“That’s called gender essentialism. Color doesn’t have a gender.”
Poppy gripped the ladder harder. “But it makes a statement.”
“It’s not about a statement, it’s about how it makes you feel,” Decker said.
“And right now I feel nauseous. Can I get down before you start lecturing me on what I already know?”
“As long as you agree to add Spring Blush to the paint options and let the audience choose.”
Once her feet were on solid ground, she was able to breathe again. That’s when she noticed the room staring at her, waiting for her to snap at Decker.
She plastered on a fake smile. “You’re right. It’s all about what resonates with the audience.”
He stalked toward her with his eyes locked on hers.
When those intense cobalts zeroed in, never veering away, her heart began this annoying pattering she couldn’t seem to control.
Not only was she touched that he remembered her fear of heights, she was still thinking about what he’d told her last night.
How upset he’d been over the video and how vulnerable he’d been with her.
He didn’t stop walking until he was in her personal space bubble. He put his hand over his neck mic.
“You okay?” he asked so quietly she barely heard it.
She nodded, then covered her mic. “You?”
“Don’t do that,” he said.
“Do what?”
“Normally you walk into a room and chew my head off for stepping on your toes. Especially after I get one up on you. Now you’re looking at me with those sad eyes full of pity.”
She was not feeling pity but compassion. And she wasn’t staring at him because of the sex tape, she was staring because he looked incredible in his sexy contractor-for-hire uniform.
“Pity is the last thing I’d ever feel for you.”
“Then what are you feeling?”
She batted her eyes. “Irritation.”
A smile lit his face. “Shocker.”
“There must be some interference with the mics,” Roger, the boom operator, said.
“And your body language isn’t really the vibe we were going for,” Jack added. “Can we exude a fun and light feeling, please?”
Poppy bit back a smile. If they only knew the real vibe that was lighting between the two of them, the entire direction of the show would shift.
Another reason to keep her distance. The last thing she needed was for the papers to report that the big man on campus was responsible for the show’s success.
She’d give him his due, but she refused to be the little lady in the corner holding paint swatches.
She plastered the kind of smile on her face she used when someone on the street told her to smile. “Is that what you wanted?”
“Let’s get a little messier. How about you paint a dollop on the tip,” Jack said.
“Tip of what?” she asked, confused.
Decker grinned and it was wicked. “Painter’s choice.”
“How about this?” She dunked her hands in the paint pan and smacked his chest—and man, what a chest it was. It was like accosting the statue of David.
When she pulled back there were two perfect handprints on his pecs. He flexed and they jumped up and down. She laughed. A big belly laugh that she felt all the way down in her soul. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had so much fun.
He grinned and said, “Payback’s a bitch.”
His eyes fell to her chest, which had her rethinking her little dare.
“This show is rated G,” she said primly. “Let’s keep this family friendly.”
He coated his hands in the second paint choice and placed them on her cheeks, smooching them together until her lips puckered like a goldfish.
“You did not just do that,” she said through her fishy lips.
“Well, I had other cheeks in mind, but this is rated G.”
She dunked her hand in another color and smeared it right down his impressive abs. They were like a washing board.
He pulled her against his chest and rubbed their bodies together so that the paint smeared between them, making a slick canvas. She threw her head back and released another good belly laugh until she realized that somehow, in all the fun and games, their good parts had lined up.
In a flash, he stopped and his eyes met hers and locked because the vibe went from light and friendly to heated and heady, and she forgot why she was mad at him. His head dipped lower and lower as she rose on her toes higher and higher. Then suddenly he pulled back so quickly she nearly fell over.
“Is that what you wanted?” he asked.
She was about to answer, “No.” Which would have been a blatant lie because she wanted that kiss, but another voice filled the room.
“Perfection,” Jack said, his hand coming up over a camera that was less than a foot from Poppy and Decker, with a big thumbs-up.
It was like someone dunked a bucket of cold paint right over Poppy’s head. She’d been so caught up in the moment she’d forgotten they were being taped.