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“If we move the window, we’d have to completely tackle the back exterior of the house, replace siding, fix any surprises we find when we pull off the back wall, plus extra permitting and the cost of a new window because the old one isn’t energy-efficient…”
“So that’s out. Shoot.” He hated the way her shoulders fell along with her smile, but he had to be clear. Sometimes trying to save on cheaper materials cost more in the end, and changing blueprints midstream always fucked things up.
“Why are you changing the plans now? I thought we had everything approved.”
“I’m just trying to keep the clients happy.”
“Leave the sink. Seth and I will make the new cabinets work. What else?”
“The island is going to be smaller.”
“Wait. Isn’t the island why we knocked down this stupid wall? Who makes an island smaller?”
“Someone who found a deal on a smaller slab of marble and needs to stay under budget.” She raised her eyebrows and tilted her head toward the camera.
Screw the camera. Her plan to save money was to shrink everything down? Would they be building a dollhouse by the end? Her father had built his reputation on affordable quality, but he was always up front with clients about what they could afford. If he wanted to stay in Dom’s good graces, he had to toe that line. This was not going to end well. “There has to be a way to keep the size or the proportions will be all off.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” She pressed her fingers to her forehead and winced.
He regretted pushing back, but she needed to be realistic. He might as well get all the bad news out on the table at once. “While we’re in here, there’s something else I need to show you.”
“Oh, God. What now?” She snapped her head up, eyes wide with panic.
He wanted so badly to touch her, to soothe her, but he knew how she’d feel about that getting caught on camera so he kept his hands to himself while he added another straw to the camel’s back. “The old fridge had a water line that was slowly leaking for who knows how long.” Adrian knelt by a dark spot on the subfloor and pushed his thumb through what should have been solid plywood. “It’s a miracle the thing didn’t drop into the crawl space when we pulled it out.”
Sofia’s jaw dropped. “How did the inspector miss this?”
“He didn’t have to pull out the appliances, just note if they were working. And there’s a note that he couldn’t get into the crawl space because he was too broad in the shoulders so he did a visual inspection from the trap door.”
“So we don’t know about the supports underneath?”
He could hear the panic in her voice. He wished he didn’t have to be the bad guy here.
“I don’t know the damage yet. I told the guys to wait to rip a hole in the floor until we were done carting everything out.” He held out a long-handled sledgehammer, hoping to give her a bit of control back. “Do you want to do the honors?”
Sofia gripped the sledge and dropped her sunglasses down from their perch on top of her head. He watched her gather her courage and grinned. She looked beautiful and fierce wielding that sledge in full makeup, but he hoped to God they weren’t opening another can of worms. She lifted the sledge waist high before dropping it down onto the ruined panel. It sank through the weakened wood without a hint of resistance and dropped the foot and a half to the bottom of the crawl space.
“That can’t be good.” She tugged the hammer back up through the hole, and a bigger chunk of subflooring fell down. “Can you see the joists yet?”
Adrian took the hammer from her and widened the hole with a few punches. He took the flashlight and dropped his head and shoulders into the dark space below. He surveyed the beams for damage before pulling back out, gratified that Sofia had to move her eyes from his ass to his face when it reappeared.
“Good news? Bad news?” Her shoulders were brushing her ears as she braced for another hit.
“Hang on a sec!” Trina moved to reframe the shot, climbing halfway up a ladder to get a better angle. “Now, angle your shoulders toward me a little…perfect. Okay, go ahead!”
Adrian tried not to feel self-conscious, but it was hard standing so close to Sofia and trying to keep his impulses under control. “Both. Bad news, two of these joists show signs of water damage.”
“Da—darn it! How much?”
“That’s the good news. The damage seems localized and minimal. So I think we can dry them out and reinforce this section with two-by-six sister beams. We won’t have to replace the whole thing.”
Sofia let out a heavy breath, and he rubbed a filthy hand on her shoulder.
“Not as bad as we thought, babe.”
She deliberately stepped out from under his touch and glared.Damn.
“We talked about this,” she hissed. He couldn’t help but think about the rest of that conversation, the part where they’d talked about kissing and more. “Watch it,babe.”
