Chapter 14

DAISY

The studio was eerily quiet without the other teams in, but they'd gone home about an hour ago, while Thor and I were still trying to get as far ahead of our sculpture as possible before it all started again tomorrow. As far as I knew, there was only one camera person still operating too, which made it feel a lot calmer and more intimate than it had in the past few weeks.

"How long have we got?" Thor asked.

"About an hour until we're kicked out," I responded. "Then just enough time to sleep."

"Just about," he responded. "I'm glad my hotel is only just around the corner."

"I didn't realise you were staying in a hotel."

"Seemed better than travelling every day."

"I suppose that depends on where you live." I headed over and set down a coffee for him, drinking my own in order to try and stay focused.

"In the god realm, normally."

"Right, of course, I should have thought of that."

"Not necessarily, plenty of gods live on Earth," he responded. "Are you ready to start attaching leaves?"

I nodded. "Should be."

He put the ladder in position, and gestured for me to head up it. I was a little nervous about this part, especially as it felt as if a lot could go wrong. I finished my coffee and climbed up.

Thor handed me one of the delicate leaves we'd made and I reached for the hammer that should be hanging on my belt, but it wasn't there. I groaned as I spotted it over on the drawing table.

"Here." Thor held out his own hammer to me.

"Are you sure I'm allowed to use this? Don't I have to be worthy or something?"

"No, that's just a story I told so that people would stop trying to steal my hammer. You'd be amazed how well it worked."

"Oh." I took it from him, my breathing hitching as our fingers touched. I tried my best to get my thoughts under control. Right now, we had a challenge to win, and that didn't involve getting distracted by my attraction to Thor.

I hammered the piece of metal into place, making sure that it was secure before handing his hammer back to him.

"What do you need next?" he asked.

"Blow torch, please."

He handed it over. I tried to focus the best I could on heating the metal leaf so I could twist it into the right shape. Maybe we could have just stuck it on and hoped that would be enough, but we both wanted it to be perfect, and in order to do that, we needed to put the time in.

We worked in comfortable almost-silence, only speaking when one of us needed something, and I could feel the whole sculpture starting to take shape. Several apples sat on one of the tables, ready to be added in the right places.

"Have we checked that the tree is tall enough?" I asked.

"It's taller than me," Thor pointed out.

"I don't know how tall you are," I said. "Hand me the tape measure?"

He passed it over and I hooked it over the top of the tree, running it down to the ground and checking it.

"Seven feet and an inch," I said. "Good enough."

"How's the woodpecker coming along?"

"I've barely started," I admitted. "But now that most of the leaves are on, I can spend a lot of time on that tomorrow."

"I'm going to do the nest then too," he responded. "Right now it's just a hole."

"I did say that was a risk."

"You did," he agreed. "But I think it'll be fine. We've made good progress now."

Someone cleared their throat and we both looked over to see the cameraman by our station. "I'm clocking out now, you're supposed to be out of here in five minutes."

"Thanks," Thor said.

The man nodded and turned to leave us to it.

"There's a lot we could do in five minutes," I said. "But maybe it would be best if we got everything ready for tomorrow so we can just come in and get started?" We'd be arriving separately, so it made sense for us to at least talk it through so we knew what to do when we arrived at the studio.

"So we're going to be working on the birds tomorrow," he said. "We should prioritise them because if the apples don't go on, we can just pretend that they were never meant to be on there in the first place."

"Sneaky," I responded.

"And the perfect solution," he said. "They didn't say we had to have the fruit, but they did say that we had to have the animals, so we should prioritise."

"Yes, you're right. I would like a few more leaves on the tree, especially at the back, but they can wait until everything else is done first." There was something satisfying about seeing the sculpture come together like this. I'd never worked with another artist like this before. I'd done things with Danny, mostly related to holding the swords and other things he forged, but creating with someone was an entirely different process, and one that I was actually interested in trying again in the future. Maybe I could suggest that to Thor once we were outside the competition.

If he wanted to talk to me again afterwards. He'd said a lot of things that sounded like he was interested in knowing me better, but I didn't know how much of it was true and how much was just words.

I headed over to my station where the start of the woodpecker was sitting waiting for me. It didn't look like much yet, and I was starting to wonder if that was a mistake. We still had about eight hours of work time tomorrow, but I didn't know if that was going to be enough.

Except that I had to trust that we were going to get done. There was no reason to think we wouldn't, not with how well we were working together.

I turned around, bumping into him as I did. He reached out to steady me, a warm hand on my arm. My pulse raced in response. I looked up, meeting his gaze and seeing an intensity there that I hadn't expected. He leaned in and my eyes fluttered closed even as his lips met mine.

The kiss was demanding and echoed a lot of the desire I felt within me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pushed my body against his, not caring in the slightest that we were in the middle of a TV studio, even if I should care about that. At least there weren't any cameras still rolling.

He pulled me closer with a hand on my lower back and I sunk into him, desperate for more even if I wasn't sure what more was.

Except that wasn't true. I knew exactly what I wanted.

I pulled back and met his gaze. "You said your hotel wasn't far from here, right?"

He nodded.

"Take me there." There was a small part of me that worried he'd say no, but the rest knew the truth. There was no denying the spark between us, even if we should probably at least wait until the competition was over.

"Gladly," he murmured.

"And maybe call your friend to make sure none of that actually airs."

He chuckled, the sound vibrating through me. "I'll do that before we've even left the studio, but I don't think anyone's filming now."

As if summoned by his words, a bell sounded, which I assumed was our sign that we were supposed to get out of there.

"I'll message Mel, you pack up," he said.

I nodded, excitement and nerves thrumming through me all at once as I thought about what was to come.