Chapter 31 #2
My mom’s eyes flash with the truth being laid out in front of me.
I step forward. “Is that true?”
“No.”
Nan lets out a humorless laugh. “You forget Millie was my best friend. We never left each other’s side. I was there the day you gave her an ultimatum over the phone. You said sell the house, move closer, or you’d stop bringing Scottie to see her.”
Silence fills the air.
I don’t move. Tucker doesn’t move, and neither does my dad.
My mom grinds her teeth together, looking beyond us at the house. “I was protecting her.”
“From my mother?” my dad cuts in, and we all snap our heads to face him. “Scottie didn’t need protection from my mother.”
“I wanted what’s best for her!” my mom shouts.
My dad steps closer to her. “I love you, but I also love our daughter. So, please, listen to me for once. You have to stop with this need to push Scottie into something she doesn’t want—something she doesn’t believe in. You’ve been doing it for so long that it’s time to let go of it.”
“Billy,” she says, gasping like she didn’t expect that.
“The entire drive here, you’ve been talking about how my mom should have never left her this house.
” My eyes widen and I wait in bated breath for his next words.
“She left Scottie this house because she knew exactly what she was doing. She believed in her more than either of us ever did. Even if she was too young when she died, she still believed that Scottie would carry the legacy of this place and make it a home.”
I’m shocked by his words. My lips part as I listen to every word, afraid if I move or even blink, he might stop.
He’s never really defended me like this with Mom.
But this isn’t him being careful anymore.
This is him choosing me—standing in front of her like a wall saying I was worth believing in all along.
“Millie didn’t just leave her this house,” Dad continues. “She left her a chance.”
Tears sting my eyes at the same time Tucker places a hand on my lower back again.
“This house wasn’t just something to do for the show,” I cut in, voice cracking.
“I learned somewhere along the way that it means more to me than proving that this isn’t just a hobby for me.
This is real for me, Mom.” I face her again, heart hammering in my chest. “I’m sorry if it’s not what you wanted—this show, the house, this town, all of it.
But it’s turned into everything I didn’t know I needed.
I’ve renovated my dream home. And, in the process, found people who love and care about me. ”
My dad steps up first with glassy eyes. I feel Tucker back away from me a moment before my dad wraps his arms around me for a tight embrace. “I’m so proud of you,” he whispers in my ear.
“Thank you, Dad,” I choke out, hugging him back tightly.
When he releases me, I look to my mom, who has her eyes fixed on the grass at her feet.
I walk over, placing a hand on her shoulder.
“I can’t live for your approval anymore.
I don’t want to perform perfection either.
I’m choosing the messy. Even if it’s loud and chaotic.
Even if you don’t like it. Even if it’s never going to be enough for you. ”
For a moment, no one moves.
“I’m sorry, Scottie,” my mom says, lifting her eyes to meet mine. I don’t miss the way she called me Scottie instead of Scottlyn. “I guess I just always thought…if I pushed you hard enough, you’d never have to struggle.”
“I did struggle. Just not in the way you think.”
She exhales loudly like she wants to argue. Like she wants to fix it or reshape the conversation into something she understands.
But she doesn’t.
And I can’t help but offer her a soft smile because that might be the bravest thing she’s ever done. Without another word, she turns around and walks back to her car parked on the street.
My dad offers me an apologetic smile and follows her.
We all watch as the car drives off. It’s only then that I inhale and exhale, allowing my body to relax before I turn around.
“Now that the beige brigade is gone,” Nan says, walking to me first. She looks me in the eyes—all the amusement she carries with her all day is gone. Just for a moment. “I’m fucking proud of you, my girl. And I know, without a shadow of a doubt, Millie is too.”
And then she side steps me, getting into the golf cart and driving away.
Tucker stands back, unmoving. As if he can feel me looking at him, he lifts his head, and an unreadable expression crosses his face. Anguish? I can’t tell, but it makes my stomach flip.
I don’t move. I can’t. Fear locks me in place.
Was this—my parents—too much for him?
Tucker takes slow, tentative steps toward me until stopping right in front of me. Heat creeps up my neck, bracing myself for what he’s about to say.
“I—”
He holds up a hand to stop what I was about to say, but still doesn’t say anything. Staring at him, I can see everything he wants to say, but can’t, flashing through his mind.
“A lot of people think a home is composed of walls and a roof where you live. A structure that you fill with belongings and memories,” he says, pausing, his words sounding so familiar. “But it’s more than that.”
“Tucker,” I breathe out.
“It’s who’s inside those walls. It’s a place where you’re seen without needing to explain yourself. A place where you can breathe and your flaws don’t need to be hidden. It’s a place you don’t have to pretend…”
“You can just be,” I finish for him.
His words still land the way they did the first time he said them, back in San Francisco. I remember them vividly because they resonated with me.
“Where you feel whole,” he adds the last part.
“And I’ve learned over the last few weeks that you are what makes me feel whole.
” He reaches up, swiping a thumb across my cheek at the tear I didn’t even feel escape.
“I’ve spent years being the comic relief and the guy who filled any gap of silence with laughter just so no one would see the cracks.
But not you. You saw everything. Even before I let you in, you saw it all. ”
He takes my face in his hands, angling my head up to meet his, and I melt into his touch. My eyes try to close, but the intensity of his stare keeps them open, looking at him and hearing every word he says.
“And now you’ve seen all of me.”
A smile curves on his lips, and a light laugh escapes.
“You know, this place…was my dream home.” I tilt my head to the side in confusion.
He looks from me to the house and back to me.
“I used to come here to this house, and think. It was my escape and place to hide when I didn’t know how to be anything else. ”
I don’t say anything, because I can’t.
He releases his hands from my face, turning around to face the house. He takes a few steps to the side yard, and I follow like a magnet pulling me with him. When he stops, I do too, facing the same way he is, and take in the vast mountainscape painted in my own backyard.
“I used to come here and tell myself that one day I’d have this place. And if I didn’t, I’d build something on this street close enough, so I always had this view. Because this house…it was nearly identical to the one I lived in as a child.”
My body tenses, and I feel the pain of his past for him all over again.
“It’s what always drew me here. The memories, even painful, feel different on this property.
I like to think it has to do with the wide open view of the stars at night.
Like my mom, dad, and brother were looking down on me.
But I never fully knew what kept drawing me to this house.
Even falling apart, it was waiting for someone to remember it mattered. ”
My heart beats so wildly in my chest.
“I spent years imagining what it would look like if someone loved it enough to bring it back.” He swallows hard, looking at me.
“I know it sounds ridiculous, but it became a thing for me. A secret goal. Like if I could fix this, then I could fix myself. But then you showed up.” He smiles, but his voice breaks off.
“You walked in with your ridiculous optimism and your blueprints of ideas. And you didn’t just renovate it.
You wanted to save it and make it shine again. ”
Hearing my words repeated back to me makes my heart skip ten beats.
Tucker reaches for me again, and this time my hands find his hips, gripping the hem of his T-shirt in my hands like I don’t want him to move.
“I didn’t know what to do with that,” he admits. “With you. With the way you looked at me like I wasn’t just hired help.” He huffs out a laugh. “I mean, for a while you looked at me like you wanted to strangle me.”
I feel my cheeks turn pink, and I try to avert my gaze with embarrassment, but he stops me. Holding me steady. Not letting me look anywhere but at him.
“But eventually, through the facade we put on for the camera, you started to look at me like I matter.”
My hands lift to his forearms, holding on because suddenly it feels like my body needs proof that he’s real. “You’ve always mattered,” I whisper.
His gaze drops to my mouth for a brief second before he forces it back to my eyes. “I tried so fucking hard to tell myself this was just work. I was just the contractor. This was your house. And I got good at it—at keeping it professional.”
I blink because I feel the same way.
“But then you started showing me more,” he continues.
“You started trusting me with your decisions. You laughed when I joked. You didn’t make me feel stupid for caring about safety and structure when you knew nothing I was going through.
Somewhere along the way, this stopped being a job.
It stopped being a place to hide. And I know, without a doubt, it’s because you were here. ”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to cut him off.
It’s my turn to say how I feel, but I still can’t get words to come out.
Not when Tucker is baring himself to me.
“When I told you all of that back at that hole in the wall burger place, I thought I knew what home was. But then you walked into my life and somehow made it all mean something else. I didn’t know what that something else was.
I’ve never felt like this before, so I didn’t understand it. But I do now.”
My breath trembles as I stare at the man who has made everything lighter during this process. Who has allowed me to be myself in the process. And he’s standing here, offering me the heaviest and most beautiful thing he owns.
Himself.
“I love you, Scottie. I’m so crazy and deeply in love with you that I don’t remember what my life was like before you were in it.”
A smile curves at my lips. I lift my hand, touching his cheek and feeling the dampness from the emotions he let out. “I love you, too,” I whisper.
His eyes widen like he doesn’t believe he’s allowed to hear it back. But then he lets out a sound that is half laugh, half breath, and half something that might be relief.
“Can you say that again for me?”
“I love you, Tucker Daniels.”
And before I can even get his full name out, his lips are on mine.
Like he can’t survive another second without it.
Like he’s been starving and didn’t know it until I said it back.
The kiss is slow, but then it deepens quickly, because Tucker doesn’t know how to be careful with something that feels like salvation.
His hands slide into the back of my hair, holding me there. When we finally break apart, he stays close enough that I feel his breath on my lips.
“I think…” He pauses, pressing his forehead to mine. “I thought this house here was my dream home. But it turns out you are. You’re the home I can run to when I need an escape, when I need to feel seen, and when I need something that’s real.”
I reach up, pressing my lips to his again.
His arms tighten around me, pulling me in until there’s no space left for any doubt. No space left for fear.
Just us.