Chapter 32
I KNOW EXACTLY WHERE I’LL BE.
Tucker
I’ve built houses that can stand a storm and not budge, but nothing has ever hit me the way those three words have.
Nothing has ever made me feel like my entire life split open.
Hearing the words back, after fearing saying them to her, feels like everything before her was grayscale and all the after finally has color.
She breaks away from the kiss, looking up at me with a soft smile.
“You used my full name,” I murmur, voice rough from everything I’ve been holding in.
“I did,” she whispers and shrugs. “Felt dramatic.”
I laugh, hooking an arm around her neck to pull her to my chest. I know she can feel my racing heart. It hasn’t calmed down since her parents showed up. Since I watched her stand tall in front of them and say everything she’s been holding back for years.
I wanted to cut in a dozen times.
I wanted to tell them to fuck all the way off.
But she did it on her own.
I knew I loved her before that because the thoughts had been swimming in my head for days—probably weeks.
Scottie is a different kind of strong. Not once has she ever flinched when things got ugly during this remodel.
Not even when the producers suggested we fake a relationship for the show. She just…adjusts.
And I’ve been watching her do it like it’s nothing.
Hearing the words spill out of her told me she’s been waking up every morning of her life and talking herself into being brave. She makes it look easy, too, which must have been the biggest lie she told the world.
So, watching her stand tall only made me fall more in love with her.
Just as I’m about to lean in and claim her lips as mine again, I hear a throat clearing to the side, and I freeze. Scottie does, too, as her eyes widen.
We both turn our heads and remember the crew standing off to the side. One behind the camera, with Jade and Andrea on either side. The lens is still pointed on us, red light blinking.
But Scottie doesn’t flinch.
Of course she doesn’t.
For a split second, she just stands there with teal paint on her cheek and my hands around her. Then she laughs under her breath. “Oh my god.”
Andrea clears her throat. “Cut.” The camera turns off, and Andrea steps toward us. “Well, we got all of that.”
Scottie looks up at me, eyes bright and wild like she’s waiting for me to panic. Like she’s waiting for me to yank my hands back and retreat to the safer version of myself.
I don’t.
I tighten my hold on her instead, making her smile shift. “Keep it,” she says to Andrea, still looking at me before she winks and faces Andrea. “All of it.”
“Are you sure? That was…really personal.”
Scottie nods. “I’m sure.”
Scottie steps out of my hold and looks around at the house.
I can see her eyes take in the yard that all of Bluestone Lakes helped her clean up.
Then her eyes scan the porch, and a smile curves on her lips when they land on the porch swing.
She looks back at Andrea and Jade like she’s decided on something more.
“I’d also like you to go through all the film,” Scottie says. “I want the real stuff. You can keep the polished stuff if it involves me sharing what we plan to do with each space. But everything else…make it real. The sweat. The frustration. All of it.”
“But…”
Scottie cuts her off with a hand in the air. “I know you have clips where I mess up lines, look exhausted, and have sawdust covering my head. I know you have some where I’m laughing so hard I might pee my pants. I want it all on the show.”
“Being the face of the season, people are going to expect—”
“Performance?” Scottie finishes with a raised eyebrow. I feel something crack open in my chest the way she says it. “And that’s what I’m doing. Giving them one.”
Andrea studies her for a long second, glancing at Jade before looking back at Scottie. I can see the calculation behind her eyes and gauge whether the audience will tolerate it. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“No. You’ll do it. I want everything you edit together to be perfectly imperfect.” Her smile is bigger now, making the corners around her eyes crinkle. “If this show is about homes, then it should be about the truth of building one. Not just the pretty reveal.”
“Okay.”
Scottie exhales, and some of the tension leaves her shoulders. She reaches up, pressing a kiss to the corner of my lips before walking away. “I’m going to do the second coat of paint,” she announces. “I may be choosing authenticity over perfection, but I’m still choosing coverage.”
We laugh this time as I watch her disappear inside.
The air changes into something sharp now that I’m left alone with Andrea and Jade. When I turn my head toward them, I can see their faces trying to look satisfied, and I realize with cold clarity that they want to frame this season to belong to them and not Scottie.
No more.
I take a step toward them, lowering my voice. “It was you.”
“What?”
“You brought her parents here.”
Her eyes flicker, but her smile doesn’t move. “We didn’t bring anyone. They said they wanted to—”
“Don’t,” I cut her off. Not angry, but controlled. “Don’t lie to me.”
“This is television, Tucker,” she says, holding my gaze like she thinks she can win this stare down. “It’s more than just the house. It’s telling a story. Which is why you came in for the plot, too.”
Now I’m feeling angry. “This is her life.”
She shrugs like it’s nothing. “We didn’t know it would be drama.”
I laugh, humorless. “You knew exactly what it would be. You just thought the fans would eat it up the same way you thought they would with a relationship between the two of us.”
Her eyes narrow, and that’s the part that flips something in me.
She’s not entirely wrong.
They will eat it up. The fans will call it empowering.
They’ll post clips and caption them with quotes about healing and choosing yourself.
They’ll scream about the moment she snapped and stood up for herself.
But none of them will feel the cost of it the way she did.
None of them will have to carry her shaking hands after the cameras turn off.
I lean in slightly, voice dropping even lower. “You don’t get to weaponize her pain for ratings.”
“We gave her a platform.”
“No. She gave you a season.”
For a second, she looks like she might argue.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” I start, crossing my arms over my chest. “We’re going to finish up today. In a few days, we’re going to film the scheduled final reveal. And then you’re going to fucking leave Bluestone Lakes like a bear is chasing you.”
Jade laughs next to me, but stops when I glare at her.
“Got it?”
They both nod and walk away.
I watch them get in their van and drive off before making my way back inside, where Scottie is. She’s crouched down, painting a lower part of the wall with her tongue sticking out in concentration. The sight of her like this, messy and focused, makes my lips curve into a smile.
I reach into my back pocket and pull out a bag of candy. Her eyes snap to mine as if she just heard me now. I discard the candy in my hand, picking out the green and yellow and putting them in my pocket loosely. I filter all the other colors back into the bag and hand it to her.
“Sugar?”
She stands up, dropping the paint brush to the drop cloth at her feet.
She jumps into my arms, wrapping her body around me.
I catch her, nearly dropping all the sour candy to the floor, but I keep my grip on them.
She presses her face into my neck, and I tighten my hold on her, never wanting to let her go.
She pulls back, legs around my waist to look me in the eye. “I love you.”
I bite my bottom lip into my mouth, fighting back the biggest and cheesiest smile because that’s what she does to me. That’s what hearing those words from her lips does to me. Never in my life did I think I was deserving of this. This kind of love. This person. This life.
But she’s changed everything.
She’s made me believe in everything again.
I lean in, pressing my forehead to hers and whisper, “I love you, too.”
I hold her right there in the entryway of the house she rebuilt—that we rebuilt. The house that chose her. The house that shines again because she walked into it.
I know with certainty that when the cameras finally stop rolling, the crew packs up, and the world moves on to the next story, I know exactly where I’ll be.
Right here with her.
Home.