Epilogue
TWO MONTHS LATER.
Scottie
Pulling on a pair of my comfiest sweatpants, I give myself a once-over in the floor-length mirror sitting in the corner of my bedroom.
It used to be a place where a box of memories sat that I found when renovating this house.
Now it’s filled, and the memories moved, scattered around the house in various frames.
I make my way downstairs, the floors no longer creaking in warning. The walls aren’t holding their breath. The teal entryway shines under the warm light, and every time I walk past it, I still feel the same thing I did the day we painted it.
The day I chose myself, and the universe didn’t collapse because of it.
I hear chatter from the living room and make my way toward it.
But my phone buzzing in my hand makes me stop.
Looking down, I see it’s a text from my mom, and I can’t help but smile.
It’s a selfie of her and my dad sitting on the couch together, smiling so big with the TV queued up behind them to the channel for the season finale.
Mom
We’re ready to watch them say you Nailed It.
Me
Thank you, Mom. Fingers crossed.
Mom
I already know that’s what they will say because the work you did is exceptional. It deserves as much.
Reading that only makes me smile wider. It took a few days before I finally had the courage to sit down with my mom and talk about everything without cameras or a production crew hovering over us.
It actually made the conversation a lot less tense.
She allowed me to openly share how I felt without judgement and I listened to her.
By the end of the few hours together, we were both crying and apologizing for things.
It brought us a sense of peace that made me wish I had opened up years ago.
And since then, she’s been a whole new person.
She’s encouraging, cheering me on, and I have never felt more support from her than I do now.
Me
I love you both.
Mom
We love you too.
I lock my phone and continue making my way to the living room.
It gets louder with every step I take. The TV is frozen and queued up for the watch party of the season finale of Nailed It or Failed It.
There’s a sign hanging slightly crooked under the TV that Lily insisted on.
The coffee table is buried under an assortment of food.
Lily brought baked goods, obviously. Poppy and Dallas brought a charcuterie board.
Blair and Griffin brought drinks. And Nan brought something in a very old crockpot, announced it contained “something different,” but refused to elaborate.
“All right,” Nan announces, coming in from the kitchen and clapping her hands. “Where’s my seat? I need to see myself on this high definition TV.”
Lily laughs. “Nan, you were in like two episodes. Briefly.”
“Yeah, but I was also in the background of the front yard episode. You can see me hackin’ away in the bushes. I stole the season.”
Blair holds up the phone in her hand. “The internet agrees.”
“I’m a star,” Nan says, face lighting up.
Dallas points at Tucker standing in the archway of the kitchen, arms crossed. “You ready, Hollywood?”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Oh, come on,” Dallas says, face pulled into a grin. “You’re famous now. People are making edits of you all over social media.”
Griffin reaches for a piece of cheese and a cracker. “He’s been pretending he hasn’t seen them.”
“I haven’t.”
Blair grins. “You have.”
“He has,” Lily agrees.
Poppy leans in, stage-whispering like Tucker can’t hear. “He definitely has.”
Tucker shoots them all a flat look, then his gaze slides to me. His expression shifts instantly into something soft like the rest of the room fades when he finds me.
It’s been strange watching our story turn into something other people consume.
The house. The rooms. But more than that, watching us.
Because the show aired exactly the way I asked Andrea for, with all the real and raw stuff.
I watched every episode before this one and saw every part where my smile slipped when I thought the cameras weren’t watching, the nights my hair was a mess and eyes puffy, the moments Tucker was far too close, touching me carefully, and every single mess that was made.
They showed me sweating through the porch demo.
They showed Tucker almost falling off the ladder, and my hands on his legs.
They showed the ceiling collapsing and memories falling from it.
They showed my parents.
That part still makes my stomach turn over on itself, even though I’ve watched the episode twice already. The internet didn’t just watch with me, they felt it.
The comments on social media were overwhelming. People started sharing stories of their own families, of never being enough, and finally feeling seen through the show. People cheered for me like they were waiting for that moment my whole career.
After that episode aired, my mom and I cried on the phone for an hour about how we’re so happy that was behind us.
She hates that it was aired publicly, and part of me does, too.
The internet has truly painted her in a terrible light because of it.
The next day, I went online and shared a photo of her and I in front of the house with a long caption about conversation.
She didn’t ask me to do that, but she’s made an effort to change.
And the least I could do is show them that.
But what really surprised me, was how much they fell in love with Tucker.
They called him everything from hot to protective to steady to the funniest man alive. Someone even wrote what felt like an essay about how he touched my back every time my parents spoke, as if he were holding me together. Another person made a video titled Tucker Daniels: Walking Green Flag.
I still don’t know whether I want to laugh or hide from it.
“I don’t care what the internet thinks,” he says simply, lifting his chin in the air.
“Here we go,” Nan mutters.
His eyes are locked on mine from across the room. “I only have eyes for one person.”
The room erupts. Blair squeals, and Lily throws her hands up in the air with excitement. Griffin mumbles something under his breath, and Dallas shoots Tucker a wink.
My face heats while a smile tugs at my mouth.
Tucker steps toward me, close enough that I feel the warmth of his presence envelope me without his hands even on me. He reaches up, brushing the hair away from my face. “You okay?”
I nod. “You?”
He exhales. “Ask me after.”
I tilt my head. “Are you nervous, Hollywood?”
“No.” I raise an eyebrow, and he sighs. “Okay, yes.”
I smile, reaching to place a hand on his chest. “It’s going to be fine. It’s just a house reveal.”
“I know,” he says before leaning down and kissing me. “I just hope they say you nailed it.”
Even now, two months later, we don’t know how they will paint the finale of the show.
When we recorded the final walk through, that was all it was—a showcase of every room we did and every project accomplished. Not even Andrea or Jade could tell us if we nailed it. That was something they would have to piece together based on the film.
He’s right to be nervous, because a part of me is, too.
It’s the moment everything becomes official and permanent. The thing people will replay and clip together on the internet.
“Ready?” Lily asks, standing in the middle of the room with the remote in her hand. All eyes are on us. We smile at each other and then make our way to one of the couches and take a seat.
“Let’s see it.”
Tucker wraps an arm around the back of the couch, fingertips caressing my shoulder as the introduction plays from the host. The voice is dramatic and bright, recapping the season like it’s a romance novel disguised as a renovation.
“So dramatic,” Griffin grumbles, and Blair playfully smacks his arm with the back of her hand.
“Shh,” she says.
We watch the reveal sequence roll out—the shot of the front porch into the entryway, then into the living room, the kitchen, and the master bedroom.
The before-and-after videos transitioned together, and even I’m shocked to see it all.
I’m sitting in the house we’re watching on TV, but seeing them cut from the before to the after just makes me feel a sense of pride.
I did that.
We did that.
Lily gasps like she hasn’t seen things herself, and Blair points to the screen when they show the pink restored tub on the screen.
There’s a brief clip of Nan taking her sledgehammer to the bathroom sink and then another of her dragging a bush across the yard with dirt smeared across her cheeks like battle paint.
The entire living room explodes with laughter.
Dallas catches his breath first. “Nan, you look like you fought the shrubs and lost.”
“The comments on the internet were right,” Poppy adds. “You are unhinged.”
Nan beams, bowing her head. “Thank you. Thank you.”
Then the episode shifts as the music changes and tension builds.
The last scene appears on screen, and there we are.
Tucker and I are laughing together, our hands linked, and paint splattered on our faces.
He looks at me the same way he’s looking at me now.
Like I’m the only thing in the room that matters.
It’s a replay clip of my parents showing up.
Tucker’s hands are on my back on screen.
I realize here and now how many times he’s held me up before I even knew I was falling during this entire process. I blink hard, trying to keep the emotions of it down.
Tucker picks up on it, the way he always does. “Are you okay?”
I nod repeatedly. “I’m just…feeling all of it.”
His thumb strokes my shoulder in slow circles. “Yeah. Me too.”
The announcer’s voice cuts in, making the entire room freeze. This is the moment. The end of the last episode—the end of the season. This is where they tell the world if the project was a success.