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.
Theywilleat 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.Shegave 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—thatwerebuilt. The house that chose her. The house that shines again because she walked into it.
