Page 102 of The Holiday Makeover

If only we’d known how simple life really was at that age. Not that we didn’t have real concerns. Real heartaches. Even then, Tate never felt like he measured up.

And I missed my parents. I feared their memories were fading for me, slipping away piece by piece until one day I’d only remember that I had loved them, but not the sound of their voices or the way they smelled or the exact shapes of their smiles.

Tate let me talk about them for hours so I wouldn’t forget.

We had to walk past his parents’ house, which looked full of Christmas spirit on the outside.

But I knew better. It was a facade. They were facing their own tough choices too.

“Your mom called,” I mentioned as we walked past. “Sounds like you had an interesting morning.”

Tate glanced at his childhood home, but he didn’t linger on it. Nor did it seem to haunt him the way it had before.

“It was more like a reckoning.”

“A reckoning? Did you come to any conclusions?”

“Yeah. That I’d been killing myself trying to make something work for people I was never going to make happy.” His gloved hand tightened gently around mine. “And I gave up the one person who did make me happy. The one person who never needed me to be anything but myself.”

He let out a rough laugh.

“Turns out, that wasn’t all that smart of me.”

“Quite dumb, actually,” I teased. But it really was kind of dumb.

“Yeah.” He didn’t disagree.

We let that linger for a moment as the snow crunched beneath our feet and the twinkle lights seemed to beckon us forward.

“But still . . . it couldn’t have been an easy choice for you.”

“Actually.” He paused and caught my gaze. “After I saw how much finding that ring hurt you, it wasn’t hard at all.”

“But . . . Tate . . . do you really want to walk away from your show? Can you even?”

That was the better question.

“I mean, can you walk away and be happy?” I amended.

That was the best question.

The one I really needed answered.

“I’m happy when I’m with you. Period. I honestly don’t care how that looks as long as you’re part of the equation.”

“But you have to think about what that means.”

“I have, Rory.” He let out a humorless laugh. “What am I really giving up if I walk away from the show? A producer who has only ever been disappointed he didn’t get both of us in the deal and has no issue parading around my perceived failures for ratings? A network that doesn’t trust me enough to let me be myself and probably wants to cancel me anyway? Add on top of that a father who sure as hell doesn’t believe in me.”

His jaw tightened.

“Doesn’t sound like I’m giving up much. Not that I wouldn’t give up the world for you. And it’s not like I’m giving up renovating or the work I love. I’m just giving up letting other people decide what my life is supposed to look like.”

That, I was happy to hear.

His thumb brushed over my mitten. “And I know that when I figure out what I want my career to look like, you’ll be the first person to support me.”

“Well, maybe.” I smiled, even though my cheeks were frozen. “We’ll have to see how this all turns out.”