Page 56 of The Holiday Makeover

I’d thought about that moment a lot these last two years and especially the last few days. I’d wondered if I would ever get another one of those kismet events with her. And the night before, she’d gifted me another perfect moment. Another chance.

I wouldn’t give that up. Her up.

“I suppose so.” She flashed me an uneasy smile. “Hello, spotlight.”

I knew how hard it was for her to be noticed, though I never understood why. She thought she was an unassuming creature meant for behind the scenes, but the light loved her. People loved her. They noticed her even when she thought they didn’t.

“I could go into town by myself,” I offered. “Granted, that means I’d be the one picking out the paint colors, and if I remember correctly, you once made a slide deck presentation on the difference between azure and cyan lest I ever dare mix them up again.”

She giggled into the freezing air, her breath turning white. “I mean, I still don’t understand how you don’t see the difference. Cyan has a greenish tint to it. And azure is much cooler and more vivid.”

“Yes, I remember.” I smirked. “So, do you want me to pick out the paint?”

“Absolutely not,” she said immediately. “Besides, I know I need to make some changes too. I need to be better about not letting my insecurities get in the way of us.”

A biting wind whipped right through us, but all I felt was her. This woman. This beautiful woman who had no idea what those words meant to me.

I placed a hand on her cold cheek, my thumb brushing the edge of her beanie. “Me too.”

She let out a heavy breath. “Okay, let’s do this.”

Before she stepped into the cab of my truck, our names cut across the yard.

“Tate. Rory,” my mom called, her voice shaky—nervous, even.

My hand tightened on the door, and Rory’s eyes widened. It had been two days since the Thanksgiving incident. I knew I couldn’t avoid my parents forever—they lived next door, for hell’s sake—but I’d been hoping for more of a cool-down period. Or, admittedly, for Quinton to call and tell me the studio was renewing me for a third season. That would at least appease my dad and buy me some breathing room. Give me some time to figure out how to give the studio the “magic” they were looking for. Sans Rory, of course. She was off the table. Period.

But even if Quinton had called with that offer, I knew it wouldn’t solve the real issue. It would mask it. Again. For my parents and for me.

I turned toward the sound of my mother’s voice. Anxious. Would there be another argument? Would Mom just sweep it all under the rug and pretend it never happened? Part of me hoped for option B. But if Rory and I were going to make a real go at this, I couldn’t keep dodging the hard stuff.

Rory took my hand, offering me a silent anchor.

Mom traipsed through the snow across their lawn in her designer boots. That alone was shocking. She treated her shoes like they were her children. Once she’d made my dad carry her across a parking lot so she wouldn’t soil a pair of Jimmy Choos.

She carefully stepped over the line of snow I’d shoveled earlier that morning. When she reached the driveway, she straightened, brushing flakes off her wool coat and trying to compose herself—chin up, shoulders back, the whole performance.

“I’m so glad I caught you,” Mom breathed out as she tiptoed toward us.

Rory tucked in closer to my side.

Mom looked between the two of us, a knowing smile on her face. “I had a feeling you two would make it back to each other. There was no keeping you apart since you were ten years old. All the trouble you two would get into—now look at you.” Her voice pitched unevenly.

I wasn’t sure what to say. Did she want to take a trip down memory lane? Remember the time when we were eleven and Rory bet me I couldn’t jump off the roof onto her trampoline, and I did—only to bounce off it, and she tried to catch me, which obviously didn’t end well. She needed stitches on the back of her head after landing on a rock. And because she said it was my fault, I had to be her servant for a week. She made me paint her toenails and watch every episode of That’s So Raven and Lizzie McGuire with her.

I would never admit it to her, but I secretly didn’t mind.

A long pause settled between us—one of those awkward silences where no one knows who’s supposed to speak first.

I finally said, “Rory and I need to head to the hardware store. We’re going to start painting the dining room, and I need to finish stripping the walls in the kitchen.” I did my best not to sound curt. I loved my mom. Hurting her was never the goal.

Honestly, I could understand her in some ways. She grew up in a time when women were objectified and told their looks were what mattered most. Hell, they had diet-soda commercials telling women if they wanted to keep their man, they’d better stay skinny. Image was everything to her and my dad.

And to me.

I didn’t want to be that way any longer. I’d already lost Rory once because of it.

But I wasn’t sure how to change. If only I could snap my fingers and not care whether I lost my show or if the whole town remembered me as the guy who got cut from the university team. The guy who didn’t live up to his last name.