Page 81 of The Holiday Makeover

Well, that was before I remembered I was so exhausted I’d fallen asleep the night before without brushing my teeth.

Yikes. Who knew what was growing in there? What was happening to me? Oral hygiene was of the utmost importance. I had never let it fall by the wayside before.

The tooth fairy would be ashamed.

I pressed my lips together, praying to the oral gods I didn’t have any visible food stuck between my teeth.

“How are you?” I mumbled, doing my best not to open my mouth too wide.

That innocent question was like pushing the sad button on Veronica. Immediately, tears pooled in her eyes, and her lower lip trembled.

“What’s wrong?” I set the smoothie on the end table nearest me, which was already crowded with used coffee mugs and protein bar wrappers. The fuel of champions.

Or, more accurately, the fuel of a stressed interior designer.

And maybe a stressed girlfriend.

But I didn’t have time to unpack that one.

Veronica threw herself into my arms.

I wrapped them around her thin frame. She smelled like Tahitian vanilla and a Bergdorf Goodman store.

And I probably smelled like . . . well . . . I didn’t want to think about it.

“Veronica,” I said gently. “Is it Dominic?”

Things were not well in House Ryder.

The weird thing was, I’d thought Veronica would love all the attention Tate was getting. The Ryders lived for this kind of stuff.

But she’d said that was the problem. She was afraid they’d been living for the wrong things.

I was afraid of that too.

Afraid of what it had done to Tate.

What it might still do to him.

What if this homecoming special didn’t save the show? Then what?

“I think he’s pushing Tate too hard right now,” Veronica said, her voice thinning. “It’s like he’s obsessed with making sure Tate doesn’t lose his show. I told him he needed to back off. That we needed to support Tate no matter what happens.”

“And what did he say?” I hesitated to ask, knowing I probably wasn’t going to like the answer.

She clung tighter.

Oh, that wasn’t a good sign.

“He said I wasn’t being supportive enough. That . . . you . . . weren’t being supportive at all.”

I leaned away, my heart thrumming. “What?” My voice hitched. “Dominic said that? Why? Does Tate think that too?”

Suddenly, I felt ill.

“No. No. No.” Veronica shook her head, her diamond earrings catching the light and blinding me for half a second. “Tate doesn’t think that.”

She looked around at the mess I was currently drowning in.