Olivia stacks the pints on top of one another, moving them to one hand and using her free arm to loop through mine. “I know that look. You’re overthinking, and it’s going to take you to a dark place.” She leads us to the front door. “Don’t go there. Let’s go inside and talk through what happened over some chocolatey goodness, okay? A little bit of sugar goes a long way.”
Callie grabs my other arm.When we’re inside, she doesn’t even ask me what I want. She just pulls a cupcake from the catering box and sets it on a plate with a fork. “I made ice cream sundae cupcakes, and I thought you’d be the best taste tester since you love ice cream so much. Batch one was a disaster, but batch two could be a real winner, so that’s what I brought. You’ll have to let me know though. My taste buds might just be tainted by how terrible my first attempt was.”
Olivia sticks the cartons of ice cream in the freezer. “We can pull these out when we’re ready, but I figured no one wants to drink a puddle of cream.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad.” Callie sits up straighter, her eyes going round. “Maybethat’swhat my cupcakes are missing! I need to soak them in melted ice cream.”
“Then they’d be soggy.” Olivia scrunches her nose as Bella trots up to her to get some love.
“It’d be just like a poke cake. You know, when they poke holes in the cake and pour a liquid over it to make it moist?”
“Oh, you didnotjust say that word.” Olivia groans.
“What word? Moist?”
Olivia clamps her hands over her ears. “La la la la la!”
Callie bursts into laughter, and I join in.
When we finally settle down, Bella curls up at my feet, giving me her best puppy-dog eyes as she eyes my plate. “You can’t have this. Sorry, girl.”
Callie takes a bite off her cupcake, groaning and rolling her eyes back. With her mouth still full, she mutters, “Batch two is definitely a winner.”
I scoop up my own bite, making sure to get the perfect frosting to cupcake ratio. She was right. The chocolate cupcake somehow has a melty, fudgy texture, like it was infused with chocolate syrup, and the vanilla bean frosting melts in your mouth unlike any frosting I’ve ever had before. I pluck the cherry from my plate to complete the bite, and it’s marvelous.
“How’s your dad doing?” Olivia scooches closer to me on the couch.
“He’s okay. He came home this morning, but he’s already being a pain. He refuses to acknowledge what happened to him, and he wanted to sit in our interview with Zach this afternoon.” I lean my head back against the couch. “He’s so frustrating. I just want him to slow down.”
“Hmmm another Rhodes family member who doesn’t know how to take a break? That sounds familiar,” Callie teases.
“Yeah, well, at least I’mlearninghow to do it. He still needs some work.”
“Have you tried explaining to him that you just want him to take care of himself because you love him and want him to be around for the long haul?”
I drag both my legs up onto the couch, crossing them over one another. “No.”
“Maybe you need to give it a try.” Callie points her fork at me. “I can only imagine the thing that will finally get through to him is the love he has for his daughter.”
“I hope so. If I’m being honest, I’ve been afraid to talk with him. I’m still trying to fight off the belief that taking a break to go on a hunting trip resulted in his heart attack.” Itake a tiny nibble of my cupcake. “Logically, I know it’s in his nature to grind and never rest, but I’m afraid if I talk with him about it all, I’ll realize it actuallywasmy fault. Or even worse,hemight realize it. That would kill me.”
Olivia meets my gaze. “Do you know the reason I kept everyone at a distance when I first came to Roots?”
“It was to protect them, right? You thought your anxiety would be too much on the people you loved?”
“Sort of. There’s a little more to it than that.” She lowers her fork. “When I had my first panic attack in college, my mom ditched an important work meeting to help me through it. Her company missed out on a huge funding opportunity, so they fired her.”
I wince. Olivia probably spun that to be her fault.
Seeing my reaction, she nods. “Yeah, it wasn’t great. And I held on to the guilt for so long, but when I finally talked to my mom about it, she didn’t blame me at all. She was thankful it happened because it helped her realize what’s important to her. She created a beautiful life for herself after that incident, and she wouldn’t have steered her life in a new direction if she hadn’t gone through that hard thing.”
Olivia sets her empty cupcake dish on the coffee table. Taking note of someone who no longer has her hands full, Bella rushes up to Olivia who happily scoops her into her lap, scratching behind her ears.
“I wouldn’t have been able to let go of my guilt and let myself be happy if not for that conversation. Maybe that’s what you need to do with your dad. Talk to him about what you’re feeling. I’m sure he’s going to tell you he would never once blame you, and if you’re lucky, it might even be a trigger for him to make some positive change in his life.”
She stops petting Bella for a brief second to pat myknee. “I’m sure he’ll also tell you he not only trusts in your ability to run the ranch, even when you’re gone, but that his heart attack wasn’t your fault.”
I bite my lip as tears form in my eyes. Setting my cupcake aside, I sweep Olivia up into my arms, squeezing maybe a little too tight, but I can’t help it. It means a lot to me that she’s willing to share her story with me, and it only makes me realize I need to stop putting off this conversation with my dad. “Thank you.”
