AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Me too!” Reese turned to me and placed her hands on my cheeks very tightly, smooshing my face together. “Mama. You are somebody, and you will do great things.”
I gave her a peck on the forehead and then snuggled her nose against mine. “Love you.”
“Love you more.”
After a while, Walter returned with Reese’s cake in hand and set it down in front of her. “There you go, sweetheart. Are you all ready to put down your orders?” Walter asked.
“Definitely are.” I gave him the orders, and he wrote them all down, then paused for a second and looked my way.
“You sure you don’t want to hop in the kitchen and whip these up on your own?” Walter offered, and for a moment a spark of excitement shot through me at the opportunity to work in the first kitchen I’d ever stood in.
“Seriously?”
“Of course, get back there,” he said, waving me in the direction of the kitchen.
I looked over to Oliver, and he gave me a knowing look. “Don’t worry, I’ll just eat this cake with Reese,” he told me.
“No way, Mr. Mith. You’d better get your own cake,” Reese said with a mouthful of food.
I left the two of them to fight over the dessert and headed to the kitchen to get to work. The moment I slid on one of the diner aprons, it was as if my body went into muscle memory. Without even thinking about it, I knew what to do. Luckily, Walter had kept almost everything in the same exact place. I began preparing our breakfasts, and the excitement I felt came rushing back to me.
I knew cooking was my passion. I knew I had to finish my degree at some point soon, and I couldn’t thank Oliver enough for giving me the chance to be his personal chef to relight that fire in my soul.
After our meal, which Walter refused to let us pay for, we walked over to the town square to explore the farmers’ market. Oliver sported a nice baseball cap and sunglasses to hide his appearance the best he could, and luckily for us, no one really called us out, even though I ran into a few familiar faces.
I loved watching Reese and Oliver explore everything together. I loved how free they both looked, how free Oliver seemed to be. At one point, he lifted Reese onto his shoulders as they bought me flowers.
Each passing day, I was falling more in love with the man standing in front of me, and I doubted I’d ever be able to stop that fall.
The day was smooth throughout, without a hitch in sight. We explored all day and made our way back that night for some food trucks and street music.
Everything was going better than I thought it could, up until I came face to face with the people I feared most in Randall.
After we finished the slushie drinks that Reese had to have a part in, I tossed our cups into the trash can, and when I looked up, I met a pair of eyes that matched mine.
“Mama,” I muttered, stunned to see her standing in front of me with Dad right by her side. They were holding bags from the local grocery store, and they were clearly just as stunned to see me as I was to see them.
“What are you doing here?” Mama snapped at me. “I thought I made myself clear on our last call that I didn’t want to hear from you again, let alone see you.”
Her stare was intense and cold. For a moment, I felt as if I were that same little girl who’d taken on so much of her verbal abuse. For a moment, I went back in time and stood frozen in fear as my father stared at me as if I were a monster.
Then, a hand landed on my lower back. Oliver approached me with Reese, and he gave me a small smile. “Everything okay?” he asked.
“Who are you?” Mama asked, her eyes going directly to Oliver, and in that moment, I found my confidence again.
“None of your business,” I said, standing up straighter.
“Mama, who is that?” Reese asked as she moved to stand behind my leg. She was hiding behind me, which was so outside of her normal. My little girl wasn’t one to be bashful. My protective instincts went up the moment I realized she was afraid.
My mother’s eyes widened with surprise. “Is that . . .” Her words trailed off as she shook her head back and forth. “It can’t be . . .”
I stepped backward, moving Reese back with me. Already I could tell where the direction of the conversation was unfolding, and I didn’t want my daughter to take in anything that my mother was going to toss out at her.
