Page 223 of Spicy Ever After
I stand up, aiming to go after her when the screen door creaks and slams again.
Pop, leaning against this walker, glares down at me.
“Beckett Jeansonne Olivier, I know I raised you to have more sense than that,” he grumbles.
Irritation gnaws like termites. “Oh? You were listening?”
Pop scoffs. “Couldn’t help but hear.”
Of course he couldn’t. Even if it weren’t Hattie. Conversations on the front porch have never been exactly private.
But it was Hattie, so he probably heard every word without trying.
“So, you heard what she wanted to do?”
This time, Pop chuckles. “Kid, I heard what she wants to do this morning about twenty minutes after you left. She told me what she was thinking, what capital she had to put up, what she speculated our profit margins are—when we make a profit—what she predicted they would be when you start producing sweet potato vodka for real.” He shakes his head, that grin of his more than a little impressed. “We talked for hours, and then we got on the phone with your brother and Kennedy and talked some more.”
“You did what?! And nobody thought to loop me in?”
I’m punch drunk.
So, while I was crashing and burning in my last-ditch approach to Uncle Paul, the rest of my family was conspiring?
“Don’t look like that,” Pop growls, brows bunching. “You know how you’ve been about this. Pig-headed. Refusing help from all sides. Acting like this is all on you to sort out. Ready to toss your future and your plans onto the funeral pyre. Being a goddamn idiot.”
I throw out my hands because this is all on me. “This is my responsibility because I’m the only one who wants to farm. I can’t expect everyone else to risk their security just to make me happy, Pop.” My chest burns as my voice climbs.
“Do you actually hear yourself?” Even though he’s lit only by the soft glow coming through the windows, I can see the way Pop shakes, and I don’t think it’s just from the Parkinson’s. He’s pissed. Really pissed. “I want to farm. I just can’t. But the next best thing to me farming is you farming, you horse’s ass! And so what if Griffin isn’t a farmer? That doesn’t mean he wants to let go of this place. This is his home too. His heritage. Do you know that he and Kennedy are looking at egg donors and surrogates? Between the two of you, there’s bound to be a next generation of Oliviers. Are you ready to explain to them why you sold out their futures?”
It’s like I’ve taken a punch to the throat. My mouth opens but no sound comes out.
Grif and Kennedy are having kids?
It’s not that they ever claimed they didn’t want them. But I’ve only heard them talk about kids in an abstract future way.
But looking for donors and surrogates?
Shit. I could be an uncle in less than a year.
And if I’m the one who let’s go of this place?—
“But let’s put every Olivier—past and future—to the side for a minute.” Pop turns and points at the house. “What did you just do to that girl you claim to love, jackass?”
“Hey—that’s enough.” How dare he question what I feel for Hattie? Finding her is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
Still, his words scare me shitless. Because if he could doubt how I love her, then what’s she thinking?
“Enough? Nah, son. I don’t think so. She just offered you the world, and you acted like she was a kid playing make believe.”
My guts cringe like they’ve taken a blade. “I did not?—”
“She just offered to put up her security money to tie her future with yours. To become part of this family’s legacy. To build something with you to last a lifetime, and you wouldn’t even hear her out, son.” Pop stares at me like he just can’t believe how dumb I am.
And as his words sink in—about just how quickly I shut Hattie down—he’s not the only one questioning my intelligence.
My father shakes his head in disgust. “She couldn’t have offered you more of herself if she’d gotten down on one knee and produced a ring.” He scowls at me. “And you weren’t even willing to discuss it.”
Oh fuck.
