Page 219 of Spicy Ever After
The ghost of a laugh leaves me. “I… think Hulking out would be an improvement for me.”
“Yeah… You don’t look like you’re going Fuck Force Five.” She gives her head a slow shake. “More like… Eeyore Era.”
I blink. “Eeyore?”
“Yeah. The depressed donkey in Winnie the Pooh.” She tilts her head. “Have you ever noticed that all the characters in Winnie the Pooh need clinical counseling? Like, Pooh clearly has an eating disorder if he binges on honey so hard that he gets stuck in a hole. Piglet has massive anxiety. Eeyore needs Zoloft like nobody’s business, and if Tigger doesn’t have an IEP for his ADHD, then I don’t know shi?—”
It’s my laughter that interrupts her. Chest-cracking, gut-seizing laughter.
She stares at me without cracking a smile, and I just laugh harder.
Thank fucking Christ.
I wrap my arms around her and pull her into me. She hugs me tight but keeps talking.
“And the worst part is Christopher Robin is probably schizophrenic because he sees talking animals. It’s like, Wow, A.A. Milne. Who hurt yo?—”
“S… stop… Fuck, Hattie…” I beg, dying. “C… can’t… breathe…”
This.
If this is what I get on my worst day, I’m going to survive. My eyes water, and it might not all be from laughter.
I squeeze her tight, and I don’t stop laughing until she goes rigid in my arms.
“Oh shit!” she shouts, jerking back, horror-stricken.
I wipe my eyes. “What? What’s wrong?”
She covers her mouth with her hand and mutters behind it. “I cheered you up. I didn’t mean to!”
And I kick off all over again. Eyes streaming. Abs aching.
So fucking in love with this woman.
But when my laughter finally dries up, I force out the words.
“I failed, Hattie.”
Her brows drift together. “What? What are you talking about?”
I suck in a deep breath and tell her everything.
“Last night—when you said if I wasn’t happy thinking about selling the farm, I wouldn’t be happy after I did it—I thought about it.” I shake my head. Understatement. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it… And it inspired me to try one last thing.”
I just wish that one last thing had actually worked.
“Yeah? What is it?”
I shrug. “Just another avenue that didn’t work. After I made my deliveries this morning, I called my uncle and asked him to join me for lunch.” The taste in my mouth goes bitter at the memory. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to set foot in Barry’s 1965 again.
“I pitched an idea I hoped he’d go for. Instead of selling to Steadman Farms and instead of taking on a crazy amount of debt, I asked if he would consider a kind of lease-to-own deal where I gave him a down payment and then structured a payoff plan for the rest of his share.”
Hattie perks up. “That’s a really good idea, Beck. Much less risk for you.”
“Yeah, it would’ve been. If Uncle Paul cared more about protecting the farm than he did about his big payday.” I rub my forehead where a headache has gathered. “He doesn’t want a ten percent down payment—which, honestly—might’ve required me to sell some farm equipment and maybe even a kidney to secure it. He wants his point-three-million-plus. Like yesterday.”
The woman I am crazy about wrinkles her nose. “Hate ze bagginses,” she hisses, and I fucking lose it again.
