When they placed them down in front of Guilia, she had a moment of confusion. Here was cake and ice cream, and here figs and ice cream. She looked up and glanced over to the kitchen where Hannah was beaming.
“Tay.”
“Yes, Daddy?”
“Did you… no. You couldn’t have.”
“I couldn’t have what?”
“You couldn’t have made the… but I only spoke to Hannah yesterday.”
Tay looked more smug than they ever had even after the cheekiest prank. “I spoke to Hannah too, and snuck pictures of your recipe ideas. I wanted you to see that they were great ideas.”
Guilia went to pick up a spoon, but her hand trembled and she placed it back down. While she’d been running around,trying to get the book sorted, Tay had been working on perfecting her Daddy’s own ice-cream recipe. The two of them had spent the day doing something for the other.
The Littles of Rawhide Ranch didn’t need sophisticated or fancy food; they wanted food that made them feel good, and often that meant food that evoked childhood memories. Guilia hadn’t dared hope that they’d like these ideas, and yet her team had clearly helped Tay make her dream come true.
“This is very special, tesore,” she said. “I—” She stopped speaking, choked up, and picked up the spoon instead. “Let me taste it.”
She started with the rosemary cake with olive-oil ice cream. The two paired together beautifully, the olive-oil ice cream richer than she would have expected. It was delicious, and the ice cream itself was smooth. There wasn’t even a hint of graininess, which was very impressive. Guilia’s own first attempts at making ice cream had resulted in more than a few grainy batches.
“Que buono.”
“Yeah?” Tay’s eyes were fixed on her face. “You really like it?”
“I really like it. I don’t know how you got the texture so good your first time. I’m very impressed, mi tesore.”
“Try the goat cheese next; that one’s my favorite.”
The figs were rich and luxurious, the goat cheese creamy and salty simultaneously. And the cold of the ice cream with the warmth of the hot figs was heaven. That tasted even better than she’d planned.
“This was a wonderful present, tesore,” she said. “You are such a wonderful person. How did you turn a punishment into this?”
“I wanted to do something nice for you,” they said, slipping into the chair next to them. “You always do such nice things for me, and I wanted to return some of that at least.”
Guilia looked over their shoulder to the team in the kitchen window, all of them beaming. Then she looked back to her Little and pressed her lips to theirs. “You did amazing. I’m so damn proud of you.”
CHAPTER 33
Tay
The entire team insisted that the two of them take the rest of the day off. “I’ll oversee it all, I promise,” said Lily. That seemed to placate Guilia who took Tay’s hand and the two of them practically ran back to Guilia’s suite.
“I have so many ideas,” Guilia said, her eyes shining. “Now that I’ve tasted all of that, I want to create even more.”
“You’re excited,” said Tay. It was infectious, Guilia’s enthusiasm. Tay had helped spur this on, and it made them feel very proud indeed.
That wasn’t to say that they wanted to start making ice cream on the regular. It required a hell of a lot more precision than cooking pasta. Tay could bring their own flair and instinctive ideas to their usual dishes, and they’d been way too scared of mucking it up to do that with the ice cream. Returning to the safety of pasta, with bubbling sauces and fresh dough, would be a relief.
But seeing Guilia this happy was incredible.
“Oh,” she said, when Tay sat on the couch. “I have something for you.”
“You have something for me?” That confused Tay. “What do you mean?”
“I had planned a whole thing, but that was… you have… everything’s all frenetic now.” Guilia’s Italian accent was strengthening as she spoke. “Tesore, amore mio…” She sat down next to Tay and took a deep breath. “I love you. Last night, when you said that you’re not always sure that you’re deserving… it broke my heart. So I did something.”
Tay had no idea what was coming next, and the uncertainty had their stomach dropping. Their anxiousness must have shown in their eyes because Guilia leaned in and kissed them. “No, no. I promise you, mi tesore, Daddy’s got you. It’s all okay.”
