Tart (The Fluffy Cupcake Book 2)

by Katie Mettner

  “Okay, so you find the smallest big city you can,” Bishop said to drag a laugh from Athena.

  “You do know that St. Paul College has a culinary school, right?” I asked, leaning forward. “I mean, it’s not San Diego, but they’ve turned out some very successful chefs, including the incredibly talented Haylee Pearson.”

  “They do?” Athena asked, and I nodded. “I didn’t know that, but it’s still a big city.”

  “It’s a big city that’s a twenty-minute drive from here,” Bishop added. “You wouldn’t have to live there. You could live here and drive there.”

  “If you want, I’d be happy to take you to the bakery tomorrow to talk to Haylee about it. She’d love to tell you stories about her days at the school. The good news is, she’s not too old to remember them or for them to still be relevant.”

  Athena laughed then, resting her head back on the chair with a smile. “I’d like that. I need to figure something out before I talk to Mom. She doesn’t do well without a plan.”

  “Which is my fault,” Bishop said softly. “When you came along, her plan suddenly changed, and she was without one. She didn’t pivot well, and it twisted her into this regimented person who doesn’t roll well with the punches. It’s not her fault, sweetheart. It’s mine.”

  Athena blinked twice and shook her head. “I know you’ve always felt that way, Daddy, and I might only be an eighteen-year-old kid, but I did have sex education. I’m worldly enough to know that it takes two to tango, and Mom was a willing participant in my creation. You have to let some of that guilt go for what happened when you were a kid. God, Daddy. It’s been eighteen years. Mom’s been married for ten of them. Just forgive yourself for whatever you think you did wrong. When things went wrong,” she said, emphasizing went, “you stepped up to the plate and faced your responsibility. Everything you did was in my best interest, even when it cost you the most. I know Mom doesn’t hold you responsible for her being a teen parent. She wishes you’d stop carrying the guilt as much as I do. Hell, even Ken thinks you punish yourself too hard and too long. Live a little. Laugh a little. Take chances. I’m all grown up now. You’ve done your job. Stop acting like it didn’t all work out in the end.”

  Bishop sat back as if he’d been slapped, his back rigid. “I need to take a walk,” he said, clearing his throat as he stood. Before I could stop him, he was gone down the hill and out of sight.

  Athena moaned, shaking her head on the chair. “I screwed up, didn’t I?”

  I leaned back on the seat and sighed. Bishop was a big boy, and he just needed time. I’d give it to him. “No, you didn’t screw up. You were honest. Honesty hurts sometimes. I’ve learned that over the last few months being married to your dad. What you just said freed him of a lot of shit he’s carried around for years. I’ve tried to tell him the same things, but it’s going to be harder to ignore coming from you. Your absolution of the crime he thinks he committed now requires him to end the sentence he gave himself. He can’t claim his decision that day was a failure. He didn’t fail. You’re a bright, beautiful, sweet soul who doesn’t blame him for what happened. He’s going to struggle with making that change in his mindset. He will get there, though. I promise.”

  “I hope so,” she whispered with her eyes on the fire. “I don’t want it to mess up your marriage. Daddy’s done that for a lot of years.”

  “Done what?” I asked, confused.

  “Pushed women away. Pretended like my existence in the world was the reason he couldn’t stay with any of the women he dated. He claimed none of them wanted to deal with a single dad. I’m sure some didn’t, but I don’t buy that every woman he dated ran for the hills when they learned of my mere existence. I don’t want that to happen to you.”

  “He can try, but he won’t succeed,” I promised, giving her a wink.

  It was at that moment that I realized I was in this marriage for the long haul, whether he liked it or not.

  Seventeen

  “Bishop?” Amber called from the top of the hill, her voice questioning as she moved toward me. “Are you down here.”

  She knew I was down here. She watched me walk down here an hour ago. I sat down here until I noticed the fire die out and hoped they’d gone to bed. I planned to sleep in the basement tonight, so I had a little time to myself.

  I heard her on the dock, her crutches thumping on the wood as she made her way toward me. “Athena went to bed.”

  “Good enough. I’m glad you hit it off with my daughter so well,” I said, my surly mood making my words sarcastic and tight.

  “Well, I’m sorry. I’ll try harder to hate the sweet girl you raised,” she said, her words as sarcastic as mine. “She was only trying to help.” This time her words were soft, but they were like bullets to my back.

  “By being disrespectful of everything I gave up to make sure she had a future.”

  “Is that what you got out of that?” she asked, her words shocked and surprised. “Or is that what you wanted to hear?”

  I turned and stared her down, my eyes filled with an emotion I wanted to pretend was anger but was probably closer to grief. “I heard what I heard. She’s eighteen and thinks she knows everything now. She doesn’t.”

  “No, she doesn’t, and she admitted that in her advice to you. She does know you, though. She grew up seeing the things you did, both healthy and unhealthy, and she recognizes them now as an adult. Even if she’s only eighteen, all she wants is for you to stop feeling guilty because it hurts her, too. Have you ever thought of that?”

  “What the hell are you talking about, Amber? That girl has had nothing but a good upbringing with parents who loved her and did everything in her best interest!”

  “Agreed, but that doesn’t mean you dying on the sword all these years to do it didn’t hurt her. She understood more than you gave her credit for over the years. And before you say she heard that stuff from her mother, let me stop you because I will kick your ass with this crutch.”

  I sighed and shook my head. “I didn’t die on any damn sword, Amber. I made choices that I thought were best at the time. I was seventeen-fucking-years-old. What was I supposed to do?”

  “Maybe you were then, but you aren’t seventeen anymore. You’re thirty-four, and you raised that beautiful, smart, sweet girl to be a contributing member of society. What the fuck do you think you have to feel guilty about, Bishop? The fact that your condom broke? Do you think that makes you special? Condoms break all the time. Unplanned pregnancies happen all the time. Did it suck? Yeah, I’m sure it did. You were forced to be an adult in the blink of an eye, but then again, you were doing adult things, so you accepted that responsibility the moment you rolled on that condom. Holding onto your guilt now is pathetic. It’s a pointless emotion. Your condom broke, and you had a kid. Oh, the horrors,” she said, her hands to her face like a shock. “My parents watched their broken child be patched back together with no promise that she would even live because of a decision they made. That’s guilt, Bishop. I understand their guilt, even if I wish they’d let it go. I don’t want them, or you, to carry around this misguided emotion like it’s somehow going to change things. It’s not fucking going to change anything! Can’t you see that?” She held up her hand. “I’m wrong. Guilt will change things. It won’t change the situation that happened, but it sure as hell will change the rest of your fucking life if you don’t forgive yourself for it. You’ll lose your daughter. My parents have slowly lost me over the years because of their guilt. You worked this hard to show Athena how much you love her and want her in your life. Why are you going to fuck it up now? She’s given you absolution in hopes you’ll give it to her in return. She didn’t ask to be created, but she was, and she’s tired of living with the constant message that she’s your punishment.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me right now?” I asked, anger making me turn and clench my fists at my side. “Constant message that she’s a punishment? That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard today, and I heard a
lot of ridiculousness up there!”

  Her head shook, and she braced her crutches on the dock. “No, what you didn’t hear up there were the words of your child who wants to move on from the toxic way you treat yourself. You didn’t hear that she wants to live here, with you, and be part of your life instead of living across the fucking country. What you didn’t hear was that she loves you so much that she came to you first for reassurance because she trusts you above even her mother.” She waved her hand on a sigh. “I’m going to sleep at my apartment tonight. You can have your space to decide if you want to continue to be the Bishop who can’t see that the job he’s done as a father more than negates how he became one, or if you want to continue to act like a martyr and send the message to his daughter that her hurt isn’t as important as his guilt. Once you’ve decided that, you can decide if you want to continue this marriage or if you want out. All I want is good things for you, Bishop. If that means you’d rather be alone, I’ll honor your wishes, even if it breaks my heart for the rest of my life. I love you.”

  She turned and crutched back down the dock, her form nothing but a shadow in the darkness of the night. I wanted to call out to her, but my pride wouldn’t let me. Maybe she was a little bit too on the nose about a few things. If I admitted it, then I had to accept it. If I accepted it, then I had to change it. If I changed it, then I had to find a new purpose in my life.

  She is that new purpose, you asshole, my inner voice said.

  I watched her until she made it to the top of the hill, knowing I should have helped her, but also knowing she wouldn’t have let me. I turned back to the lake and sighed. I had two choices. I could go to bed and sleep on it or go to a bar and drink the thoughts out of my mind.

  I turned away from the water, ready to go back to the house when there was a scream. I watched as my wife tumbled down the hill, her cries of terror and pain tearing my guts out as I ran.

  “Amber!” I screamed, my feet thudding on the wooden planks in desperation, but it was too late. She landed on the edge of the dock with a sickening thud before she sank below the dark water.

  “Amber!” I screamed again, splashing into the water and searching for her below the surface.

  My hand brushed against her braid, and I found her armpits, carefully dragging her back onto the beach and lying her flat on the sand. “Amber, talk to me,” I said, slapping her face while I checked for a pulse. It was weak, but when I leaned down by her face, she wasn’t breathing.

  “Daddy?” Athena asked as she ran down the hill. “What happened?”

  “Call an ambulance!” I screamed. “Oh my God, call an ambulance!”

  Athena was already on the phone as I opened my wife’s mouth, water pouring from it as I tried to press my lips to hers to offer her the only thing I could at that moment. Lifesaving air.

  “Come on, my little tart,” I begged, my lips back on hers to force air into her lungs. “You can’t leave me now. Fight, Amber!”

  She sputtered, water spurting from her lips like a fountain while she coughed and tried to catch her breath. I held her neck still, talking to her while I listened to the sirens draw closer. “I love you,” I whispered. “God, never forget how much I love you.”

  THE HOUSE WAS QUIET when Bishop carried me in and lowered me to the couch. “Wow,” I sighed, leaning back and taking in the room. “Did the flower shop explode in here?”

  He turned me on the couch and propped my bad leg up on a pillow, the lower half of it now in a walking boot since I managed to break the one part of the leg that didn’t have a rod in it. The doctor’s said it would heal in about six weeks, and once the walking boot was off, they’d be able to fit me for the new brace. I was already marking off the days on the calendar.

  Bishop chuckled when he sat on the coffee table by the couch. “There are a lot of people who love you in this town, but no one as much as me. Athena said I went overboard on the flowers.”

  I smiled and held his hand in mine, something I’d done the entire three days I was in the hospital because he never left my side. “Maybe just a smidgen. There has to be two dozen roses in each vase.”

  “It must be all the cupcake counting you do. You’re spot on.”

  “Athena might have been right about going overboard since I count six vases, but only a smidgen. They are beautiful, thank you. Where is Athena?”

  “She’s with Sam and Ken at Strawberry Fest. I made her promise to go and have a good time for both of us.”

  I frowned while my hand came up to smooth down his beard. “I’m sorry you had to miss it. I’m sad about it, too. I’ve never missed Strawberry Fest before.”

  “I wish I could take you, but the doctor said no immediately when I asked. He said that even in a wheelchair, it’s too dangerous with your skull fracture to go out there.”

  I sighed with fatigue. “Nor am I up to it, wheelchair or not. I just want to enjoy being home and not eating hospital food.”

  He leaned down and kissed my lips tenderly, his touch almost tentative rather than confident. “I’m going to take care of you, and I would guess when Athena gets home, she’s bringing some treats with her. She did grill your bestie for five minutes about your favorite fair food.”

  I put my hand to my chest and grinned. “She’s a girl after my own heart. You raised her right, Bishop Halla.”

  “I know,” he said, clearing his throat before he could go on. “You made me see that, Amber. Those things you said to me on the dock—”

  “I’m sorry about that,” I jumped in immediately. “I shouldn’t have said what I said that night. I just didn’t like seeing two people I love beating themselves up.”

  His finger came down on my lips, and I stopped talking. “Don’t apologize, tart. What I was going to say was, you were right. Those things Athena said, and the things you said, were so damn right. I apologized to Athena, and I need to apologize to you.”

  “You have, about once an hour every day for the last three days. None of this was your fault, Bishop.”

  “Maybe not the fall, but there was a lot I did wrong that night, baby. If I hadn’t been down there, you wouldn’t have been. If I had just put my anger aside and helped you up the hill, you wouldn’t have a skull fracture and a broken ankle. I can’t change any of that, but I can say everything I should have said then, now.”

  I squeezed his hand in mine. “I just want to be here and enjoy whatever time we have left in this marriage, Bishop. My brain is too sore to make sense of anything too complicated.”

  “Let me tell you how much time we have left in this marriage, tart. Forever. We have forever because what happened three nights ago will never happen to you again, at least when I can prevent it. Everything you said on that dock that night was right—everything Athena said on the deck before that was right. I was punishing myself, but what I didn’t see was that I was also punishing her. I made her think that my life would have been better if I hadn’t rolled that condom on that day. I did that,” he said, poking himself in the chest. “When the truth was, Athena saved me. She made me grow up fast, sure. But that girl also saved me. Athena’s very presence in my life forced me to pick a path early in life and stay on it. There was no time for fooling around or losing focus in college. I had a child to support financially and emotionally. Maybe, when I was younger, there was a little bit of resentment about that, but now I can see that she gave me a family. Athena was someone to hold onto when I had no one left. She made me a better man, and I made her feel like she was less than.”

  I couldn’t shake my head too hard, so I blew him a kiss. “No, you’re too hard on yourself. She didn’t mean it like that.”

  He smiled, but it was weak and unsure. “Athena said the same thing, and I sure hope that’s true, but I don’t know how it can be. Regardless, she understands now that yes, she changed the course of my life, but for the better. Athena understands now that I love her so much that I would die for her. She knows that she was never a punishment but a gift. A beautiful, sweet,
loving, once in a lifetime kind of gift. Now, I need to make you understand the same thing.”

  I tipped my head to the side. “Understand the same thing?”

  He nodded and knelt next to the couch. “Yes, the same thing. You changed the course of my life for the better the first time I met you, Amber Halla. When I reached my hand out to you in that van, it was more significant than I realized. We were going to help each other find a new course in life, and all you had to do was take my hand. You did, and now I love you so much I would die for you. You will never be a punishment to me, which I know you still think you are when we’re dealing with your leg,” he said, and I shrugged a bit, but he knew what that meant. I did and probably always would. “I need you to understand now that you are a once in a lifetime kind of gift, and you came along when I needed you the most. I had no one else to turn to when I was alone, and suddenly there you were. You were a beacon of hope and light in my world that was dark and lonely.” He reached into his pocket and pulled something out. I gasped aloud when I saw what it was.

  “Bishop, what are you doing?” I asked, my breath trapped in my chest.

  “I’m holding up a ring to a girl the way I should have done the first time I asked her to marry me. I’m asking her if she will marry me again, but this time for real. For love. For life. For hope. For joy. With all of the flowers, cake, and friends that we can fit into the church to say the words we said before with a whole different view on what they mean. Amber, will you marry me again, for real and for good this time? Will you keep being my wife?”

  I laughed then, the tears running down my face even as my lips wore a grin. “I will marry you again on one condition.”

  “Name it, anything,” he said, nodding exaggeratedly.

  “That we get married with all the flowers, cake, and those most important to us at The Fluffy Cupcake. We started our life together with cupcakes, and I think that’s a perfect place to reaffirm our love for each other, don’t you?”