The Mixtape by Brittainy C. Cherry

29

EMERY

Taking Oliver and Reese to my hometown terrified me. I had a horrible feeling in my gut, and I wasn’t sure how to shake it off. But I tried to look for the silver linings in the situation. I was able to show the two most special people in my life the place that had shaped me. Sure, my parents hadn’t been the best at raising my sister and me, but the small town where I grew up had a few gems.

When we got to town, it was already late into the night, so we checked into the bed-and-breakfast—getting two separate rooms. So when morning came, we were fully awake and ready to hit the town full speed ahead.

First stop was my old stomping ground: Walter’s Diner. Home to the best hash browns a person would ever taste.

“I worked here for three years. I started when I was fifteen, even though I was supposed to be sixteen to officially have a job, but the owner, Walter, let me slide, and he’d help me learn cooking skills in the kitchen with him. By the time I was sixteen, I was the head chef back there, flipping burgers faster than anyone around. It was in this place where I fell in love with cooking,” I said, looking around in awe.

Walter’s Diner was set up as a 1950s spot. From the red-and-white booths down to the old-school glasses that the Coca-Cola and sundaes were served in. The decor was posters of classic sports cars and models and actors from the fifties. They still even had the old jukebox that was spinning tunes from that time period. It was as if we’d walked into a time capsule and taken a seat to enjoy some food and history.

“This is the place where you found your passion,” Oliver commented.

“Not only that . . . this is the place that raised me. When my parents were in their moods and they’d take it out on me, I’d come here. Walter lives in the apartment right upstairs, and he’d always let me in, no matter what time it was, day or night, to teach me some cooking skills.”

“Sounds like an amazing man.”

“I owe so much to him.”

When Walter came out with menus in his hand, I grinned. He was the one who brought each table the menus every single day, because he wanted to know the people who were showing their support to his business. He didn’t only want to feed the people of Randall; he wanted to know how they were doing.

As he walked closer, still staring down at the menus, he began to speak to us. “Hey, hey there, folks, welcome to Walter’s Diner. I, Walter, am so happy you’re—” His words came to a halt when he looked up and saw me staring at him. His smile stretched so wide that I was almost certain my heart was going to explode from happiness. “Emery Rose,” he breathed out. “As I live and breathe.”

I leaped up from the booth and wrapped my arms around the older gentleman, holding him close to me. “Hey, Walt. Long time.”

“Too long,” he said, shaking his head in disappointment. “But I’m glad you’re here. Are you staying for a while?”

“Just the night. We’ll head out tomorrow, actually.”

“Shame, I wanted you to cook me up one of your random dishes like you used to do.”

Walter placed his hands against my cheeks and squeezed lightly, smiling at me as if he was a proud grandpa. In many ways, Walter was a grandfather figure to me, and I was a granddaughter to him. He never married. His business was his family, and as far as I went, I never knew my grandparents. So, we had each other. He even called me his granddaughter when people would ask. He claimed me as his family with the biggest amount of love and pride when he spoke about me to others.

“Well, who do we have here?” he asked, turning to Oliver and Reese.

“Oh, this is Reese, my daughter.” I almost hesitated saying the word, knowing that I was back in the town that knew Sammie. I wondered if they’d ever found out that she was pregnant. Then again, probably not. Mama and Dad never would’ve spread that news around. It would’ve brought too much shame to their image.

“Your daughter?” Walter exclaimed with excitement as he bent down to be eye level with Reese. “Well, how do you do, sweet thang?” he asked, holding a hand out toward Reese.

“I do good, sir,” she said, shaking his hand.

Oliver huffed. “I wish I got that kind of greeting from her.”

Walter’s eyes moved to Oliver, and he gave him a stern look. “And you’re the father?”

“Oh, no, Walter. This is Oliver. He’s my—” My what? My friend? My employer? My person that I daydream about kissing on the regular?

“Good friend,” Oliver answered, reaching out to shake Walter’s hand. Even though Walter was wary about accepting the handshake, he did place his hand in Oliver’s.

“I feel like I’ve seen you around before,” Walter said, narrowing his eyes as he tried to put a finger on how he knew Oliver.

My heart began to beat harder as worry overtook me. The whole reason to bring Oliver out to Randall was for him to be a normal human for a day, and now Walter of all people was trying to pinpoint how he knew him. Walter took his hat off and slapped it against his knee. “Gosh darn it, aren’t you Bobby Winters’s cousin from Oklahoma?” he asked.

The relief that washed over our faces was identical as Oliver replied, “Nope, not me.”

“Aw shucks, okay, my mistake. You got his ears, that’s all. Here’s the menu for you all. Oliver, I bet you’d like to know that this menu is the same exact one that Ms. Emery here created for me six years ago. All of the favorite dishes are hers.”

“You’re kidding me,” I laughed. “You haven’t changed the menu in all that time?”

“Of course not. You don’t mess with perfection. I’ll only change it when you come back to upgrade it.”

“Well, I’ll have to do that sooner rather than later,” I said.

“Good. Okay, well, let me get you some time to look over the menu while I go get this sweetheart a slice of red velvet cake,” he said, winking in Reese’s direction. Of course, her eyes lit up with excitement.

“Oh, I don’t know about cake at nine in the morning, Walter,” I argued, being my daughter’s worst enemy in that very moment.

Walter waved me off, dismissing my parenting. “Oh hush, girl. I remember feeding you cake in the morning more often than not. You know what they say: ‘A slice of cake a day keeps the grumpy away.’”

“No one says that, Walter.”

“Well, they should.”

“Yeah, they should!” Reese chimed in with spirit.

Of course she’d agree; she was getting sugar.

When I sat back down, Oliver was grinning at me. “What is it?” I asked.

“I’m just wondering if you know how amazing you are. You created a whole menu that’s being used in a restaurant today. Do you know how amazing that is?”

I blushed and shrugged. “It’s a small-town diner. It’s not that amazing.”

“No, it is. It’s amazing. You’re amazing,” he said, and the butterflies flipped upside down in my stomach. “This is only the beginning for you. I cannot wait to be sitting inside your restaurant someday.”

“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.

Dad hadn’t spoken one word at all, but his stare was on Reese’s every move. Studying her entire existence. I hated how it felt whenever I was around him. I hated how we could have been so close, yet he felt so far away.

“Well, I’ll be damned, if it isn’t Emery Taylor. It looks like it’s a Taylor family reunion,” a voice said with excitement. I looked over my shoulder to see Bobby, my high school friend, walking in my direction. If only he knew how bad his timing was in that very moment. “It’s been too damn long, that’s for sure,” he said the moment his eyes locked with mine.

He went straight for a hug, and I let it happen, mostly because I was in a state of shock. He completely missed the uncomfortable situation unfolding before us, probably due to the alcohol in his bloodstream. “How have you been?” he asked. “It’s been too long.”

Before that very minute? Pretty great. In that moment? Awful. “I’ve been good, Bobby. It’s good to see you.”

“Shit, you too, Emery. This town’s sure missing your face—and your cooking. Sammie has been cooking the meals down at the church after services, but it’s nowhere as good as your cooking. Maybe before you go, you can whip up some of that mac and cheese you used to make for—”

“Where is she?” I asked, turning straight to Mama as my stomach dropped. It felt as if boulders were sitting heavy in the pit of me, weighing me down from shock.

Mama shifted uncomfortably in her shoes as Dad looked away from me. They didn’t say a word. Guilt sank in Mama’s eyes, yet Dad didn’t show a blink of remorse for the news that Bobby had revealed.

“Where is she?” I asked again. A rage was building up inside me, and I didn’t know how it was going to explode from my system with the news my parents had been hiding from me. “I called you, Mama. I asked about her, and you didn’t say a word.”

“I don’t have to tell you a thing,” she said, crossing her arms as if her stance made any sense.

I turned to Bobby. “Do you know where Sammie is staying, Bobby?”

“Don’t answer that, Bobby,” Mama ordered, scolding him as if he were a child.

“Bobby.” I took a deep inhalation and locked my eyes with his. “Do you know?”

Bobby’s stare dashed back and forth between Mama and me, and his aloof persona was completely drained away as he began to read the seriousness of the situation at hand. “Oh man, look, I didn’t mean to cause any trouble,” he explained, ruffling through his curly hair.

“It’s fine, just tell me,” I said, trying everything to keep myself from shaking him out of fear. Oliver stood behind me with his hands on Reese’s shoulders. He leaned in and whispered that he was going to take Reese off to play a game to give my parents and me space to talk. I nodded in agreement.

As they began to walk away, Mama’s eyes widened in shock. “You’re just going to allow a strange man to walk off with my granddaughter?”

A strange man?

Her granddaughter?

She couldn’t have been serious in that moment. She couldn’t have been questioning my parenting skills, when she’d been lying to me about the whereabouts of my sister for who knew how long.

I didn’t even give her question the answer she was in search of. My eyes stared into Bobby. “Bobby?” I asked again.

He grimaced and rubbed his hand over his mouth and then shrugged. As he was about to speak and give me the information, Dad jumped into the conversation.

“I think it’s about time for you to walk away, Bobby,” he ordered.

Bobby took the command and ran with it. Literally. He jogged away and didn’t look back once.

Acid began to burn at the back of my throat as my panic rose. My little sister had been living in our small town for so long and had never reached out to let me know. She’d made it seem as if she was going off to find herself, not to return to my parents’ chains.

“How did you get that child?” Mama asked, her voice harsh. Her forehead was dripping with sweat, and it was the first time in a long time that I remembered seeing Mama nervous—outside of Dad yelling at her.

“Excuse me? Sammie left her with me five years ago. She said she was going off to find herself.”

“No. That can’t be. Sammie said the baby didn’t make it. She said she lost it, and that’s why she came back,” Mama said, shaky.

“Why in the world would she leave a child in the hands of someone like you?” Dad barked, disgusted by the idea. That hurt me more than he’d ever know.

I couldn’t grasp what was happening, or why it was happening. “Why didn’t you tell me she’s been living back here?” I asked Mama.

“Why would I tell you anything? We don’t speak. Besides, Samantha is fine.”

“No, she isn’t,” I said, shaking my head. Nothing about the situation felt right, and I couldn’t believe that Sammie was okay after everything she’d been through. “She can’t be okay if she’s back in this town.”

“You watch your tongue, talking about my daughter,” Dad cut in.

Same ol’ Dad.

I’m your daughter too.

“Why? It’s true, and you both know it. She can’t be okay after what she went through.”

“That’s why we take care of her. That’s why we see her, because that’s our baby. She came to us when she needed us. Not that any of that is your business.”

I stood flabbergasted by the words that were leaving Mama’s mouth. “You’re insane if you think—”

I flinched the moment Dad’s hand landed against my forearm and he held on tight. His dark eyes locked with mine, and I swore I felt a darkness race over me. “Don’t you dare talk to your mother like that,” he scolded as he squeezed my arm.

My mouth parted as my body began to shake uncontrollably from his grip. “Let me go,” I ordered, even though my voice shook as the words left me. It was no secret that even to that day, I was afraid of my father.

He held on tighter, and I cringed from the pain. “Apologize to your mother.”

Mama’s eyes softened for a split second as she looked down at his grip on me. “Okay, Theo, I think that’s enough.”

Dad squeezed harder. I gasped.

Mama placed her hand against his and shook her head. “Let her go, Theo.”

“Stay out of this, Harper,” he ordered. The hatred that painted his eyes terrified me. “Apologize for speaking to her like that.”

“What?” I cried. “No.”

Harder.

“Apologize,” he commanded.

The pain shot up my arm, and I was almost to the point where tears were ready to release from my eyes, but I didn’t want to cry in front of him. For some reason, I felt that if he saw me weak, he’d feel strong.

“What the hell are you doing?” a voice barked. I looked over my shoulder to see Oliver standing there, with Reese beside him. He marched directly toward my father and ripped his hold from me. “Don’t ever put your hand on her.”

Dad stood tall, but unlike me, Oliver didn’t shiver with fear. He stood eye to eye with the man who’d raised me and stepped in front of me, protecting me from the first man who was supposed to be my protector.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” Dad snarled, fury sitting against his face. His hands were rolled in fists.

“Someone who will never watch a man put his hands on a woman and do nothing about it. If you ever touch Emery again, it will be the end of you,” Oliver said, cold as stone.

“You don’t know the person you’re defending,” Dad said with spite.

“You think you have the right to put your hands on a woman? Any woman? Why, because they’re smaller than you? Because they make you feel big? Come on, then. Do it to me. See what happens,” Oliver ordered, stepping straight into Dad’s space. “Show me what a tough guy you are.”

“Oliver,” I said, placing a hand against his arm. “Let’s go.”

His stance was firm, and he didn’t seem to be stepping down, so I pushed between him and my father and looked Oliver in the eyes. “Hey, right here.”

He lowered his head to make eye contact with me, and the fire that swam in his stare softened once he was staring my way. “Let’s go. Please.”

His shoulders relaxed, and he nodded slightly.

Reese looked as if she was confused and horrified all at once. I hated that fear that she was feeling. I rushed over to her and lifted her into my arms. “It’s okay, baby. You’re okay.”

She curled into me, and I held on tighter than ever.

“That’s right. You need to get to leaving,” Dad said, trying to be strong, but I swore when Oliver stepped up to him, I saw something I’d never seen in my life—I saw Dad flinch.

I felt defeated as I looked toward him and asked him the one question that had been sitting on my mind almost my whole life. “Why do you hate me?” I whispered, sounding like the hurt child I used to be.

Without hesitation, he blinked once and answered. “Because you’ve always been a disappointment.”

My heart.

It shattered.

“Let’s go,” Oliver softly spoke, placing a hand on my lower back.

I looked toward my parents and wanted to say so much, yet nothing was strong enough to leave my lips; instead, I turned on my heel and began to walk away.

“You okay, Mama?” Reese asked, wiping away the tears that fell down my cheek.

“Yes, baby, I’m okay.”

“She shouldn’t be calling you her mother,” Mama called out, but I kept walking, even though her words felt like stabs to my soul. “She’s not yours,” she said, making every inch of my body shake with heartbreak. How could she say something so harsh? How could she be so cruel?

I felt as if my knees were going to buckle beneath me any second, and right before I almost fell apart, Oliver was there, linking his arm with my free one. He kept me standing when I felt like falling.

“Keep walking, Em,” he whispered. “Just keep walking.”

We moved on autopilot until we reached the car. I buckled Reese into her car seat and then moved into the passenger seat. Staring forward, I tried my best to control the anger and pain rushing through me.

“Hey, Mama?”

“Yes, Reese?”

“Why did she say I wasn’t yours?”

I shut my eyes as tears rolled down my cheeks. “I don’t know, sweetheart. She was just a crazy woman.”

“Oh, okay.” She accepted it easily as ever, before saying “Hey, Mama?” again.

I sniffled. “Yes, sweetheart?”

“I don’t think you’re a disappointment.”

My head lowered as the tears kept falling from my eyes. “Thank you, baby.” I tried my best to still the shaking of my body so Reese wouldn’t see my poor reaction.

“Are you okay?” Oliver whispered.

With a deep inhalation, I said, “Just drive, please.”

He did as I requested, and I kept my eyes closed the whole time as we drove toward the bed-and-breakfast. I didn’t pull away when I felt Oliver’s hand fall against mine. With a gentle squeeze, a splash of comfort hit my soul.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“Always.”

Reese was asleep within seconds of falling against her queen bed once we made it to our room. I moved slowly as my mind was spinning fast. After washing my face and putting on my pajamas, I heard a knock at the door.

I opened it to find Oliver standing there with his hands in his pockets. “Hey.”

I tried to force a smile, but it wasn’t there. “Hey.”

“Let me hold you?” he asked.

I shook my head. “It’s okay, you don’t have to; I’m okay. I’m fine. It was just a long day, that’s all. I should be getting to sleep.”

“You don’t have to do that, you know.”

“Do what?”

“Be strong all the time.”

“Yes,” I said while nodding, “I do. Because if I’m not, then I’m not able to be what my daughter needs me to be. She needs me to be strong in order to take care of her.”

His eyes moved to the sleeping girl in her bed, and then he looked back to me. “Right now she’s good, she’s safe, she’s okay, Emery. So, now it’s time for you to be taken care of.”

“I . . .” My words faded as I crossed my arms and shook my head slightly. “I’ve never had anyone take care of me before. I don’t even know what that looks like.”

“It’s different every time, but tonight it’s me holding you.”

I bit my bottom lip and nodded slightly, giving him permission to take me into his arms. The moment he wrapped himself around me, I melted into him, feeling at home in an instant. He moved us to my bed, and we lay down beside one another. His arms felt like the greatest weighted blanket that my soul needed that night.

He didn’t push for conversation; he didn’t try to understand what had unfolded before him that evening. He simply gave me comfort, he took care of me, and I kept falling, falling, falling . . .

I love you,I thought.

I love you,I felt.

I love you,I knew.

I couldn’t say the words, though, because love scared me. Every person I’d ever loved had always let me down. I couldn’t allow myself to verbalize my feelings for Oliver, because once I did, I knew there was no going back for me.

My body turned to face him, and I looked into those brown eyes that had been the source of sparks of happiness over the past few weeks, and then my stare fell to his lips. My heart began racing; my mind began to spin.

“Oliver?”

“Yes?”

“Do you feel for me what I feel for you?”

“More,” he whispered, inching his face closer to mine, resting our foreheads against one another. “I feel more.”

“Does it scare you?”

“No.”

“It scares me,” I confessed. “I’m not used to people caring about me, and the ones who were supposed to are the ones who left. So that scares me. Getting close to you freaks me out, because what if you change your mind? What if one day you decide that you don’t want me anymore and you leave?”

“I can’t erase your fear, Emery, but I need you to know that you did this to me,” he said, taking my hands into his and laying them against his chest. “You found me when my heartbeats were hardly there, and you stamped them. You stamped my heart, and that’s why it’s still beating.”

The way my body filled with love was almost overpowering. “Oliver . . .”

“Ask me to be yours, and I’ll be yours. If you let me stay, I’ll stay forever.”

I moved in closer to him and slightly brushed my lips against his, and the small graze sent a ripple throughout my whole system. My lips crashed against his. I kissed him hard at first, and then a gentleness fell over me. His lips tasted like every dream come true, and I loved the way he kissed me back. He kissed me as if he’d missed me for decades before we’d met. His kiss felt like a promise that I needed to feel. As he pulled back, I met his stare and gave him a small smile.

“I’m yours, please stay, and please kiss me again,” I whispered, and then he did.

I didn’t know how long our lips stayed together, or how long it was until exhaustion fell over us. All that I knew was that in his arms, I felt comfort; in his arms, I felt safe.

As my eyes faded shut, and his closed, too, I dreamed of him saying he loved me.

In my dreams, I whispered back that I loved him too.