Page 33 of Tying Little Tay (Littles of Rawhide Ranch #13)

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.”

“Okayyyyy…” said Tay, drawing out the vowels, and then quirked their head when Guilia brought out a leather-bound notebook from behind her back.

“Here.”

Guilia didn’t explain what the notebook was, but rather just sat and waited for Tay to open it up. On the first page, in large letters was written “Tay’s Little Book of Worth”. They looked up, questioningly, but Guilia just nodded back toward the book.

They turned the page and saw Guilia’s handwriting. Turned another page and saw Mandi’s and kept turning page after page after page.

There was salt on their lips that had nothing to do with goat-cheese ice cream, and they stared at the book, completely thrown. The entire thing was filled with page after page of people telling them what they valued and liked about them.

“I didn’t want to just tell you that you had to believe it,” said Guilia gently.

“I know that it doesn’t work like that. If it were that simple, no one would ever need anti-depressants.

But I thought that this might help. On the days when you can’t remember why you deserve all of the things, you can flip through these pages and read reasons back to yourself. ”

The sob Tay emitted was so loud, it almost made them jump, and then they were burying their face in Guilia’s lap and crying and crying and crying.

Not being in a dynamic had meant that they hadn’t been praised as much as they would usually have liked. And Rawhide Ranch was wonderful, and they definitely felt valued and loved, but there always those days when they couldn’t remember why.

Why were they loved?

Why were they valued?

Why did they deserve to be part of such a wonderful community?

And it was all here, written down in black and white and purple and pink and green, because of course the Littles had used colorful pens.

Guilia had even managed to get the kitchen team to write in it—how she’d managed that was very impressive considering how little time they’d spent in the kitchen after trying the ice creams—and Tay felt their heart swell.

“I’m loved,” they whispered, the words coming out in a croak.

“Yes you are,” said Guilia. “You are very very loved. Mi tesore, my treasure.”

They started crying again then, softer this time, so softly that Guilia didn’t seem to realize that they’d resumed crying at first.

“ Cara mio , why are you crying?”

“Because I don’t know how to stop,” said Tay. It felt like they’d been bottling everything up for so long, that now when they cried, it was like someone had unstoppered a dam and there was no mopping up the waves.

“It’s okay,” said Guilia. “If you can’t stop crying, it’s probably because you need to cry.” She shifted and pulled Tay onto her lap.

“I’ll squish you!” said Tay in protest.

“If I didn’t squish you when riding your mouth, you won’t squish me by sitting on my lap. Come on, Tay, let me look after you.”

Tay let the book fall from their hands, back onto the couch, and then shuffled around in Guilia’s lap to get comfortable. Their Daddy slipped one arm under their legs and lifted them until they were almost being cradled in her arms. And then she just held Tay.