Page 2 of Tying Little Tay
“What do we do?” asked Sadie, and she and Holly looked at Tay expectantly.
“We eat it,” they said firmly. “We can’t leave it in there, and it would be a waste to let it melt.”
They knew where the spoons were kept—they did work in the kitchen as a pastiao, after all—so the three of them made short shrift of the last carton of peach ice cream.
“What do we do with the empty carton?” asked Holly.
“We leave it out,” said Tay. “With a note saying thank you for the ice cream.”
The other two looked at them with wide eyes.
“Are yousure?” asked Sadie. “That seems… provocative.”
It did rather, and Tay was curious to see what Chef’s response would be.
“I’ll write it,” they said. “And I’ll take responsibility for all of this. The punishments will all be mine, I promise.”
The other two tried to argue, but Tay hushed them. “Not now. We need to get the cool box plugged in.”
This was going to be the trickiest bit of the whole heist. They had to get the cool box to the elevator, and then up to the second floor, to be hidden in one of the multi-purpose rooms. While the box would remain cool long enough for a picnic, making sure it remained cold enough to not allow all the ice cream tothaw during the rest of the night was another thing altogether. It would need to have actual power and that meant it needed to be plugged in. All three of them knew that this would probably be caught on camera when security tried to track down the ice cream later, but that didn’t matter.
What mattered was making sure that all the Littles in the Littles’ Wing could sneak down to the multi-purpose room and have ice cream for breakfast.
CHAPTER 2
Guilia
The ringing phone woke Guilia up.
Bleary eyed, she rolled over and answered the landline.
“Si?”
“Sorry to wake you, Chef Guilia, but there appears to be a bit of commotion in your kitchen.” Tiago sounded very apologetic.
Guilia sighed and brushed her hair from her face. “What has Tay done now?”
“I’m not entirely certain what their plan is, but there was some noise down there. I didn’t see anything when I looked around, but looking on the cameras, they’re clearly up to something. They’ve roped in Sadie and Holly as well, and I think the three of them have eaten some of your ice cream.”
Guilia closed her eyes and counted to ten. Tay had been getting more and more rumbunctious recently, even at work when they were usually in a Big headspace. She’d made concessions for it, understanding the pressures that Tay was under, but things were starting to get a bit out of hand. “I’ll speak toSignoreDerek, but just let it all play out. Keep an eye on the three of them though?”
“You’ve got it,” said Tiago.
She hung up, and phoned Derek. He sounded as sleepy as she felt. “Well, you were right. The three of them are up to more than just a sleepover. There’s some kind of prank brewing.”
Derek sighed. “I can come over to deal with it.”
“If it’s all right,” she said. “I’d rather let it all play out. And then I’ll step in and dole out a punishment to Tay. It feels like they’ve been pushing and pushing for me to take them in hand, and that’s exactly what I intend to do.”
A soft chuckle came over the phone. “I almost feel sorry for them,” said Derek. “And I would feel sorry for them if I wasn’t convinced that it’s what they want, and it didn’t involve waking me up in the middle of the night.”
Guilia knew that he was right, but she’d been waiting for Tay to say something. She wanted to explore something with Tay as much as Tay wanted to explore something with her, but she wasn’t one for making assumptions and Tay just wouldn’t come out and say what they wanted.
Derek interpreted her silence correctly. “It’s okay; they’ve been pushing you into this, and you need to have a conversation about that. But I think that a punishment scene could help reset everything for the two of you.”
She sighed. “Grazie, Derek. I appreciate it.”
“It’s all fine; get some sleep and we’ll deal with whatever the fallout is in the morning.”
