Page 51 of Tizzy's Little Thanksgiving

When he tucked her into bed and climbed in beside her, before he could pull her to spoon against him, she turned and snuggled as close to him as she could get. If this fantasy was going to end, she was going to make as many memories as she could before she walked away.

“Good night, Daddy,” she murmured, her ear pressed to his chest, the sound of his heartbeat imprinting on her very soul.

“Good night, little Tizzy girl,” Eddie said, stroking his fingers through curls still damp from their second shower of the day. “Sleep tight and don’t you worry about anything, your Daddy is here.”

He waited for a response, but when all he heard was a soft purr and felt puffs of her warm breath against his chest, he knew his Tizzy had already fallen victim to the sandman. Kissing the top of her head, he closed his eyes, smiling as he followed her into dreamland.

Chapter 20

Teresa

“I’d tellyou not to be late, and make some threat about a hot bottom, but you don’t have anywhere to go,” Eddie said, kissing her neck as he wrapped his arms around her from behind.

Teresa just grunted. She was not a morning person. Not on vacation, anyway. But she needed to wake up. Georgie and the rest of the bridesmaids, plus Mrs. Mayer, would be arriving soon and Teresa had to play hostess. As the maid of honor, it was her job to make sure Georgie’s day was perfect from beginning to end. And that was what she was going to do, even if it killed her. And it just might. With every minute that ticked by on the clock, she felt her temporary happily-ever-after fading away. Their time at Rawhide was ending, and with it, the best relationship she’d ever been in.

Eddie squeezed her tighter and she felt like she was in a vise, or a small room where the walls closed in and got tighter and tighter around her. Tears pricked the corners of her eyelids, and she disentangled herself from Eddie.

“I may not have anywhere to be, but you do, and you can’t be late either. That would be setting a bad example. You don’t want to do that.” She faked a smile and turned to face him. “Go on, get. Lucas is waiting.”

“And he can wait. It won’t take us half as long to get ready as it will you ladies. Is there anything you need? I want Georgie’s day to be extra-special without adding stress to yours.”

Eddie had already done everything in his power to make it so. “You already ordered the room service champagne, the breakfast buffet, the fancy cookies. You made sure we had everything we could possibly need for whatever wedding day emergency might arise. We have a tide pen, wet naps, aspirin, eyedrops, mints, tissues…” She trailed off. Eddie had read some article about a wedding day emergency kit and made sure to buy everything on it in doubles, to make two kits because, as he said, it wasn’t only brides who had wedding-day emergencies. He’d even gone above and beyond by adding several pair of pantyhose to the bride’s kit. “Really, we’re good. Great even. I’ll see you at the wedding.” Teresa leaned forward, dropping a soft kiss on his dimpled cheek, hyper-aware that it would be one of the last chances she had to do so.

Thankfully, he was appeased, kissed her back, grabbed his emergency kit, and ran out the door before she started crying.

Once he was gone, she exhaled a deep breath and tried to center herself. Georgie would be here in less than an hour, and she desperately needed to grab a shower before the room filled with people, but there was something else she had to do first. She needed to pack up her stuff from the room she’d been sharing with Eddie and move it into the unused adjoining room they were going to be using as the bridal suite. She didn’t want Mrs. Mayer knowing she and Eddie had been rooming together, even though Eddie and Georgie both swore she’d be more happy than mad, but that wasn’t her only reason. Tonight was their last night at the Ranch, and her last night with Eddie as her Daddy. Going back to her real life, her lonely, single, real life was going to break her, and she didn’t think she could be more heartbroken than she already was, but if she didn’t make the break now, she knew it would only be worse tomorrow.

With her mind made up, Teresa stood bleary-eyed, clutching her coffee cup, and stared at her suitcases in the closet beside Eddie’s. The orange and black together reminded her of Halloween, her second favorite holiday, and always made her smile. It reminded her how easy it had been to be Eddie’s girl, and how perfect of a Daddy he was, and how temporary it had been.

Scowling at her own stupidity for even putting herself in this situation, she yanked her suitcases out of the closet and threw them on the bed, yanking the zippers open with such force she thought she might rip them off their tracks.

“When in Rome,” she grumbled. “Whoever heard of anything so stupid?” She pulled open drawers and forgoing her normal fastidious packing, started haphazardly throwing things into the open suitcases, now even madder, because as angry as she was that she’d decided to set herself up for heartbreak by “doing as the Romans do,” she was just as furious that she hadn’t.

She’d been in this magical Littles’ Paradise with the Daddy of her dreams, and she should have taken every opportunity to take full advantage. Yet in so many ways, she hadn’t. There were so many things she hadn’t done, so many experiences she hadn’t had. In true Tizzy fashion, she’d been too afraid. Afraid to misstep and upset Eddie to the point where he’d want nothing to do with her. Afraid to upset Georgie by letting on that she’d fallen too hard for her brother. Afraid to let go and be Little and enjoy all the things the Ranch had to offer, and now, on her last day, she was filled with regret.

Regret, regret, regret. Regret that she hadn’t let Eddie Daddy her enough; she’d been so paranoid about doing wrong and making him regret agreeing to this charade in the first place, she’d been angelic. She’d asked him for help making sure she got to everything on time, and then she’d been more conscientious about it than he had. She hadn’t participated in any of the infamous Ranch shenanigans, even though she’d had several opportunities. She’d lied when she said she hadn’t wanted to, she had. She wanted to very badly. She’d imagined Eddie’s face when he found her out, imagined him turning her over his knee and scolding her as he turned her bottom bright red like he had on that first fateful day, imagined him shaking his head and telling her what a naughty Little girl she was, then holding her on his lap and telling her she was all forgiven. But she didn’t do anything to deserve any of that because she’d been frozen with fear. What if he hadn’t responded the way she imagined? What if reality hadn’t lived up to the expectation?

She’d had an amazing time with him, perfect really, riding the horse and learning about funishment in the dungeon, but she couldn’t help but feel bereft as if she’d missed out on something somehow. And that was just the Eddie stuff. On the flip side, she’d spent so much time with Eddie, just boinking their respective brains out, she hadn’t experienced all the Ranch had to offer. She’d been here almost a week, and she hadn’t gone to a class, or checked out the Littles’ Wing. She hadn’t explored the indoor playground or any of the themed rooms or watched a movie in the theater. She hadn’t eaten with all the other Littles in the cafeteria or seen one of the public punishments Georgie was always talking about, and she’d even skipped out on the hayride and the turkey trot. And while it had all seemed like the right thing at the time, looking back, it was all just so terribly Tizzy of her.

She should have opened up to Eddie. She should have told him how she felt, or the fact that her brain never stopped going. That she’d been an over-anxious mess the entire time. If he was her Daddy for real, she’d tell him tonight, and accept whatever punishment or scolding he wanted to give her for holding things in to her own detriment.

But he wasn’t her Daddy for real and telling him all this tonight would make tomorrow harder, because knowing Eddie, he would do something about it, and he’d say all the right things, and hold her while she cried tears of regret and frustration. And tomorrow, when he wasn’t her Daddy anymore, it would be so much worse.

Realizing that tears were running down her cheeks, she finished packing. Teresa unlocked the door to the adjoining room, hauled her suitcases, her stuffies and all the rest of her belongings into it, with just enough time to take a quick shower before Georgie arrived.

Once in the shower, with the hot water pelting her skin, she took a deep breath, and allowed herself a ten-minute pity party. She cried, and shrieked and stomped her feet, cursing her own stupidity all the while scrubbing herself clean like her life depended on it and the loofah could somehow magically wash away all her yucky feelings.

Surprisingly, and thankfully, it did actually help, and when she stepped out of the shower, her face was more dewy than tear-streaked, and the knots of tension in her neck and shoulders had dissipated.

There wasn’t much for her to do to get ready since they’d all be doing hair and makeup together, but she spent a few minutes blow drying her hair until it was shining, brushed her teeth, put on deodorant, spritzed herself all over with her favorite apple-pear-vanilla body spray, and donned one of the Ranch’s fluffy white robes over her favorite orange loungewear set. By the time Georgie knocked on the door, Tizzy felt almost human, and her regret-rant meltdown felt like a distant memory. For now, anyway.

“Knock, knock! Teresa, you better be up! You’re the maid of honor and it’s my wedding day. I’m literally marrying the man of my dreams today, and I’m freaking out! Open up!”

Rolling her eyes at the frantic tone of her best friend’s voice, this time the smile Teresa plastered on was genuine as she rushed to the door, and pulled it open, drawing Georgie into her arms. “Happy Wedding Day!”

Teresa

She’d never seen a morebeautiful bride or a groom who looked as if his wife-to-be was the most perfect creature ever to walk the planet.

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