Page 29 of Pumped

Ivy shakes her head, rapt, her melting cone forgotten.

“It was when your daddy and I were kids. I was probably your age and he was a few years older. He found a huge bucket of ice cream in the freezer.” I make a circle with my hands, about the size of a pumpkin or watermelon. “We got spoons and ate ice cream straight out of the bucket.”

Ivy gasps in shock and wonder. “Grammy and Grandpa didn’t stop you?”

I shake my head and shrug. “I don’t remember where they were at the time. They didn’t find us until later. But by then, we’d eaten so much ice cream that we both had stomachaches.”

Ivy gasps again. “Oh no! That’s why Daddy doesn’t like ice cream?”

I hesitate and cringe. “Well, I ate so much that I threw up. And a lot of the ice cream had melted all over the floor. So when Grammy and Grandpa found us, they made your daddy clean it all up.”

“Including the barf?” Ivy looks horrified.

I nod. “Including the barf.”

“Ew!” She shrinks back from her abandoned cone, currently melting in a mess on the table.

“Yup, andthat’swhy your daddy doesn’t like ice cream.”

“Ew!” She squirms like there are ice cream spiders crawling all over her skin.

Just then, my phone explodes in my pocket. I fish it out and find text after text coming in from Everest. Fucking finally.

Everest

What happened with Ivy?

The school won’t tell me anything.

Where are you?

I’m on my way home.

HELLOOO???

I bite back a curse. Is he fucking kidding me? I had to scrap my entire afternoon because of this. I called in favors with the other doctors at the hospital, rescheduled appointments with patients who had been waiting months to see me. What the hell was he doing that was so important he couldn’t pick up his damn phone?

And now he has the audacity to be indignant about not getting responses? Just the type of juvenile, childish behavior I’d expect from him. I have half a mind to ignore him and give him a taste of his own medicine. If he wants prompt responses, he should be a little more prompt himself.

I smash my thumbs on my phone as I type a message back.

Owen

We’ll be home in 20.

The three little dots pop up immediately.

Everest

Where are you? I’ll come meet you.

I almost growl. I don’t want Everest to meet us. I want him to sit his ass at home and wait for us to get there. I smash my thumbs on my phone again.

Owen

I said, we’ll be home in 20.

Then I set my phone face down on the table. “All done, sweetie?”

---