She reached out to rest a hand on my leg. All I wanted was for her to stroke her hand up, up.
Instead, I asked her, “Do you have siblings?”
Merrie scowled. “Yeah. My dad’s new wife just had a baby.”
She seemed unhappy as she took a bite of mashed potatoes.
“You know, my dad always seemed to hate being a parent,” she said as she cut off a piece of turkey and swiped it in cranberry sauce. “I always thought he was just not the type of guy who liked kids or wanted to be a parent. You know, it happens. But he’s so in love with that baby.”
“Come here,” I said softly, taking the fork out of her hand and pulling her to the floor with me, wrapping my arms around her. She closed her eyes and nestled against my chest while I stroked her hair.
“I’m not going to cry,” she said, voice slightly muffled.
I kissed the top of her hair. “Of course not. No crying on Christmas.”
We lay like that on the floor, Merrie half on top of me, idly playing with the buttons on my shirt while Will Ferrell cavorted around Manhattan in a ridiculous green and yellow elf costume. Snow fell outside the window. All I wanted to do was kiss Merrie, fuck her, then marry her.
I was falling for her.
It’s too quick. You can’t.
But I could. So easily.
47
Merrie
“Do you think he’s waiting for me to make the first move?” I fretted as I swept my shop. Olivia was sitting on the countertop, eating one of the freshly baked cookies I had made. I had snuck out of Matt’s condo that morning while he was working out.
“I mean, I was literally lying right on top of him. What more should I do?”
“Was he hard?”
“Yeah, he’s pretty muscular,” I said, pausing my sweeping.
“No,” Olivia said, pretending to grab her crotch. “Like, was he giving you any penis action?”
My face felt flushed, and I opened the door to let some cold air in, much to Louis the cat’s annoyance. He yowled at me from his spot in the Christmas tree.
“I wasn’t, like, feeling him up.” In fact, even though I was half lying on Matt, I had tried very hard to not get anywhere close to the belt vicinity. Not that I didn’t want to. Part of me kept hoping he would roll us over, tear my clothes off, and fuck my brains out right there on the floor.
I grabbed a bowl out of the overstuffed cabinet and started mixing up a batch of royal icing.
Olivia began sorting the mound of sugar cookies I had been baking since six that morning instead of answering my mom’s million and one texts about why I left the Christmas party or Matt’s texts wanting to know where I was and why I had left.
Mom, I left because you were crazy, and Matt, I left because I wanted you to fuck my brains out but was pretty sure that was not a good idea.
Besides, did he even want it? Maybe he was just being nice. Maybe he saw me as something similar to Kringle or Prancer, a mess that had wandered into his life that he felt obligated to take care of.
I separated the icing into little bowls and added food coloring.
“Are these what we’re putting the cookies in?” Olivia asked, holding up one of the cute little cellophane baggies with smiling Christmas scenes that I had impulse bought instead of paying literally any of my bills.
“It’s a business expense,” I said desperately.
“No judgment here. Besides,” she said, patting the donation box that had been magically filled with money when I had returned to my shop that morning, “you’re making bank now.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Two hundred dollars.”
