Matt tapped a few buttons. “No, that’s with yesterday’s total. And it doesn’t include the cash. I have double that amount here in the till.”
My mouth flopped open. “I can’t believe it. I might actually break even by Christmas.” I shook the tablet to see whether it was lying to me, as I would a Magic 8 Ball.
“You shouldn’t be that shocked—I am a good businessman, after all.” Matt was smug
I punched him lightly in the abs. It barely affected him, of course. His abs were rock solid.
He laughed and grabbed my hand.
“We need to order more ornaments,” he said. “I hope we can have them overnighted. Who’s your supplier?”
I winced. “Actually, I think we might be good on ornaments.”
50
Matt
“See! I am totally a better businessperson than you,” Merrie said as I stood in stunned silence in the large storage unit. “Because I had the foresight to preorder a ton of inventory so we don’t have to worry about overnighting ornaments.”
“This is not just having a backlog,” I said as I walked slowly around the large storage space, which was packed floor to ceiling with boxes of ornaments. “This is a fucking disaster.”
“Ye of little Christmas faith.” Merrie dragged the handcart over to a stack of boxes. Before she could pick up one of the heavy crates, I loaded it onto the cart for her.
“I’d say you maybe had a little too much Christmas faith,” I replied as she directed me to the various products she wanted to take back to the shop.
“How many ornaments do you even have?” I asked, starting to run mental calculations of how many cookies she needed to sell to clean out this inventory.
But Merrie just shrugged. “Not sure?”
“You’re not sure?” I was incredulous. “Do you have a general ballpark?”
Merrie gave me a blank look. “I just ordered what I liked until I ran out of money.”
“Holy shit,” I said after a moment.
People were waitingin line at the shop when we returned.
“We’re all sold out,” Merrie told them. “We’ll be back open after the bake-off tomorrow. Please enjoy the Christmas market while you wait!”
I followed her into the shop with the cart of boxes, pulled out a knife, and started opening them. The first box held several hand-painted wooden ornaments of an in-love couple figure skating. There was even a little dog on skates. It was funny, the girl almost looked like Merrie with her red hair.
I glanced over at her.
She was giving me an uncertain look and twisting the hem of her coat.
“Am I doing it wrong?”
“No, no,” she said, shaking her head, her red curls bouncing under her Santa hat.
She was silent for a moment while I tried to figure out what the issue was.
“You’ve been perfect,” she blurted out. “Well, maybe not exactly perfect. Um, let me start over.” She pressed her palms together. “Thanks for…you know.” She waved a hand to the kitchen equipment and the empty shelves waiting to be restocked with new ornaments.
“I can pay you back,” she continued in a rush. “Just let me know what it costs. I still can’t even believe you managed to do all this. It seems, well, it’s pretty magical.”
I stood up and crossed the room, taking her in my arms.
“Of course it is,” I said, my hands drifting up to stroke her hair. “You can’t have a Whoville’s worth of Christmas ornaments to move and think some guy with a flannel onesie and an axe is going to be of any use. You need a billionaire.”
