“Just send her a picture of the food,” Belle suggested as she and Jack stacked the catering delivery in my fridge. She’ll come over for that.”
“Send her a dick pic with a bow on it,” Morticia said as she and Lilith packed up their stuff. “It always works for Jonathan.”
59
Merrie
“Girl power go!” Aunt Bettina yelled, pumping a fist in the air and pouring out shots of eggnog-flavored vodka. It was early in Christmas market time. People were out and about shopping, strolling, and sipping hot chocolate. But the Merrie & Bright ornament-slash-cookie shop had been doing business nonstop since three this morning until we sold out, and we were tired. Well, Olivia and I were tired.
“I’m headed to a Christmas party,” Bettina announced. “It’s going to be a real rager. Ida’s hosting, and she said she’s got a group of strippers performing in Santa outfits. They have a whole routine to ‘All I Want for Christmas is You.’” She downed her shot. “You girls should go out and party!”
“I’m going to go take a nap in the back seat of my car.” Olivia groaned.
Someone knocked on the glass. I waved them away. “Come back tomorrow.” We had been baking non-stop all day and all evening. I needed a break.
Olivia put the last of the cookies in a bag.
“Guess we’ll be baking more tomorrow,” I said. I had hung a fresh set of Christmas ornaments on the wall. “I still have five times this amount in my storage unit.”
“Girl…”
“I will never open up another Christmas shop,” I vowed.
Matt:There is a special package waiting for you under the tree.
I sucked in a breath when the attachment downloaded. It was a picture of him, cropped chin down, displaying his bare muscular chest and a big bow partly covering what promised to be the Christmas present that had been on the top of my wish list.
“Ooo!” Olivia said gleefully, looking over my shoulder.
Matt:Also, I have lasagna.
Matt:And cake.
“That man is covering all of his bases.” Bettina nodded in approval.
I was still stuck on the picture he had sent.
“I know what you’re getting for Christmas,” Olivia teased. She tugged at my hair. “Make sure you shower first,” she warned. “You probably have icing in weird places.”
I grimaced. “My life is a disaster.”
Matt clearly wanted one thing,and so did I. But I also didn’t want to weird him out. How awkward, though, would it be to show up, take one look at him and all his naked glory, then be like, “… so I’m going to take a shower first and wash my hair and shave everything, so if you’ll give me an hour while I use up all your hot water then probably fall asleep before I can even give you a blowjob because showers make me sleepy? ‘Kay, thanks, that will be great”?
I studied my reflection while I waffled in front of his door in the private elevator lobby, trying to decide whether I should try to go to my mom’s house to shower so that I could really make a grand entrance. But all my stuff was still at Matt’s place.
“Ugh!” I tugged at my hair. It was frizzy and bedraggled and had icing caked in it. There was green food coloring streaked on my nose, and sugar crystals fell off my clothes and bounced to the floor whenever I moved. “You need to get your life together.”
I rang the doorbell, and Kringle barked.
I started to stammer out excuses when Matt opened the door wearing nothing but a Santa hat and black boxer briefs, looking tastier than a full Christmas dinner.
“I’m just here to grab my stuff,” I babbled. “Need to run to my mom’s house and clean up. Also, wow, you really decorated in here.”
“I thought you would like it.”
Now I felt even worse. He had planned a nice evening, and I showed up like a tramp. His home was like a scene out of a magazine photoshoot. I was totally underdressed. I didn’t even want to go near the decorations; they were so perfect I was afraid I would ruin them.
Matt frowned. “You look fine to me.”
