“I can’t bake on an empty stomach,” she said as she took a bite of stuffing. “So good!”
She chewed on a piece of ham.
My stomach growled.
We do not eat Christmas food.
I had an energy drink in the cupholder.
“Here.”
I glanced over.
Merry held out a roll to me.
“I made you a Christmas sandwich. It has turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and gravy on it.”
“Shouldn’t that be a Thanksgiving sandwich?” I said, but I took the napkin-wrapped sandwich from her and bit into it.
Fuck, it was amazing.
“You can eat all the same things you eat at Thanksgiving at Christmas. And if you’re really smart, you can buy the turkeys for cheap ahead of time for your holiday dinner.”
My employees were waitingat the vertical farm as I drove up.
Merrie had finished her Christmas dinner and promptly fallen asleep.
“I’ll have another eggnog,” she said abruptly when I turned off the car.
“Do you ever think about anything other than Christmas?”
“Do you think of anything other than showing up at my shop at all hours?” she retorted, pushing the door open.
I greeted my employees while Merrie looked around taking in the three large multistory glass towers.
“My bake-off partners would like some fruit,” I told one of the workers.
“We have some nice raspberries ready,” he said as we followed him into the tower. “Along with some fantastic pears.”
“They’re not mealy, are they?” she asked as we stepped inside the first greenhouse. The greenhouses were warmer and more humid than the winter air outside. The robots whirred, spritzing the plants that grew on lattices.
I plucked one of the pears off a branch and handed it to her.
Merrie seemed very mistrustful of the fruit. She sniffed the pear and took a bite.
“And?” I prodded.
“It’s pretty good,” she admitted and took another bite. The juice ran down her chin, and she licked it off.
I had a sudden desire to press my mouth to hers and taste the fruit on her.
It’s that Christmas sandwich she fed you, I decided as we headed to the greenhouse where we were growing the berries.
One should not make an entire Christmas meal into a sandwich.
26
Merrie
