Page 46 of Wishing for Love

Crystal laughed. “I think it’s a nice change of pace from milk, don’t you?”

“What can we leave Santa if not milk?” Elsie asked. “And I don’t think Uncle Nix has wine here.”

“I don’t think so either,” she said. Bummer since she could use a glass. Maybe she’d send him a text and let him know about this conversation.

“We’ve got time,” Elsie said. “Though Santa is already out there delivering in some parts of the world, right?”

“He might be,” she said. “Working up a big appetite.”

She put the bowl on the island with the cereal that Elsie liked. She let the little girl fill her own bowl but then got the milk out.

“Can I have orange juice too?”

“You sure can,” she said. “While you were sleeping, I was looking at cookie art. Do you want to see?”

“Yes, please,” Elsie said.

She showed Elsie the pictures, and the two of them picked out the designs they were going to make, then when Elsie went to her room to change, she shot off a text to Phoenix with a picture of a bottle of wine and a question mark stating Elsie mentioned this, and maybe it’d go well with dinner or after...

He replied he’d take care of it but no mention of anything else.

Oh well, she tried.

16

A BIG FAN OF MEAT

Phoenix arrived home at four with a few bags. He’d stopped and picked up pizza dough and all the toppings, then grabbed a bottle of red wine at the liquor store.

He had no clue what Crystal might like and just went with something that he knew Maryn had drunk in the past.

“Uncle Nix,” Elsie shouted when he walked in the door. “Look at our cookies.”

“Wow,” he said. The island was covered with at least three dozen cookies all decorated in red, white and green. It was easy enough to see who had done what. “They all look great. I’m not sure Santa is going to want to eat any because he might not want to ruin the works of art.”

Elsie giggled. “Santa isn’t getting them all. Only two. That’s all Mom ever gave him. She said he might get fatter if everyone gave him more than two.”

He held his grin in place. That was Maryn’s rule, only two cookies at a time. It brought back a great memory. Even the sugar cookies, though Maryn normally bought cookies. She wasn’t the baking kind of person.

“I remember your mom always put wine out too,” he said. “So I stopped and got some with the makings for dinner.”

“You remembered,” Elsie said. He looked at Crystal and breathed a sigh of relief that she’d texted him. It wasn’t something he remembered or even might have known about.

But he did remember that Elsie and Maryn made their own pizza on Christmas Eve. “I did,” he said, not caring too much about that fib. “I also remembered what you and your mother had for dinner on Christmas Eve and didn’t want to miss out on it this year either.”

“Pizza,” Elsie said, lifting her arms in the air. “Do we get to make them ourselves?”

“We do,” he said.

“Uncle Nix and me and Mom made our own pizzas on Christmas Eve every year that I remember. Even Nora had it with us twice. I think it was twice.”

“It was,” he said with his head down.

Nora hated that he was there one of those years, but he hadn’t flown home for the holiday. He was supposed to, but his flight had been canceled and rather than leave on Christmas morning, he’d gone home the following week for New Year's.

“Homemade pizza sounds like so much fun,” Crystal said. “What are your favorite toppings, Elsie?”

“I like ham and cheese and tomatoes.”

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