Page 1 of Daddies' Holiday Toy
1
HOLLY
The smell of dough and cinnamon sugar clings to me long after I shut the ovens off for the night and clean up my workstation.
Crumbs are in my hair and clothes, in every little nook and cranny of this place, too, now that my eyes roam around the space freely.
I can feel the scent baked into me like a second skin.
It’s burrowed so deep that it’s down to my bones, making it hard to tell where it ends and I begin.
But hey, that’s the beauty of doing what you love: you become one with your passion, with the thing that makes you tick.
I’ve never wanted anything less for myself, especially when I’ve worked so damn hard to achieve it in the first place.
This place…I live and breathe it most days.
And that’s something I’m proud of.
After wiping down the counters, I take and toss the last of the cookie trays into the dishwasher and start it, my shoulderstugging with that familiar ache that usually sets in around this time.
I roll them back a few times and stretch my neck to the side.
A long hot shower before bed should loosen things up, or I least I’m hoping it will.
There’s nothing like waking up stiff as hell in the morning before I’ve even gotten around to taking care of my caffeine addiction first.
I rub my hands absently over my apron, the front of it still stained with the remnants of flour and dried cake batter.
That’s another thing I need to take care of before leaving: the dreaded laundry.
Five years into owning this place and I’ve long since accepted I’ll never leave this place clean.
It’s par for the course, though.
Heading out of my kitchen and to the front of the store, I pull the light switch next to the front door to plunge the shop into darkness.
Only the soft glow from the streetlamps outside streams in.
Through the glass windows, I can just make out the faint outlines of bundled-up pedestrians moving past the shop on the sidewalk, their boots crunching over the brittle leaves littering the ground that will soon be swallowed up by snowfall if the weather forecast for the next week and a half comes to pass.
I watch them from behind my sanctuary, fighting the urge to press my palm against the cool glass in front of me.
None of the pedestrians so much as glance my way.
It’s a little disappointing, though honestly I don’t know what I expect seeing as how the bell over my door hasn’t jingled all day except when I came in this morning.
It has me sighing on my way into the back again.
The holidays are supposed to be my busiest season.
November should mean preorders stacking up and customers crowding the display cases at the front register for spiced tarts and pumpkin cookies on their way to work, but instead it’s been weirdly quiet.
For a few weeks now, I’ve had this sinking pit in my stomach that hasn’t gone away no matter how many free samples I’ve tried passing out to people passing by, and those who do actually make their way in from the street never end up walking away with more than a small cup of coffee and a prepackaged parcel of espresso nuts at the register.
For the life of me, I can’t understand what I’m doing wrong.
It isn’t like this place is a new business and has yet to build up some credibility with the locals.
