Page 44 of A Very Merry Enemy
This morning, I’m exhausted but determined. We need to discuss our presentation for the contest and work on other recipes. We’re running out of time. We have exactly one month and haven’t made a batch of edible cookies. That’s a fact.
The bakery is chaotic. We sell twenty-five hundred cookies by two o’clock, which is a new record. Bella and Wendy handle cleanup while I prep dough for tomorrow’s batches. Pre-prepping and the two extra ovens Emma had delivered a few days ago have made us more efficient. We can now bake twenty-five percent more cookies.
“You should go home and rest,” Bella tells me around four. “You’ve been here nearly twelve hours.”
“I’m fine. I’m baking tonight with Lucas anyway.”
“Go home and take a nap beforehand,” she says. “Twohours will do you some good.”
“I doubt I’ll sleep,” I tell her, knowing I won’t.
“Then rest with your eyes closed,” she says. “You can’t keep going at a hundred miles an hour. We’re not halfway through the season yet.”
“I know. Thank you,” I say. My feet pound as I drag myself to my car. The two-mile drive goes fast, and I pull up to my parents’ place. As soon as I take the stairs to my bedroom, my phone vibrates with a text.
I walk into my room and sit on the edge of my bed.
Lucas
Still good for 6?
Holiday
Yep.
Lucas
Meet me at my house tonight to bake. Too many wandering eyes at the farm.
Holiday
Not a good idea.
Lucas
Then fuck off. I’m not baking at the shop.
It’s short and to the point. Nothing like the texts we used to send each other.
I set an alarm on my phone and somehow drift to sleep.
It feels like only minutes pass, but really, an hour and a half goes by. I drag myself out of bed and change into some comfy jeans that make my ass look awesome and a soft sweater.
At five fifty, I head to Lucas’s place. I could drive there with my eyes closed. I make my way to the farm and turn off onto the gravel loop where all the Jolly family houses sit. I pass Hudson’s place first, and it’s all lit up, then turn onto Lucas’s long driveway. My headlights illuminate his two-story home, which sits at the back of the property, exactly where he told me it would go.
Each of the brothers inherited land as a part of their legacy.They each built their forever homes on the same loop where their parents and grandmother live.
I park next to his truck and walk up the porch steps. The house is hardly decorated, with a lone garland wreath on the front door. Icicle lights partially hang from the eaves, like he gave up halfway through.
Before I lift my hand to knock, the swing door opens.
Lucas is wearing jeans that hang low on his hips and a heather gray T-shirt that’s been worn soft. It stretches across his torso, accentuating his chest and arms. That’s when I realize he has tattoos on his arms. His hair is slightly damp, and he smells like he just showered. There’s a shadow of stubble on his jaw, and he looks tired but good. Too good.
My mouth falls open, and I quickly close it. This is the first time I’ve seen him in normal clothes. No long-sleeved flannels or hoodies.
“Hey,” he says, unamused.
“Uh, hey.”
