Page 2 of A Cuddly Christmas
“Now what?” I take my phone back from her and give it a once-over.
“We wait.”
“What is this crap you put in here? I’m a food connoisseur?”
“You love to eat,” she says, and I delete it. “Hey!”
“I’m fixing it.” Thankfully Molly is extra short, and I’m pretty tall for a girl, so she can’t snatch the phone back. I replace it with I like cheese on everything. “That's better.” I keep reading further and shake my head as I delete it all. “What is this made-up shit?”
“What are you putting in? I worked hard on that.”
“Seriously? I came up with this plan twenty minutes ago.”
“Whatever,” Molly huffs.
I think for a minute on what to put.
“Got it!” I tell Molly. “Do you like bad girls?”
“What? You’re putting that?”
“I don’t need the judgment, and I’m not done.” Molly presses her lips together. “Now where was I? Right, bad girl.” She rolls her eyes. “Do you like bad girls? Then I’m your girl because I’m bad at everything.”
Molly puts her face in her hands, but I know she’s only hiding her laughter.
“All right, I have to get back to the bakery.”
"I should probably do the work thing too," I say and check the time. "Gramps is coming in so I can do a few deliveries."
We say our goodbyes before Molly bounces out the front door. I debate deleting the whole profile, but what does it hurt to leave it? I'm not trying to find a soul mate or anything trivial like that. It's more about putting myself out there so this silly crush on Dr. Rudolph will go away. I’m not sure why it’s so hard to shake it when I’ve never had this problem before.
"Tills," Gramps calls, coming in through the back. "I made your favorite." He kisses me on the cheek, handing me the Tupperware container. For a person who loves food, I'm a terrible cook, but thankfully Grampa might as well be a master chef. On top of that, my best friend runs a bakery, so I’m covered.
Gramps makes my favorite every day, which really is any kind of food.
"You're the best. I'm going to run this upstairs to my refrigerator, and then I'll do the orders."
"Sounds good. I'll print them and get them organized," he says.
I quickly put the food away before changing out of my sneakers and into boots. This time of year, the snow is constant.
“How many do we have?” I ask when I get back downstairs and grab the keys to my truck. Living right above the hardware store makes commuting extra easy. I can roll out of bed five minutes before I need to open the store.
That’s also one of the reasons I know Paxton isn’t for me. I see the girls that chat him up, and they are all beyond belief. I can maybe pull off cute on a good day, but most of the time, I’m rough and tumble.
“Only a couple, but I’m going to take these two. They’re on my way home.” I check over the ones he’s talking about to make sure. Gramps has a small country cabin and likes to stay busy.
“All right, but let me load them up.”
“I’m not that old, Tills.”
“We’re not having this fight again,” I say, already grabbing the items needed. When I get him all set, I grab the last one off the counter.
“I’ll handle the store till you get back,” he says.
“All right,” I agree, then check the name on the order and see “Dr. Paxton Rudolph.”
“That man is going to keep us in business,” Gramps chuckles.
