Frosting Her Christmas Cookies - Alina Jacobs Page 0,29

sugar, I had a high tolerance. The producers had just finished taking pictures of the baked goods, so I snagged several of the donuts and went back outside. I let the freezing air chill my skin, to the shocked looks of the production staff.

“Hey there, hot stuff—or should I say cold stuff?” Dorothy shouted. Her headlamp glared in my face, and I squinted. The older woman was riding a unicycle and was dressed in a sparkly red catsuit and a red Santa hat. Two geese raced after her.

I still had my own Santa hat on, and I tipped it at her. “You ready to sell me that property yet?” I joked.

“Maybe if you keep posting all those thirst pictures on Instagram,” she replied, jumping off the unicycle with more spryness than someone half her age. She came over with her phone. “This picture of you in this hot tub is criminal! I can see how you have all these women hanging off of you the way you ate that donut.”

On the company Instagram feed was a frankly lecherous video of me eating the bacon donut Morticia had made.

“Seriously, was someone sucking your dick under there or what?” Dorothy asked.

I silently handed her one of my remaining donuts. She took a bite.

“Holy moly, that’s good!”

“Life changing.”

“Boss man!” Carl said later when I walked into my condo building. “These numbers are killer! The bourbon is sold out. There’s a waiting list. Weston told us to up the prices, so I increased them by ten percent. We could be profitable in a few days. Everyone is talking about it! Also, where the fuck are your clothes, man?”

I was still wearing my swim trunks. They were almost frozen, but I loved the cold. Plus it kept the sugar nausea down.

“Think I’m going to eat dry toast for dinner,” I told him.

He followed me into my condo then handed me a parchment-colored envelope bearing fancy calligraphy script. “That witch girl dropped that off for you.”

I opened it as I walked into the kitchen. There was a note on an envelope of pungent herbs.

FOR YOUR HEADACHE.

Now that I was out of the cold, I did feel a headache coming on.

“You’re not going to drink that, are you?” Carl asked in horror. “It might be poison!”

“No way!” I said, grinning broadly as I turned on the kettle. “This means she likes me.”

15

Morticia

“You poisoned me!” Jonathan exclaimed when Lilith and Emma and I walked into the conference room of the offices of Hillrock West Distillery the next morning.

Lilith and Emma, excited to have an expense account and unlimited alcohol, had spent the rest of the previous evening in the bar, talking to fans online, swapping recipes, and posting thirst pics of Jonathan with food, of Jonathan with alcohol, and of food and cocktails by themselves. Because I did not want to be trapped in the apartment of Christmas hell, I’d stayed down at the bar with them. Now it was eight in the morning, my usual bedtime, and here I was in a meeting, already being yelled at.

I would not stand for it. “It’s not poison!” I yelled back at him. “I’m drinking it myself.”

“It did vile things to me,” he bellowed.

“It cleaned you out. Those were fresh herbs. I picked them myself a couple days ago.”

Jonathan gave me a horrified look. “You picked those where?”

“Off the vacant property down the street,” I said, sipping my tea and wishing I was in a dark bedroom with blackout curtains, a candle, and my cat. Instead I was here with not just one but several morning people.

“You can’t eat all that sugar and drink all that alcohol and not have ill effects,” I lectured Jonathan. “Do you feel dehydrated? Foggy headed?”

“No,” he said shortly then looked thoughtful. “Actually, I feel great! You’re a miracle worker! Too bad we didn’t have that tea in college, right Carl?”

They fist-bumped. I gagged.

Jonathan clapped his hands. “What’s cracking, ladies?”

“You if you ever use that word again,” I said, my eyes slits.

The sun was glaring through the curtains, bouncing off the tinsel on the tree in the conference room, and blinding me. I slipped on my round, dark glasses. It was slightly better, but I still had a headache. I also still did not have a clear direction for my art project, and the clock was ticking.

“We have a schedule all made up for posting pictures to the site,” Emma said. She had coffee in one hand and a color-coded and tabbed three-ring binder in