by Bryce Oakley
“Okay, so in your extremely professional opinion, what kind of tree should I get?” Emilia asked, examining the tag of a Norway Spruce.
Cody took her by the shoulder and steered her away. “No spruces for you. They lose their needles fast,” she explained.
“Ah. Okay, what’s the most low maintenance tree, then?” Emilia asked, looking around.
Cody pointed to a group of trees that were duller in color. “Scotch Pines over there,” she said. “But they kind of lack the… awe factor. Also, they’re sharp as hell.”
Emilia nodded, looking back toward the firs.
“This is harder than I imagined,” Emilia said. “No wonder people just get fake trees.”
Cody gasped. “Don’t let the trees hear you talking like that,” she said in a dramatic whisper. “Here, let’s find your tree.”
Cody took Emilia’s hand again and led her back to the fir part of the lot. “Close your eyes,” she said.
Emilia wrinkled her brow skeptically, but did as she was told.
Cody steered her into position. She could feel branches touching the sleeves of her coat. “Okay.Now, what do you smell?”
“Pine trees?” Emilia guessed.
Cody sighed. “Wrong. You smell Christmas. You’re sitting in your living room, sipping a cup of hot chocolate with the tiny marshmallows, and you have your favorite Christmas record playing. What is it?”
“I don’t like Christmas music,” Emilia said.
“I repeat, your favorite Christmas record is playing. What is it?” Cody said again patiently.
“Ella Fitzgerald,” Emilia sighed.
“Okay, Ella is on. She’s singing, ‘O Holy Night’ and all the lights are off, except for your Christmas tree. What color are the lights?” Cody continued.
“All different colors. Red, green, blue, and yellow,” Emilia said.
“Are they flashing or are they still?” Cody asked.
“They’re slowly fading on and off, like twinkling,” Emilia said, and she could picture the scene perfectly.
“Okay, now open your eyes, and show me what tree they were on,” Cody said.
Emilia opened her eyes, turning to look around her. The tree she had pictured had been thick and lush, but not perfectly shaped.
She found it standing behind another tree, peeking its branches out. She could tell by the shape of its side that it was the perfect match. “That’s it,” she said.
“A Fraser Fir. A solid choice,” Cody said, lifting another tree of out the way to reveal her tree in all its glory. “See? That wasn't so bad.”
Emilia took a step toward her tree. It was around six feet tall and smelled uniquely like she had always pictured Christmas should smell –– fresh and piney.
A snowflake touched her cheek, and then another. She looked up to see them floating down from the sky, looking as though they were appearing out of nowhere above the lights. They were big, soft flakes that seemed to sway like feathers as they fell.
Cody let out a sigh. “It’s a sign,” she said.
The air grew thick between them as Emilia watched Cody stare up in wonder at the falling snow.
Goosebumps raised on her arms as Cody looked down to her, with an intensity she hadn’t seen in her eyes before.
"May I kiss you?" Cody asked, her voice so low Emilia could barely hear it.
Emilia moved her hands over Cody’s collar, wrapping her arms around the woman’s neck, nodding. "I think I'd be okay with that."
Cody brought her mouth to Emilia’s, one of her hands reaching to tangle in the hair at the nape of Emilia’s neck.
Cody tasted sweet and sharp like bourbon and coffee, her warmth soaking into Emilia as though she was breathing life back into her.
Emilia pressed her body into Cody’s, soaking in the warmth of her, her ungloved hand moving to cradle the side of Cody’s face.
What began as a sweet, gentle, questioning kiss quickly deepened, and when Emilia's lips parted, Cody slipped her tongue inside, tasting her, claiming her.
Emilia’s body reacted to the passion, pressing her body tighter against Cody’s as a quiet moaning sound escaped her mouth.
Her arms tightened around Cody and heat pooled low in her belly.
Cody smiled against her mouth, and pulled away, gasping.
Whoa, when the last time Emilia had experienced anything like that?
Their chests rose and fell in tandem as though they had just run a marathon. Emilia almost laughed at the sight of them both gasping for air.
"That was," Emilia began, pausing after a moment to bring her fingers to her lips.
Cody simply nodded, as though she understood exactly what Emilia meant.
They stared at each other in silence for another moment.
“Come on, let’s get this thing back to your place before we freeze to death,” Cody finally said, turning on her heel and jogging away.
In a matter of minutes, Cody had found rope, had tied the tree, and had hooked it onto the roof rack of her own car.
“I’ll chauffeur Fraser back to your place,” Cody said, squeezing Emilia’s hand as they stood next to their vehicles.
“Don’t I have to pay?” Emilia asked, looking around for Hal.
Cody shrugged. “He still owes me for that prom date,” she said with a grin.
Emilia giggled. “And you still owe me pictures of it. But seriously, I would like to pay him,” she said.
“I’ll make sure he really does get paid, don’t worry,” Cody said. “But this one's on me. See you back at yours?”
Emilia sighed, but conceded.
She drove home and went inside, moving around her coffee table and couch until there was a spot for the tree in the corner of the room near the patio doors.
She checked her watch. It had been about twenty minutes since she had been home and Cody hadn’t arrived yet. Had she hit traffic? At 7:30pm on a Tuesday night?
The doorbell rang and Emilia looked through the peephole. The tree was blocking the way. She grinned, opening the door.
The tree fell towards her and she reached out, catching it in her arms.
“Careful,” she heard Cody say from somewhere behind it.
“Fraser likes to make an entrance, I see,” Emilia said, tilting the tree to see Cody behind it, holding two shopping bags. “What took you so long? I was starting to get worried.”
Cody grinned. “Well, I couldn’t just show up with a tree and not have all the supplies for it, could I?”
“You didn’t,” Emilia said, looking down at the bags.
“Oh, but I did,” Cody said, setting down the bags as she carried in the tree.
In a half hour, Cody had set the tree in a brand new stand, had instructed Emilia on how to add a bit of sugar into the water to keep the tree fresher, and together, they had strung up the exact lights that Emilia had described.
“I really thought that you would have chosen all white lights,” Cody remarked, looping the stand of lights around a branch.
Emilia smiled, staring at the unlit strand of lights. “We always had this type when I was a kid, before we started traveling,” she explained. “I think that’s the last time I felt really excited for Christmas.”
Cody paused, watching her.
Emilia shook her head. “Thank you for making me get a tree,” she said. “It’s really lovely.”
Cody smiled, nodding. “You picked the perfect one.”
“I have very good taste,” Emilia teased.
“I agree,” Cody said with a silly wink.
They finished putting the lights on the tree, and then Cody reached into the shopping bag to produce a box of hot chocolate mix with tiny marshmallows. “I’m going to heat these up with milk. Want to put on the music?”
Moments later, they were sitting on the couch in the dark, sipping hot chocolate, listening to Ella croon.
Emilia’s head rested on Cody’s shoulder. Cody had an arm draped on the back of the couch.
“Everything
you envisioned?” Cody whispered.
Emilia nodded, entranced by the glowing lights of the tree, their reflections on the wall and glass.
It was even better than she had imagined.
Chapter 10
Cody
Cody whistled along to the Queen song that was playing loudly through the wall for the third time in a row, undoubtedly a Frankie choice if she ever heard one. She swept the floor in the large kitchen to the beat, though she resisted the urge to dance to the slow beat.
The smell of warm bread filled the room, a yeasty sweetness that felt as much like home as any place she had ever called home. So far, after a few weeks of being back in the bakery, it was the quiet evenings she liked the most.
Only Henry was still around, tucked in the office going over paperwork. She enjoyed volunteering for the clean-up at the end of the day, solely for the silence. It made for long days.
Sure, she could have the solitude back at the small studio apartment she rented, but there was something serene about the sense of not being alone that the bakery gave her. Or, perhaps, it was the vicinity of the bakery to other shops, particularly the one that was playing Queen.
Though the bookshop's arrival had given the bakery new meaning and new memories for her, the familiarity was still there. She was sixteen, learning how to knead bread dough properly. She was eighteen, mastering a kouign amann. She was twenty-two, telling her uncle she wanted to be a chef. And then she was twenty-three, leaning against one of the warm proofing cabinets, telling Henry that she was going to save lives.
How young she had been, but how brave she had felt. She remembered saying, "What good is making a perfect Christmas cake when I could actually make a difference?" How naive she had been.
Even though it had been a few days since their first date, Cody couldn’t help but smile, thinking about Emilia.
She thought about the magnets and Emilia’s goals. Her heart ached at the idea that she was so hard on herself, so strict with goals and her stability that it seemed she had neglected to live her life at all. Cody was overcome with a strange urge to protect her, even though she didn't need it. How could she protect someone so guarded already?
It made her want to tell Emilia about Katie.
She hadn't told anyone about Katie and didn’t dare to tell Emilia more than she already had. She shook her head to rid herself of the instant mental image of the girl’s small body in the back of the sedan, an image that had haunted her for months.
She had gone back to work for awhile before realizing how broken she had felt. Her friends had urged her to go to therapy, and that had helped, but it had also made her see how truly unhappy she was.
Maybe in the future, she’d go back to being a paramedic. There had been incredible moments, like when she had helped a woman give birth in her home, had coached that scared soul through the intense last stages of labor, and had been the first one to announce that she had a healthy, beautiful, baby boy.
She smiled, remembering exactly how piercing but incredible those first cries had sounded, and how warm and tiny the baby had been in her hands, like a fresh-out-of-the-oven bread loaf. She paused, laughing at how quickly her mind had gone back to baking.
Those were the moments she had wanted to stay with her, not... No, it wouldn't help to think about it too much, especially now.
Why hadn’t she told Emilia, even after she had opened up, too? There was something so disarming in the way Emilia prided herself on being so tough but had cried at the memories.
She felt as though she could tell Emilia anything. But if Emilia knew all of the details of Katie's death, knew how it had been Cody’s fault even after all the investigations and counselors and therapists had told her it wasn’t –– maybe Emilia wouldn't be so understanding.
Though she was hardly a murderer, and she had followed protocol...
No, Cody thought, don't go there.
Good thoughts, good thoughts.
She pictured Emilia sitting on the counter beside her as she cooked bacon and eggs, acting as though she was so impressed. She laughed aloud at the memory of her emphatic compliments about mixing cream into the eggs like that wasn't the most common thing in the world.
Emilia confessing she liked her. Emilia telling her she looked forward to getting to know her.
Emilia staring up at her Christmas tree as though she was a young girl, in awe of the wonder of the lights and magic.
She hadn't seen Emilia the day before. She had said something about how she had to meet with her accountant. She had been so excited telling Cody about expanding the shop, possibly taking over the glass store on the other side of the shop to grow her business. She was so passionate and animated when it came to the bookshop that shockingly, Cody had even found herself feeling inspired about business for the first time.
She looked around the bakery kitchen, at the cool stainless-steel tables and cabinets, trying to imagine how she could improve it if she stayed and put some work into it. Maybe they could expand the catering side of the business to more than just weddings and corporate events.
They had sold out of cupcakes each day since Johanna Kissler had tweeted about how amazing the cupcakes at Henry's Bakery were during her visit.
She resolved to talk to Emilia about it while the popularity and buzz were still up. Emilia would have better business ideas, she predicted.
Uncle Henry walked in from the office where he had stowed away. "It's a Queen kind of evening, I hear," he said, opening one of the cabinets to look inside. He frowned, then began to walk back into the office.
"Just one Queen song on repeat, I guess. Frankie is just really thanking God it’s Christmas now," Cody said, following her uncle. She leaned against the doorway. "Need any help with inventory? We're due to get a flour shipment on Friday."
Henry smiled up at her, his kind eyes wrinkling at the edges. "Isn't it funny how quickly everything at this bakery has come back to you?"
"You know I love the bakery, Uncle Henry," Cody said, shrugging.
"You seem to belong here," Henry said.
"It feels good to be back. I've been thinking of all the ways we could improve this place. We could add more services, more dining tables. There's a lot we can work with," Cody said, feeling enthusiastic.
Henry smiled, but she thought she might have spied a hint of sadness in his expression.
"Those seem like excellent ideas," Henry began, apparently not at the end of his thought yet. He paused for a while, tapping his pen on the desk while she leaned against the doorframe.
"Everything okay?" She offered.
"It's hard for me to admit, but I'm not the young buck I once was," Henry said, leaning back in his chair.
"Funny, I don't ever remember you as a young buck," Cody said, grinning.
Henry raised an eyebrow, mumbling what sounded a lot like ‘smart ass’ under his breath. "Cody, what I'm trying to say is that I'm thinking about retiring," Henry continued.
Cody’s eyes widened, then she grimaced. "Retiring? But what will happen to the bakery?"
Henry shrugged. "Well, I've been meaning to talk to you about that," he said. “The boys don’t want it. Your mother doesn't want it."
Cody’s face hardened. "So, you're going to close?"
"Unless someone else steps up," Henry replied, looking pointedly at her.
Her jaw dropped, her mouth hanging open. Henry wanted her to take over the bakery? After two weeks of being back and zero management experience? As Emilia would have said, that was a terrible business decision. "But why me?"
Henry set his hands on the desk. "You can learn management. The employees already respect you. You can learn all of the administrative stuff. It's just numbers. You can learn the business side. It's all about who you trust, and you've got a good head on your shoulders. But what you can't just learn so easily is a love for this bakery. For kneading bread and knowing exactly when the gluten is ready, for spending ages getting laminated dough just right, for being meticulous
about your crumb coat. I see that in you. There's no one more qualified for me to leave the bakery to," he said.
Cody swallowed, feeling all at once honored and frightened and overwhelmed. "Can I at least take some time to think about it?"
"I'd be upset if you didn't want to spend some time thinking about it," Henry said.
"I'm ecstatic that you think I could do it, but I think you're a bit generous with your faith in me," she said.
"Well, I kindly disagree," Henry smiled, standing to grab a jacket from a hook near his desk. He clapped her on the shoulder. "Just think about it."
Henry left, and she could hear the front door lock behind him. It felt as though all of the air was sucked out of the room.
She had lived a wanderlust life in so many ways. She had been a paramedic in three different cities and towns, and she had never lived in an apartment for more than a year. She couldn't even justify staying in one place long enough to get a dog.
And now Henry thought she could run an entire business? She shook her head slowly, trying to clear her thoughts.
She pulled out her phone and started to text Emilia, trying to ignore the fact that her hands were shaking.
Chill, Cody.
She locked up the bakery and walked out front of the shop.
Her phone started ringing almost immediately, and she answered it automatically, thinking it was Emilia before realizing it was her mother.
"Hey there, Baby Cakes," Julia teased, knowing Cody hated the nickname. She rolled her eyes.
"Hey, Julia." Cody knew she hated it when her daughter used her first name, but it was fun to mess with her all the same. Especially if she was calling her Baby Cakes.
"Henry tells me you have a girlfriend," Julia said, her nosiness knowing no bounds.
"She's not my girlfriend," Cody said before realizing how 7th grade she sounded.
Julia laughed on the other end of the line. "Okay, whatever you say. Spill it."
Yeah, Cody was a bit of a mama's girl, and it was a pity her mom was all the way in Chicago instead of in Denver. She was a damn good whiskey buddy.
Cody smiled. "There's someone special, but that's all I'll say."