A Wood-Fired Christmas (Mistletoe Kisses)

Chapter Five

CHAPTER FIVE

ON THANKSGIVING MORNING, Lacey arrived before Ezra, and she checked her notebook with all the opening details.

Ezra hated her, but that was fine as the feeling had become mutual. Sure, she was the rich brat who was tromping in and conducting a business coup designed to leave the pizzeria in rubble within two months. If every detail of the above was wrong, well—not Ezra’s job to make sure he got it right, was it? He only cared about making the same pizza the same way forever and ever.

The guy couldn’t be much older than her. How could he already have given up on life?

Lovelace Pizza had so much potential. Why not fulfill some of it? Why scrape by, bored for thirty years, and then retire, wondering why you never did any of those cool things you’d dreamed of as a kid?

He and she had plotted out the larger orders and their delivery times yesterday at close, so the day’s only question mark was how many individual orders would come in. Ezra had estimated based on last year’s sales, giving a reasonable cushion for growth.

As Lacey set about opening cans, she thought, Thanksgiving pizzas. See, Ezra had it in him to step off the beaten path when necessary, but he wanted those limits clearly staked out. She assumed they would do “loveless” Valentine’s Day pizzas again, so that made it twice a year. Would they open Christmas day with a mistletoe-topped pizza?

Was mistletoe poisonous? Maybe it was one of those plants where you could eat the berries but not the leaves. Lacey had no intention of finding out, but perhaps on December 24th, she would take a delivery of mistletoe.

For that matter, perhaps Ezra would make her a mistletoe pizza as a peace offering, and after she ate it, he’d say, “Oh, I forgot, you’d better call poison control.”

No. He wouldn’t hurt her, no matter how angry he got. For all that he looked dangerous, and for all that they worked together alone in a tiny space filled with knives and fire, she’d never felt afraid…other than feeling afraid that he misunderstood every single thing about her.

She wasn’t rich. She didn’t think she was a brat. This wasn’t a business coup. And she had no intention of destroying the pizzeria by March.

When Ezra unlocked the door, he was startled to see her there. “I thought you were feasting with Uncle Barrett.”

“Happy Thanksgiving to you, too.” She forced a smile. “I want to see these turkey pizzas.”

He pulled off his jacket, saying, “They look about the same as non-turkey pizzas. You don’t have to stay.”

He couldn’t very well eject the soon-to-be-owner, so Lacey said, “I know,” and kept prepping.

He had plenty of days here without her. She’d shadowed him, and she’d shadowed Greg, struggling to learn everything. Last Friday night, she’d shadowed them both even though the kitchen was too small for three. But watching the pair of them in action had been a marvel, almost choreographed except every moment was new and never to be repeated. Ezra could toss the dough in the air and spin it so it stretched into a circle. Greg would work the phones. One would prep a pizza and get it in the oven, and ninety seconds later, the other would have it out of the oven and into a box. One would be reading back toppings from a phone call while the other was assembling those toppings. With both of them doing this dance, there’d even been music.

Uncle Barrett said he’d worked with Ezra at the beginning. “He’s so fast,” Lacey had gushed. “He knows where everything is. When Greg puts something down, Ezra picks it up as though it was always there. You must have had a blast working with him.”

Uncle Barrett had replied, “I never worked that way with him. I was too slow.”

Lacey might never pick up the required speed, either. On busy nights, it might be faster for Ezra if she stayed out of his way. Today, though? With the orders sparse and the pizzas planned out? She’d give it a try.

Ezra watched as she set up the Hobart, although she wasn’t sure if his silence meant he was angry, if he was watching her fail, or if she was doing everything correctly.

He wouldn’t just let her fail—of that, she was sure. The pizzeria meant everything to him—more than she’d anticipated—and he had no problems pitching a fight about anything he thought she did wrong. If she’d forgotten an ingredient, Ezra wouldn’t risk complaints from ten customers and another twenty stalking away in silence.

While the Hobart growled into action, they went to work on the toppings.

She said, “Are these our knives, or your knives?”

Ezra shook his head. “Not mine.”

No further conversation. Lacey prompted, “Some chefs are particular about using only their own knives.”

Ezra replied, “One assumes they used their own money to buy those particular knives, and so far, I’ve failed to inherit my uncle’s kingdom.”

Ah, right, just in case she’d forgotten he hated her, it was important to remind her he still did.

She knew what he got paid (not necessarily the tips, but she could estimate those) and surely it was enough for a knife. Maybe not one of those high-end forged blades that you got if you’d won the Nobel Prize in food, but a reliable knife.

It was just—why did he always assume she’d ridden down from a mountain top astride a white horse, accompanied by twelve ladies in waiting? If she had money in her bank account, it had come from paychecks, the same as his had, and those paychecks had come from working a job. Yes, even though she had rich relatives! Fancy that.

Or, rather, don’t fancy it. Instead, she cut up more onions to caramelize them for the Thanksgiving pizzas.

Uncle Barrett had called her in October after a chat with his financial advisor. He’d wanted to retire, but during that meeting, he’d realized it would mean more to his nieces and nephews if he gave them money now rather than in twenty years when he died.

All her cousins had grabbed the cash. Lacey had always loved Uncle Barrett, and her job would be doing layoffs soon, so she’d said, “Couldn’t I just work with you at the pizzeria?” He’d responded by offering her not a job, but the whole operation.

That didn’t make her evil. Why would Ezra think it did?

Conversation remained in utilitarian mode. Behind you. Coming through. This is hot. That’s enough. Although he wouldn’t sing in her presence, Ezra tuned the radio to the local independent station, a combination of classic rock, local bands, and some weird concoctions an intern dug up from the basement of a shuttered secondhand record store. The Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” only in German. Komm, gib mir deine hand.

Good thing Ezra would never take her hand. He’d probably have reversed the lyrics. “Hey, go take away your hand.”

The first order was going to the rehab hospital before Lovelace was even supposed to be open. The aroma of onion and turkey sausage filling the shop, and Lacey closed her eyes as she inhaled.

She could spread toppings, sure, but Ezra could toss a pizza dough and have it spread like a wheel, then catch it without tearing the dough before he sent it soaring again. Up, catch, up, catch. It was fast and amazing. Then the pizza went back onto the counter, and she’d start the toppings while he spread the next pizza.

He was much faster than she was, so he was also sending the doughs into and out of the ovens. Ezra kept the pizzas moving with a finesse that amazed her over and over. There wasn’t a timer. Or, rather, the timer existed entirely in his head so it felt right to him, or he’d shuffle the pizzas within the oven so the first went to the back and then came toward the front when the next went in. They slid in soft and emerged crisp, cheese bubbling.

Would she ever be able to do that? To know without looking that the crust had reached precisely the right shade of black-speckled gold, or hear without thinking about it that the peel had exactly the right grittiness to keep the pizzas sliding properly? The shhh of pizza going into the oven, and the pop of wood burning, or the slight crinkle of the paper in the box as the pizza slid onto it with the cheese melted and the sauce beneath at several hundred degrees—these weren’t familiar yet, but to Ezra, they all functioned together like a train engine as it powered across the landscape.

By contrast, Lacey got tugged along like the caboose. When the first delivery order was done, Ezra shoved all the pies into the thermal delivery case and said, “Since you’re here, you can deliver them.”

It was a four minute drive to the rehab hospital, and they rushed her inside while nurses and the rest of the staff hovered like vultures. The nursing supervisor called “Code Zed” over the loudspeaker. Lacey left with a $20 tip in her pocket.

“Turns out, they love us,” she said on returning to the shop, and she handed Ezra the twenty. He shoved it into the tip jar, then pointed to the next order. “Can you deliver that? Shelly’s car died, and it’ll take a bit for her to get here.”

Was Shelly planning to bike the pies all over town? Kind of hard to deliver without a car.

Lacey headed to the grocery store with a mix of plain and Thanksgiving pizzas. At the back entrance, she got ushered directly into the break room while the manager issued a page over the loudspeaker. “We’re only open for another hour,” the manager said, “but it’s been a madhouse.”

The manager tipped Lacey out of her own wallet even as employees started descending on the pizzas. Lacey said, “Last-minute shoppers?”

The manager said, “And people picking up pre-cooked dinners. After all that, none of the staff wants to go home and cook.”

Tossing pizzas, Ezra had his back to her when she returned. Lacey headed around to where he could see her. “Do you want me to go grab Shelly?”

He working the dough. “That might make sense, but since you’re here, you can keep doing the deliveries.”

Lacey shook her head.“That leaves Shelly alone for Thanksgiving.”

Ezra scowled as he set aside one dough and started the next. “I told you, we don’t celebrate.”

“Even so.” Ezra appeared to be setting up multiple pizzas to get all four into the oven one after the next. “If I’m doing deliveries, I can do a pick-up.”

He didn’t answer, but then an order came in through the online system, so she washed her hands and got to work.

He ignored her far too much. This wasn’t sustainable, but then again, what she said didn’t require an answer as far as he was concerned because he’d already answered her. Maybe he was just so in his pizza-making zone that he couldn’t spare time for things like, “It’s fine.” But, come on. They were working together. They should at least be polite.

Orders came in, and orders went out. Tips went into the tip jar. This wasn’t a bad way to spend the holiday. Uncle Barrett had been surprised she wanted to, but then again, he’d also been surprised to learn that Ezra opened on Thanksgiving Day.

In the meantime, Lacey learned which other local organizations opened on the holiday. Sure, the rehab hospital couldn’t send all the residents home for the day, but a hunting and fishing store remained open for business the whole time. A drug store chain was open, which made some degree of sense until she realized the pharmacy of that drug store chain was closed.

It felt unfair. None of those employees needed to be there. Was corporate worried that someone would have a shampoo emergency? Would Thanksgiving be ruined if a customer couldn’t pick up another spool of monofilament fishing line?

In a way, it made sense that Ezra wanted to work. If a Thanksgiving pizza could serve as a light for someone who felt unappreciated and apart from their family during the holiday, then in a way, Lovelace Pizza made the world less “loveless.”

In short: Ezra could be thoughtful when he wanted to. He just didn’t want to be thoughtful to Lacey.

She delivered a pizza and a bottle of soda to a single dad, his two school-age children leaping on the couch while chanting, “Tur-key-piz-za!” That guy tipped her huge, as though she’d done him a massive favor. Based on the cheering when he shut the door, maybe she had. She delivered to an elderly woman who seemed to be living alone and who asked if Lacey would like to join her, then wished her a happy Thanksgiving. To balance that out was a guy who grabbed his pizza boxes, grunted as he checked the receipt, and slammed the door.

Back at Lovelace, Shelly’s car was stopped almost, but not quite, in the alley behind the shop. Lacey parked so Shelly could pull out around her, then stepped inside to find Shelly filmy like a ghost at the counter, and Ezra loading pizzas into their largest thermal bag.

Shelly was in the middle of saying, “So when the check engine light is flashing, that’s a good thing, right? It means the car is super-duper happy?”

“Yeah, you’re not going anywhere. Just answer the phone and make sure the customers know it’ll be forty minutes until they get anything.” Ezra turned to Lacey. “A local family has an oven disaster and twenty-two guests. I’d have Shelly do it, but—”

“I can do it,” Shelly said, wobbling to a stand.

Lacey said, “You look like death warmed over—”

Ezra said, “Death in the wood-fired oven for thirty seconds.”

“—and I don’t want a worker’s comp claim. I’ll take it.”

Lacey tried to lift the bag, but it didn’t budge. Ezra chuckled. “I’m taking this, don’t worry.”

Shelly said, “You’re not supposed to overload the bag.”

Lacey said, “And there’s two bags. I’ll go with you.”

That’s how she ended up in the back of Ezra’s sedan, a thermal bag of pizzas buckled into the seat at her side and another on her lap. Ezra pulled out. It had just started raining.

He said, “Thanks for not making Shelly drive. When she arrived, her hands were shaking.”

“What happened to her?”

“Something that for sure is going to run a few hundred bucks at the mechanic.” Ezra looked grim. “The engine kept dying at highway speed, and she’d drift down to like fifteen miles an hour while frantically trying to get it to start again.”

Lacey said, “And she still wanted to work?”

“She was closer to here than home. I think she’s nuts, but the Thanksgiving tips are usually good, so she wanted at least part of it. Is it okay if she leaves her car in the back until I can get it fixed?”

Possible answers:

No, Shelly has to drive the unsafe car somewhere else. No, just push the thing into a spot where it will probably get ticketed and towed. No, because with the car that close to the back door, I will have to walk an extra twenty steps.

Actual answer: “Of course! Shelly’s going to need a ride home tonight, too.”

“I’ll figure her out.” Ezra looked grim. “She got the oil changed last week, and right after, the electrical system went all bizarre. The mechanic claims he didn’t touch a thing and her car’s just twenty years old, but come on. You expect me to believe it was total coincidence?”

Lacey sighed. “That stinks.”

“I want him to order a pizza so I can burn the edges just a bit.” Ezra’s hands clenched on the wheel. “I wouldn’t. And he lives twenty miles from here. So don’t worry.”

Lacey offered a smile. “Maybe I’ll short him a few slices of pepperoni.”

Ezra grinned. “Now you’re thinking. What if I do the delivery, and I deliver his last?”

Lacey said, “Don’t clip the yellow lights. He’ll be pacing and questioning why his pizza arrived in thirteen minutes instead of twelve.”

“He’ll always wonder if it was just coincidence that the mushrooms seemed to spell out ‘JERK.’”

Lacey mused, “You’ve put far too much thought into ways to stick it to the customer.”

Ezra sounded grim. “By the end of a long shift, you’ll be thinking all these things, too.”

Lacey snickered.

Ezra shrugged. “Anyhow, this order we’re delivering, they’re probably also wanting me to assemble a pie with the onions spelling out ‘JERK’ in beautiful script to send to the oven repair man who swore the heating element was fine and it’s a safety feature when the oven turns off in the middle of preheating and then won’t ever turn on again.”

Lacey flinched. “While that would prevent a house fire, that also makes it difficult to roast a turkey.”

“Yeah, given the monologue I got on the phone, I imagine twenty-two impending social media posts that Hartwell Appliance Repair is not number one on their recommendation list.” Ezra slowed as he turned onto a side street. “Fortunately, it’s Loveless Pizza to the rescue.”

He had to ruin it. He must have forgotten he hated her while having a normal conversation, so then he had to say “Loveless” to annoy her again.

When they arrived, she carried the smaller bag while he hefted the larger one. A woman opened the door, shouting, “Dinner’s here!” while a teen groaned, “Now everyone can shut up about the stupid oven,” and then, through the chaos, a man was leading them to a kitchen where they could unload eight pizza boxes.

The man added, “You can set some of them on top of the stove, since there’s no danger that they’ll catch fire.”

With a ripping sound, Ezra unsealed the hook-and-loop closure of the larger thermal bag and began stacking pizzas on the table. Lacey set her bag beside his and did the same.

“Ooh!” One of the guests bounded over holding a wine glass. “Look up! You’re under the mistletoe!”

Someone shouted, “Now you have to kiss!”

Lacey froze.

Ezra glanced up, then said, “You get either kisses or pizza, but not both.”

Lacey added, “And I assume you want the pizza.”

A very sweet, very drunk guest began tapping her wine glass with a spoon. “Kisses! Everyone, they need to kiss!”

Another of the guests shouted, “Kiss her!” and Lacey shrunk. Ezra looked at her, very much on the alert. This was the expression on his face when he had three pies in the oven, one dough spinning in his hands, the computer chiming with an incoming order, and the phone ringing.

They were walled in by guests, and the woman who seemed to be the hostess said, “Well? You have to kiss her.”

They were customers. They’d just bought eight pies and were highly likely to post on all their social media about the pizza shop that had saved the day with their clever Thanksgiving pizzas. You were supposed to give customers what they wanted. Ezra was claiming Lacey hadn’t sacrificed a thing in her life, so she could make a sacrifice now. Just let him do it, and it would be over. It didn’t have to mean a thing. They’d be just keeping the customers happy.

“Do it!” said one of the guests, and at least two cameras were up.

“We’ll be customers for life,” gushed the drunk woman, and someone else shouted, “Fifty dollar tip if you kiss!”

Lacey squared her shoulders. Turning to Ezra, she mouthed, “They’re customers.”

Ezra huffed. “Well. The customer is always right.”

No. She didn’t want the customer to be right. In fact, they were entirely wrong. But you do what you have to do.

The family started a chant: “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”

Ezra declared in a loud voice, “My lady, may I take your hand?” and with her ears ringing, Lacey extended it.

Ezra bowed, then drew her hand toward him. She struggled not to yank it back. Then, when he had her fingers close to his lips, so near that his breath grazed against the small hairs on the back of her hand, he air-kissed, just shy of touching her skin.

There had to have been twenty pictures taken in two seconds while the family cheered, and that really drunk lady was banging on her wine glass again with her spoon.

Lacey’s cheeks flamed, but Ezra dropped her hand and glanced at her like a conspirator.

Lacey clutched her almost-kissed hand to her throat. “Thank you, kind sir.”

Ezra bowed to her again, then with steel in his expression, returned to unstacking pizzas.

What just happened?

Had he just protected her? They’d been walled in by cheering customers urging him to kiss her. He could have embraced her and planted his mouth on hers, and he could have justified forcing her by saying he’d had no choice. She’d technically given consent. He could have kissed her cheek and engulfed her in the wood-smokey scent of his hair and clothes, and then he could have blamed the mistletoe and the rules surrounding it all.

Lacey sat in the car holding a cash tip far in excess of anything they had a right to, including money shoved in her coat pocket by the very drunk woman who’d wished her an amazing life with her gorgeous husband.

Lacey fought herself not to look at Ezra, her “gorgeous husband.” He had hair as red as hers, although not as red as her cheeks must be. They still felt hot. In his eyes, she must look like an idiot, and she still couldn’t speak.

He probably did kiss well. But it would have been a kiss with someone who hated her. He could have humiliated her and later taunted her because she’d do anything for money. She’d sell pizza and sell her body, and it was all the same.

Except…he hadn’t.

He wanted her gone. He didn’t want her destroyed.

As they idled at a light, Ezra said, “How much did they tip?” His voice was subdued.

With trembling hands, Lacey counted the money in her lap. It was barely a tremble, so maybe Ezra didn’t see it. “Sixty, and that one woman gave me an extra ten.”

“I think she shoved money in my pocket, too, but I haven’t checked.” He chuckled. “It’s too bad we don’t work Christmas.”

Lacey breathed, “Yeah, I was going to ask.”

She hadn’t been going to ask. It just made sense to keep her mouth moving so her brain didn’t dial-tone.

He could have kissed her.

Knowing she hadn’t truly consented, he’d…not done it.

He could have given her a kiss. Instead, he’d given her respect.