NICK
I stared at the ledgers in front of me and ran a hand over my face.
As much as I didn't want to admit it, I had no idea what the accounts said.
It had been hundreds of years of running a business and I still couldn't get it right.
It wasn't that I didn't try, it was just that my talent lay in other parts of the business, mostly in product design and development.
Logically, I knew that was what Pieter and I hired accountants for, but I should still know the state of our business.
It was so much easier when things were simpler and it was nothing more than me and my tools in a shop.
Perhaps I should ask someone from accounting to come up and talk things over with me so I at least had some understanding of what I was looking at.
I reached out for the phone, only to stop when the door opened.
I looked up to find Pieter stepping inside with a serious expression on his face.
"I thought you spent the whole weekend with the guy you met at the Jinx party?" I asked him.
"I did."
"Then why do you look like you're about to tell me something both serious and horrible?"
He chuckled and pulled out the chair on the visitor's side of the desk. "I'm not. We've got a meeting with the account manager from Miracle Marketing Solutions."
"Ah, right. I lost track of time. I had some notes somewhere," I said.
"Mmm. This wouldn't even be necessary if you just let us have an in-house marketing team," Pieter said.
"We have an in-house marketing team."
"We have a graphic designer who focuses on our packaging and every now and again puts together a post for social media. We don't have a proper marketing department."
I sighed. "All right, fine. After the Christmas season is over, we can hire someone. Or maybe we can poach whoever they send if they do a good job."
"I'm going to hold you to that," Pieter said.
I snorted. "You own half the company, you don't have to hold me to anything."
"True. But we'll talk about that after Christmas is over.
We need to focus on the last-minute push.
It's three weeks until Christmas, we can catch all of the people who are running behind on their gift shopping.
That should get some toys out of the door," he said in a matter-of-fact tone I'd gotten used to over the years we'd been companions.
"Is that a problem? I was looking at the accounts..."
He snorted. "Are you really trying to tell me you understand them, Nick?"
"I understand the basic number. We're making profit. And both of us are living comfortably."
"We'd be living comfortably even if we weren't making profit," he pointed out. "Investing in the railways in the eighteen-hundreds really paid off."
"Mmm."
"But if you want the company to keep bankrolling your charity work, then we need to make more money."
"I can pay for it myself if it's an issue," I responded.
"Not the point, Nick. The charity coming from the company also looks good. Maybe this year you'll finally use it for marketing."
"Absolutely not," I responded firmly. "I don't want it becoming a massively gimmicky thing. I do the sleigh ride and gifts because it brings joy to the kids, not because it looks good for the company."
"Yes, yes, I know. It's just an added advantage that it gets our toys into the hands of children who then cherish the memory until they're old enough to buy them for their own children."
"What? No, that's not the point."
He shrugged. "Accidental bonus. You're just going to have to accept it."
I sighed. "Maybe it's time to get out of the toy business. I can just buy what I need from somewhere else."
The look he gave me said everything I needed to know about his thoughts on the matter. And that was fair. We have some semblance of this conversation every year. Without the company, I wouldn't be as aware of what the children actually wanted for presents, and that would lead to disappointed faces.
"I much preferred it when you were just holding feasts," Pieter muttered.
"We're doing that too," I reminded him. "It's next week."
"Yes, I know. I'm honestly surprised you sleep."
"It's only one month a year."
"And you could have stopped doing any of it years ago."
"Hardly. There are always going to be people who want to have a good night out, and children in need of presents," I said.
"And yet we can't use either for marketing," Pieter muttered.
"There are plenty of other things we can use," I responded. "And if this marketing company we've contracted can't figure out what to do without resorting to that, then I don't think we should be working with them."
Pieter nodded. "I won't say anything."
"When are they arriving?"
"In five minutes," he said. "It's just an introductory meeting, all we have to do is tell them what we're about as a company, and anything we don't want to do. Or anything we do want them to focus on."
"All right, I can manage that." I got to my feet and pulled my suit jacket off the back of my chair so I could put it on. "Let's get this over with. I want to go down to the factory floor and make sure the toys for the sleigh ride have been put aside."
Pieter rolled his eyes but didn't say anything about my revelation.
I knew he wouldn't. The sleigh ride was important to me, and he wouldn't do anything that compromised it, even if he did find it frustrating that I sometimes got caught up with the extracurriculars of the season rather than actually running the business, but that was just part of what the season meant for me.
I'd founded Cringle because of the sleigh ride and getting toys to children whose parents couldn't afford much for the season. That would always come first.
And it wasn't as if Pieter didn't have his own hand in it.
While he'd gotten out of the confectionery game years ago, he always made sure to have his pockets full of sweets to give to the children who came to the sleigh ride.
His love of giving was one of the reasons the two of us had become good friends.
But what we did for the sleigh ride was something for us, and I had no intention of anyone from Miracle Marketing Solutions knowing anything about it.