Under The Mistletoe

Chapter 3

-ADDISON-

How the hell did he know my name? That Santa replacement was different. Nothing like all those before him. Which either means he was happy to get the job and was probably out all night celebrating or he's one of those career drunks who's really good at hiding it. By the end of today, he'll be gone for sure.

Saturdays are the longest. Two hours in the morning, two hour break, two hours midday, two hour break, then another two hours before closing. It's not enough to go home unless you live close enough to not have to endure much of the holiday traffic. So a six hour workday becomes like twice as long with half the pay.

These shifts are when I do my holiday shopping and get my fill of people watching. Christmas is the best time to sit in a busy spot in the mall with a book and a steaming cup of hot cocoa. The Christmas carols on repeat, the spicy and minty smells in the air, the people all around smiling with holiday cheer. If my crappy job offers no fulfillment, at least I have this.

The morning's shift was over quickly after a surprisingly large turnout for so early in the day. The new guy was just as clean and chipper as yesterday. He'll be dragging by the next break for sure. I haven't had a chance to ask how he knew my name. Although if Wyatt told him how long I've worked here, I suppose it shouldn't be all that surprising he knows.

The mall is packed for 10 am. The early bird sale has this place looking more like a Black Friday war zone. That's the only reason I came in today. For the early bird sale. Working at the mall means I got in early and was able to do some shopping this morning for my Christmas list. I'll quit after today's shift now that I've gotten most of my shopping done.

I'll miss these moments though. Coming here for Christmas shopping won't feel the same once I'm not part of the Santa's Stop anymore. I'm sure they'll keep using my decorations and signs. This place will forever lose its holiday whimsy once I quit. And like a bad breakup, I'll probably avoid this entire mall from now on.

My cocoa has gone cold and the bustle of the crowd is too close to lose myself in my book. Someone turned the Christmas music up a tad too loud anyway. With a stretch, I turn my wistful gaze on the crowd, soaking up my last day of people watching before I'll have to hunt for a new hangout.

An elderly couple hobble at a slow pace and the crowd forms like a rushing river around them, but on they hobble, uncaring and content. The old man holds an arm out for the woman and she smiles up at him with a sweet and gummy stretch of thin lips. He pats her arm as she leans into him. My heart swells. That image will sustain me. Whenever I think of this place, I'll remember that elderly couple and not the lackluster job I'm about to leave behind.

Behind the couple, a tall man in dark blue and black plaid flannel draws my attention as he lumbers out of a pop-up holiday store. Holy hell. He looks like the lumberjack on the cover of the last romance novel I read, all bulky and angular and scruffy… but with festive green hair. I scan the crowd for the hot number likely attached to him but see no model jumping out from the blur of people.

Dark jeans stretch over toned thighs and a pair of brown boots complete the look. As he gets closer, I notice his emerald hair looks flattened oddly as if it had been trapped under a hat or a helmet earlier. The image of his body wrapped around a motorcycle brings a heat through my body.

"Oh, hey, mind if I join you?" His voice is deep and sexy too. I wait for the melody of a woman's voice to come from another cafe table behind me but I cock my head in confusion as realization dawns. Oh. He's talking to me.

"Um…"

"Oh, are you waiting for someone? We've got another hour still, right?" His voice tickles something far off in my brain, something familiar tugs at the edge of my thoughts but nothing solidifies.

"I'm sorry, but who are you?"

The lumbering man blinks in surprise. "Oh! Right, sorry. It's me, Zed."

"Um…" Is that supposed to mean something to me? I've never met a Zed in my life.

Without waiting for an answer, Zed the lumbering man sits in the chair across from me. He tucks a bag under my table then leans forward on his folded muscular arms. "I had to buy a cheap costume. The one I had was way too thick, I was dying in that thing."

"Look, I think you're mistaking me for someone else or something. I don't know a Zed and you and I have definitely never met." I rise from the table, a little on edge by this stranger's familiarity with me, and look around for a quick route of escape.

"Oh, shit. I'm sorry, Addison. I guess I never told you my name did I? I'm the new Santa. Of course, you wouldn't recognize me without the costume. Sorry, I wasn't even thinking."

"Wait… new guy? You're the new guy? You don't even… you're not even… seriously?" I fall back in my chair and gape at him. The new guy was tall, sure, but this was what was hiding beneath all that thick velvet and fake hair? Wow. Holy Hell.

"Yeah, sorry." He shrugs and looks around at the crowded mall as if that wasn't some giant bomb he just dropped on me.

I clear my throat. "Well, um, nice to meet you, Zed. Officially, I mean." His gaze turns back to meet mine. My mouth dries. His eyes are like hot cocoa. I've never seen eyes that color. How did I not notice his eyes until now?

His hand hovers in front of my face. "Likewise, Addison."

I clasp his large hand and gasp at the heat of it, the roughness of it. Santa, put this man's hands under my pillow for Christmas. Lend them to me for a few hours, would you? My mind flashes to our first encounter yesterday and my face heats.

"Sorry about yesterday. Bucky, he just got to me and I… sorry I was suspicious of you for being a drunk like the rest of them."

His smile is wide and more heat dances low. His lips move, his mouth forming words.

"Don't worry about it."

But the words never reach my ears.

"Anyway, are you all right? You look like somebody just told you your dog died. If you need to be alone I can…"

"No, no, I'm fine, really." The words sound much too forced. I wince at the urgency in my voice. Now that I know what was underneath all that thick red fabric, I want to see more. My eyes land on the book I'd brought with me and the glistening six pack of abs on the cover. I lick my lips and wonder if his stomach is as toned as book cover model hottie. God, I was such a bitch when we first met. I wonder if he would let me make it up to him.

Shit. This throws a wrench in everything. If this Kringle's ready to mingle, I'm not ready to leave my job and throw away this Christmas miracle because of a few bad Santas.

"Is Christmas your favorite holiday?" Zed reaches for my book and his face twists in confusion and amusement. He looks from me to the cover with a smirk.

"Actually, Halloween is my favorite."

"Really? Hmmm…" He flips through the book and skims a page. "Because the children come to you, right? I bet your house is the best decorated in the whole neighborhood."

His eyes widen as he reads. My cheeks heat but I lift my chin. A reasonable person would expect a woman to enjoy a romance book, especially if she's single. It doesn't matter if the book is dark and the scenes explicit. The chances of him opening up to a racy page are slim anyway.

I sip my cold cocoa. "I don't decorate the outside. I hate all that cheap plastic."

He looks up from the book with surprise etched in his sexy as hell features. "You don't decorate, like at all? I find that hard to believe with all the effort you put in here."

A group of teenage girls walk by loudly giggling and whispering, pointing at Zed with his steamy romance novel. I lean forward to whisper over the din. "Everyone thinks you're reading that book, you know."

"That's because I am. 'Bennett licks down my sternum and dips his tongue into my navel. I squeal with pleasure as my sex quivers for him. Please, I beg…'"

I kick him under the table and he grins. "I do decorate, but inside, where it's classy. Not outside where it's… well, not so classy."

"Classy, huh?" Zed waves the book in the air.

I sniff and turn away, crossing my arms and falling back against my seat. So what if I think blow-up characters on a front lawn isn't very classy yet I also read steamy books in public with half-naked hotties on the cover?

"What made you want to be a mall Santa, anyway? You don't seem all that excited about Christmas."

"I don't? Why, because I don't clip tinsel into my white wig and glue ribbons on my shoes?"

"Humph. The uniforms they give for this job are so generic no one can tell you're a worker or just dressed badly… And this isn't a wig, I'll have you know."

"Really?"

"Yeah," I say, holding up the ends of my naturally snow-white hair. "Great for playing an elf… not so great to grow up with."

"It's beautiful…" he whispers so low I question whether or not I actually heard him correctly. He clears his throat. "Explains why you're so tough."

"Yeah, well…I kind of had to be." I close my eyes for a brief second before looking at him again and smiling. "Seems like I'm not the only one with festive hair."

Zed gave me a confused look before realization dawned on him. "Oh! Oh, yeah… I've been dying it green for so long I barely remember it's not your everyday shade." He shrugged his shoulders and leaned towards me. "Wig or no wig, you still went to the trouble of painting all those signs and setting up a fake reindeer party."

"The uniforms are bad, the displays are boring, the whole setup is lame. It's like whoever's in charge figured out the bare minimum, then decided to do even less. All I did was restore it to the same level of magic that I remember as a child."

"Interesting." Zed gets a faraway look and his lips form a thin line.

"Well, anyway, you never answered my question." I snatch my book from the table and slip it on my lap. Zed's gaze rises to the ceiling and its holiday décor of giant silver tinsel snowflakes and matching garlands strewn across the steel beams spanning overhead. "Zed?"

"Hmm? Oh, um… what was the question again?" He looks back at me but his gaze pierces through me.

What the hell? Was it something I said? Is it because he's freaked out by my hair? "Never mind. I think I'm going to head to the break room. It's too loud to read out here."

Zed's large hand wraps around my wrist as I rise from my seat. "Sorry… I didn't mean to be rude. Please don't go," he says as he flashes a lopsided smile that makes my heart skip a beat.

The Christmas song loop restarts on the sound system and Mariah Carey's beaten to death tune echoes around us. My eye twitches at my mind's need to sing along to the memorized lyrics. Please somebody, anybody, make a new hit song so this one can go somewhere and die a quiet death. Every store, every station, this song on repeat.

"Ugh, this song again. I swear they've played this and two others on repeat the last two days." His hands raise in surrender. "I know, I know, she's amazing, this song is fantastic. Yadda yadda, whatever. Don't get me wrong, it's just after the first week of hearing it everywhere, it loses its magic. Don't kill me."

"Actually, I couldn't agree more. This is their only soundtrack this time of year. Better get used to it if you plan on sticking around. Those high notes will be beaten into your eardrums so hard for the next month, Mariah will be singing you to sleep till Valentine's Day."

"Yikes, that sounds miserable. I might as well quit now."

At my look, he reaches across the table and grabs my wrists. "Hey, I'm kidding! I won't quit on you like the other guys, I promise."

I blow out a frustrated breath and a piece of red tinsel flops in my face. When I swat it away with one hand, I realize his grasp still clutches around my other wrist. The rough feel of his thumb against the delicate skin of my inner wrist has my pulse jumping.

"Oh, sorry." Zed withdraws his hands and hides them in his lap. I open my mouth but close it again. For something to do, and to wet my suddenly dry mouth, I sip the cold cocoa. With the cup raised and his attention on the crowd around us, I take the opportunity to let my eyes roam.

Sharp jawline, thick dark lashes on those warm cocoa-colored eyes, black and blue plaid complementing his complexion perfectly… That flannel would look so much better on my floor.

His gaze flicks to mine and to cover my tracks, I feign boredom and open the book. As if I could read with so much distracting sex appeal across from me. I stare at the words but language comprehension has abandoned me. The only sound in my head is an animalistic screaming war cry of, 'take him!'

"Women don't really call it that, do they?"

"Huh?" Nope, language comprehension is totally gone. I've reverted to a primal beast with only one thing in mind.

"I squeal in pleasure as my sex quivers for him." Zed places a hand on his chest and gestures toward the ceiling with the other hand in some kind of exaggerated display of poor acting. His voice lilts in a lame imitation of a woman. "Their sex. Do women actually call it that?"

"You can call it a hairless beaver for all I care, as long as you get all up in there."

His eyes widen at me.

Oh fuck. Oh my fucking fuck. That was not in my head. That was out loud. Those words, I just fucking said that. Out. Loud. If the ground was ever going to open up and swallow me, now would be the ideal time.

"I… well, look at that! I'm going to be late. I'll uh… see you later!"

Don't look back. Don't look back. Fuck me. Fuck me. What the hell is wrong with me?!

That's it. I have to quit.