Christmas With Kris Kringle

Chapter 3

“What are you doing?” I asked Chloe who was standing on a step stool in the middle of the break room doorway.

“Hanging mistletoe,” Chloe replied, securing the vegetation to the hook she’d screwed into the archway.

I pursed my lips as my features tighten.

“You’re the one who said it didn’t feel like Christmas in the office.”

“Yes, but I meant garland or a wreath, not mistletoe.” I frowned, remembering the last time the festive plant was hung in the workplace, Philbert from accounting was suspended and to this day complains how no one can take a joke.

“Just killing two birds with one stone. It’ll make the place merry and it could potentially spark a love connection between me and the new girl in sales.” Chloe climbed down from the ladder, placing it back in the broom closet.

I decided not to yuck Chloe’s yum. It would be nice if love was as simple as strategically placed mistletoe.

“Good morning people,” Aiden Elliott said upon entering the kitchen.

The muscle under my eye twitched. Aiden was the last person I’d want to get caught under the mistletoe with.

“Did you have a good night?” Aiden asked.

Chloe offered a response. “Yeah, it was okay. I made some salmon which in about five hours will be stinking up the breakroom.”

Aiden inhaled deeply, his nostrils flaring. “I was talking to Belen.”

Chloe’s naturally full lips were pulled into a harsh line. “Oh my bad I didn’t realize you and Belen were back on speaking terms.”

“We’re not.” I pulled a bagel from a crumpled paper bag.

Aiden crossed the laminated floor, boxing me in against the counter. “I’m trying to rectify that?”

“Aiden, we’ve been through this. And frankly I’m tired of going back and forth with you on an issue I’m firmly settled on.”

He tilted his head trying to get me to look him in the eye. In a whisper he said, “How many ways do I have to say I’m sorry? Lo siento. Je suis désolé. F?rl?t.” Even while attempting to apologize, he was a cocky shit, feeling the need to flex his fluency in several languages. “I want to fix this.”

The sound of me pushing air through my nose in a huff was audible to everyone in the room. “There is nothing to fix. When you said we were over I believed you and moved on.”

“You’ve been ignoring my calls.”

“You’re blocked Aiden. I haven’t been receiving your calls.”

A smile curled the corners of his mouth. When he spoke, his tone was less demanding than before. “The only reason I reached out was because I have two front row tickets to The Color Purple next month.” Aiden pulled his phone from his suit pocket and showed me the screen confirming two bona fide tickets. “I know you’ve been dying to see it, but tickets were always sold out.”

He wasn’t playing fair. I loved that musical. We broke up right before Christmas last year. I was foolishly expecting a ring, or at the very least an offer to cohabitate. Instead I ended up with an emoji filled Dear John text. It contained all the standard verbiage. “Things are moving too fast. I’m not sure we want the same things. It’s not you it’s me.”

For months after the breakup, he’d dated every eligible woman in Minneapolis, matching with them on Flirt Chat, Tinder, and Elite Singles. Aiden eventually realized he was never going to find a woman as good to him as I was. You know the saying about thinking the grass is greener on the other side of the fence only to cross the fence and realize that picture perfect grass is actually AstroTurf, that was Aiden’s current predicament.

So now he was putting on the full court press, trying to win me back. Flowers, lunch delivered from my favorite salad spot. He even hired a singing telegram. A man dressed up like cupid singing Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called to Say I Love You.” It was embarrassing and completely out of character for the man who was more concerned about optics than reality. And the optics of a singing telegram read desperate.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I was enjoying the groveling phase of our relationship. Not that I had plans on taking him back. Unfortunately for Aiden, I was no longer interested. I kept a lighter handy just in case I needed to burn down a bridge. And when Aiden dumped me, I burned that bridge to ashes and returned the pricey sound system I’d purchased as his Christmas gift. A gift that required me traveling to three different stores before securing it.

“Good morning.” Kris’s baritone voice filled the breakroom. My gaze followed him to the coffeepot, where he removed the lid from his thermal mug, pouring a fresh serving of coffee. Catching a glimpse of him outside of his Santa suit was my new guilty pleasure. It allowed me to freely lust after his well-toned body, which was hard to appreciate in the red garb although not completely impossible.

“Good morning, Santa,” Chloe said.

“Aidan, have you met Kris? Kris is this year’s mall Santa,” I said, hoping to pull Aiden’s attention away from me.

“Mall Santa?” Aiden’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead.

Kris extended his hand. “Yep, pleasure to meet you.”

I wanted to warn him that it most certainly was not a pleasure to meet or have met Aiden. As the two men exchanged pleasantries, I used that opportunity to move across the room and place my bagel in the toaster.

“See, this is why Mall of America is crushing us. Because we hire Santa’s that look like …” Aiden waved his hand in Kris’s direction. “No offense.”

“None taken.” Kris flashed a perfect row of teeth.

I chimed in, “Mall of America is pulling in more customers because they have better marketing than we do.” This was an intended dig at Aiden as the Director of Marketing. When we dated, half his ideas he stole from me during our late-night pillow talks. He claimed he valued my input, but now I understood he didn’t have a creative bone in his body. And had most likely coasted off the concepts he’d stolen from others for years. “If you and your team would try to sell Pavilion as a niche family experience maybe we’d see more traffic.”

Workplace romances were always a bad idea, but my social life consisted of work and home, with the occasional Target run. The majority of my social interactions were at the office and initially, Aiden seemed like a great choice. We’d worked together for a year and had a pleasant flirty friendship. So, when he finally asked me out, I enthusiastically said yes. But after playing with his shiny new toy for a few months he began to lose interest and his once hawk eye vision for me and only me, began to wander.

Aiden came up behind me. “Maybe we could grab a bite at lunch and talk through some of your innovative marketing strategies?” He was persistent and I was horny, but my will was strong.

“I can’t. I’m really busy.”

“How about tonight we could get drinks at the one spot you always raved about?”

“I need to head home after work.” I kept my focus on the toaster, waiting for my everything bagel to pop. Finally getting the hint, Aiden moved on, exiting the breakroom.

Chloe didn’t wait until Aiden was out of earshot before announcing, “If I were you, I’d report that creep to HR.”

“Wait, what did I miss?” Kris asked, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Aiden is Belen’s delusional?—”

“Nothing, it’s nothing.” Tension filled my voice as I tapped my fingers on the counter. I didn’t want to talk about my breakup in front of the new guy. The tall and handsome new guy whose purple T-shirt was clinging to his muscles. Grabbing my bagel, I headed for the door. Stopping under the archway, I turned to face Kris. “Good job yesterday. You helped to ensure a smooth start to our holiday season. Just wanted to give you a heads-up we’re going to post some of the photos that were taken to our social media pages and website.”

“Don’t worry, I signed the media release, so you’re good.”

Chloe looked up from restocking the coffee supplies with a gasp, pointing at me. “You’re under the mistletoe. Someone needs to kiss you or it’s bad luck, coal in stocking type of bad luck.”

I looked from Chloe to Kris, the only other two people in the breakroom. Heat was creeping up my neck as the underside of my breast became sweaty. “No, that’s just a silly superstition.” Raising my hand, I tried to reach the plant so I could rip it down. “Putting this up was a bad idea.”

Crossing the room, Kris stood in front of me and under the mistletoe. “Chloe’s right, some people think if you stand under mistletoe without receiving a kiss you risk bad fortune, but I don’t believe it. We control our destiny, not some cosmic energy or sun, moon rising.”

I knitted my brows. While I agreed with Kris’s words, it felt less like I was in control and more like I was on a runaway bus with no signs of Keanu Reeves coming to my rescue. The last thing I needed was bad love juju. I’d already been through enough with Aiden. What was one little kiss if it could avert years of misfortune?

Leaning in, I lifted to my toes, kissing Kris on the cheek. Goosebumps dotted my flesh. As I pulled away, Kris’s hooded eyes danced across my face. His gaze was speaking a language I was all too familiar with.

“I hope that was okay?” I averted my eyes, suddenly aware I’d invaded Kris’s personal space and kissed him. I was just as bad as handsy Philbert.

“It’s fine. Better to be safe than sorry.”

“Yeah … better.”

Kris raised his arm, removing the mistletoe from the archway he handed it to me.

After work, I headed to Bright Paths Center, a neighborhood community organization assisting individuals with special needs. I volunteered two days a week teaching arts and crafts to some of the students. Spending time with them was often the highlight of my day and helped to boost my mood. Bright Paths had tons of recreational classes like cooking, music, and the arts. But some of their most important work was the life skills classes the center offered, like how to complete a resume, or prepare for an interview. They connected students with employers who were willing to hire individuals with developmental or physical disabilities. And they offered independent living courses.

I was indebted to the center because of the support they’d provided my sister, Celeste. My dad worked from home so when he passed, I knew I needed to find somewhere for Celeste to go while I was at work. So many places were no more than expensive adult daycares. While doing my research, I stumbled across the nonprofit organization. It was close to our apartment and had glowing reviews.

After the first visit I was sold and when we left, Celeste was already asking when we would go back. I wouldn’t be able to have peace of mind at work if we didn’t have the center and the community of families we’d grown close to. Celeste now had a job working four hours a day at a coffee shop. In the afternoon she’d head to the center. We’d recently enrolled her in independent living classes. Celeste’s goal was to live on her own. But I was doubtful. I promised to take care of her. How could I do that if she was in an apartment across town?

After class I went in search of my sister. I knew I’d find her in the library reading a book. Her interest changed with the seasons. For a few months she’d be hyper focused on trains and want to learn everything about them and then the next month she was into ham radios. These past few months she’d been focused on knitting, and I was one hundred percent certain my Christmas gift would be a handmade hat or scarf.

As expected, she was sitting at a table hunched over with her head in a book. “What are you reading?”

“Did you know that at one time sloths could be as big as an elephant?” Celeste asked.

“No, I did not.”

“Yep, but they’ve been extinct for over ten thousand years now.” She tapped the pages of the magazine she was flipping through.

“Good to know. Are you ready to go home?”

Celeste nodded and started packing up her things. “Can we go look at trees?”

I frowned. “Hmm … You know the rule, no trees until after Thanksgiving.”

“But if we get it now we’ll beat the crowd. Plus, Thanksgiving is in two days.”

If it was up to me there would be no tree, no decorations, and no presents. Christmas would just be like any other day. I’d sleep in, make a lazy breakfast, and watch movies that didn’t mention this time of year. But if I ignored Christmas Celeste would disown me. Like most normal people, she loved this time of year and had been talking about Christmas Day before Halloween even ended.

“Maybe we should do something different this year and have a minimalist Christmas,” I suggested as we walked to the car.

“What’s that?”

“No real decorations, maybe a small tree. You know, keep it simple.” I opened the doors and waited as Celeste tossed her backpack in the back seat before climbing into the passenger side.

“I don’t like that. I like complicated Christmas with big trees that light up the room, festive music, hot chocolate, and gingerbread people.”

“Simple Christmas can still have hot chocolate.”

“No.” Celeste snapped her seat belt, punctuating her disapproval.

“We don’t have to decide now. I’ll give you some time to sleep on it.”

I knew my suggestion would be met with a resounding no. Every year we did exactly what Celeste wanted to do. The tree and all the fixings, and I put on a happy face pretending this was the most wonderful time of the year. But if I had my wish, I would just like for once to do absolutely nothing. Christmas consisted of just us two, Celeste and I, and it reminded me of all we’d lost. It wasn’t a time to be celebrated and it wasn’t merry for everyone.