Little Miss Santa Claws

5. Nicole

CHAPTER 5

Nicole

“ R ight here, right here!”

Missy Claus—the real-life Miss fucking Santa Claus —is violently shaking my arm and pointing to a driveway on my side. So actually, it’s a left here. But whatever.

“Oh my God,” I mutter as I pull in. “It landed in the yard of a fraternity.”

This whole street seems to belong to the university, because it’s infested with Greek letters and school paraphernalia. Most of the houses leading to the campus up ahead are dark, but not this one. Every window here is lit up. It looks like every student who stayed at the school over the holiday is here , at an absolute rager.

And to make matters worse, the reindeer have been unhitched from the sleigh.

A handful of drunk frat boys are messing with them, jingling their bells and herding them around the yard, and one is even trying to climb onto Dancer’s back.

Missy spots him the same moment I do, and she growls so loud, it rumbles the entire car. “ Naughty .”

Before we even roll to a complete stop, she throws open her door and stomps across the lawn. With a curse, I quickly park the car and chase after her. Man, she moves fast. By the time I catch up to her, she’s already shoving that frat boy off the reindeer.

“Get off him, you miserable sack of coal.”

He staggers back and trips on the lawn, landing hard on his back.

One of the other drunk frat guys calls to her, “Hey! Chill out, lady.”

Missy spouts a dangerous laugh. “Chill out? You want me to chill out? These are my reindeer. You shouldn’t have taken them off the sleigh!” She gestures toward the sleigh, but then she does a double take, and her mouth pops open. “Where is my bag of presents?”

She turns back to the frat boy in front of her and stalks toward him, her eyes throwing daggers. “ Where is my bag of presents ?” she screeches.

The entire night sky halts to listen to her. The yard falls quiet and still, and for a few fleeting heartbeats, I wonder if she stopped time somehow.

The frat boy recovers before I do. “Crazy bitch.” He starts backing away.

My blood boils at that, and before I can stop myself, I walk up to the kid who was climbing the reindeer and grab a fistful of his palm tree-covered button-up. His friends simply watch us with glossy eyes. “You’re about to see an even crazier bitch if you don’t answer Santa’s question.”

He blinks, slow and dumb.

I’m about to start shaking him when another kid steps forward, his arms outstretched. “Hold on,” he says shakily, his eyes locked on Missy. “We didn’t know any of this belonged to anyone who needed it, alright? This was a mistake. The bag is inside?—”

His friends spin on him with wide eyes. “Dude!”

“Would you guys shut up?” he snapped. “Do you realize we just fucked with Santa’s sleigh? On Christmas Eve!”

Missy turns to look at him more closely.

He grimaces. “I’ll make sure we put the reindeer back exactly the way we found them, okay? Don’t worry about it.” This kid doesn’t look as drunk as his buddies. In fact, he looks stone-cold sober. His brown hair curls around his ears beneath a backward baseball cap.

After a moment of scrutinizing him, Missy’s shoulders relax, and she steps closer with a relieved smile. “Gregory Short. 21 years old. A true believer.”

He scratches the back of his neck, nervously chuckling. “Uh—yes, ma’am?”

“I’ll leave your present in the house.” She spins around and climbs the front steps. Just before she reaches the door, she turns back and adds, “And don’t forget to call your nephews tomorrow. They miss you.”

I watch his cheeks turn a deep shade of red before I follow Missy inside.

“Missy, wait up!” I weave through the sea of swaying college students, chasing the bright red Santa hat to the stairs beyond the entryway. She starts ascending the staircase without glancing back. “Where are you going ?”

“It’s up here,” she calls over her shoulder. “I can tell.”

Of course, she can , I grumble to myself as I shoulder my way up the stairs, maneuvering around no less than three horny couples. Seeing them kiss makes my skin itch. They’re happy right now, but that won’t last. One or both of them will eventually lose interest. That’s just how love works. I guess they might as well enjoy it while they can. I just don’t want to see it. Call it jealousy or bitterness or whatever. It’s what I feel.

The hallway empties out on the second floor, and I can see Missy well enough to catch her arm. “Hey, can you just wait for me, please?”

Missy shakes my hand off her arm, her chest heaving. “I don’t have time to wait.”

She looks like she’s close to another panic attack. Knowing some of what she has been through, I can understand why. That’s her father’s bag. Having it taken and rifled through must be painful, and there’s nothing anyone can do to comfort her. She won’t feel right until she has it back.

Revolving to face an open door down the hallway, she squints at it before nodding to herself. Lights shift inside and music spills out, beckoning to us. “My bag is in there.”

Then, she’s moving again, and all I can do is follow her.

Missy throws open the bedroom door and walks inside with so much grace and fury, my gaze can’t help but wander down the length of her back. Her hands find her narrow waist as she glides to a stop just beyond the threshold. She’s small and fierce, her chin raised in defiance, her little nose shimmering under the blue strip lights on the ceiling.

The overwhelming urge to walk behind her washes over me, to wrap my arms around her from behind and press my face into the side of her neck.

When my gaze finally shifts to the others in the room, my stomach flips, and I clear my head with a shake. I have no idea where that came from. She’s Santa, and I was definitely just looking at her ass.

It’s a nice ass.

My attraction isn’t surprising. She’s gorgeous, and I’ve had girlfriends before. No, it’s the fact that I’ve only just met her. The sexual relationships I’ve had with women usually begin as friendships. We have to get close emotionally before I feel butterflies. For whatever reason, I already feel close to Missy, but maybe that’s simply because she’s Santa. She knows my deepest desires, my flaws. It’s difficult not to feel close to her.

A guy sitting on the couch on the other side of the room laughs, pulling me out of my head. “Who ordered the sexy Santa-gram?” His glassy eyes rove Missy’s body, and I find myself stepping closer to her.

There are five guys in this room.

Four are smiling.

Three aren’t wearing shirts.

Two of them are smoking a joint.

One—the one who spoke earlier—is holding a large, red velvet bag between his knees. I want to punch his lights out at the way he keeps staring at Missy.

Her attention is centered on him, on her bag. “That’s mine .”

He leans back in his seat, stretching his arms out over the back of the couch to draw attention to his bare chest. I roll my eyes. Stupid, drunk college boy. “See something you like, Santa?”

I’d like to shove candy canes so far into my ears, the drums rupture. His voice is so high-pitched, I wonder if his balls have even dropped. “She’s talking about the bag ,” I snap, “dumbass.”

When he looks at me, it’s with mild disinterest. The back of my neck prickles at the dismissal in his eyes. Most men don’t see much when they look at me, even the drunk ones. I’m perfectly adequate at best, mostly ordinary and only mildly pretty. The only exceptional thing about me is my long legs.

Just look at what I’m standing next to. I’m no silver-haired fable.

“This bag?” He gestures between his legs. “Oh… This bag was found on our lawn. Finders keepers.” Then, he turns to Missy again and jerks his chin. “You really shouldn’t have lost track of your sleigh, honey, but maybe I’d do a trade.”

I stomp forward. “This isn’t kindergarten. Just hand it over.”

Missy throws an arm out and pushes me behind her. “It’s okay, Nicole.” My gaze snaps to hers in surprise, but she’s wearing an impish smirk. “He wants to keep my presents. So we’ll just have to wait patiently and see how attached he is to them once they start misbehaving.”

My face pinches, but before I can ask what she means, someone screams.

Every inanimate object in the room is coming to life .

The strip lights above us flash bright red. The toy robots glitch as one, sparks flying from their batteries, startling the frat boys closest to them. A jack-in-the-box explodes out of its container next to the guy holding Missy’s bag, frightening him so badly that he scrambles onto the floor in front of the couch. The giant teddy bear sitting in the corner stands on its fluffy feet, the expression sewn into its face twisting into an angry frown. They close in all at once, forcing the boys into the middle of the room as a wicked breeze ruffles their hair.

I don’t know how it’s possible, but there’s snow in here, billowing, dancing… freezing . The boys shudder as it pummels their skin.

I giggle, pressing my fingertips to my mouth as Missy smiles. Her face has that gray appearance again as her nails and teeth sharpen to points. My laughter ebbs as I watch horns sprout from the top of her head. That’s new. Luckily, I’ve already been jump-scared by Santa a few times tonight, so I’m not totally shell-shocked.

The frat bros are not so lucky.

One is crying.

Two are wielding couch cushions as shields.

Three are cursing as toys bite and pound on their shins.

All four beg their frat brother to give the “cursed fucking bag” back.

“Take it, take it ,” he eventually screams, kicking the bag toward us. “Just make it stop!”

It happens in an instant. The snow melts midair. The toys topple over. Missy’s dark visage falls away, and she beams as she practically skips across the room before hefting the bag over one shoulder. She keeps her head high as she retreats into the hallway.

I flip them the bird before slamming the door shut behind us.

Giggling, I follow Missy to where she stands a few doors down, leaning against the wall with the bag between her feet.

Something is wrong.

Her arms are wrapped tightly around her torso, and she’s squeezing herself, trying to slow her breathing.

“What is it?” I ask. “Are you feeling alright?” Tentatively, I place a hand on her shoulder, trying to get a good look at her face.

When she lifts her head, her eyes drip with remorse. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

With a furrowed brow, I reply, “For what?”

“Subjecting you to that,” she says forcefully, as if it should be obvious. “That sort of magic… It doesn’t bode well for Christmas Spirit.”

I laugh. “Don’t be sorry. That was fucking awesome, whatever kind of magic it was.”

Her eyes snap to mine. As her surprise fades, it gives way to a smile, and the heaviness in her stare lightens. “Papa used to call it his Krampus.”