Page 3 of Santa Daddy’s Curvy Little

"Oh, you remember him!" she exclaimed in excitement. "Practically no one does any more, and they see him almost every day." She patted her son's arm sympathetically, and he pulled away.

"Come on, Mother," he remarked, sounding like a completely different person than the man who had lifted me effortlessly into the air to save me from a nasty fall. "Let's not bore her already. I'm sure she has her own work to do right now." Much to my surprise, Franny nodded, and I started to feel like his mood was about to grow worse.

"Of course she does," she reassured me as she motioned towards the mall. "She's your little helper today."

CHAPTER FOUR

Roger

My heart stopped dead in my chest as my face burned red in anger and embarrassment. Whatever Mother was doing, I desperately wished that she would stop interfering with my life. There was no way I was going to let this happen.

Ever since last Christmas when Mother learned about what happened with Crystal, she had always been trying to set me up with someone else, hoping that meeting someone else would improve my mood. She wasn't oblivious to it, either. She seemed to catch onto my taste in women pretty quickly, so she was throwing them at me every chance she got.

I truly hoped that this wasn't the case, but it happened more than I originally expected. After the whole fiasco in July for the fourth of July, I had finally put my foot down and told her enough was enough. She had promised she would stop, but it looked like she was back to her old ways.

The woman looked a bit familiar, and the fact that she knew Moe's Coffee Hut back when they were still part of the mall meant that she was from this area. However, she was still what I called a flight risk. She likely had a life of her own outside the town, and she was just as likely to leave just like Crystal had.

Arriving in Mother's office in the mall, I was still debating on what to do at this point. The woman who was my daily helper had gone silent as she followed us inside, and she looked cold and distant anytime she looked at me. Gone were the embarrassed smiles of the woman who I had saved, and, in her place stood a fully grown woman who, like so many others, seemed to see through my original nice guy act and saw me for the Grinch that I was.

"So, here's where you'll get your uniform," Mother explained to the woman as she showed her the lockers where the Christmas Wonderland supplies were kept during the season. "You may change in the bathroom, and you may leave your personal items in here. I'm always in the office this time of year, so you don't have to worry about it all being left unattended." Ignoring the two of them, I made my way over to the locker and grabbed the Santa Clause suit.

"I'm going to go get changed," I announced, not caring if anyone paid any attention to me. "I'll meet you guys out there." Without even waiting for a response, I took the carefully covered suit and left the office, heading straight for the bathrooms.

There were currently only two weeks to Christmas, and the holiday was already in full swing. I had to be careful not to let any kids see the suit I had with me, especially since Mother's biggest rule was never ruin the magic of their belief in Santa Clause. As much as I hated Christmas, even I wasn't that heartless, despite every child that tugged at my beard. So, I maintained a certain level of discrepancy when getting into character.

The mall didn't officially open until eight in the morning, which, as long as I arrived at exactly seven, I had an hour to get changed. Thanks to the woman, I was currently fifteen minutes behind schedule, so I still had about forty-five minutes to get changed and settled. If I hurried, I could still get the suit on before seven forty-five, which meant I would have enough time to eat whatever donut or coffee Mother brought for the workers before having to put on the beard and make my way over to the Christmas Wonderland set up at the heart of the mall.

I hurried to get dressed, not wanting to waste a single second, and raced back to the office for my snack. However, when I arrived at the office, Mother, the woman, and the expected snacks were nowhere in sight. Groaning in annoyance, I made my way over to the Christmas Wonderland, and my heart sank. Mother and the woman were already there, and the donuts and coffee were there next to the equipment. No one else was around, but, considering how close it was to when people liked to try to show up, I knew I had to put on my beard, which meant no donuts.

"Oh, there you are," Mother said with a kind smile. "I was about to come looking for you." I frowned as I looked at her, a bit skeptical of the way she was behaving.

"I said I would be coming by," I reminded her, and she nodded.

"I know, but I needed to tell you something important," she informed me. "It turns out that I'll need you to run things for me until Christmas Eve." My heart stopped dead in my chest as I stared at her in shock and disbelief.

"Why?" I asked, panic threatening to take over as I spoke. "What is possibly so important that you can't be here to monitor your project?" The woman gave me a strange look while Mother smiled at me.

"A friend of mine in the next town over is sick and needs someone to take over their Santa Clause visits," she explained, angering me even more. "You have twenty years of Santa Clause experience, so I need you to take over for the rest of the season while I go manage everything else in the next town over." She was still in her coat and everything, so I knew there was no talking her out of it all. Seeing that I was trapped, I sighed.

"Alright then," I said before giving the new woman a gentle smile. "What do you say? You think we can manage this by ourselves?" The woman gave me a gentle smile and nodded in response.

"I think so," she replied. "Your mother already explained everything, and I'm going to be working every day until Christmas." I groaned internally as I looked from her to Mother and back.

Of course Mother was doing this to me. In all honesty, she might as well have just thrown me to the wolves at this point. The town refused to do practically anything without Mother’s approval. This was going to be one Christmas no one would ever forget.

CHAPTER FIVE

Lana

It was clear that Roger didn’t want anything to do with me, but I couldn’t help but wonder if there was something I could do to lighten his mood. After all, it was Christmas, and everyone should be happy for Christmas. Seeing someone as miserable as he was during the happiest time of year was incredibly depressing, and I wanted to make him smile.

I remembered how visiting Santa used to be the highlight of the season as a child. Roger James made it really seem like Santa had really come to town, and it was absolutely magical. However, seeing him now, I knew something had changed.

More and more children cried when their parents put them on his lap, and he seemed a bit impatient as well as glum when speaking to the children, which was completely out of character. What was even more disturbing was the fact that more children were starting to question the existence of Santa thanks to how unconvincing he was becoming. By the time the third child had attempted to yank off his beard to expose him to the long line of children, I knew I had to do something.

The first thing I did was pay a visit to Moe’s Coffee Hut, which, as he informed me, had moved clear across town, settling down in the heart of town rather than in the rundown mall. Kara, Moe’s daughter and the new owner of the coffee shop, was an amazing woman who made the best chocolate chip banana bread muffins I ever had as well as homemade donuts. Within the first week, I had fallen in love with the way she made her peppermint mocha latte and started buying two of them as well as a half dozen of the chocolate chip banana bread muffins to share with Roger.

Within the same week, I learned pretty quickly that bringing in snacks was the best way to lighten Roger’s mood, and lightening Roger’s mood actually helped with the children as well. If he was in a much better mood and talked to the children in a jolly manner, just like they expected Santa to, it lessened the chances of an incident occurring, which helped his mood all the more. Also, I found that he never had lunch during the day, either, so I started visiting the pretzel stand on our lunch break and surprising him with pretzel bites when I could find him. By the end of the week, he was almost as jolly as I remembered when I was a child.