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What was that about not getting aroused around the while dressed as a childhood fantasy creature?
I was doing a bang up job, and we’d only just started.
“How many hours?” I asked amidst several parents’ laughter. Cameras and phones flashed in bright blinding pinpricks. I didn’t need to count them to know the odds of Zander fucking Klauss landing prime real estate on the front page of one of the local rags I damn well owned would not be in my favor.
The adults who gathered around their offspring didn't seem to mind. More than one couple snuggled together, whispering things that turned their wife's cheeks pink, or maybe that was just a light dust snowfall that drifted between couples and families.
Around me, kids ran around with their tongues stuck out, trying to catch snowflakes.
I remember the last time I tried to eat a snowflake. Years before, when I still spoke to my brothers, I’d gotten the tip of my tongue stuck to an icicle one of my brothers pointed out on a family get away to the mountains. The opposing organ had turned blue, and they rushed me to hospital for fear of losing the thing.
Spoiler alert: I didn’t lose my tongue.
But it was one of the last years I spent time with all my brothers at once. After that and a few more practical jokes around the house, I was sent to boarding school in the alps. Take a kid who hated snow, Christmas, and send him to a country full of it. I was six.
By the time I turned sixteen I learned to love snow. Its silent blanket weighed nothing at all and kept people in their homes more days than not. When I returned to my hometown, I made sure Christmas was one of the times I was truly alone in a rambunctious city, and I appreciated every moment by myself.
Until the unthinkable happened.
Christmas and I didn't have the best relationships for more than one solid reason.
“How long, again?” I muttered, my mood souring as my thoughts blackened.
“Until your public persona is restored to a cheerful face.” Juniper jingled her bell in front of my face.
“Do it again and I'll stuff that up your elf hole.” I stumbled over the insult, turning away from her.
She giggled at me.
“You're far too happy,” I muttered.
“You're far too grumpy,” she shot back, grabbing my hands and dancing around me in a circle.
The corner of my mouth twitched, wanting to smile. Juniper Blackthorne might be the bane of my current December existence, but I only had her for a week and it was fairly clear she would certainly provide exactly what I’d sought when I agreed to take her on as my PA.
Entertainment.
