Page 3 of The Nightmare Before Kissmas
I’m shocked it’s taken him this long to call me.
Kris grabs it and holds it up. “Answer.”
Normally, I’d argue, because he knows what he’s asking of me, and I know he knows what he’s asking of me. But his tone is still hanging in the air and all the vodka in my bloodstream is doing nothing to counteract the dread cracking apart my chest.
I answer and shove the phone between my shoulder and ear. “Hey, Dad.”
“Nicholas. You will come home and assist in correcting this situation.Now.”
I scratch at a stain on the bar top. “I’m not sure my presence would help.”
“You are in no position to decide what would or would not help,” Dad says, voice immutable. “I have the staff already at work unpicking what you did, and you will be here to show that thisshipping erroris of utmost concern to you, and that you understand the gravity of such a mistake. This behavior is disgraceful in any respectable circles—”
My brain starts in onR-E-S-P-E-C-Tagain. One glance at Kris and I refocus on the call.
“—but it iscertainlydisgraceful for a Prince of Christmas.”
Ah, there it is. The singular point to which every conversation with my father returns.
But the rest of what he said sinks into my brain like liquid trying to absorb into an oversaturated sponge.
He doesn’t want me to fix what I did. He doesn’t want me to take the blame. He wants me there for pictures. To pose and smile and reinforce whatever story is being spun for the Holiday press, a surface-level façade to salvage our reputation among the other Holidays and their people.
Fury sparks sudden and bright. I shouldn’t be surprised that he’s doing this again, but I am, and I’m pissed.
“Oh, yeah, I’ll get right there,” I snap. “Can’t have the paparazzi thinking I’m anything less than adequately remorseful. Just like this whole training sham—had to start convincing them I’m not a total screwup, no matter how much of a lie that is.”
“The training was not asham,” Dad says. He breezes right past me being a total screwup, and that avoidance is a confirmation I fight, hard, not to feel in the pit of my stomach. “It was far past time for you to take on a leadership role in Christmas. That you chose to get nothing out of the opportunity I gave you only solidifies that I was right in my reservations over trusting you.”
“Again,” I add without thinking.
“What?”
“Over trusting meagain.” I’m just woozy enough that I think it’s a good idea to bring this up. “This wasn’t my first training session, remember?”
He’s quiet for a beat.Doeshe remember? He has to. I was really young, but so was he. He’d showed me the globe where we track joy and magic and gifts andeverything,and he’d waved his hand over it like he was literally giving me the world.
“These are the people who need us,”he’d told me.“And I do meanus,Nicholas—you and me. One day, it will be your job to make the world happy.”
Even years later, the memory is so fucking potent for a number of reasons I refuse to acknowledge. And thinking of it all now just makes me hate myself for holding on to it.
“I remember,” Dad says. Is that… fondness in his voice?
Oh look, I can be both annoyed and hopeful at the same time.
It crashes like a five-car pileup when he clears his throat and continues with, “You were a child. It’s in the past. The only thing that matters isnow,andright now,you have disappointed me.”
It shouldn’t hurt. I’ve made being a disappointment like 80 percent of my personality.
But I can’t breathe for a second.
Dad’s held me at arm’s length for years since that childhood introduction that never went very far, because of his own shit and then later thanks to mydamaging reputation.But something about me being halfway through my college career spurred him to action: it was time I begintaking things seriouslythis summer.
He’d had me start training under various North Pole department heads, which had sounded… great, to be honest. To beinvolvedin shit, to see what was happening behind all the PR fog that Dad usually pumps out. That hope collapsed real quick under Dad’s warning that I wasn’t to touch anything. Just do exactly what the department heads tell you, Nicholas, listen to the pretty explanations of what each group does and smile for the photos so some of the headlines could be respectable for once.King Claus trying to make something of Prince Nicholas: oh god, should he be allowed near heavy machinery?
Training had been a lie, just like everything else. He didn’t want me todoanything. It was a setup for the betterment of our reputation as the biggest, the best, blah blahbullshitand I’m tired and drunk and I fucking regret what I did more than I can put words to and the fact that Ican’tput words to it has me spewing the only words that come.
“You’re right. You shouldn’t have trusted me. Because I was trying tohelppeople, not do whatever the fuck it is you normally do. Do you care what I’d tried to—”
