Page 5 of Temporary Santa's Knotty Workshop
Willy
I could do this.
This wasn’t a big deal.
There was no need to panic. Everything was going to be just fine.
Absolutely fine.
Sure, in the last thirty-six hours, I’d gotten several questions from various elves who’d heard through the grapevine that we were going to be under new management for the rest of the year. All of them panicking. I didn’t blame them. I was low-key doing the same.
We were so close to our goals. No one wanted to fuck it up and disappoint the naughty adults in the world. We’d worked too hard to have it go to sugar plums now.
Most everyone was concerned that Nick had done something wrong and was going to be replaced permanently. It wasn’t something that happened often, but there was one incident with a Santa who made their talking baby dolls accidentally terrifying and didn’t catch it until they were out that led to a change in Santas. The official word was he resigned, but you know how rumors were. And that was why I refused to allow this one to grow roots. I’d been able to squash them down rather quickly. Now I needed to be sure they stayed down.
The only thing that Nick had done wrong was working too hard. The fact that he was mated to one of our elves, one who kept the workshop running extremely smoothly, only added to the worry. We were taking a double hit with the two of them on vacation. But it couldn’t be helped.
Imagine Nick being on vacation for three months while his mate was still working. That would’ve been worse for him than not taking one at all. And at its core, I believed that the rule was in place to protect the Santas from burnout, but they couldn’t have picked a worse time.
Nick, Percy, and their little guy had left early that morning. They’d turned in their phones and were officially uncommunicative until the first of the year. We weren’t allowed to call them at all. I didn’t doubt that either one of them would find a way to get in touch if they needed it, though. I’d keep an eye on my email.
As stressful as the entire situation was workwise, it also hit me on a personal level. Percy was my best friend. He was the one person I talked to everyday, something that hadn’t changed when he mated Santa. I was going to miss him something fierce. Who was I going to share the naughty-list tea with or complain about smelling like cola-scented lube?
Despite asking for extra help, the only thing I was given, aside from an inexperienced Santa, was a binder. It was filled with outdated specs and some contact info for some of the other Santas, all of whom had agreed to help if needed. Or maybe they were voluntold they were going to. That wasn’t clear.
I appreciated the numbers. I really did, but generally speaking, other Santas weren’t overly helpful in the naughty workshop because they dealt with children. We dealt with adults and very adult things. Aside from delivering our gifts on Christmas Eve to those who deserved them, we had very little in common.
Still, I remained optimistic that everything would be fine. I had spent the last thirty-six hours putting together a perfectly organized timeline of when everything needed to be done, when the best time the new Santa could make appearances for morale’s sake, and a list of the elf “experts” in the department.
My plan was to let things work as the well-oiled machine they were, cross my fingers that nothing went awry, and hide new Santa away in the office so that he couldn’t bung anything up. All he had to do was be a figurehead. The rest was up to the elves.
I took a deep breath as I knocked on Nick’s door. His brother had arrived, according to Merith, our leather expert. She was queen of the tea around here, and we all loved her for it. She told me that a “yummy mountain man” had arrived via helicopter. I didn’t even know that was possible, but there was only one person it could be… Campbell.
“It’s open.”
I stepped inside, smiled wide with my shoulders rolled back, ready to have this discussion, introduce myself, and get us off on the right foot. I was a happy, jolly elf ready to spread the naughty Christmas cheer. I shouldn’t have been surprised by what I saw.
He’d only been here less than an hour and already he was jumping in. This was an adult workshop, so the actual view wasn’t odd in and of itself, but paired with a newbie… it caught me off guard.
The last thing I expected to walk into was to find the newest Santa with ten different dildos and a silicone butt on the desk. The scent of the different types of lube we had filled the air. Please let him not be using them on himself at this very moment. That was a level of intimacy I was not ready for.
“What are you doing?” I asked, even though I doubted I wanted the answer.
He looked up, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “Well, hello there, handsome. And who might you be?”
He did not start off his stint here holding a dildo and flirting with the first elf he saw. He was Nick’s brother. He, of all people, should be behaving. Although, maybe he was the kind of guy never to be on the nice list. I regretted not looking before now.
“That’s not important. What are you doing?”
“Familiarizing myself with the merchandise.” He waved his hand over the array of dildos, as if that explained everything.
I mean, it sort of did. It would make sense that he’d want to familiarize himself with the things we made. But still, he was supposed to be working. Sort of. Did this count as working? It didn’t seem like it counted. It felt much more like me intruding on a private moment.
Letting out a sigh, I rolled my shoulders back. “You must be Campbell. I’m Willy. Nick left me in charge of—”
“William. That’s a very nice name.”
It was one thing to shorten a name without permission, but to suddenly decide to formalize it?
