Page 15 of Don't Shoot Me Santa
Because most men were arseholes.
Kenny was an arsehole too.
But… in a whole different way.
A way Aaron wanted to punch and kiss in equal measure.
The sky stretched overhead in a dull sheet of pewter, the sea beneath it rough and restless, spitting froth over the worn pebbles in long, shuddering sighs. Aaron whistled low, alerting Chaos from his frolicking by the sea that he was angling towards the slip path cutting down to the shoreline.
He always let Chaos off the lead at the beach. Freedom in open air. But once they hit the streets again, he’d reel him back in. And he tried—honestly—to ignore the uncomfortable parallel. But when Chaos bounded up, tongue lolling, eyes wide with unfiltered devotion, and Aaron crouched to clip the lead back on, it was impossiblenotto feel it.
The metaphor practically leapt into his lap.
Chaos looked at him as if he was the centre of his universe. And Aaron, pathetic, praise-starved creature that he was, ate it up. He ruffled the dog’s ears, pressed a kiss to the top of his head and said, “Good boy,” while handing him a treat from his coat pocket.
Somewhere, distantly, he heard Kenny’s smug voice in his head:Operant conditioning works best when consistently reinforced.
Aaron flipped off no one in particular and kept walking.
December on the Isle of Wight was a snow globe turned on its side—bone-white light, the itch of damp wool, stringsof lights sagging off pub porches to lure in winter tourists and coach parties of pensioners. The locals, hollow-eyed and layered against the cold, pretended they didn’t resent the season.
Aaron had grown to like it.
It felt honest.
And…safe.
Up ahead, gulls wheeled and shrieked over the rock groynes. Someone’s labrador barked at the surf. And behind him, the town waited. Small, wind-bitten, stuck somewhere between postcard charm and end-of-the-world desolation. Chaos sniffed a piece of driftwood with the solemn focus of a dog discovering buried treasure, then promptly sneezed all over it.
Aaron nudged him on with a sigh. “C’mon, we’re out of milk. If I go home without it, he’ll declare moral victory and edge me into the New Year.”
Chaos, naturally, did not give a single shit.
His balls, after all, had been surgically removed some time back.
So he zigzagged ahead through the dune path, utterly liberated, tail high, as ifhewere the one in charge of the relationship. But that illusion shattered when Aaron tied him up to a lamppost outside the farm shop.
The Forager’s Table was a farm shop-slash-post office-slash-café at the edge of the beach stretch and into the village. As Aaron stepped in, the warmth wrapped him up as much as the over potent cinnamon, wet coats, and ancient stone. Pine garlands hung from the beams overhead, and a bucket of hand-tied wreaths sat by the entrance. Aaron shook the sea spray from his hood and made his way inside.
It was busy for a Sunday. Local types. Woolly hats. That retired couple from the book club. A few kids on break. Heheaded for the fridge, grabbed a bottle of semi-skimmed, and paused as he overheard voices by the veg crates.
“…it’s awful,” one woman said, brows drawn beneath her Santa bobble hat. “They say he was left there.”
“Outside the church?” asked the man beside her. “Or the green?”
“No, the green. Ventnor. Poor boy. Dressed up too.”
Aaron’s spine tensed.
“Red velvet thing,” she went on. “Like a Christmas outfit. Police found him early yesterday morning.”
The man shook his head. “Bloody hell. Sick joke, that. Or worse.”
Aaron turned away. Pretended to study the parsnips. But he couldn’t help listening in.
“Who would murder a young boy like that atChristmas?” one of the ladies said, clutching her invisible pearls.
Aaron tensed.
