Page 10 of All I Wank for Christmas

“Is it weird if I say yes?”

“I think all of this is weird.”

“Fair point,” he mumbles, looking forward. “I’ll get the elves new uniforms.”

“Probably a good idea. Here’s an idea – go business casual.”

“They’d probably like that.” He rubs his nose, and his eyes settle on my Christmas tree. “As I was saying, Dad is really sick. He couldn’t make the toy delivery run this year, and the stress of having to do it for the first time is why I went to get a massage today. Basically, I can’t find my ass with both hands in that sleigh, and I need help.”

“Help? With what?” I ask.

“I think I just about have the navigation system figured out, but I can’t find anything in the sleigh. The inventory is fucked. I can’t navigateandscrew with the inventory, and I’m not sure how Dad has done this by himself for, well, since my grandfather died.”

“I have questions,” I say.

“I’ll answer them all.”

“Do you really live at the North Pole?”

“That’s your first question?”

“I’m an accountant by trade. I’m all about the logistics. I need to hear logistics so I can wrap my head around the rest of this bullshit. Do you live at the magnetic North Pole?”

“No.”

We stare at each other for a few moments. “OK…where are you from?”

“Canada.”

“Santa lives in Canada?”

“Surprise!” Jasper sings wiggling his fingers. “We don’t live near Toronto or anything, but humans can’t exactly live at the North Pole, you know? We’re in rural Canada and just south of the Hudson Bay in Ontario.”

“Silly me. Why would I think there was anything magical about any of this?”

“Would you want to live at the North Pole?” he asks.

“Absolutely fucking not.”

“Next question,” Jasper says, slapping his thighs.

“Why me? Why are you at my house?”

He sighs and looks forward, blowing out a breath I didn’t know he was holding. “When I saw you today in the waiting room, something happened to me. I was like, ‘That’s her.’ I know it’s weird. I just saw you and wanted to know more about you. When you told me your name, I put it together who you were. There aren’t any other women named Holly in the county around your age. I know what happened today was a business transaction with you, but it wasn’t for me. I liked talking to you. I liked making you laugh. I knew I wanted to see you again outside of your work.”

“If we’re being honest, you were the shiny spot of my day. But Santa’s son? Ontario? You know who I am and where I live. I need a minute to get my head around this.” I wave my hands in a circle “I mean, you can’t just drop down my chimney and tell me you have the magic power to see when I blew my history professor in college and then ask me on a date.”

He looks at his watch and cringes. “Uh, that’s the thing, Holly.”

“What now?”

“I want to see you again. I mean, it’s all I’ve thought about since I left this afternoon. But I was kind of hoping you could get your head around this faster because I need your help.”

I scoot away from him and stare. “What kind of help?”

“I was kind of hoping you could run inventory for me while I navigate tonight.”

Laughter bubbles up from my chest, and I look around the room. “Am I on a hidden camera show? Did they rebootPunk’dand start with punking a tugger from rural Pennsylvania?”

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