Page 14 of All I Wank for Christmas

I shake my head and blink my eyes, startled. “Ladder? How is there a ladder?”

“Oh, the sleigh is magic, so it looks small. Once you get in there, there’s actually a large warehouse in it.”

“Why?”

He shrugs. “That’s the way it’s always been. It makes sense when you think about it. I mean, it would be weird to drive a huge flying warehouse.”

I look around the sleigh pulled by reindeer, a gorgeous man in a Santa suit, the cocoa in the dashboard, and the storage area in the back that has a ladder in it. “We wouldn’t want to be weird or ridiculous, would we?”

“Nope.” Jasper smiles, and I want to reach out and palm his face. Slide my finger down his nose. Hell, I just want to touch him in some way.

I pat him on the arm and turn to the stock area of the sleigh. Presents sit at the top, and they look like they’ve been wrapped by a professional gift-wrapping legion of elves with their perfect creases, seemingly invisible tape, and perfect velvet bows. “Do I just crawl in?” I ask.

“Just get in there. Once you’re in, watch your step. The first one’s a doozy.”

I have to be dreaming. This is a hallucination brought on by bad egg nog or reading too muchAlice in Wonderlandas a child.

I throw my leg over the back of the sleigh, bring my other leg with it, and sit on the edge for a moment, taking deep breaths and trying to decide if I’m more afraid of falling since there’s nothing to hold on to up here or more afraid of diving into a pile of gifts that’s really a hidden warehouse.

Tentatively, I kick aside some gifts until my foot hits something. “Holy shit, there is a ladder.”

“Told you,” Jasper says, turning the sleigh to the right and landing on a roof with a thump. I expect to be jostled around like being unbuckled in an airplane, but I only lean a little to the left. At least Jasper is a good driver of this thing.

“Is this a stop?”

“Yep. I thought we’d handle houses around your county first since we’re here. It’ll let you get used to departures and landings until you get your air legs, so to speak. I don’t want to just throw you into deliveries in New York. You need to get back there and find…” His voice trails off as he checks his list. He squints at the tablet on the console that’s some kind of spreadsheet with names and statuses on it. I glance over Jasper’s shoulder for a closer look and see a lot of kids marked as naughty. “Find Madison Luther.”

I look at the houses around me. We’re in a blue-collar neighborhood much like my own, and a few lights are on down the street. The house across from us has the porch light on. Anyone could look out and see us. “I may be a long time, Jasper. I’m not used to this. What if they see?”

“Remember the magic suit and the magic sleigh.” He pats his chest, and I shiver. I’m not sure if I shiver from the cold, fear of going into the sleigh, or because he looks so damn hot in his magic suit.

“Be right back. I’ll see if I can find Martin Luther.”

“Naughty list in 1517. You needMadisonLuther.”

I make a finger gun at him. “Right. Madison. Incidentally, was Martin Luther on the naughty list for going against the Catholic Church? Just curious. This is historically fascinating.”

“Vandalism. He shouldn’t have nailed his issues to someone else’s door.”

“Huh. I guess it’s too bad they didn’t have tape back then.”

He smiles, and I smile back before taking a deep breath, closing my eyes, and inching into the sleigh stock area.

As soon as I’m past the decoy presents on top, the room turns into something that looks like Home Depot. Rows of large shelves have pallets on them, but instead of boxes of products, the pallets contain huge cardboard containers that are filled with presents. Small golf carts with trailers on the back of them, probably for moving presents, are scattered throughout the room.

I climb down the ladder and realize it’s not my last time climbing tonight. Ladders run across the shelves like in old libraries, and I guess that’s how I’ll get to the presents on high shelves.

“OK, Holly, you can do this. Madison Luther. Madison Luther in rural Pennsylvania. How the hell do I find this kid?”

I walk to the end of the first row and cross my fingers that this place is like Home Depot with signs with what’s in an aisle clearly displayed on the endcap. Thankfully, this is the case.

Lebanon.

Well, that won’t do right now. We’re in Pennsylvania, nowhere near Lebanon. Are the shelves countries that are arranged in alphabetical order? I walk to the next aisle.

Iceland.

I see what Jasper meant. The shelves aren’t alphabetical, and they aren’t even sorted by continent. Hell, they’re not even sorted by climate.

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