Chapter Four All By My Elf

chapter four

All By My Elf

Jayden began the shift with a grin.

As was his duty, but also because the holiday season might not be the complete washout he’d expected. Things were looking up. Not only was this the best job ever, utilising his skills as an actor and his rapport with kids, but he could use the juggling and balloon animal skills he’d honed during the circus elective at uni.

The best bit, though? Rick Thornton was Santa Claus.

Okay, so the bloke was a little bitter. Tetchy. Prickly. But Jayden could understand why. He’d been a glorified star once. Must be a big bump to earth to be playing Santa in a mall when his last role had been Hamlet. Jayden didn’t know what had got him here, but he was glad he was. He might give him a tip or two about how to navigate the treacherous waters of auditioning. Maybe give him a few contacts to pursue after graduation?

Better than that, though, he was hot .

Jayden appreciated the rugged good looks of a man who’d lived several lives, each one etching a story into the lines on his face. There was something undeniably attractive about Rick Thornton. On stage. On screen. In the flesh . Even with the Santa outfit on. Which was probably the kicker, to be honest. Jayden had had many impromptu therapy sessions with his social worker about his penchant for older men. The fact of which had got him into trouble on more than one occasion. Not as much as Aaron, though. Aaron chased them. Jayden just…found them. His therapist suggested his attraction to older men was down to his lack of a father figure. He called bullshit on that. But perhaps his constant wondering who his father was, w here he was, whether he would even care if he knew he had a son, might always make him look twice at those who fit the age bracket.

But this wasn’t that.

Even if Rick’s red suit embodying every child’s father blurred the lines a little.

He peeped through the curtain at the early queue forming at the entrance to the Grotto. Rick was taking his seat at the throne, preparing himself for the onslaught of eager beavers to bounce on his knee. He didn’t look…jolly. Thoroughly aggrieved probably summed it up. Wonder what had happened in his career to make him so downbeat? He’d read bits and pieces about Rick’s career in the stage magazines and online and could vaguely remember something happening last year, but he never really paid attention to those things. Fuck, he was a mixed-race kid from care who didn’t know who his dad was. The amount of shit he got stigmatised for had made him take anything he read about other people with a pinch of salt. So he was sure as hell going to prove that no matter what had brought Rick here, it wasn’t all bad.

He’d had worse Christmases.

Like the one when his foster mum had left him in a car for five hours, having forgotten about him after having “popped in” for a drink when delivering presents to her real family. His New Year had started in yet another kids’ home after that.

Memories such as that one spurred Jayden on to provide a happy, safe, welcoming environment for all children. Because no one knew what happened behind closed doors. When children went home.

Or even if they had a home.

So he welcomed the first group with open arms. “Welcome to the North Pole! I’m Elf JJ. Who wants their own reindeer?”

“Me! Me! Me!” came the reply from the bouncing children.

Jayden’s laughter mingled with the high-pitched chorus of children’s giggles echoing through the opening mall as his fingers, slightly numb from the chill, deftly fashioned balloon animals—the twist of vivid rubber transforming into reindeers and Christmas trees and one random sword for the boy at the back. He didn’t like reindeers. They were scary. Thus, the sword was to protect him and his baby sister from any feral flying creatures.

And, evidently, the passing shoppers his mum had to apologise to.

“Here you go.” Jayden gave the balloons out to the children and their faces lit up like the Grand Christmas Lights switch-on at Oxford Street. Tiny, mitten-clad hands reaching out and brushing against his in a moment of innocent gratitude. How could anyone not love this?

He then stepped back, surveying the sea of faces, all varying shades of wonder and excitement, warmth spiralling through his chest. This was what it was all about. Spreading joy. Forming connections. Making good memories to counteract all the bad ones he had stacked up like the presents under the tree. And as he twisted another balloon into a semblance of a reindeer, he stole a glance behind him to check if Rick was ready. The bloke’s posture spoke volumes. A slouch carried the weight of the world atop the broad shoulders clad in red velvet. Even his robust rehearsal of, “Ho Ho Ho” rumbling from his throat sounded as if it were a plea for it all to end.

Then Rick locked eyes with him and Jayden caught the briefest flicker of something behind them, a glint that might have been the residue of a once impassioned man. The talented and dedicated actor Jayden had admired from afar for a while now. Rick’s eyes might have once been blue. Bright blue. Eager and profound. Disillusionment dulled them grey now. And as they were the only thing Jayden could see with the white beard, flowing white hair and red jingle bell hat ensemble hiding the rest of him, it caused a sudden ache in his chest.

How could a man who had everything Jayden ever wished for be so miserable?

“You ready?” Jayden mouthed to him.

Rick waved a hand, red sleeve falling down a solid forearm, then reached beside him to reveal a hip flask. He twisted the lid, then tugged his beard away to drink from it. Jayden widened his eyes. He fucking hoped that was water. But Rick’s following hiss suggested the contents hadn’t come from the cooler out back.

“Elf JJ?” a mother called from the queue, cradling a toddler on her hip.

Jayden ripped his gaze from Rick to address her. “Ah, yeah, come forward. You ready to see the big guy?”

The toddler nodded, eyes bright and eager but clutching his mother as his safety net. Lucky kid. Jayden hid his envy behind his grand gesture and skipped as though Peter Pan toward the velvet curtain. “What’s your name, little man?”

It took a while and encouragement from his mother before the kid said, “Billy.”

“All right, Billy. Say hello to Santa!” Jayden ripped back the curtain. “Santa, this is Billy.”

Whatever had been in Rick’s flask hadn’t tempered his mood, and he gestured the kid as if into his lair.

“Come, dear boy.” His voice had a practiced warmth with hints of Northern in it. Yorkshire, perhaps? Maybe he was honing his character voice? “Tell me what you’ve written to me for this Christmas?” His gaze wandered, disconnecting from the child’s babble about dinosaurs and race cars.

Jayden knitted his brows, empathy blooming. He should kick Rick. Shake him. This was a big deal. He was a big deal. To Billy, at least. And all the other children queuing outside. It might not be the same as all those who paid good money for a ticket to see him play Macbeth at the Harold Pinter Theatre, but it was still worth putting in a decent performance for. That’s what his professors had taught him. Every performance had the potential to be seen by those who could elevate him to bigger, better things. Therefore, no matter how insignificant the role, terrible the script, rundown the set, he had to always ensure his own performance was on point.

Maybe they didn’t teach that at RADA?

“Yes, yes, Merry Christmas,” Rick muttered as he handed one of the blue wrapped presents to Billy and Jayden folded back the velvet curtain to let them out.

“You could add a little cheer,” Jayden said once the mother was out of earshot. “Give him something to smile about all day?”

“It’s been a long time since I gave someone something to smile about all day.”

“Lay off the sauce, then.”

Rick narrowed his eyes.

Jayden was unperturbed, because this meant something. To him, anyway. “He’s just a kid.”

“And will be screaming blue murder once he opens that gift and sees it’s neither a dinosaur nor a race car.”

“He’ll be happy whatever it is, because it came from you.”

“Then you know nothing about children.”

“I’d challenge you there.” He would. Jayden’s upbringing in various children’s homes and foster placements meant he’d been around children all his life. Many he played big brother to. “Look, there’s a queue of kids outside and I’m busting my arse to make them all excited to get in here, least you could do is continue the illusion. Give a smile?”

“Unless your criticism of my performance comes with twenty-plus years’ experience on the stage, I’d keep it to yourself. Now let’s get this over with.”

Jayden shook his head, then plastered on his smile as he left the workshop. It was clear whatever spark once fuelled Rick Thornton’s spirit on stage had long extinguished, leaving behind faint embers unwilling to be rekindled. He’d just have to work twice as hard to make this experience worth the general admission ticket.

Or he could look up how to make a balloon Santa and replace Rick altogether?

* * * *

Eight hours passed with only a forty-minute break for lunch where Jayden ate a sausage roll in the workshop and Rick went off to God knew where to eat, or drink, God knew what. Then finally the twinkling lights of the Grotto dimmed after the last of the day’s visitors had left and Jayden changed out of his elf costume in the cramped workshop, scents of pine and candy canes clinging to the air. He glanced over at Rick slumped on the throne with a heavy sigh, red suit hanging off his broad shoulders like a mantle of defeat. He looked beaten. And because Jayden hated even the semblance of conflict, he asked,

“Hey, you okay?”

Rick flicked his gaze toward him, then ripped it away just as quickly as Jayden hung the elf costume on a hook beaten into cardboard. Jayden cocked his head. Was Rick averting his gaze because of the shame over his shoddy performance or because Jayden was in nothing but his underwear? Jayden knew he had a decent body. Lack of any decent food sustenance and a free gym membership as part of his bursary package had allowed him to go from the scrawny care kid to a lithe yet defined young man. But Rick Thornton? The Rick Thornton? The decorated Shakespearean actor liking a bit of rough? He’d had a hunch he was gay—no one could play Iago in Othello the way he had and not be at least some part queer. But a RADA man, roaming in the same circles as the likes of Kenneth Branagh, Ralph Fiennes and all the other actors handed the title Sir , liking young and urban street?

Nah .

He could work that in his favour, though.

Rick stood, turned his back, and shed his gown to stand in nothing but boxers. Oh, wow. It would most definitely be in his favour if Rick was into him. Because Rick was the embodiment of Jayden’s saved key word search terms on Pornhub. Broad and masculine with lines of muscle flexing over a mature back, scattering of salt and pepper hair over his chest and stomach, with an air of elegance and grace matching an authoritative stance. As if he demanded to be looked at. Not in an alpha arsehole way, but in a stunning, Jesus-type way. Jayden didn’t just look, though. He gawked. Feasted . He’d forever been hungry since becoming a student, but right then he understood the word ‘starved’, because his stomach growled as if nothing else would ever satisfy him other than Rick Thornton.

Even if his attraction to older men had something to do with his bollocks of an upbringing, it didn’t matter. His dick liked what his dick liked. And right then, it liked Rick both in and out of the garish red garment and even when he stepped into moleskin trousers and tugged on a turtleneck, the poster boy for a thespian’s wardrobe, Jayden’s dick stirred with appreciation and with a hankering to be used for whatever scene Rick wanted to partner with him in.

Rick twisted, catching the remnants of his full inspection, and Jayden cleared his throat, looked away, then squeezed himself into his jeans, shoving his head through a hoodie.

“You, er…getting the tube home?” Jayden asked for something to say and stop Rick from eyeing him as if he’d caught him with his hand down his pants. A couple more minutes to feast on Rick’s back and he might have.

“I’ll walk.”

“Oh, right, you live near here?”

“Soho.”

Jayden’s eyebrows shot up. “Nice. We’re practically neighbours.”

“You live in Soho ?”

“Bloomsbury. The campus?”

“Ah, right. Going back for a game of beer pong and shots?”

Jayden laughed. “Not quite. I live in halls. Everyone else has gone home for the holidays. Just me and the rats for crimbo.”

“Why haven’t you?”

“Why haven’t I, what?”

“Gone home for Christmas.”

Jayden bit his lip, ruffling his curls, flattened from the elf hat. He hated having to say this part. Not that he was ashamed of having been in care, but there was a stigma attached to it. As if, somehow, it was infectious. And if Rick’s subtle gaze earlier, when he’d had his kit off, was anything he should dare consider, pity would soon replace attraction as the words left his lips. He hated that. Hated being seen as a figure of misfortune. Or that his mother’s problems were his own.

They weren’t. He was at least seventy percent mentally stable.

“Halls is my home.”

Rick cocked his head. “You don’t have a family?”

“Nah. I mean, probably somewhere. But the London Borough of Newham is my corporate parent until I graduate, but they tend not to have big family gatherings at Christmas. Too many of us to fit round a table.”

“I’m…” Rick was about to utter the dreaded apology, so Jayden waved him off.

“Least I don’t have to fork out a fuck ton for a load of gifts for people I hate, right?”

“I suppose not.”

Jayden smiled. Rick hesitated. So Jayden babbled more. “You have any family?”

“Of my own, no. My parents live in Sheffield.”

“Thought I detected an accent you try to quash.”

“As do you.” Rick peered under his lashes.

Jayden changed his voice to the posh received pronunciation he’d been learning, “Been having elocution lessons at uni to help land some roles.” He laughed and changed back to his standard multi-cultural London. “Apparently, there’s stigma in accents and the care system in the world of theatre. Who knew, right? But if I spoke like Prince Wills on the street, I’d be fucked.”

“Agree with you there.” Rick ruffled his hair. “I masked my northern as soon as I alighted the train. Not because I was made to, but so I could try to…fit in. Things are changing, though. Having different dialects can enhance an actor’s performance.”

Jayden might have found some common ground at last. He smiled and grabbed hold of the rapport with both hands, along with his bag.

“Look, thanks for perking up a bit today.” He slung the bag over his shoulder. “I’m not all about the kids. I need money, and this job pays more than picking chewing gum up from the floor.”

Rick stood motionless for a moment, then nodded. “I can appreciate that.”

“So…I guess I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow?”

“I guess you will.”

Jayden wasn’t sure if he detected a hint of approval or not. As though Rick might look forward to it. But if he did, it was gone in a blink and Rick shuffled into his trench coat that had the faint scent of whisky and stale cigarettes. Jayden could tell. The woman who left him in the car? Alcoholic and a chain smoker.

Flipping up the hood on his coat, Jayden rushed out of the mall into the biting cold and ran to the tube to avoid the worst of the bitter winter downpour catching people out. No matter it was December, the weather never lived up to the hype. He stood huddled amongst those on the platform waiting to go home to their loved ones. He knew not everyone had that life, but sometimes, especially at Christmas, the overwhelming feeling as if he were the only one alone in the city weighed heavy. As it did then, and he clutched the hanging loops on the ceiling of the middle tube carriage, rows of seats filled either side of him, slipping his headphones in to drown it all out by blasting a bit of Billie Eilish into his soul. He caught the eye of a suited and booted bloke on the centre seat checking him out. Even in jeans and puffer coat, hood up, predatory men smelled his gayness. Sometimes, it benefited him. But he wasn’t interested in hooking up for shits and giggles. Nor even a hot meal. Not anymore. He’d done it and hated it. Left him feeling used rather than the other way around. So he twisted to face the other way, letting the man check out his arse instead.

Five stops in and he alighted at Tottenham Court Road, chucking a right toward Bloomsbury where the gleaming black gates of ULC welcomed him home. Tucked in among other university colleges and within spitting distance of the British Library, the campus was usually awash with students, staff and visitors alike, but today only security and the skeleton staff forced to work three-six-five were his company. Darkness engulfed him the further he trotted through the gates and passed the department buildings to where West Halls was located.

Relief flooded him when he could shut the door to his room. His own space. Where he didn’t feel so tiny. He kicked off his shoes, hauled off his coat and hoodie, then slumped on his bed to scroll through his phone. He had a text from Nita.

Are you all by your elf?

Jayden snorted and text back. Have you been waiting all day to send that?

Yep. How’d it go?

Good. Weird. Strange.

Nita appeared on FaceTime. He swiped to answer, and her face filled the screen, head covered with the fleeced hood of a snoodie and lying on her childhood bed surrounded by soft toys and a touch of everything that she had collected over years of having had a space that was all hers and always would be.

“Spill,” she said.

Jayden tucked an arm behind his head, holding the phone up in his other hand. “Santa is Rick Thornton.”

Nita furrowed her brow. “Who?”

“Rick Thornton? The actor.”

“What’s he been in?”

“Loads of stuff! Jesus, thought you were a drama student.”

“I can’t know all the actors.” She twisted around on her bed, holding up the phone and reached away, then returned with a candy cane in her mouth.

“He’s had a decorated career. Won an Olivier.”

“What’s he doing playing Santa in grotty grotto, then?”

“That I don’t know. Tried asking him, but he’s a bit…prickly.”

“Hold on.” She sat up, settling her phone somewhere so it could stand upright, and opened her laptop, fingers flying over her keyboard. “Oh, wow. Baby, it ain’t cold outside cause Santa is hot this year.”

So he wasn’t the only one who had a thing for older men, then. Bet she didn’t have to talk to counsellors about it.

Nita picked up her phone and whoosh, whoosh, whoosh , picture after picture landed in their WhatsApp chat. Jayden checked out each one. They were from Rick’s earlier days. Younger. Headshots. Couple of him on stage. But, fuck yes, boiling hot . Jayden turned around to push open the rickety window behind him to blast in a waft of arctic air into the stuffy room.

“Wouldn’t mind sitting on his lap.” Nita snorted.

“Shame you’re hundreds of miles away, then.”

Nita sucked on her candy cane. “Says here his last play was a year ago. Didn’t finish the run. Not been seen since. Makes you wonder if he really is Santa.”

“Doubt it.”

“Why?”

“Other than the obvious of Santa not actually being real, he’s sort of…depressed. I’d bet an alcoholic. Could smell the booze on him. And he’s not embracing the role as you’d expect.”

“Huh. Guess it is a bit of a fall from grace for him. Fell off the ladder. And the wagon.”

“Then why agree to do it?”

“Beats me. Ask him.”

“Like I said, he’s prickly.”

“Who gives a shit when he looks like that? Yum. Totally let him tie me up with tinsel.”

“Nita!”

“Sorry.” She crunched through her candy cane. “If there’s anyone on this planet who can thaw an ice king, it’s you. You literally attract everyone. Go in tomorrow with that cutesy smile of yours and offer him a shoulder to cry on. Start a rapport. I mean, you love acting, he is an actor. That’s commonality right there.”

A moment of internal conflict twisted inside Jayden. The familiar tug-of-war between the desperate need to reach out to other people and form a bond battling the protective walls he’d built around himself so he couldn’t get hurt anymore.

“Yeah, maybe.”

“And, holy night!” Nita leaned closer to her laptop. “I just found an old clip of one of his plays on YouTube and sorry, bra, but I need some alone time with this.”

“Gonna leave me all by my elf to watch one handed?”

“Yes.”

“Night, Nits. Enjoy.”

Jayden cut the call, then searched on YouTube himself, finding what Nita was referring to. Rick Thornton playing Iago in Othello. Rick’s performance was as mesmerising as if he was a puppeteer pulling on Jayden’s attention span.

Rolling off the single bed, he took the phone with him as he left the room and clomped past all the closed doors along the vacant corridor to the communal kitchen at the end. It was empty for once, usually playing host to his fellow students making their beans on toast or starting the evening with the cheap drinks bought from Bargain Booze. He only had a batch of sliced bread and had to pick off the mouldy bits to tuck two slices into the toaster as he watched the screen. He swiped someone else’s leftover margarine and jam from the fridge and ate sitting at the round table.

The automatic lights faded the longer he sat there, entranced by Rick on stage. He had to wave his arms to get them to turn back on. A while later, they turned off again, but too fixated on his phone to bother to move, the screen lit up his face like the ghost he was on campus.

Shrouded in darkness, Jayden’s arms erupted in goosebumps when the last lines Rick uttered as Iago echoed around the student kitchen.

“Demand me nothing. What you know, you know. From this time forth, I will never speak again.”

Jayden grinned. With relish. With challenge .

Yeah, you will .