Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

LEVI

It wasn’t that I didn’t believe Kris when he’d said his family would descend on the food we’d brought like a horde of hungry holiday zombies, more that I couldn’t really visualize it. But as I watched his family completely decimate the sandwich box, I was grateful Kris had told me to stuff a sandwich in my pocket.

“Good call on this.” I patted the pocket where my sandwich was nestled.

He quickly covered my hand with his, then glanced around furtively. “Shh. Don’t let them see.” When he was sure the coast was clear, he leaned in closer and whispered, “This ain’t my first rodeo. They look all sweet and nice until you bring food into their midst. Don’t worry, though. They’ll settle down in a minute.”

Long tables with benches on either side ran through the barn from end to end, and Kris’s family all slid into place around the one in the center. His mom recovered from the feeding frenzy first.

“Oh dear.” She stood and strode my way with purpose. “Forgive our manners. Getting the workshop ready to open is hungry work, and we started early.” She held out her hand, and I took it. “I’m Kris’s mom, Mary Kate Kringle. It’s so nice to meet you, Levi.”

I’d seen artistic renderings of Mrs. Claus before, and with the exception of white hair in a bun, she was a dead ringer. Her cheeks were plump and rosy, her smile soft and gentle, and even though she looked sweet, there was military precision in her eyes. This was a woman who would go mama bear on anyone who threatened to hurt her brood. I liked her immediately.

“No apology necessary, and thank you for having me, Mrs. Kringle.”

She clasped her hands together and giggled. “Oh, of course. Our pleasure. But please, call me Mary Kate. You know, it’s been a long time since Kris brought someone to meet us.”

“More like it’s been never.” The voice came from someone else at the table, and Mary Kate turned to shush them while Kris glared at whichever sibling had dared to rat him out.

“Katie, stop hogging the boy. The rest of us want to meet him too.” A large man with white hair and a neatly trimmed white beard stood and wiped his face with a paper napkin. He had to be Kris’s dad. I looked between the two of them and couldn’t help but notice the uncanny resemblance. Kris’s dad was a preview of what Kris would look like when the salt currently at his temples and in his beard took over.

“Yes, yes. We’re coming.” Mary Kate threaded her arm through mine and tugged me along until I was standing in front of Kris’s whole family.

“Kurt Kringle.” Kris’s dad offered his hand, and I shook it, getting a hearty pat on the back as well. “So glad you were free to help us today, Levi.”

“I’m honestly looking forward to it.” And it was the truth. Kris’s family was large and loud, but I could see how much they all loved him in the way they looked at me and teased him.

Kurt slid down the bench to make room next to him, and he gestured for me to sit down. The second my butt hit the seat, the rest of Kris’s family all started talking at once, throwing out their names and their relationship to Kris. Kris shoved his family members farther down the bench so he could squeeze in beside me.

“Whoa, whoa.” Mary Kate banged on the table just enough to bring everyone to order. “You’re going to send poor Levi running for the hills. I’ll do the introductions.” She pointed to each member of the family in turn, and while it was less chaotic than everyone talking at me at once, there was still little hope I’d remember half their names, especially when a lot of them started with a K.

“We’re grateful for the extra hands,” one of Kris’s brothers—I couldn’t remember if it was Kevin or Keith—said.

My tentacles twitched, and I was grateful I’d kept my jacket on. They were anxious to show I had more than one set of hands to offer. I must have made a face because Kris glanced my way.

“You okay?”

“Totally.” But I wasn’t sure he believed me. I had never wanted to tell someone who didn’t know I was a kraken about my true form so badly. It was starting to make me antsy, but until I knew Kris wouldn’t run away screaming, I couldn’t do it. And considering this was only our second date and we were in the middle of a full-on Kringle family convention, I didn’t think whipping out my tentacles would be appreciated. I didn’t want his nieces and nephews around the table to remember this as the year a kraken ruined Christmas.

“Good. You’d better eat. The second they’re done, it will be back to work.”

I pulled my sandwich from my pocket and tucked in. Kris was right. The flavors should seem off together, but they worked. The tart tang of the cranberry and orange relish was a really nice complement to the turkey, which was moist and delicious. I’d never had Thanksgiving dinner before, but from everything I’d seen in pop culture, this sandwich felt like a pretty good approximation of the feast, minus the mashed potatoes and sage stuffing.

Conversation flowed around the table and effortlessly included me, and I was shocked to find I felt as comfortable with Kris’s family as I did with Kris.

With one major difference.

I didn’t want to wrap myself around his family and climb them like a tree. It was only Kris that made my tentacles wiggle and twitch with the desire to rub against him, to feel his skin under each sensitive sucker and hear the sounds he made as I brought him pleasure only I was uniquely shaped to provide. And sitting next to him, thigh to thigh, surrounded by his pine, cedar, and salt smell that was only amplified by the faint scents of cinnamon and peppermint on the air and remembering how soft his lips had been pressed to mine, I was hard-pressed to think about anything other than getting Kris naked and under me.

Almost in unison, half of Kris’s family stood, gathered their trash, and went back to work in various teams around the barn. Things were still very much in disarray, but I could see the vision coming together, and it was going to be spectacular.

The table shook as one of Kris’s brothers-in-law and one of his sisters dropped two huge plastic totes on the table in front of us.

“These are for you.” Kris’s sister smirked, and Kris groaned.

“What’s inside?”

Kris’s brother-in-law slapped my shoulder. “The fastest way to test any relationship.”

I raised an eyebrow, and Kris’s sister whipped the top off the tote in front of me, revealing bundles of dark green cords. “Good luck, fellas.” She turned on her heel and cackled as she walked away.

Kris ran a hand over his beard. “Really, Matt? Really?”

He shrugged. “It was her idea, man.”

“Sure it was.”

“It was. Not that I’m not enjoying the payback. Never thought I’d get to see the day.” He gave us a cocky little finger wave and followed his wife.

“Assholes.”

I stood to get a better look at what was in the box. “What am I missing?”

“These”—Kris swept his arm wide—“are all the interior twinkle lights.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured part of that out. Still not getting what the big deal is, though.”

Kris sighed and stood, pulling several neatly coiled bundles out of the bin and laying them on the table. “Now look.”

The rest of the tote was still filled with lights, but instead of neat bundles, these were in a giant tangle.

“My mom inspects the bins, but it takes way too long to separate and coil all the strands of lights, so we only do enough to cover this mess and make it look neat enough to pass inspection. It bites us in the ass every single year. You’d think we’d learn by now.”

“But then how would you weed out the unsuitable partners?”

“Touché.”

The barn was warm, and I slipped off my coat and rubbed my hands together. If Kris’s family wanted to toss me into the deep end, I would prove to them I could more than keep my head above water. “Let’s get started.”

A half an hour later, I was up to my eyeballs in a tangle of twinkle lights with Kris on the other side of the knot. We’d made a little progress, but it was hard to tell. If I’d been able to use my tentacles, I could probably have had the whole thing untangled by now, but with just two human hands, it was slow going. But I also wasn’t mad about it. Kris and I had been sitting on the floor chatting and working through the tangle, and even though it was a little frustrating, I was still having fun.

“Are you cold?” Kris asked after pulling a strand of lights out of the knot and laying it out over the floor.

“No. Why?”

“You keep running your hands up and down your arms like you’re trying to get warm. I think I have a sweater around here somewhere if you want it.”

Shit. I hadn’t even realized I’d been doing that, but it was the only way to keep my tentacles from freeing themselves and getting involved in the untangling of the lights. While they didn’t necessarily have a mind of their own, they could read my subconscious energy, and every time I worked another knot in the lights free, they tried to lift from my skin, knowing that eight hands were better than two.

“Oh, uh, yeah. Now that you mention it, I am a little cold.” It was a lie, but covering my arms would make it a little easier to hide any movement my tentacles decided to make, even if the barn was toasty warm already.

“Okay. Give me a sec. I’ll be right back.” Kris stood and stretched, then walked over to another one of the long wooden tables where it looked like everyone had stashed their coats and other personal belongings.

I’d been looking at him all day, but as he walked away, I took the opportunity to really check him out. Well-worn dark denim clung to his thick thighs and ass, and his red and black flannel shirt stretched over his broad back. He’d rolled up the sleeves showing off his muscular forearms, and it had been almost all I could do not to grab him and trace his veins from his elbows to his callused palms.

Until I met Kris, I had no idea I had a thing for lumberjack chic, but he wore it so well that denim and flannel were almost becoming my new obsession.

He turned at the table and caught me staring, shooting me a bright smile from across the room, and I felt my cheeks heat. I wasn’t the kind of kraken who blushed, but something about Kris was turning me inside out, and I honestly wasn’t mad about it. I turned away when he started rummaging through the items on the table and tugged at the knot of lights in my lap. My tentacles writhed against my skin, still anxious to get in on the unknotting action, and I willed them to stand down. I pulled one of the plug ends through the center of the knot, and the whole tangle loosened.

“Yes!”

“Did you get one?” Kris asked, looking down at where I was still seated on the floor.

“I think so. Here, grab this.”

“I’ll trade you.” He held out a bundle of plaid fabric. “I guess I didn’t bring a sweater after all, but I had an extra flannel in my truck.”

I passed him the end of the cord and took the soft flannel fabric. Kris pulled the cord free and laid it next to the others we’d freed on the ground, while I slipped into his shirt. It was a tiny bit too big, but it smelled like him, like a pine forest and the ocean, and enveloped in his scent, the shirt warm from where he’d held it, I realized my tentacles weren’t the only appendages I had to worry about as my cock twitched behind the zipper of my jeans.

It had been a long damn time since I’d wanted someone as much as I wanted Kris, but I needed my body to get on board with the fact that until I could tell Kris I was a sea monster, there would be no fooling around. It was hard enough to keep my tentacles in check when I was doing mundane things like untangling Christmas lights, but during sex, when the primal part of my brain was in charge, there was no way to hold them back. It was a complication I hadn’t foreseen when I’d moved to Lifeboat.

Back in Baleen, everyone was in the know, so if I hooked up with someone in town, I could be exactly who and what I was. It was expected, just a part of the experience of living in a haven town. Sure, there were humans who were gill chasers, only interested in getting off with as many different types of sea monsters as they could, but for the most part, we all knew the score. Tourism in Baleen was largely limited to sea monsters looking for an escape from their own haven towns around the world, so we’d never had to hide anything from anyone. My father had worked some of the magic from the ley line into a protective bubble of sorts that kept people who weren’t open-minded or would do us harm out of town. I’d never seen the magic from that side, but the way it had been explained to me, the town just appeared to not exist. If someone unsafe approached the town limits, they would either be somehow magically redirected, or the town just wouldn’t appear to be there at all.

With the number of outsiders who reportedly came to Lifeboat to visit the Kringle family’s Santa’s workshop experience during the holidays, that kind of magic might be hard to pull off here, but I didn’t think it would be impossible. And as my fingers continued to untangle lights, my mind worked to untangle how the people of Lifeboat could live more openly with each other while still being protected.

“Well, that’s one done.” Kris’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts, thoughts that weren’t my responsibility to consider. I needed to leave the town’s magical management to Mayor Delmar, even if I thought he was a major asshole.

Looking down at my lap, I noticed the snarl of lights was gone, the individual strands all laid neatly on the floor.

“You were really in the zone there.” Kris offered me a hand, and I took it, standing and stretching out my muscles that had gone a little stiff from being in the same position for so long.

“What can I say? I like a puzzle.” He didn’t need to know that I was only half talking about the lights.

“Well, that’s good because we have to untangle the lights in the other tote too, and then the real fun begins.”

“Do I want to know?” I felt my face twist into a skeptical grimace.

Kris laughed, the joyful sound causing some of his family members to look our way, smiling when they saw us.

“Probably not, but when we’re done untangling, we need to plug each strand in and look for any burnt-out or missing bulbs and replace them. It’s tedious, but in my opinion, not as bad as the untangling.”

“You know, you could just take the extra time to bundle the lights neatly.”

“Yeah, yeah, but where’s the fun in that?”

Kris retrieved the other plastic bin of lights, and we got back to work. This time, we leaned against the barn wall and sat side by side, our fingers brushing as we worked, and every time we touched, the same zing of electricity I’d felt the day we’d met and shook hands pulsed through my body. This time, while we worked, I let my mind wander to a problem that was actually mine to solve—how was I going to tell Kris I was a kraken?