Chapter Two

“Who are you supposed to be?”

“I’m an elf,” Mira said patiently.

That was a lie. Not the elf part—for every day up until Christmas, she was an elf, at least as far as her job description went. The pointy ears were fake, but the holiday spirit was real. Or it had been real when she had started the job back in November. It was getting pretty frayed by now.

But the sweet patience in her voice when a kid asked her that question for the hundredth time? That was absolutely a lie. Mira Allenby was no longer feeling patient. She was feeling ready to snap.

She wasn’t going to snap at a kid, though. She had to save her ire for a proper target, and since the only person who qualified was the boss she couldn’t afford to upset ... it was going to bubble up under the surface for hours. When she got home, she could scream into her pillow.

“You don’t look like an elf,” the little girl said.

“Yes, I do.” All she could manage was a kind of artificial brightness, like she was a perky old-school weathergirl. “Haven’t you seen Lord of the Rings ?”

The little girl shook her head. No, of course he hadn’t seen Lord of the Rings . She was only four or five. Her parents would never let her watch something with so many scary battle sequences.

By this point, Mira had tried the Lord of the Rings line on over a dozen kids, and none of them had known what she was talking about. The closet she had gotten was one bright six-year-old whose mom had read The Hobbit aloud to her.

But Galadriel wasn’t in The Hobbit , so that still hadn’t helped much.

It was a Galadriel costume Mira was stuck in, while all the other, luckier Honey Brook Christmas Village elves got to bustle around in the traditional green skirts or shorts and candy-cane-striped leggings. They looked like Santa’s elves. She looked like an inept cosplayer trying to make a floaty white nightgown pass for professional Hollywood design. And she was too curvy to be ethereal.

But the discount Galadriel outfit was the best she could do. At the start of the holiday season, Mr. Marsh had accidentally ordered the wrong number of elf costumes from Honey Brook’s supplier, and since phoning in another order would mean admitting he’d made a mistake, he wasn’t going to do it. He wouldn’t even let her buy an off-the-rack costume online, either, because it wouldn’t match everyone else’s.

“Neither does Galadriel!” Mira had protested.

“Ah, but Galadriel doesn’t look like she’s supposed to match the rest of the Christmas elves,” Mr. Marsh said, steepling his fingers together and trying to look wise. “You see how that matters?”

Mira could tell that he wanted to watch her jaw drop. She was supposed to say, My God, you’re right! That’s brilliant!

But it wasn’t brilliant. It was dumb. No one would care if one elf wore candy-cane-striped tights instead of leggings or if her skirt was a slightly different shade of green. They probably wouldn’t even notice. She would still be recognizably a Christmas elf, and that was all anyone cared about.

“I’m begging you,” Mira had said, powering through Mr. Marsh’s lofty “I am unappreciated in my own time” look. “Please just let me find a regular elf costume. I’ll even pay for it myself.”

That was saying a lot, since she had only take this seasonal job to make some much-needed extra cash. Mira’s romance movie podcast was a modest success, with its sponsors and Patreon subscriptions bringing in enough for her to live on as long as she kept her expenses low. She had picked up extra work before, funding vacations by doing the occasional spot of video production and audio editing for podcasters and vloggers. She liked it, and she liked it even more because she didn’t have to do it all the time.

But this year, she needed every dollar she could get. This year, she had her podcast and her editing on the side and this Christmas elf job, and every cent counted.

She wished it were all going to fund a nice trip. Then it wouldn’t matter if she fell short: all it would mean was trading one hotel reservation for another or cutting her vacation short by a day.

But this was serious. For years, her stepfather’s health had been in decline, and he had finally gotten to the point where her mom was having trouble taking care of him on her own. Her stepdad was, thank God, still as mentally sharp as ever, and he and her mom were still as madly in love as they’d always been—they just needed some extra help. Professional help, ideally even round-the-clock help.

There was a great retirement home they could move into, one many of their friends already lived in. Between their savings and Mira’s usual income, they should have the monthly rates covered ... but there was a mind-bogglingly high entrance fee that had to be paid up-front. Mira needed to get them the money for it as soon as she possibly could. Until then, no matter what they said, she was going to worry about them.

But that meant she couldn’t quit her Christmas elf job, no matter how annoying and frustrating her boss was and no matter how many kids asked her what she was supposed to be. She had to put up with it.

Mr. Marsh had reiterated that she wasn’t getting a new costume, so that was all there was to it. At least it was only five more days until Christmas. And only four until Christmas Eve, when the Christmas Village would shut down for good just after lunch.

Four more days. That was it.

“Where’s Santa?” one child howled.

“We want Santa!”

Four more long, loud days.

And Mira actually liked kids! She just liked them one at a time, not in massive sugar-high hordes.

“Santa will be here any minute,” she said, crossing her fingers that was actually true. “In the meantime, why don’t we all sing ‘Jingle Bells’?”

Two ear-splitting renditions of “Jingle Bells” later, Petey still hadn’t shown up for work. The Christmas Village grapevine had already let Mira know that Petey was at Honey Brook, but since he still wasn’t here , she was fuzzy on the details. She wasn’t sure she cared about them, either. What she cared about was that she had a huge crowd of excited kids and disgruntled parents who were tired of waiting around.

Until today, Mira hadn’t had any problems with Petey Moore. He was a good Santa, able to connect with even the shyest of kids, and no matter how many things went wrong in Marsh’s benighted Christmas Village, none of them seemed to faze him. He was a nice guy and an easygoing coworker. But if he didn’t show up this instant , she was going to—

A tall, bright red shape moved towards her through the artificial snow.

Oh, thank God, Mira thought, with a wave of relief. Petey, I may have to kill you later for being late, but right now, you’re my hero.

Except as Santa got closer, Mira saw that it wasn’t Petey after all. This Santa looked wide-shouldered and strong, like he spent all day wrestling reindeer, and he didn’t have the Santa belly strapped on. Mr. Marsh was going to throw a fit about that, but he was going to throw an even bigger one about a total stranger showing up to play Santa. And in that one instance, she was actually on his side.

Mira planted herself in front of him and asked the question kids had been asking her all holiday season:

“Who are you supposed to be?”

Santa looked at her, and his eyes widened into perfect circles.

They were gorgeous eyes, Mira reluctantly noticed: a clear, bright gray and fringed with long, dark eyelashes.

Petey had gray eyes too, but she’d only noticed it because they were rare. She hadn’t felt struck like she did now.

She wasn’t the only one. Santa was looking at her like she’d socked the breath out of him.

He finally got it together to answer her, though.

“I’m Santa,” he said, pitching his voice so that the kids would be reassured. When they erupted into cheers, he used the noise as cover to quietly tell Mira, “I’m Wade, Petey’s brother. I’m taking over for him.”

“What happened to Petey?”

Santa— Wade —gave her a wry smile she could just make out under all the white beard foofaraw. “Nothing bad, trust me. He won free tickets to Hawaii.”

Wow. Petey had won the employee raffle? Mira couldn’t say she wasn’t jealous. If they had pulled her number instead, she could have sold the prize, and that might have finished paying off her parents’ entrance fee.

But Petey was so easy to get along with that it was impossible to begrudge him his chance to kick back on some sugar sand beaches. She was willing to bet his brother agreed, and that was why he had let himself get dragged into this in the first place.

There was only one thing she didn’t understand.

“Mr. Marsh signed off on this?”

She had a hard time believing the answer was yes, so it didn’t surprise her when Wade reluctantly shook his head. If Marsh wouldn’t approve subtly mismatched elf costumes just to make his employees more comfortable on the job, there was no way he would rubber-stamp something as huge as changing out Santas a week before Christmas.

“Marsh didn’t, but HR did. I just signed a bunch of paperwork.” He frowned. “Now that I think about it, though, Petey made sure to get me in the suit before he took me down there. They probably thought Marsh already knew.”

Probably. Mira’s sneakier side approved of Petey’s little gambit, but her responsible side—which she hoped was a whole lot bigger—hoped Wade wouldn’t get blamed for any of this.

“Well,” she said crisply, “there’s nothing we can do about it now. If I know Petey, he’s already halfway to the airport, and he won’t answer his phone if he thinks someone’s calling to tell him to turn around and come back.”

Wade’s laugh didn’t sound as hearty and jubilant as a good Santa’s should, but Mira liked it. A lot.

“Sounds like you do know Petey,” he said. “I guess we’ll just have to see how it goes. You’ll ... you’ll be here this week, right?”

He made the question sound strangely urgent, like he didn’t know what he would do if she said no. Mira guessed she was the only person down here he had talked to so far, so maybe he was hoping she would teach him the ropes. And why not? It would be a good break from explaining her costume.

“All week,” she confirmed.

Wade lit up. It was like he was a Christmas tree, and all the lights had come on all at once, brightening up the silvery tinsel and the glittering ornaments. Even in the middle of a winter wonderland of chaos, it caught all of Mira’s attention.

Too bad it caught the kids’ attention, too. They’d been surprisingly good about letting Santa have a little chat with his off-kilter elf, but the sheer wattage of that smile made the chanting start up:

“Santa! Santa! Santa! ”

“We went Santa!”

Mira cleared her throat. “I think they want you,” she said, with a smile that hopefully didn’t look as awkward as it felt. “Um, the chair’s up there.”

Wade turned his head to follow her gesture, and she knew he took in the lines of hyperactive kids and scowling, impatient parents, all waiting behind the fake-snow-matted garlands that served as Santa’s velvet ropes. He straightened up, squaring his shoulders and entering an obvious “on duty” mode.

But he gave her one last look over his shoulder as he walked to the chair to start his shift, and Mira felt sensation prickle over her skin, delicate and enticing, like snowflakes starting to land.

Was she crushing on Santa?

Well, Mira thought, that’s one way to make the holidays more interesting.