Chapter Three

Douglas

I stood back and looked at the Christmas tree I picked up at the local thrift store. It wasn’t great, but it also wasn’t too bad. I wouldn’t call it a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. But it wasn’t going in any home magazines either. Then again, this house wasn’t going in any magazines on its best day. That didn’t make it any less wonderful to me.

This house represented years of hard work, perseverance, and sacrifice. I could’ve left my herd years earlier, found a studio apartment, and called it good, but that would’ve made them right—that I was nothing. Instead, I managed to follow my dreams and, no matter how it ended up at the end, I would always be proud of that.

Sure, there was still a lot of work that needed to be done around this place. Still, I’d accomplished so much already: Everything was painted. The carpets that needed to be replaced were finished. The others that could survive a few more years had been professionally steam cleaned. There was a new faucet in the bathroom. It was coming along nicely.

I was beyond grateful to be able to afford a place in San Diego. The home prices here were through the roof on the best of days and when I looked here, it was more to daydream than to be where I laid down roots. But the stars aligned and here I was.

I’d endured so much to save up enough to get this place, and now that I was here, I loved it, flaws and all.

“Yeah, I think it’ll do.”

I still needed to get some decorations, but I saw that the big-box store had a tree-in-a-box you could buy for only a few dollars with some special doorbuster sale this weekend. Maybe I’d get up early and grab one of those, or maybe hit up the thrift store again and see if any ornaments showed up. Whatever the case, I was glad to be welcoming the Christmas spirit into my new home.

Christmas hadn’t always been a merry time for me. My father tried to make it special, and I appreciated it. But after my omega dad died, it had a shadow over it and adding to the mix all of the other deer in my herd being awful—yeah, it wasn’t a good time. I would pretend, of course. My father deserved to have his hard work rewarded.

From my very first shift, when I ended up being a reindeer instead of a white-tailed deer like the rest of the herd, I was the outcast. I somehow won the recessive gene jackpot, although I knew that there were whispers about my omega dad being a cheater. He wasn’t. My parents were fated mates and loved each other more than anything, and they knew it. Didn’t stop those rumors from being awful.

The others didn’t whisper with me, though. They were loud and proud about their disdain for my beast. The teasing and being left out was bad most of the time, but doubly so every year at Christmas. One year, I was called Prancer. One year, Rudolph. One year, Dancer. They always picked a different reindeer and really ramped up the teasing when everyone was supposed to be merry and joy-filled.

At first, my dad said it was a teenage thing. Teenagers were mean. They projected their insecurities onto other people through teasing. “It’ll get better,” he had said. And I believed him. I did.

But then my teens turned into my twenties, and it didn’t get any better. Sure, it looked different, but, at the end of the day, I was still the outcast loser who didn’t belong there in their eyes, but I stayed. My dad didn’t mind me living at the house, and I was able to bank paycheck after paycheck after paycheck—which was good because I needed it.

And then I finally had enough. I searched the country trying to find the perfect place to live. I found gorgeous house after gorgeous house, but nothing felt right. I kept going back to my desire to live on the West Coast, a place I could never afford. But then I discovered auctions. Even with a house on auction, one that needed a lot of work, I barely had enough. But I had enough. And now I was finally home. My new home.

Did my beast long to be with the herd? I didn’t think so, and I really focused on that a lot. I didn’t want to harm him by leaving. But also, he didn’t have a social life there either. The other deer didn’t want to go running with him, and he was always left walking through the marshy areas alone. No. This was better.

A knock at the door startled me, and I nearly knocked over the tree I had just put up. I jogged to the door, and, when I opened it, standing there was the electrician. I’d been waiting for him to be able to fit me into his schedule for weeks. There were some things I didn’t mind attempting on my own; electrical work wasn’t one of them.

“I’ll show you where I’m having the problem.” I led him to the bedroom, where the light kept shorting out. At first,, I thought it was the secondhand lamp I purchased, but then I tried others. It was definitely the outlet and I crossed my fingers and toes that it was going to be an easy fix.

The electrician spent about ten minutes before coming back to me with the bad news. “I can fix that…ish.”

Ish?

I did not like the sound of that. Ish is fine for things that don’t set your house on fire, and faulty electricity did exactly that.

“It’ll buy you two, three months at the most. But really, you need to rewire this place. That sounds scary and huge, but since you just moved in and don’t have a lot of furniture yet, it’s not that bad.”

It wasn’t scary sounding to me; it was expensive sounding. And as careful as I’d been with my money, it had been a stretch to buy this place, and I was nearly depleted.

“How much?”

He held up one finger indicating I should wait and then started typing into a calculator on his clipboard. He jotted down number after number as he went before circling one and showing it to me.

“Okay, that could be worse.” I wasn’t exactly sure how because it was far more than I had in savings right now. The faucet breaking and the water everywhere hadn’t helped. But I’d figure it out.

“It’s really as low as I can go, but I understand if you want to ask for bids.”

Even if I wanted to, it had been difficult enough to get him here in the first place. Getting a new electrician to even do the bid was going to drag this out far longer than it sounded like it would be safe.

“No. I want to go with you.” I grabbed the back of my neck, tension running through it. “Okay, can you do the makeshift-ish fix until I save this up?”

We went back and forth on the details. When he left, I was confident the house wasn’t going to burn down but also well aware I needed to do something soon.

What I needed was to win the lottery or a side gig. Side gig it was.

I thought about delivery, but I hated driving in this area—or anywhere, really. And even if I didn’t, I’d have to get lucky to make any money with my car being the ancient piece of crap that it was. That left ridesharing off the table too.

There had to be other options.

I grabbed my laptop, opened it on the kitchen counter, and started searching. There were a lot of shops that needed one- or two-day-a-week employees, but those days tended to be the same ones I worked my day job. I kept looking and looking and looking, eventually going to the local free paper’s online Help Wanted section—something I hadn’t realized still existed.

Most of the ads were scams, with red flags waving. MLM recruitments. Ridiculously high per-hour jobs that couldn’t be legit. Selling plasma. One after another, I crossed them off.

Then I saw it. Wanted: Reindeer.

It went on about renting out your herd for a Christmas event, which had me thinking they meant more than one reindeer. I could rent myself out, but I didn’t have friends to bring along. Being that it was for a Santa thing, my reindeer could steal the show. Unlike natural beasts, mine would understand that it was a job and wouldn’t try to stomp on children who were pulling on him. He wouldn’t like it, but he’d deal.

Then I saw where the party was going to be. Animals, the local shifter club.

Perfect.

I could just go in as myself—no need for a trailer or all that bullshit. I’d attend like a regular interview, shift to show them my beast. Best of all, I’d make what appeared to be really good money hanging out with Santa. Heck, he could call me Prancer or Dancer or Rudolph. Who cared? He was paying me.

And by the looks of it, between what he was offering and what I had, I’d be able to get the electricity done before Christmas.

What more did I need than that?