A cat wearing reindeer antlers, and as he gets closer—
“Is that cat wearing a red nose that lights up?” Declan whispers out of the side of his mouth.
“Holy smokes!” I peep. “What a nutcase.” The guy comes closer and avoids eye contact. The area is loud and the glow of red and green Christmas lights makes everything a bit dim, but he stands out. I’ve never seen a cat so angry before, either. So grumpy. So pissed off.
So—oh my God.
“DAD?”
Chuckles tips his eyes up at me, the red light from his battery-powered nose making his irises glow evil red, like Dracula’s cat come to kill Santa Claus and steal the Spirit of Christmas.
And, frankly, I can’t blame him.
“What are you doing to Chuckles?”
“More like what is your mother doing to my manhood,” Dad mumbles just as Mom comes over and makes a big to-do of the cat.
“Look at Chuckley-Wuckley!” Mom squeals, holding him out from her, arms stretched with a limp animal planning how to smother her in her sleep, his eyes glowing with hatred and LED-inspired evil.
“Chuckles is figuring out how to pull your liver out through your nose and snack on it while you writhe in death throes, Mom,” I say. My cat nods slowly and Dad shivers.
“He’s so cute, though! The family Christmas picture will be so perfect.”
Dad cuts me a look that says Don’t even say it as he pulls his jacket off in the stifling mall.
But I say it.
“Family Christmas picture?” I turn fifteen again. Mom has this way of making me turn into a screaming teenager with a persecution complex. “What family Christmas picture? There will be no family Christmas picture!”
“Especially if your nip is hanging out like that,” Mom says.
Amy comes back smelling like avocado, coconut, and way too many rose hips mixed with Ralph Lauren’s Polo. Like Jamba Juice meets Milton Academy.
“Walked through the perfume counter at Macy’s, huh?” Dad asks her.
“WHAT CHRISTMAS PICTURE?” I thunder as I shove my hand down the front of my bustier.
“Is that Josh over there? In line?” Amy asks me as I wrestle my own boobs like I’m the female lead in a tentacle porn movie.
“Josh?” My old coworker? Technogeek Josh, the one I tried to throw under a bus and get Greg to call today instead of me? A red wall of fury fills me. He should be the humiliated one here, with nipple slips and peeing kids and…
I look over and sure enough, he’s in line in a group of three guys, all way too stylish to be straight. I march over, hand still down my front.
“What are you doing here?” I demand.
He looks up, face friendly. Like his friends, he’s wearing all black and grey. In a mall swimming in green and red, they’re a welcome reprieve.
“Hi, Shannon! We’re here for Hot Santa. What are you…” He and his three buddies watch me giving myself a breast exam. “Um, do you need some privacy?”
“Why are you guys in line? Do you have little kids with you?”
They instantly look uncomfortable. “No,” Josh confesses. “We’re here to see Hot Santa.” He, like my sister, holds up his phone. The same damn picture of Declan in red suspenders.
“Where did you learn about this?” I demand.
“Jessica Coffin,” Josh and his friends intone.
“You realize you’re about to sit on my boyfriend’s lap!”
Josh goes from embarrassed to mildly horrified. Then kind of interested. “Really? Declan is Hot Santa?”
“Declan McCormick?” one of his friends asks, fanning himself. “Oh, hot, hot, smoking hot Santa! I’ve got a lump of coal he can turn into a diamond by letting me shove it in—”
“Yes!” I shout. “Mine!” I growl savagely. “MINE!” My girls are in proper place, but the g-string cuts into my ass, giving me a Brazilian. It’s like a built-in Epilady string.
“That is hot,” Josh says in an admiring voice.
“No. Just…no.” I can feel a complete public meltdown coming on.
“You wear jealousy well,” one of his friends murmurs. He looks at his phone. “Hey! Coupon for Lush!” They all skitter off and I wonder what I’m missing with this whole Lush craze.
I’m not about to find out, though. Something far more lush is in my immediate future.
A strong, insistent hand circles my forearm. “Ho, ho, ho, little elf, Santa needs your help,” Declan says in a jocular voice. A bunch of kids, all of Josh’s friends, and ten women in line wave at Santa, who is now dragging me off to the employee break room, where he slams the dented metal door shut and deadbolts it. He rips the beard off, slips out of the Santa jacket, and—
Hot Santa’s hot mouth is on me. Hands roam over the slutty elf costume, soon finding their way inside the bustier, and Declan is not just readjusting my headlights. He pulls one breast out and tongues the nipple, making it rock hard.