Naughty & Nice: A Holiday Storybook Novella

by Angelique Jurd

  “I know, but -”

  “No, there is no but. You fucking promised! Is this what promises are to you? No wonder Humans don’t believe in you anymore.”

  Ouch! Low blow. Probably deserved but low all the same.

  “Would you just listen to me? Pascal told me what ha -”

  “You were talking to Pascal? As if.”

  “Will you stop fucking interrupting?” Gods, how do these two function? Between my brother who is the biggest drama queen in creation and Lars interrupting, it’s a wonder anything actually gets done. “Lars, it’s not true. I’ve never taken anyone up in The Sleigh. Ever.”

  Before Lars can answer, Otto turns on him. “This? This is what you’re upset about?” This is why I had to take care of myself last night.” Overshare, Otto, overshare. “You think Rorik took someone up in The Sleigh?”

  Lars looks confused. “Basil and Matthieu said –"

  “And you believe them over your husband? Your very own husband who is Rorik’s brother and knows him better than anyone?” He splays his finger over his ample chest in horror. “I am wounded. Wounded!”

  I bite my cheek to keep from laughing. Otto’s penchant for being overdramatic might drive me insane from time to time but it comes in handy.

  “No of course not baby,” Lars stammers. “But –"

  “But, nothing. Rorik has never taken anyone in The Sleigh. Including me.”

  Do these two never talk to each other? I decide that’s a question I’m not going to ask. Otto’s words bother me though. I might not be quite the Prima Donna that Pascal is, but not taking my own brother in The Sleigh is kind of shitty all the same. I make a mental note to rectify that.

  “So, my Lars, if you want to lick my snow cone anytime soon, you will help my brother sort this shit out.”

  Wow, that’s a visual I really did not need. Otto turns to me and pats my shoulder.

  “It’s going to be okay you’ll see. But when you do get that Elf back, you take good care of him or you’ll have me to answer to.”

  He gives me a patronizing look that makes me want to remind him that I’m older than him by ten minutes. Jeez. He goes inside, leaving Lars and me in an uneasy silence. Finally, I speak.

  “He won’t take my calls or messages. I went around but he won’t come to the door.”

  “I’m sorry Rorik. I should have known better.”

  “Why? Everyone believed it.”

  “Yeah but…”

  “I made it easy for them to believe it.” I am not above groveling right now. “Lars, please, you have to help me.”

  BODEN

  When I wake it’s cold and gloomy in my room. I grope for the comforter and glance at the time on my phone, ignoring the screen full of notifications. It’s after four; I’ve slept all day.

  The phone gives a shrill ring and I fumble it, nearly dropping it. It will just be Rorik, so I toss it back on my nightstand and pull my pillow back over my head. Seconds later, it rings again.

  “Go away,” I yell at it. From the end of the bed, Button whines and wags his tail. “Not you puppy. Him.”

  The ringing stops. Starts again. I grab it, intending to switch it off but stop when I see the name on the screen. Lars. I was expecting Rorik. I swipe the screen open.

  “What?”

  “Oh, thank the Gods. Listen -”

  “If you’re ringing to tell me you told me so, I get it. You told me so.”

  “No, that’s not what I’m calling about.”

  “Then what?”

  “They lied, Boden. He never took Matthieu up.”

  I stare at my phone. “What?”

  “Look, just talk to him…”

  “I don’t want to talk to him. I thought he cared about me, but he doesn’t. He lied to me.”

  “Did you not just hear me?” Lars asks. “No, he didn’t. They lied. He hasn’t taken anyone up, ever.”

  “Why should I believe you?” I pinch the bridge of my nose. Button barks and I prod him with my toe to get him to stop. “Anyway, I thought you threw a bottle at him.”

  “I did.”

  “Good. Did it hit him?”

  Lars sighs. “No, it didn’t, and I shouldn’t have thrown it because he didn’t lie to you, Basil did, and if you just talk to Rorik and let him explain, you’ll understand.”

  “Why? What’s to understand? I’m just another bauble on his Christmas tree.”

  “Oh fuck me, tell me you did not just say that? You’re as bad as he is. Talk to him.”

  “Lars, even if I wanted to, which I don’t, he’s getting ready to leave.”

  A string of expletives makes me lean away from the phone until Lars has finished listing my pedigree in startling technicolor and with the inclusion of reindeer.

  “Go and answer your door kid.”

  “What? Why? There’s nobody at the door.”

  I’m treated to another earful of colorful language, this time something about Elves who drive like Human grandmothers. I decide Lars is having some kind of mental breakdown and am about to tell him I’m going back to sleep when someone hammers on the front door.

  “Was that someone knocking? Did I just hear knocking?” Lars yells down the line. “About fucking time. That will be Rorik. Let him in, hear him out, and then decide or so help me I will come over there and throw a bottle at you.”

  That doesn’t even make sense, but he’s already hung up. Shaking my head, I drag myself downstairs. Button beats me there and turns in circles, barking, waiting for me to open the door.

  I am in no way prepared for the sight that greets me on my front porch. Rorik, dressed in The Suit, is almost hidden by an oversized white teddy bear and a huge armful of roses. Out in the street, my neighbors are forming a group around The Sleigh and the team of reindeer stomping their hooves on the cobbles. If it starts snowing, the image will be complete.

  “What do you want Rorik?”

  “I didn’t lie to you, Small One. I swear.”

  I sigh. Does it matter if he lied or not? I mean, yes, of course, the lying part matters but won’t we eventually end up here anyway. I’m a non-magical Elf who repairs computers and he’s… Santa. It can’t possibly work.

  “Okay. You didn’t lie. Have a good trip.” I start to close the door but he’s too quick for me, elbowing it open and leaning that ridiculous bear against it.

  I get my first real look at The Suit and now understand what people mean when they say they forgot to breathe. Even the porn movies don’t do him justice. Everything clings to him, displaying muscle, not hiding it. His tunic is unbuttoned to mid-chest. His hair shimmers like polished silver and his beard seems just a little longer.

  He’s breathtaking.

  “Boden, please.”

  I’m tired, I’m cold, and yesterday’s humiliation is still a fresh wound. Seeing him in his Holder role reminds me of everything I am not. Everything I can’t be. “What do you want from me Rorik?” I yell, uncaring of the way the crowd in the street stop paying attention to The Sleigh and start paying attention to me. “What do you want?”

  “You, Small One. I want you.”

  Oh, please. Spare me. “Why? I’m nobody. I’m not even magic.”

  Rorik’s eyes soften and he cups my cheek with his palm. The feel of his skin on mine sends a shiver through me. “You’re somebody to me. You’re magic to me.”

  “How do you know that will be enough?”

  “Because I know that you’re enough. After just two weeks, you’re more than enough for me.”

  I want to believe him. I want to crawl up into his arms and let him hold me, but my fear is stronger.

  “How do you know we can even work?”

  He barks a laugh. “Because if my brother and Lars can work, we can.”

  “I don’t know what that means. Rorik, I’m tired. Please –"

  “You can sleep in The Sleigh.”

  “Rorik.”

  “Small One, listen to me. If you don’t get that cute little ass o
ut of those pajamas, into some clothes, and then into my Sleigh, I promise you I will cancel Christmas. Do you want that?”

  My nosey neighbors fall silent.

  “You wouldn’t.” He wouldn’t. Would he? “Would you?”

  “Care to try me, Small One? I have just spent the worst twenty-four hours of my existence, terrified I had lost any hope of being with you again. If you don’t come with me, I will cancel Christmas.”

  Horrified, I realize he’s not joking. He will actually do it. Cancel Christmas. And it will be my fault. Rorik takes my hand.

  “I didn’t lie to you Boden. I’ve never taken anyone up in The Sleigh. Basil must have overheard me talking to the reindeer grooms and asking them to calibrate everything for a second being since I’ve never taken anyone up before and decided to cause trouble.”

  “You really have never taken anyone up?”

  “Nobody. Not even my brother, Otto.”

  Wow. “And you really want to take me?”

  “Small One, if you don’t go and get dressed now, I am going to throw you over my shoulder and take you in your pajamas.”

  “You can try,” I retort.

  Rorik leans in. “You have five minutes.”

  I start to turn away then remember something. “What about Button?”

  “Lars is going to come and get him and take him to Poinsettia Place in about an hour. We need to leave him a key. You have four minutes.”

  “What should I wear?”

  “Clothes. I don’t care what you wear, just hurry up.”

  I’m halfway up the stairs when I spin around and run back to the door. I grab the bear, the bunch of roses, and kiss Rorik on the mouth.

  As I take the stairs two at a time, I hear him tell me I have three minutes.

  ***

  This.

  Is.

  Awesome!

  I don’t know where to look first. From the outside, The Sleigh looks like… well… a sleigh. On the inside it’s like Aladdin’s Cave of Wonders. The dash alone makes me drool. The whole thing can be pre-programed, set to run, and between the onboard tech and the reindeer, all Rorik has to do is sit back and enjoy the ride.

  For the first two minutes, I look over the side and watch the world go by below us. Eventually Rorik grabs the tail of my coat and hauls me over next to him.

  “You’re making me nervous, hanging over the edge like that, Small One,” he says, winding his arm around my shoulders. “How about we don’t kick this off with you falling over the side?”

  Sounds reasonable to me. I lean forward to examine the various screens and options only to remember I’m not supposed to be curious about The Sleigh. I start to sit back but a flashing pink light to the left catches my eye: GIFT DELIVERY DESTINATION. To the side is a touch screen with the world map. New Zealand and Australia are currently flashing a light green.

  “That’s where we start,” Rorik explains.

  “You mean we’re going to New Zealand? And Australia? Tonight?”

  “Why do you think we start so early?”

  Oh. Time zones. Right. I huddle against his side and hum Lady GaGa to myself until a yellow screen with numbers clicking over grabs my attention. Trying not to look like I’m checking it out, I narrow my eyes in an attempt to figure out what it does.

  “Seconds until first delivery,” Rorik whispers in my ear. He presses a kiss to the side of my head. “Explore, Small One.”

  “Really? You don’t mind.”

  “Go ahead. Just stay away from the sides.” He clasps his hands behind his head and crosses his ankles. Autopilot in a Sleigh! Who knew? “We’ll have some dinner soon.”

  I whip my head around to look at him. “We have dinner?”

  Rorik nods. “Mmmhmmm. I think Astrid likes you better than me – she’s packed petit fours. I never get petit fours.”

  Grinning, I give him a peck on the cheek. “I’ll share.”

  “You better.”

  I turn back to the dashboard of flashing colors, trying to catalog everything in my mind. Who programmed this? Crispy Crackers, hopefully not Basil. Without thinking, I give voice to my fear and set off a long diatribe from Rorik about what he intends doing when he gets his hands on “little piece of bottom feeding fucking scum. Even Gremlins are better than he is”, from which I surmise we’re quite safe. At least on that score.

  “You do know that this is the most amazing set up I’ve ever seen, right?”

  “The most amazing huh?”

  “Mmmmhmmm. The GPS system alone is incredible. I mean you don’t actually have to do anything, just programme in the addresses and it will pick out the routes and everything.”

  “Everything?” His eyes sparkle with amusement.

  “Oh yeah.” I bite my lip and make an effort to stop babbling. “Sorry, it’s just really cool.”

  Rorik grins at me. “Don’t be sorry. It’s cute. You don’t even drive a car but you’re planning a Sleigh trip with the gizmos on my dash. I don’t know even know what half of them are for.”

  “Well yeah, but cars are dangerous.” I prod at a set of buttons and a canopy rises over our heads.

  “Says the Elf in a Sleigh currently flying at higher altitude than most jet planes.”

  “It’s different.” I don’t know how - oh wait yes, I do. “It’s magic.”

  Rorik’s laughter fills the air as I watch the destination screen turn the map of New Zealand a darker shade of green.

  We seem to be in the air for days thanks to the changing time zones. Somewhere over the equator we have the petit fours and fresh fruit. Just before we go to Australia, we make a stop on a small island to the West of New Zealand for a bathroom break.

  As we leave the United States and begin the last leg of our trip toward home, excitement begins to give way to fatigue. I snuggle in against Rorik and he pulls a heavy red blanket up over my shoulders. On the floor, by his feet, is the insanely long print out with the list of Naughty & Nice.

  “You know,” I say, stifling a yawn, “you don’t have to use print outs. We could set up a database, write a small app, and set it all up on a tablet for you.”

  “Could we just?”

  “Uh-huh.” My eyelids are getting heavy.

  “You know, you’re going to have to stick around if you’re going to make me use all this technology.”

  Stick around? Like forever? I give myself a mental shake. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

  “I’m not planning on going anywhere,” I mumble.

  “Good.” His fingers are warm in my hair as I drift off to sleep. “I love you, Small One.”

  “I love you too, Santa.”

  RORIK

  Humans get a lot of things wrong. Especially about Elves. What we look like, how we act, where we live. I guess we kind of encourage it as it helps to keep the magic alive - so to speak. Boden would groan about that if he was awake, but he’s been curled up under a heavy red blanket since we left the Americas.

  Elves aren’t that different to Humans really. Oh, we don’t have the same hang ups about gender or sexuality or skin color, but we can be just as mean-spirited about other things. Like what we think an employer owes us or how we see a colleague.

  One thing I think Humans do get right - at least some of them do - is that Christmas isn’t about gifts and things. It’s about love. Loving and being loved for who and what we are.

  Real love doesn’t come in bright paper and a ribbon. It’s unexpected and sometimes hard to recognize.

  Sometimes it’s not at all what we thought it would be.

  Sometimes it has messy hair, an absent mind, a ridiculous dog, and makes you feel like everything fits at last.

  And that is the best gift of all.

  FIN

  Thanks

  2019 has been an odd year. Nothing has gone terribly wrong – but nothing has gone especially right either. By the time December rolled around in my little corner of the world, I was feeling tired and unexcited about almost everything. Th
en proverbial final straw came when we changed ISP companies and somehow ended up with Internet service for nearly two weeks. It was during this time I had the idea for Rorik – a sexy technophobic Santa whose computer system goes down just before Christmas. About five minutes later, as I sat staring into my glass of wine, Boden came to me in all his awkward non-magic Elf glory. About twenty-four hours later I had a vague outline, a stunning cover, and an idea the story might just work. Maybe. Four days later, I was finished. It turns out that not being able to get into Facebook is great for productivity. Who knew?

  Naughty & Nice is the first story in which I’ve ever attempted to world build and I hope that those of you are used to reading fantasy and sci-fi will forgive me my clumsiness. The good news (or maybe the bad, depending on your point of view) is that I really want to try doing it some more. I had so much fun with Edelweiss Grove and the beings who live there. Rorik and Boden have been a lot of fun to hang out with and I’m more than a little curious about some of their friends. Who knows – maybe we’ll pop back to The Grove at some point?

  As always, I need to thank some people:

  - JJ Harper and Angie Fiedler Sutton both of whom, day in and day out, refused to let me wallow in self-pity and who kept kicking my butt back on track;

  - The Drafon Slayers (yes, it’s a deliberate typo) – you know who you are and how important you are and why;

  - May Dawney – May isn’t just a brilliant cover designer (though she certainly is that), she has been an extraordinary friend and honorary daughter who has been there through every single challenge this year and without whom I probably would have given up months ago;

  - Lauren Smith, my P.A. Lauren is the Queen of Organization. How she has not throttled my disorganized, chaotic ass I do not know but I am immensely grateful to have her on my team – she’s making a huge difference to everything;

  - Penny Tsallos. Sometimes you meet someone by accident and it just works (ask Rorik!) – you click. Penny and I just click. She’s my editor and far more importantly my darling friend. She doesn’t just make sure the letters and commas and apostrophes are in the right place – she makes sure my head and my heart in the right place. And nobody makes a better Gibson;