My heart sank. No, no, no, this could not be happening. I leaned closer sniffed again and yep, I that same delicious scent wafter over to me.
“What is wrong with you?” he asked, rearing back. “Were you smelling me?”
“Mate,” I mumbled.
“Look, man, I’m not your friend. Are you on drugs?” he asked me. “That’s not cool, coming to work high. You don’t have the drugs on you, do you?”
I looked at him in horror. He thought I was using illicit recreational pharmaceuticals?
The camera flashed and his kid came over with her still developing photo in its stand up card frame. “Don’t lose it, Uncle Cliff, Mommy will want to put it on the table.”
Oh, so not his kid, but his niece? That was good to know. I didn’t dislike kids, but I would not have had any idea on what to do with one, except do what I did just now. “And don’t forget your candy cane!” I said to her brightly.
My mate snatched it from me before she could. “I’ll take that,” he said, the cutest damned grumpy expression on his face. I took a deep breath as he grabbed the kid’s hand and hurried off. Mmmm, his mate scent…
“You’ve been a naughty elf, haven’t you?” he asked me, looking down at me sternly.
I nodded.
He shook his head at me. “You know what naughty elves get?”
“Krampus points,” I said.
“From me,” he clarified. “And only one particular elf.”
My cock rose. “A spanking?” I asked excitedly.
“Mmmhmm.” He sat down on the sofa. “So bare that butt and get into position over my lap.”
“Mister elf?”a childish voice called out, tugging on my sleeve.
I startled. Damn it, I’d zoned out again. “Sorry, kid. Have another candy cane.”
Sparkles came over. “Hey,” he whispered, “you need to go do something, everyone can see that,” his eyes flicked down to my groin, “from several miles away.”
I looked down and placed the bucket in front of my raging boner. Great, just great. I’d met my mate, who seemed to want nothing to do with me, gotten a boner while working with children, and now had people staring at me with hostile suspicion.
“Thanks,” I said, taking the bucket with me and fleeing towards the bathroom. I couldn’t help myself–I looked about frantically to see if I could find the way he’d gone. I needed to know his name, where he lived, everything! Without knowing anything but what he smelled and looked like, how was I supposed to convince him that we were fated mates?
5
Bauble
“What was with you today, anyway?” Sprinkles asked me, as he settled down into his bed that night.
“Right before you came up to me, there was a guy, all in leather, wearing a Santa hat,” I said.
“Yeah, the one with whole silver fox thing going on with his hair and beard,” Sprinkles said. “What about him? Ohhh…he turned your crank, did he? Dude, you have to turn that stuff off while working this job.”
“He was my mate!” I snapped.
Sprinkles sat upright at that. “Really? Oh my goodness!”
I nodded. “Tell me about it. When not dealing with the kids in line, all I see are happy families and couples enjoying the pretty lights and displays and shopping together. We go to the food court, and there they are, enjoying dates over food. I’ve been imagining them all going home, being together in front of a warm fire, looking at the pretty lights on the Christmas tree. And here we are, two bachelors, sharing this crappy motel room.”
Sprinkles began to laugh. “You so were not imagining walking arm in arm looking at store displays and watching the lights on any Christmas tree today.”
“Just you wait. The day will come when you scent your mate and Little Sprinkles there will stand up and demand to be served.”
Sprinkles looked at me indignantly. “It’s not little! It’s average sized.” He huffed in annoyance. “I’m just a grower, not a shower. Besides, I have a mate. Found her a few weeks ago. She’s in Bunnyville, so we’re waiting to see which of us they’ll approve a transfer for.”
“I meant little as in it’s…you know what, never mind.”
I turned my light off and rolled over, pulling my sheet and coverlet over my head. The day had been a bust. I hadn’t managed to see where he went and so he was gone. I’d failed yet again and this time, it was truly life-changing. I’d found and then managed to lose my mate, all in the matter of seconds.
I was such a loser.
6
Cliff
I must be losing my mind, I decided, as I knocked on Joey Junior’s open office door the next morning.
“Hey, Cliff, come on in, man! Great job getting those baskets, dude. They are wayyyyy better than I imagined.”
“Yes, well, I wish I could take credit for those, but that was all down to the sales lady there at the Pepperidge Farms store,” I told him honestly. “I came in to ask you, though, did you see the cookie?”
“Yeah, in the fridge? Big, huh?” Joey Junior grinned inanely.
“Yes,” I conceded, “But, I’m thinking maybe we should get a second one.” I cleared my throat. “They offer sugar and gluten free ones, and I thought, well…”
Joey Junior snapped his fingers. “You’re right! Someone here could be allergic or diabetic. Can we get a big one in time for tonight’s shindig?”
“Maybe, but if not, I’m sure I could get several of their smaller cookies. We could arrange them on a plate.”
He made a shooting motion with the fingers on both hands, then looked up at the clock on his wall. “It’s not quite ten yet. If you go now, you can catch them when they first open. Use the company card, like you did yesterday. Wait right there if you have them. Just get us the goodies!”
I gave him a mock salute. “You got it, boss.”
I hurried from his office, eager to get back to my car and drive back to that twee, over-priced, shopping extravaganza. As I drove over, I wondered just what the hell was wrong with me. Sure, the cookie thing probably was a really good idea, but the only reason I’d come up with it was because after getting home, all I could think about was the look of utter devastation on that twink’s face.
I’d been a complete bastard and I knew it. I had thought about it all damned night. The kid was in a temporary job with shitty pay, probably bored with the repetitive of it all, and spent time daydreaming. So he’d seen me and developed an instant crush. It happened sometimes. There was no call for me being so incredibly rude to him about it. So, I’d racked my brain for a reason to come back to the mall, find the kid, and apologize.
Only once I’d made it there and ordered the giant cookie, I had an epiphany. I didn’t have a kid with me to stand in line to see Santa. How the fuck was I supposed to get close enough to the elf without going through the line?
I nearly gave up then. I even walked past the line for the grotto and was halfway to the doors leading out when I felt an invisible tug pulling me back. I couldn’t just leave. I had to wait for the cookie, I rationalized, so I might as well sit on this bench right here by the exit to the grotto. Maybe he’d see me and I could…what? Smile and wave? God, this was awkward.
A shadow fell over me and I looked up. An elf stood looking at me, only it wasn’t my elf. This one was cute, too, all big blue eyes and soft blonde curls, but he somehow just didn’t do it for me. Wait, what?
“You’re the gingerbread spiced daddy Bauble was all worked up over yesterday,” he said cryptically.
“Bauble?” I asked, trying to make sense of at least part of what he was saying. Did they all gorge on the candy canes in there and get high on the sugar or something?
“Yes. The brown-haired elf, you know?”
“Oh. And he’s called Bauble?” Poor guy, did the company hiring them make them use these stupid names?
“Yep, and I’m Sprinkles,” he said.
The poor soul. His job sucked even worse than mine. I at least did not have to go by some ridiculous m
oniker as part of my job.
He grinned and gave me a wink. “I was on a potty break,” he said. “I’ll go tell him to come on out. He’s been freaking out since you left yesterday. Pretty sure he cried himself to sleep.”
My heart sank. Shit. Had I been that mean? I thought back and winced. I’d called him jingle boy, so yes, I had been. A simple spoken apology was not going to cut it.
Sprinkles bounced off, his pointed elf shoes and hat tinkling merrily. Yep, their job sucked way worse than mine.
Moments later, Bauble came tearing out. “You came back!” he said breathlessly. “So, you feel the pull, too?”
“Um, I felt the need to come back to apologize for being a big jerk yesterday, yes.”
He nodded eagerly, eyes shining. “It’s because we’re mates. Fate has brought us together.”
Whoa! Hold it there, Sparky! Mates? Oh, my god, he was one of those guys who develops an instant crush and starts planning the wedding.
“Yeah, um, no. I just didn’t like how rude I’d been. I wasn’t at my best yesterday and couldn’t leave things like that.” I ran a hand down my beard. His eyes tracked my movement, his adorable pink tongue darting out just the tip to wet his lips.
Hold the phone, adorable? Nope, not going down that fantasy road along with him.
“Yeah, I’m so glad you didn’t,” he said breathlessly, closing his eyes, and fuck me, he really was smelling the air. Was it my body wash? No one else had said anything about the scent being strong. I turned my head and tried to discretely smell my shoulder. All I could smell was the leather of my jacket.
“You smell great,” he said, his voice all dreamy, his eyes now open. “Like warm gingerbread.”
The pieces fell into place now. So that was why that Sprinkles dude had called me ‘gingerbread spiced’. Though it still didn’t make complete sense. My body wash was grapefruit based, nothing gingery about it at all.
“Well, like I was saying, I really am sorry for being jerk.” I stood up, eager to get away before I fell down the rabbit hole any farther.
“I get it, it was unexpected and it probably felt as weird to you as it did me,” he said, still in la la land, though he took a step back to give me room.
I gestured in the general direction of the cookie shop. “I, ah, have a cookie to go get for the company Christmas party.”
“Great!” he said, hooking his arm around mine. “I’m on break I can go with you and we can get to know one another better.”
I knew I should say no, but there it was again, that damned gut of mine. I was afraid it had lost its mind right along with me because what it was telling me but to go with the flow? It wasn’t making any damned sense. But, I’d promised myself to always go with my gut because of what happened after the last time I didn’t, so I looked down at him, falling into the deepness of his eyes.
“Sure,” I said. “That’d be great!”
7
Bauble
There was something not quite right and even someone as big a screw up as me could see it a mile off.
“Can humans smell their fated mates?” I asked Glitter, the elf assigned to play this grotto’s Santa, as we closed up shop for the night. I figured he would know, he was three hundred years old now and had been doing this Santa gig in different places for the last eighty so had been around humans plenty.
“Nope,” he replied. “They feel the pull, sure, but they don’t know what it is. You’ll have to spell things out, Bauble. You need to get him to see you’re serious and that what he knows as a human doesn’t really apply. It’s supernatural, right? We’re elves and he’s gonna live practically forever, with you, happily ever after, with Christmas the family biz.”
“Yeah, I kind of have to reveal that I’m an elf, huh?” Oh, jeeze. He was gonna freak out, I was sure. No, no, there had to be a way. Other elves mated humans. Look at Kristina Kringle, The Santa’s own niece. She’d mated a human and was mom to his human kid now, too. So, there was a way to reveal the whole secret world of magic and elves without making him lose his mind. I just had to figure out what that way was, for him.
“Any suggestions on how to do it without making him flip out?” I asked.
“Find out what he’s like, when he’s at home. Something will come to you,” was Glitter’s only advice.
“Right.” Find out what he’s like at home. Well, I’d managed to get his name from him on the way to the cookie store. Cliff Reinhardt. He’d also said he had a company Christmas party that night, the one the cake sized cookie was for, so if I could get Aunt Prancine to get Uncle Bough to look him up in the Naughty or Nice records, I could get his address. Surely that was okay, right? I mean, this was an existential commandment from the universe, surely! Fated mates. Destiny!
I wasted no time getting the rejected candy canes into a large paper bag, sealing it, and putting the “To Santa. C/O Department of Candy Cane Fulfillment, North Pole” and ran out to stuff it into the mailbox just outside the shopping center. It didn’t matter if they ere crushed, the elves in Fulfillment ere going to remake them into what they should be, anyway. Then I hopped into the car Glitter drove us to the mall and back in, letting Sprinkles call shotgun without bargaining with him.
Back at the motel, as I got out of the car, I asked Glitter. “Hey, can I borrow the globe home? I want to see if Aunt Prancine can help me find where my mate lives.”
“No can do,” Glitter said. “I’m not to let it out of my possession.” He looked at me quizzically. “Didn’t you bring your tree comm with you?”
“No, I didn’t even know those worked here! I thought we had to use those dungeon phone things!”
“Cell phones,” he corrected, snorting. “Dungeon phones, that’s a good one. And no, why would we need those? Anyone who actually needs to call us using human tech would just ring the motel or the mall.”
“Oh, right.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his tree comm. “Here, you can borrow mine. Give it back to me tomorrow. I’m off to go watch Frosty the Snowman. Gotta love the classics, man.”
I took it from him gratefully. “Thank you!” In the room, Sprinkles was already in the shower, singing. I shook my head, hoping Star could hear me through his racket. I’d have gone outside to make the call, but I couldn’t risk someone seeing me talk into the brooch. Revealing anything Pole related to anyone except to someone in human government with the right level of clearance or the head of the bank we partnered with for our human world financial needs was strictly forbidden, with one exception: fated mates.
I pinned it to my uniform, not even bothering to change yet. Tapping it, I waited for it to connect, which it did instantly, to my relief.
“Hi, Glitter, what’cha need, hun?” Star asked.
“Umm, it’s not Glitter, he loaned me his tree comm. I need to speak to Aunt Prancine.”
“Bauble? That you?”
“Yes, Star, it’s me, Bauble.”
“Okay, hang on a sec.”
I blinked in surprise as the song Sleigh Bells began to play. That was new. We’d never had hold music before. They only got to sing the first few words, though, before the song was abruptly cut off.
“Bauble?” It was Aunt Prancine. “Is everything all right?”
“I found my fated Mate!” I burst out and began crying.
“Honey? That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I sobbed. “But I need to go to his house so we can have the elf magic talk and I don’t know where he lives.”
“Oh, honey dumpling, did you forget to ask him that?”
I sniffled. “I got his name, his whole name, though.” I wasn’t about to tell her we’d only spoken twice, for the sum total of maybe fifteen minutes.
“You give it to me and I’ll have Bough get the address. You stand by, okay? I’ll make him do it right away.”
“It’s Cliff Reinhardt.”
“Got it. Cliff Reinhardt, and you’re in North Bay.”
“Uh h
uh.”
“I’ll comm you back in a few minutes. Go dry your eyes and put on something nice. You’re going to go get your man.” She disconnected the call.
Sprinkles came out. I stared down at his reindeer slippers in awe. The nose lit up!
He saw me looking. “Awesome, aren’t they? I got them at the department store by the eyeglasses place during my dinner break.”
“I love them,” I said.
“Yeah, well, this was the last pair, but they had snowman ones left. Only ten ninety-nine.”
“I have to have a pair,” I said.
“Yeah, you totally do,” he said. “They are so soft!”
“I should shower before I change,” I said. I couldn’t go to his house like this. What if he came home and I looked and smelled like crap? He’d ask me to leave without hearing a word I had to say and there would go our chance at true love.
8
Cliff
When I got home from the party, I could still smell peppermint schnapps. I showered, trying to get the smell to go away, pissed off at having the drink spilled on me, permeating everything.
It was the damnedest thing, though. I could still smell it faintly in my bedroom. I decided it was because of my shirt in the hamper and went to bed. For some reason, my brain latched onto the whole damned peppermint thing and run with it. I no sooner fell asleep and began dreaming than peppermint candy canes began dancing. Correction– in my dream, I was driving down the boulevard, looking at the Christmas lights that hung from the street lights. They flashed, making it look like they were dancing.
“Wonder if the green ones are also peppermint,” I mused aloud.
“Nope,” said Bauble, from where he suddenly appeared in the car’s passenger seat. “Those are spearmint.”
“Huh. Not quite the same thing.”
“Nope. One is cool mint, the other a warm mint.”
Gingerbread Spiced Daddy Page 2