Bite Me, Santa
Brittany Cournoyer
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Epilogue
Read the Whole Series!
Untitled
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Brittany Cournoyer
Copyright © 2019 by Brittany Cournoyer
All rights reserved. No part of this may be reproduced, copied or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places or events are purely the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, actual events, establishments, businesses or locales is purely coincidental.
The amazing book cover was done by:
Designs by Morningstar
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Formatted by: Kate Hawthorne
Edited by: Devon Vesper
Proofread by: Kelly Miller
Created with Vellum
Chapter 1
Deck the halls with loads of bullshit, blah blah blah blah blah, the holidays could kiss my ass.
As I made my way down the street toward my office, I groaned at all the silver bells and stars that glinted in the sunlight and flipped to yet another station when a song wishing my day be merry and bright came through the speakers. My day was mediocre and dull at best, until I was forced to see what looked like an ad for Christmas had exploded on Havens street and made its way down Danbury Drive. Why must the town go nuts every year and force the people to be subjected to such torture? Not everyone liked Christmas—especially me. To quote the old curmudgeon Scrooge…bah fucking humbug! Or some variation like that.
Driving through the gates at work, where I was employed at a call center, wasn’t even better. The too cheerful security guard who donned a bright red Santa hat always offered me a candy cane every day for a week leading up to Christmas. Even though I denied the offending piece of peppermint candy—I hated peppermint—he still asked me every single day. I had to hand it to the guy, his persistence was admirable, but he needed to give it up. And the best part of all? I’d been working at the company for three years, and each year it’d been the same way.
The man was in his mid-fifties with graying hair and laugh lines at the corners of his eyes. Considering he always had a smile on his face, I knew they were lines from laughter. And every time I turned down his candy cane, the smile never faltered.
“Candy cane, Mr. Lassiter?” Jed, the guard asked as he held out the red and white striped piece of garbage.
“Nope,” I said as I withheld a sigh. When would he give it up already? “But thanks for asking.”
I drove through the gate and went to the parking lot. One of the perks about arriving early was getting a decent space. Getting to work even ten minutes early meant arriving to a cluster fuck of cars, and the parking lot wars commenced with everyone trying to get the closest space to the door so they didn’t have to walk from the back forty to the entrance. Intense heat in the summer and brutal cold in the winter made it even worse, which was why I arrived fifteen minutes early every single day and enjoyed my first cup of morning coffee while everyone else duked it out over a parking space. Various looks of smugness and defeat generally let me know who won the battle—not to mention blue lips or sweat stains, depending on the time of year. You’d think they’d figure it out already and arrive a few minutes earlier like I did, but maybe they enjoyed the bickering. Whatever the reason, it wasn’t my problem, and I had a cup of coffee waiting for me. Since I was the first one there, I always made the coffee, which meant I got dibs on the first cup of the fresh brew.
“Morning, Reed,” my coworker, Troy, said a few minutes later as he walked into the break room.
“Morning,” I muttered as I poured my coffee.
I noted how he was a bit earlier than usual, but I kept that thought to myself as I added a bit of half-and-half and French vanilla creamer. It wasn’t lost to me how there was an additional bottle of peppermint creamer on the top shelf of the fridge, and I squelched the urge to gag. I really did not like peppermint, and the fact people added the flavor to their coffee was such a weird thing to me. Why ruin perfectly good coffee with such a ghastly flavor?
As I mixed my coffee, I tracked Troy’s movements as he reached in the refrigerator, pulled out the exact bottle I’d been scoffing at, and added a generous amount to his mug. After grabbing a clean spoon from the drawer, he gave the liquid a quick stir before taking a tentative sip.
“There’s just something about the taste of peppermint to get you in the Christmas spirit, don’t you think?”
I opened my mouth to tell him my exact thought about the holiday when loud voices let me know my other coworkers had arrived. I knew it’d only be a matter of seconds before they filed into the room to argue over the coffee and who had to make another pot. It was amazing with as much bickering as they did that any work was able to get done, but it seemed as if coffee was the magic brew that made everything better. Once everyone had a cup of the potion, a peacefulness settled over the office and lasted throughout the day, just so it could begin the next morning. Not that I was antisocial, but since I had my coffee and had work to do, I took the din of their bantering as my cue to get the hell out of there.
“Have a good day, Troy,” I said as I lifted my cup in salute and quickly left the break room.
As I made my way to my cubicle, I saw that someone had taken it upon themselves to add some Christmas decorations to the office. A Christmas tree that had yet to be decorated stood in the corner, and decals of elves, presents, and a giant Santa Claus were stuck to the wall. I sighed when I turned the corner to where my cubicle was and saw the Christmas lights that’d been strung across the partitions that separated the different workspaces. Jesus, all the place needed was fake snow to make the place more miserable…and look at that? Right on the window, someone had added fake snow as well as some clings of children bundled up in winter gear amid a snowball fight.
I sat down heavily on my chair and powered on my computer. While I waited for the processor to boot up, I sipped some more of my coffee and grabbed my headset. The phone would start ringing any second, and it was best to have my headset on so I could listen to customers complain about insurance claims and appeal any denials they received. My job wasn’t the best, but it paid the bills while I took night courses to obtain my degree in social work. Getting my degree in that particular field was extremely important to me, and I was working my ass off to make it happen.
Finally, my computer loaded, and I pulled up the program with the basic scripts and links to help customers or file complaints, while I waited for the first call to come through. I didn’t have to wait long, and a few minutes later, a beeping filled my ear through the headset.
“Thank you for calling Customer Care Services. This is Reed speaking. How may I help you?” I cringed at how phony my voice sounded, but the irate customer was more apt to work with you if your voice was welcoming.
Hours passed with phone call after phone call until it was time to break for lunch. I made my way with the rest of the crowd down to the food truck parked at the corner, and after waiting my turn in line, I had a hearty bite of a gyro in my mouth. I moaned when the hearty flavor of the lamb exploded on my tongue, and after washing it d
own with soda, lunch was nearly over. I had just enough time to make a pit-stop in the bathroom before getting back to my desk to clock in.
When I arrived, I sat down and reached to grab my headset when my eyes zeroed in on an object on my desk. It hadn’t been there before I’d left, so I wasn’t sure who did it. I stood up and looked over the partitions to look at my coworkers to see if anyone looked guilty, but everyone was busy logging back into their computers or already answering calls, so I had no idea who did it.
Glancing down at the candy cane that was lying across my keyboard, I wrinkled my nose in disgust. Maybe I was overthinking it, and someone had given one to everyone? It was probably no big deal, and I was making something out of nothing. It was a quick remedy to get rid of the candy cane, and after lobbing it into the trash can under my desk, I put on my headset to get back to work.
“I hate Christmas,” I breathed out, making sure to speak quietly so no one could hear me. “I can’t wait for it to be over.”
And then I went to work answering my next call.
Chapter 2
It’s beginning to look a lot like screw this.
I groaned when I made my way to my car early the next morning and found the windshield covered in a heavy blanket of white snow. I hadn’t even seen snow in the forecast the night before, so of course, my ice scraper was somewhere very safe…inside my car. Using my jacket-covered arm, I quickly brushed off the back, passenger side window so I could pry the door open. It took a few extra minutes to clean off my car, and by the time I was finished, my hands and face were popsicles. Why in the hell did I live where the air hurt my face? Oh, that’s right, because I hated extreme heat and humidity even more.
The roads were slick as I drove slowly to work, and by the time I pulled into the parking lot, I bypassed yet another candy cane and was pleased to see no one else had beaten me, so I could avoid another round of parking lot wars. Thank god the lot had been plowed already, or who knows what would’ve happened when the daily battle commenced. It was one thing to duke it out over a parking spot, but it was another to get in a wreck over being careless. Thankfully my coworkers weren’t that irresponsible, but anything was possible when it came to ice and snow.
I was already inside the warm break room waiting for the coffee to finishing brewing so I could grab my first cup of the day when the door opened, and my coworker, Troy, walked in.
“I do not remember snow being in the forecast,” he grumbled as he ran his fingers through his thick, auburn hair.
Why was I noticing how thick his hair was, or how the light made the red in his hair stand out more? I must’ve been in desperate need of coffee, and thank goodness it’d just stopped brewing.
“Me either,” I finally replied as I grabbed my cup.
“It definitely was a surprise when I went to my car this morning and saw it covered.”
I wasn’t much of an early morning conversationalist, and I was a bit unnerved over the fact I’d noticed his hair, so I kept my reply short, “ditto.”
Troy reached up to grab his mug from the cabinet to pour his own cup. “Well, hopefully, the snow isn’t a sign of a bad day.”
“Hopefully,” I muttered before taking a much-needed sip of my vanilla flavored coffee before exiting the break room. As I swallowed down the hot liquid, I heard the ruckus of my coworkers coming inside. That was my cue to leave. “Have a good day.”
Troy paused in stirring in the disgusting peppermint creamer he preferred and flashed me a wide smile. “Have a good day, Reed.”
I left the break room and bypassed my snow-covered coworkers. From the good-natured grumbling and look of some of the guys, I could see they had their parking spot battle and were now in need of coffee to warm up before they began their day of complaining customers and problem-solving. I sighed loudly when I passed by a set of lights that started singing a loud, tinny Christmas carol. The unexpected noise had me jumping and nearly sloshing my coffee all over myself and the floor.
“Stupid lights,” I growled as I continued to my cubicle.
Why did the office need more Christmas decorations? Weren’t there already enough? Evidently someone didn’t agree with me since I saw bright lights strung along the tops of the cubicles and paper snowflakes were now hanging from the ceiling.
“This is getting ridiculous,” I sighed with a shake of my head.
I walked down the row of cubicles before I found mine and groaned loudly when I saw the paper Christmas tree that was stapled to the partition of my workspace.
“Oh, come on!”
The urge to rip the offending paper off the partition was strong, but I didn’t want to be that person. So rather than do what I wanted to do, which was pitch a fit and become known as the office jerk, I did what I had to do and went to my desk. Christmas, and the holiday season, would be over in a few weeks. I just had to endure it for a few more days, and then I would be fine. Valentine’s Day, Easter, Fourth of July, and all the holidays leading up to Thanksgiving I could handle just fine. It was Christmas that bothered me most. But I had work to do and no time to take that shitty trip down memory lane.
I set my mug on my desk and sighed when I saw something lying on my keyboard. Reaching down, I grabbed the piece of plastic and shook my head in disbelief. It was a Pez dispenser, and the top I needed to push back to get out the gross candy was shaped like a cheerful elf, complete with rosy cheeks and a green cap to match Santa’s.
To anyone else, it would’ve been cute, but to me, it was annoying. I didn’t particularly like candy, and I thought elves were creepy. But curiosity got the better of me, and before anyone else came to the office, I left my cubicle to check some of the other workstations. Some had decorations to make their spaces festive, but no one else had a goodie left for them on their keyboards as I did.
My brow furrowed in confusion as I made my way back to my desk, and as I went to toss the candy dispenser in the trash, something stopped me. Rather than toss it in the bin, I pulled open a drawer and shoved it inside before pushing the door shut with a little bit too much force. Someone had gone out of their way to buy me that little token of annoying, and even though I hated the holiday it represented, I wasn’t that big of an asshole to throw it away. But that didn’t mean I wanted to see it, either.
I switched on my computer and donned my headset while everything loaded, and while I waited to log into the system, everyone else started filling the office. I kept my head down as I clicked on the various icons I needed for my job; I could hear the stupid music from the Christmas lights as my coworkers passed them. Those were going to have to be switched off. There was no way I could listen to that stupid noise all day. I’d just have to look for the switch when no one was looking.
The familiar tone in my ear let me know I had an incoming call, and just like that, thoughts of Christmas lights and a Pez dispenser were pushed to the back of my mind as I got to work. By the time lunch rolled around, I had made sure to exit the office last so I could switch off the musical lights, and then joined my coworkers at the food truck to get a walking taco. No one seemed to notice, or care, that the lights didn’t switch on when they walked by, and I felt myself relaxing knowing I wouldn’t have to listen to that distracting noise for the rest of the day.
The rest of the day dragged on, and my head was throbbing by the time I clocked out for the day. We had a policy to keep our calls under a certain time limit of fifteen minutes, but I had one customer that would not give up, and by the time I ended the call after talking her into a department transfer, nearly forty minutes had passed. I was in need of a pain reliever and maybe a beer or two. Thankfully, there were only two days left before I was off for the weekend. That would be two blissful days holed up in my apartment with no Christmas anything being rubbed in my face.
But when I let myself in my darkened apartment, with no signs of the holidays anywhere, I sat down in my chair with a heavy sigh. A beer was still waiting for me in the fridge, the bottle of pain reliever was in the
cabinet by the sink, but my body felt too heavy to move. As the hours ticked by bringing me closer to the holiday, the surlier I became. But who could blame me? How could anyone love a holiday when it reminded them of the most painful time of their life?
Chapter 3
All I want for Christmas is…to be left the hell alone.
I really needed to invest in satellite radio, but since I was going to school and working a job that didn’t pay the best, that wasn’t an expense I could afford. And considering every damn station on the radio was playing Christmas carol after Christmas carol, I couldn’t do anything but turn off the station. My car was a bit older, so I didn’t have an aux cord plug-in for my phone to listen to the music I had downloaded either. So rather than listen to the radio, I turned the offending music off and let the early-morning traffic be my morning music.
Another few inches of snow had fallen the night before, but luckily, I was smart enough to take my ice-scraper in my apartment when I’d arrived home. I made sure to wake a few minutes early so I could allow my car enough time to warm up while I scraped my windows, and when I got in my car to head to work, the inside was nice and toasty. Nothing sucked worse than sitting inside a freezing-cold car while you blasted the heater in hopes it’d warm up quickly.
After driving the slushy roads to work, I went inside to begin my day and stopped in my tracks when I saw the gigantic Christmas tree standing in the corner by the entrance.
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