Reindeer Games

by Jessica Clare

  He blinked his eyes at me. Then grinned. “So you approve?”

  “I’ve never tasted anything better,” I admitted, cutting another huge bite. “I fully admit you are incredible.”

  “My ego is fully repaired now that Luna thinks I am incredible,” he said with a laugh, then sat down to eat his own breakfast.

  The room felt weirdly charged after that. I ate quietly (though my insides were still moaning with glee over each delicious bite) and thought. Maybe I shouldn’t have said Owen was incredible. Maybe just ‘good’ would have been enough for his ego. ‘Incredible’ had made things odd.

  Owen toyed with a bite of his food and glanced at the massive windows on the far side of the room. “Is that a snowstorm?”

  “Yup.” I couldn’t keep the smugness out of my voice.

  He grinned over at me, and little lines of pleasure crinkled around those magnificent amber eyes. “You feeling a little gleeful that the others are trapped out in this while we’re not?”

  “Yup,” I repeated.

  He laughed. “They won’t let them freeze. I mean, we had blankets and fire and someone came by to help us finish the shelter after you left. They just want us to look miserable for the camera.”

  “I hope they look exceedingly miserable,” I told him. “I’m cheering for Patty.”

  “Me too,” he said.

  That surprised me. “You’re not rooting for Clarissa?”

  Owen shook his head. “Who do you think ousted me? We lost the second challenge and she decided strength wasn’t doing us any favors, so she kept the people she felt she could control the most. She even asked me to not have hard feelings.”

  I scraped the last bite from my plate. “And do you?”

  “Have hard feelings? You bet I do.” He looked at the windows. “Let it snow all it wants. I hope we get a fucking blizzard.”

  I raised my coffee cup into the air. “To a blizzard!”

  He clinked his mug with mine.

  ~~ * * * ~~

  Like a pair of wary cats getting used to living with each other, Owen and I spent a fair amount of time apart, but were gradually coming together. Kitty had stopped by with some groceries, and to my surprise, there were quite a few baking goods included.

  “I thought I might as well bake for the crew if we’re stuck here,” Owen said. “Kind of as an apology for dicking over the exec’s big meal.”

  “And sucking up so they’ll let us into the lodge with the others?” I guessed.

  Owen gave me a small smile. “Maybe.”

  I eyed the ingredients. “So what are we making?”

  “I happen to be the world’s best cookie maker,” he told me.

  I snorted. “Please. Anyone can make cookies.”

  “I bet I can make them better than you.”

  “Oh, is that so?” I told him. “You wanna make a bet?”

  He rested a hand on the counter next to me and leaned in. “What kind of bet?”

  I considered it for a moment. “Loser has to do all the dishes.”

  “That’s not much of a challenge if you ask me.”

  “Loser also forfeits all of the hot water in the house.” The hot water was still a sore point between the two of us. The lodge might have been massive, but the hot water heater was stingy, and there was usually only enough heated water for one shower.

  “Now that sounds like a deal. Who’s going to judge?”

  I shrugged. “We can have Kitty judge when she comes in to pick up the cookies for the crew tomorrow, right?”

  “Sounds good to me. You’re on.” Owen’s eyes gleamed with a challenge.

  “Get ready to lose,” I declared loftily.

  ~~ * * * ~~

  We spent the afternoon in a cookie-off. I started off with a tried-and-true — chocolate chip cookies. Of course, Owen had to show me up and made some sort of ‘twice dipped’ biscotti thing that he said was coated with ganache.

  I said I didn’t even know what ganache was, and that we didn’t eat sissy stuff like that in Boston, and only dudes that wore cupcakes on their chests would know what the hell ganache was.

  So then we had another food fight, but this one was full of giggling and flour, and cookies shoved down each other’s front. I ended up with ganache all in my bra before I conceded defeat…but only on the food fight front.

  From there, we went to stages. I decided to make gingerbread men.

  Owen decided to make divinity in the shape of stars.

  I decided to make sugar cookies in fun Christmas shapes.

  He made something called snowflake drops that melted in your mouth.

  The fucker just didn’t play fair. At all.

  By the end of the day, my stomach was aching from taste-testing both my own creations and his. We had plate after plate of cookies, and I had to concede defeat even before they went out the door. Mine were questionable at best. His were gorgeous creations. I admit that watching him work distracted me. Owen had great big football-player hands, but they were surprisingly delicate and could ice a curly mustache onto a gingerbread man with expertise.

  My gingerbread men looked more like rancid hobos that had been caught in a blender. Sigh.

  So I did the dishes that night, though Owen had swung by to help me. It was only fair, he said, since he dirtied a lot more bowls than I did with his ornate creations. It wasn’t my fault, he told me, that I only knew how to make stuff that had one-step instructions.

  So then we had a suds-and-dishwater fight.

  ~~ * * * ~~

  After breakfast the next morning, we were in the living room, drinking our coffees and just hanging out. I was still poking at my notes for Termite 3, since it wasn’t truly coming together just yet. “I’m not sure how he gets from California to Alaska,” I told Owen. “He’s hideously deformed so it’s not like he can take a plane.”

  “Put him on a train,” Owen said, stretched out on the couch opposite me, coffee mug in hand.

  I rolled my eyes. “I can’t put him on a train, either. Did you not hear the part I said about hideously deformed? Wait…is that how is it you get around?” I fluttered my eyelashes at him. “Tell me how it works for you.”

  He tossed a throw pillow at me.

  I ducked, giggling.

  We’d gone from abject hatred to a competitive sort of friendship. I had to admit that it was fun to taunt Owen. He gave as good as I did.

  “A train,” he repeated, as if I were the slow one here. “You know, like hobos do in the movies. They climb onto an open car when it’s at a stop and ride all the way to wherever it takes them. Problem solved.”

  “Oh. That’s pretty good, actually.” I wrote a few notes down. “I might have to use that.”

  “I could totally write a horror movie better than you,” he said smugly.

  I snorted. “Dream on. You don’t have the patience to sit down and write seventy five pages of dialogue and scene blocking, Cupcake, so don’t even start.”

  “Well, Boston,” he said, enunciating my nickname. “I think I’m better at you than most stuff.”

  “You would think that.”

  “You ever built a snowman?” He gestured at the snow-laden grounds outside. Heavy drifts blanketed the land surrounding the lodge. “I bet I could build a better snowman than you any day.”

  “I wouldn’t build a snowman,” I told him. “I’m an equal opportunity builder. I’d have to make a snow lady. And she’d be a better snow lady than whatever you could come up with.”

  “Sounds like a dare to me.”

  “Winner gets the hot water?” I hated the cold showers.

  “You’re on,” he said, and bounded up from the couch.

  Chapter Five

  I’m not hating this whole ‘Loser Lodge’ thing, I have to admit. But Luna’s being kind of thick-headed. How many times do I have to pick a fight with the girl to get her to realize I want to kiss her? – Owen MacIntosh, to Kitty

  ~~ * * * ~~

  “I’m so glad the two
of you are getting along now,” Kitty said, smiling at me as she brought in the groceries one morning. “I felt really guilty that you guys were left out in the cold when it comes to the whole jury thing.”

  “It’s okay,” I told her. I was over it. Mostly. “You brought the s’mores?” Owen had said I couldn’t make a s’more properly, so I had resolved to show him just how great a s’more maker I was.

  “I did.”

  “Great. What’s in the other bag?” Kitty normally only brought one bag with her, but today she had a second one.

  “It’s some Christmas stuff. You guys haven’t decorated or anything.”

  I regarded the bag as if it would bite me. “I’ll, um, see if Owen wants to.” I hadn’t brought it up. I wasn’t interested in Christmas.

  Kitty sensed my lack of enthusiasm, and her eager face looked a little unhappy. “Well, no one says you have to decorate, I suppose. I just thought you might be bored.” She glanced around. “Where’s Owen?”

  “Hogging all the hot water.” I smiled at her. “The spoils of victory.” We’d made snowmen all day and then bickered about who had the better snow person. It turned into a snowball fight, and when we ran out of easily accessible snow, the snowmen had been cannibalized.

  The snowman match was declared a draw.

  “I should go,” Kitty said. “Lots to do at the jury lodge. It’s busy as heck over there.”

  “Oh? Who’s in there?” I gave her an innocent smile.

  “You know I can’t say.” She wagged a cheery finger at me. “Nice try, though.”

  “I always have to try,” I told her, and saw her out the door.

  I didn’t touch the bag of Christmas crap. Instead, I returned to my favorite spot on the couches and continued working on my script. The ideas were coming hot and heavy now, and morphing (as they always did). Sugarbean was now a burly football player with the last name of ‘Sugarman’ and had a heart of gold. He was the chesty beefcake that the quiet, scholarly heroine would fall for – provided he didn’t die at the Termite’s clutches. I hadn’t decided yet. In the scene I was working on, Sugarman had just arrived at the lodge after a long, sweaty day of wood-chopping and was undressing to get into the shower. Then, of course, he heard a noise coming from the wall. Next–

  “Hey, what’s all this stuff?”

  I looked up to see Owen in the kitchen area, peeking through the bags that Kitty had left. I blinked, putting aside my notepad. I’d been so into my scene that I hadn’t even noticed he was downstairs. He was dressed in his usual – workout pants and one of those bakery t-shirts he always wore. I wondered if he’d packed them all to give his mom’s business a little boost by wearing them on camera, and then felt guilty that we were being removed from the Loser Lodge footage for our bad behavior. So much for that boost. “That stuff? Kitty brought over some Christmas garbage.”

  His eyes lit up, and his whole gorgeous face broke into a grin. “You want to go get a tree?”

  “Is this the part where I can say ‘Bah Humbug?’”

  “You don’t like Christmas?”

  “Like is such an…inadequate word,” I told him, moving to his side as he dug through the bag. It looked more like a bunch of craft junk than Christmas decorations. “I loathe Christmas.”

  Owen stopped and looked at me, surprised. “Why?”

  I shrugged, but even as I did, I felt a thick knot forming in my throat. “My Pops died a few years ago right before Christmas.” Hell, I couldn’t even make it through the words without getting all misty eyed. I swallowed hard and waved a hand, trying to make light of my tears. “It’s fine.”

  “Ah, damn. It’s not fine. That sucks.” Owen grabbed me and before I could protest, he dragged me against his chest in a hug. “I’m sorry, Boston.”

  I was stunned. He hadn’t seemed the most demonstrative of people when I’d met him, and having him hug me now threw me for a loop. He was big and warm, though, the top of my head brushing against his chin. And his arms felt great. I sighed, fighting tears. “Sorry. I keep telling myself every year it’ll be different and I won’t get upset this time.”

  “I understand. You need a distraction.”

  “A…distraction?”

  “Yeah. You’re stuck in your memories, that’s all. You need new ones so you don’t think of the sad ones when you see a tree or a candy cane.”

  It didn’t sound like a bad idea. “Maybe, but it’s kinda hard to do. I can’t suggest it to my mom,” I told him. “It’d be like trying to replace Pops.”

  “Here’s the perfect time, then,” he said, and wrapped his arms around me. I could have sworn I felt his mouth press on the top of my head. He’d probably done it in the heat of the moment as a mistake, not realizing who I was. Then, his hand tapped my arm. “I know.”

  “What?”

  “We have an axe in the woodshed. I bet I can find a better Christmas tree than you can.”

  I snorted. “Are you kidding? You have terrible taste. Look at your wardrobe.”

  “Sounds like a challenge,” he said slowly.

  And I knew I was being goaded into it, but I was grinning, so I didn’t much care. “You’re on. Hot water up on the table as the prize?”

  “You bet.”

  ~~ * * * ~~

  We bickered over trees for most of the afternoon. I wanted a huge one. After all, why not go in style? But Owen had argued (quite sensibly, curse him) that the last thing we wanted was to haul a massive tree all the way back to the lodge and try to put it up with just the two of us.

  So we settled on a nicely sized tree, though neither of us could say for sure which one pointed it out first.

  I let him chop down the tree, though I critiqued his swing. And we both dragged it back (which also turned into a race, because that was just how we were). Then, we managed to get it inside and placed in the corner of the lodge before dinner.

  We had sandwiches, and then set to decorating. Kitty’s bag had included string and needles and a bag of popcorn for popcorn garlands, and construction paper for colorful chains and snowflakes. It was going to look like a kindergarten Christmas tree, but it would be one-hundred percent ours. And it would be fun to decorate.

  “I’m totally making my chain longer than yours, Cupcake. Check this out.” I spread out the red and green links that I’d been chaining together for the past hour between bites of my sandwich. “You’re not going to be able to compete.”

  “That’s because the popcorn’s so much smaller,” he protested. He had the needle and thread and was stringing the popcorn on. “We should time how long we get in a half hour and then switch, and see who comes out ahead.”

  “You’re just jealous because mine’s bigger than yours,” I said archly.

  He snorted. “Trust me, Luna, that is not a phrase most people say to me.”

  My mind went to dirty, dirty places.

  ~~ * * * ~~

  My mind remained in dirty places for the next day, and I couldn’t take my eyes off of Owen. Why had I hated the man? He was competitive, just like me. I understood that.

  He was also flat-out gorgeous. Everything about him drove me wild with lust, from the way the corners of his eyes crinkled a little when he smiled, to the liquid gold color they seemed to be when he was concentrating, to the way his big hands moved when he cooked. I always made him cook, and it was mostly so I could watch him.

  When he showered, I tried not to think about him soaping up his big body with those big hands…which meant, of course, I could think of nothing but that. When he went to sleep, I pictured him in bed, limbs twined in the sheets. Did he sleep naked? I pictured that, too, and found myself flustered and needing that cold shower before I slept.

  I’d gone from despising the guy to having an amicable rivalry with him…to lusting after him. I was pretty sure the lust was purely one-sided, though, so I kept my dirty thoughts to myself.

  Kitty showed up the next day with more groceries and a new bag of stuff for us. She looked pleased at the s
ight of our tree, and we spent the rest of the day making more garlands and festooning the lodge with them. The rivalry remained with Owen, but now there was a weird sort of tension behind it, and every time his fingers brushed mine, or his body brushed up against my own, I’d tense like a skittish cat.

  Which was silly. Owen wasn’t acting any different. It was me being the tool.

  The next day, I worked on my script for part of the morning while Owen made more cookies for the crew. They’d asked for seconds of his – and told me to stay out of the kitchen. Owen had laughed his head off at that request, and I’d mock-scowled, though I thought it was kind of funny, too. We worked companionably. When I’d get stuck (as I often did), I’d call out a question to Owen, and chatting with him always jarred the stuck part of my story loose. It was great.

  That afternoon, we chopped wood since we were low. Even though we’d made it a contest, Owen chopped three times as much as me. I protested that it was because he was a guy. Owen said I couldn’t use his gender against him. We’d called it a truce and headed in for showers, and I changed into comfortable pajamas to sit in front of the fire. Owen had promised me s’mores, damn it, and I was going to collect tonight. I wore a pair of leggings and an off-the-shoulder oversized t-shirt, since it mixed comfy with ‘just a little sexy’ since my bra-straps showed.

  When I arrived downstairs, the fire was already going. Big pillows to sit on and a lap-tray with chocolate, graham-crackers, marshmallows, and skewers sat in front of the pillows. I picked a seat and sat down, looking around for Owen. I didn’t see him anywhere. “You coming?” I called out.

  “Yep,” he said, emerging from the mud room and shutting the door behind him. “Sorry. Was working on something.”

  I frowned over at him. “Working on what?”

  “Nothing important, Boston.” He rubbed his hand on his shirt. Owen wore his typical cupcake shirt. Strange how such a big guy could make something as silly as a cupcake shirt rather masculine.