When the sexy blond looked into his eyes, Cris nearly caved on his decision to stay far away from Ridge Holiday. Remembering how the man had made a fool of him helped reignite his irritation.
“Hello. How can I help you?” Cris addressed the woman and her three companions, ignoring Ridge Holiday… mostly.
“I’m Bauer Mays, Mr… Mr. Claus. I’m Hannah’s date for the dance on Saturday. This is my mother, Janae,” the young man explained as he shook Cris’ hand with a firm grip before he turned to his mother. Cris couldn’t help but smile at the boy’s exemplary manners.
Cris was happy Hannah had asked them to come by to meet him, but she’d neglected to mention Ridge Holiday would be in tow. Cris reached for Ms. Mays’ extended hand, shaking it as well, before turning to the younger brothers.
“And, who might these handsome young men be?” he teased as he offered his glove-covered hand to the smallest boy.
“I’m Kevin Mays. I’m on the ‘Nice’ list. That’s Kenny. I bet he’s on the ‘Naughty’ list,” the younger boy said with a giggle, which made Cris laugh as well.
“Well, I’ll have to check. You want to come up here and tell me what you want for Christmas?” Cristian asked.
The younger boy turned to look at his mother, who smiled. “Go ahead. Ridge said he’d take your picture, so go tell Santa what you want. Remember, there are other boys and girls in the world who want toys, so don’t be selfish,” the woman told the little boy.
“Yes, Momma,” he answered as he took Cris’ hand, and followed him up the stairs to Santa’s Wonderland.
Cookie walked over to the woman, prepared to give the spiel, but Ridge spoke to her quietly, and Cris saw Cookie smile before stepping away. Ridge walked forward with his expensive camera around his neck.
Cris decided, for the benefit of the little boy, he could be the bigger man. “Mr. Holiday, how would you like us?” Meanwhile, Cris’ heart was breaking in his chest at the sight of the beautiful man who was too far out of his league. Sometimes, life sucked.
Chapter 12
Ridge took a breath as he looked into Santa’s… Cristian Gamble’s… beautiful, blue eyes. He actually saw no emotion from the man, and it reminded Ridge how poorly he’d treated Cris during his quest for something he didn’t even give a fuck about in the first place. Sadly, it was too late to ask for a second chance, or so Evie had told Ridge when she stopped by Ridge’s apartment the previous night while she was on her way back to the manse from the Gamble’s apartment. Cristian Gamble was done with Ridge before they ever got started. The cold look in Santa’s eyes confirmed what Eve had told him.
Since the speech Cris had given at the hospital after the punch that didn’t break his nose, Ridge had secluded himself from everyone, including his family, until Evie banged on the door of his shitty, studio apartment and verbally kicked his ass.
“God, you and Elliot are two of the biggest dumbasses I’ve ever met. All of this is over that fucking Porsche? Figure your shit out and buy your own stupid car, Ridge. That fucking piece of metal wasn’t worth losing Cristian Gamble.
“I know, Daddy put you in an awkward position, so you had to lie when you met Cris, but nobody knew you were going to fall in love with Santa Claus. When you started having feelings for him, you should have come clean with the man, regardless of the reason why you were hiding your identity. I’m sure Cris would have kept the secret for you about who you really were.
“What was your grand plan? Wait until your birthday when your trust fund was released and then tell Cris you were a multi-millionaire? He’s not that kind of guy to be impressed by shit like that, and you should have seen it from the beginning. Hell, you’re not a kid, Ridge. You should have handled this a lot better,” his sister chastised.
As he prepared to take a photograph of Santa and Kevin Mays, Ridge knew beyond a shadow of a doubt how much he’d underestimated Cris Gamble. Unfortunately, he could sense the handsome man was no longer interested in him or what he had to say, so he kept it professional.
“Okay, Kevin, what’s your favorite thing to do when you have free time?” Ridge asked.
“He loves baseball. He wants to be a pitcher,” Kenneth Mays offered with a grin.
“Okay, uh, give me a minute. I’ll be right back,” Ridge offered before he rushed away from Wonderland to the part of the store where the sporting equipment was located.
Ridge found a baseball, glove, catcher’s mitt, and a facemask. As he rounded the corner, he found a Santa hat and a giant candy cane, grabbing both of them as well.
Once he returned to Wonderland, he moved Santa’s chair and handed out the props he’d brought with him. “Okay, Kevin, Santa’s your catcher, and Kenneth, you’re up to bat,” Ridge announced, giving Kenneth the giant candy cane, Kevin the glove and Santa hat, and Cris the facemask and catcher’s mitt.
They posed as Ridge instructed, and he took a series of pictures as if it was a real game. The last few shots he’d staged with Janae Mays perched on Cris’ right leg while the younger boys knelt on either side of the chair and Bauer stood behind it. Ridge believed them to be among the best pictures he’d taken all season.
After he had the last shot, Sugarplum turned to see the kids beginning to line up for their visit with Santa. He wished to hell that he still had the job as Santa’s personal photographer. One thing Ridge didn’t expect was the fact he missed that stupid job more than he’d ever imagined he could.
Eve had taken Hannah to her friend’s design studio to get the girl a dress for the party, and Ridge had sprung for the outfit and accessories until Eve told him his account was empty. He didn’t care if he never ate again.
Ridge wanted the girl to have a night she’d remember for the rest of her life. He didn’t hate playing a fairy godmother to a sweet Cinderella like Hannah.
Ridge was able to negotiate a deal with his father’s private tailor to fit Bauer Mays with a tuxedo for the party and allow Ridge to pay for it after the first of the year. JD hadn’t relented on his mandate that Ridge was cut off from his trust fund, but his father also didn’t tell the tailor not to do as Ridge had asked when the tailor called him.
JD had vouched his son was good for the money, and the tailor agreed to defer payment. Ridge was able to release a held breath, because it was a good sign if he’d ever seen one.
After the pictures were taken at Holiday Toys with the handsome Santa, Ridge turned to Bauer and Mrs. Mays. They were a lovely family, and Ridge really liked Kevin and Kenneth, finding the boys to be pretty damn funny. Ridge had enjoyed talking with them while Bauer and his mother decided on the tuxedo earlier in the day.
“How about I take the boys over to the video-game area. There are gaming systems set up so they can try out different games, and you can get to know Santa. We can be back in fifteen minutes?” Ridge offered to Janae Mays, not daring to look at Cris.
Janae smiled. “Thanks, Ridge. You two better behave,” the woman ordered with an arched eyebrow, and a stern look on her face for her younger sons, before slipping into a loving smile.
Kenneth, who was eight and tall for his age, took Kevin’s hand. Kevin was five and very outspoken. Ridge led them toward the electronics’ aisles where the gaming systems were set up for demonstration purposes.
Several grown men were playing the gaming consoles while lots of kids were waiting for their turns. That was something in desperate need of change, Ridge noted.
Ridge walked up to a guy with a mohawk and pecked his shoulder. “Fuck off,” the guy stated without turning his head.
Oh, that wasn’t going to fly. “You’re in a toy store, you know that, right? This isn’t an arcade, and you’re an adult. Get the heck out of the way and let the younger kids play,” he demanded of the moron who was playing a game against a kid of about nine.
Ridge looked around and saw a lot of kids were anxious to get their hands on the controllers, and he had an idea he would run by his father, but at the moment, the asshole with the mohawk needed to go. “Stay here with
Kenneth. I’ll be right back,” Ridge instructed Kevin.
He walked over to a house phone and picked it up, dialing eleven. “Security,” he heard.
“Why aren’t you over in the electronics area? Adults are playing the games and not allowing the children to play. This is a toy store, and the reason we have the gaming area is so the kids can try out the games to decide which ones they like before their parents buy them as gifts,” he announced over the phone, sounding far too much like JD for his liking.
“Who is this?” Ridge heard.
He hated to trade on his family’s name, but… “This is Eldridge Holiday. I assume you’ve heard of the Holiday family, yes?” he snapped.
“Bullshit,” he heard before the line went dead.
Oh, that would never do.
Ridge walked over to the asshole playing the game and grabbed his shoulder. “Time for you to go,” he ordered as he grabbed the man’s arm to lead him out.
Of course, things never went the way Ridge hoped or expected. When the large man stopped, Ridge felt another fist meet his nose, and that time the bone cracked. His pretty-boy looks were going to be a mere memory if that sort of shit continued to happen.
“Oh, crap,” Ridge heard as Kevin rushed over to him and pinched his nose. “I got a bloody nose one day, and the teacher did this to me,” the little boy explained as staff hurried to where Ridge was on his back on the floor, yet again.
It was a bit laughable that a man who hadn’t ever been in a fight in his life was in his second fight within three days. Ridge was definitely camping out under a dark cloud.
Eldridge Holiday was sitting on a gurney in the hospital, yet again. The Mays family was in the waiting room, or so Ridge had been told, even though he’d assured them it wasn’t necessary to accompany him to the emergency room.
Ms. Mays had laughed at his insistence that they should leave him alone at the hospital. She worked the night shift as an ER nurse, and considering Ridge’s nose was broken, she wanted to be there to ensure he had the best doctor at the hospital to set it.
There was a knock on the door before it opened without his invitation. Ridge was surprised to see Leo Holiday with Eve. “What happened this time?” his sister asked, impatience evident.
Ridge was sitting up with gauze hanging out of his nostrils and a pounding headache as they waited for the doctor to read the x-rays. “We need to beef up security… fuck, we need some sort of security… at the stores, especially around Christmas.”
“I called for someone to come to the electronics area, and the guy hung up on me. I hate to get someone fired, but whoever the fuck it was is an asshole.”
“Some grown-ass men weren’t allowing the kids to play video games. We need to set a time limit for someone to try out the games, and we need someone to ensure the adults adhere to it. There were a bunch of kids who were waiting to play, including the Mays’ boys, and the asshat who punched me wouldn’t relinquish the game,” Ridge explained, before he looked at his grandfather. “Is that any way to run a business?” the pained man snapped at the patriarch of the Holiday family, feeling the throbbing in his head intensify since his temper had flared.
Ridge was surprised at his father’s and Elliot’s lack of attention to something that seemed as perfectly obvious as security. They ran the goddamn company, after all.
Leo looked at him and shrugged. “What would you do?”
Ridge thought about it for a moment, considering all of the options that popped into his head like a rapid-fire game of fifty questions. “We should make it a gaming center, not just the try-it center. We could probably partner with some of the game makers who would pitch in to help us build it out and set it up with a quid pro quo for advertising.”
“Oh! We could hold a tournament season during the summer at youth centers and offer prizes, but it’s gotta be age appropriate. I saw a lot of little kids waiting to try out the games, so we definitely need to ensure the appropriate games are available for all of the age groups.”
“We also need to have a bigger security presence, so we’re sure nobody is harassing anyone. Without proper supervision, it could become a predator’s dream. That shit needs to be regulated,” Ridge demanded.
Just then, the door opened, and the same male nurse walked in with a smirk. “You, again?”
Ridge laughed. “I’m a badass, what can I say?”
Everyone in the room laughed. It was the furthest thing from the truth, but twice, Ridge had been punched in the face in that store in West Philly. His first thought was to close the damn thing, but that was reactionary.
The store was profitable and employed people from the neighborhood, so closing it would be counterproductive. They just needed to re-evaluate their operation plan and make modifications as necessary to ensure it served the neighborhood’s best interests and reinvested in the community.
That seemed to be Cristian Gamble’s goal as well. Making sure the people in that neighborhood in West Philly had access to the same things as everyone else in the metro area seemed crucial to the man, which was commendable. Even though Cris wanted nothing to do with him, Ridge wanted to work toward that goal, as well. It was a shame they couldn’t do it together.
Chapter 13
Ridge was reclining on the shitty futon in the shitty, studio apartment his father had provided for him when he was kicked out of the manse. He was eating the container of instant Szechuan noodles he’d bought by the case at a discount store near Holiday Toys. There was a Christmas movie on television, but Ridge was barely paying attention. The fact he was watching the show alone made him terribly sad, but there was nothing he could do about it.
It was the Saturday night of the formal dance at Hannah’s school. Ridge’s mind was occupied with curiosity regarding how the night was going, and if they were having a good time.
Ridge had made a deal with Craig Tuttle, the family’s driver. If he’d drive JD’s fancy car and take the couple to the dance and back home, Ridge would never ask the man to take him anywhere ever again.
To say Ridge had been an asshole to Craig in the past was an understatement. He’d given the man the slip more times than not when JD had dispatched Craig to retrieve a drunken Ridge from one party or another after JD found out he’d gone without permission.
Craig would end up searching for Ridge, sometimes all night, not knowing Ridge had already taken a cab home and snuck into the manse without telling anyone. JD would get pissed at Craig for not finding Ridge, but thankfully, the elder Holiday hadn’t fired the man. JD knew precisely where the blame belonged, firmly on his son’s shoulders.
What was even more depressing was that the middle Holiday child was learning he’d been an asshole to a lot of people. The facts weren’t anything he could dispute, so he was sitting alone in his one-room apartment on a Saturday night, reliving his awful, youthful mistakes and trying to come to terms with a past that wasn’t easy to accept. It was like a real-life Ebenezer Scrooge satire.
When his cheap cell phone danced on top of the rickety little table to his right, Ridge picked it up and saw it was a message from his sister. He opened it to see it was a photo of Hannah Gamble and Bauer Mays with Santa, but the man wearing the costume wasn’t Cris Gamble. It was actually Elliot Holiday, his idiotic, older brother.
Elliot was standing between Bauer and Hannah with a big smile on his face, which made for a great picture. Unfortunately, the photo had Ridge wondering where Cris Gamble might be since he wasn’t at his post. Sadly, Ridge had lost the privilege of asking anything about Cris.
As Ridge was about to send a nasty text to his brother to inquire why he was dressed as Santa in Cris’ place, there was a knock on the door of his apartment. Ridge tossed the phone on the futon and walked over to the door, looking out of the peephole. He saw white flowers, but nothing else, so he unlocked the deadbolt, leaving the chain engaged. He prayed there wasn’t someone who was going to kill him.
“Yeah?” Ridge asked, worried that somehow “mohawk
” from the other night had found his apartment.
“Sugarplum? Are you okay?” a familiar voice behind the flowers greeted. Slowly, the bouquet was lowered to reveal Cristian Gamble with a big grin on his handsome face and a white headband with a piece of fake mistletoe dangling over Cris’ face.
“Uh,” Ridge commented, utterly stunned at what he was seeing.
“Wow, you can say that again. Can I come in?” Cris asked.
Ridge looked down at the chain and nodded, closing the door and trying twice to remove the chain from the slide lock, because his shaking hand was refusing to cooperate. He was having a hard time believing Cris was at his door, and he had a stifling fear it wasn’t real.
“I’m dreaming, right?” Ridge decided, as he opened the door to see Cris standing in front of him in a pair of jeans and an ugly Christmas sweater. Santa handed over a bouquet of white flowers with red and silver ribbons woven throughout it.
“Do you often dream of sweaters this ugly? I thought you had better taste,” Cris stated as he pointed to the front of the sweater he was wearing. It was rainbow patterned, but there was a brown, felt reindeer sewn to the front. It was wearing a pair of dark brown gloves as horns with little, colored balls sewn to the fingers. It was the definition of ugly, or so Ridge believed.
“I, uh, I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything like that in my life. Crafting night at the Gamble house?” Ridge joked.
“Can I come in? I mean, come on, I’m here in an ugly sweater with mistletoe on my head and everything. I’d have thought you were a better host,” Cris teased, offering a sweet smile.
Ridge backed up to give Cris room to enter his small apartment before closing the door and turning toward the handsome man to see if he’d suffered as much as Ridge. Not surprisingly, it didn’t appear as if Cris had lost a moment’s sleep.
“Can I get you something? I have water, but I could also make coffee… I think?” Ridge suggested, remembering he didn’t have anything to offer but water because his bank account was empty.
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