Page 3 of Santa's Dark Secret
“Oh yeah. Tongue action could use a little work, but he knows how to use his equipment. I give him a solid four out of five stars. Oh, you know, when I’m done, you should really give him a try.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. The men I screw really need to be on their tongue A-game. But—oh,” Carolina’s gaze swivels back to me. “You know, Mila doesn’t have high expectations of men. I’m sure she’ll be willing to give Nathan a good ride. We’ve been meaning to get her laid tonight.”
“What?” I shriek. “I’m not screwing Nathan. He’s a million years old and always smells like dirty bath water.”
“You sure, love?” Nathan grumbles through the phone, making me realize we’re not the only ones with this call on speakerphone. “I’m just about done here. Are you gals still at the party? I could head back there and give you a run for your money. Though, I might need a few minutes. The old boy can’t swing back as fast as he used to.”
Gross.
Carolina’s face scrunches with disgust, and not a second later, her thumb drops down on the hang-up button. “Did that really just happen?” She laughs. “Holy shit. How did Jeremy’s dirty farts turn into Nathan’s limp dick?”
Tears well in my eyes as laughter claims me, and I crash down against the edge of a fountain, planting my ass on the red tiles. “Nathan should really hire a new HR person so that we can talk to that person about Nathan.”
“Yeah, I agree. Let’s make it happen.”
Carolina lets out a heavy breath and crashes down beside me as she tries to wipe away her tears of laughter, doing what she can not to smudge mascara all over her face, but there’s really no point. Her mascara has been smudged since she was making it rain with dollar bills.
I sigh deeply and lean back to graze the water’s surface with my fingertips, only to find the top layer iced over. I’ve always loved the serenity of this place. There’s something so soothing about the sound of the running water. You know, when it’s not frozen and I don’t need to pee.
“I’m sorry we didn’t find someone to screw your brains out. At this rate, if you don’t get dicked down soon, I’m going to have to get you a Christmas-themed dildo that spurts eggnog when you come.” Carolina smirks as she reaches down to touch the ice just as I had, only she goes too far and tips herself off balance.She screams as her ass slides off the edge, her arms flailing for something to grab onto, but it’s too late, and the fountain quickly claims her.
I try to save her, quickly reaching for her falling body, but after all that cheap wine, my reflexes aren’t exactly on point, and I miss every opportunity to help, leaving me laughing helplessly.
Carolina crashes through the thin layer of ice and sits in the dirty sludge water beneath, gaping at me as though she can’t believe how the hell that just happened. The longer she watches me howling with laughter, the more frustrated she becomes, and I can’t help but wonder if the cheap wine is dulling her senses because I can only imagine how cold that must be. “You are so not laughing at me right now.”
“Oh my god.” I cackle harder, the tears rolling down my face as I clutch my stomach. “That was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Oh yeah?” She smirks, and like lightning, she reaches forward and grabs my arm, giving it a hard yank until I slide off the edge and crash into the bottom of the dirty fountain right beside her.
“HOLY FUCKING SHIT!” I squeal, sitting in the sludge water like a drowned rat, water trickling off me as I instantly feel the chill in my bones. It’s fucking freezing. Swimming in the middle of winter in New York probably isn’t the brightest idea.
“You’re right,” Carolina laughs, splashing dirty fountain ice water over me as her teeth begin to chatter from the cold. “That really was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m gonna kill you.”
“You can try,” she says. “But I’m simply too brilliant. You’ll miss me too much.”
Rolling my eyes, we hastily start climbing out of the fountain before we get hypothermia and everything starts to go numb. My teeth begin to chatter just like Carolina’s and the need toget home and in a hot shower becomes my only priority. “Gotta admit, this really isn’t how I pictured my night going,” I say.
Carolina pulls off her soaking coat, pinching a stray leaf stuck to her soggy thigh, both of us just moments from turning blue. “I know. I’m sorry. I really thought you’d be on your back right now, legs in the air, being railed within an inch of your life.”
I let out a heavy sigh, able to picture it so clearly. “Fuck, that actually sounds really good.”
Carolina puts her arm around me and we both stare at the offending fountain a moment longer, the two of us violently shaking from the cold. “You know, the best way to heal a broken heart is to let someone else dazzle it.”
“I thought the way to get over somebody was to get under somebody else.”
“Two things can be true,” she laughs before slipping her hand into her soggy pocket and pulling out a single penny. “Here,” she continues, handing it to me. “Toss it into the fountain and make yourself a raunchy Christmas wish. Get railed for the holidays. Finish the year off with a literal bang, and when you come back to work in the new year, you’ll be fresh as a well-fucked daisy.”
My heart starts to race, but that could be the hypothermia setting in.
After I saw Santa and who I assume was his son, I wished for that little boy to return every year. And call me crazy, but I’m almost certain he did. I never saw him again or woke up in the middle of the night to see if he was there, but every single time I’d wake up on Christmas morning, a tiny charm rested on my bedside table.
Sure, some might think it’s weird that every Christmas Eve, someone has been coming into my bedroom and leaving me a charm, but I know deep in my gut that it was him—the little boy who winked at me all those years ago.
Even now, I cherish those Christmas charms. I still have every single one of them and have put them together on a bracelet that I’m too afraid to wear for fear I might lose it. But what it really comes back to is that I’ve wished for him to return every year, and he’s done just that.
Only that little boy is no longer a child. He’s all grown up now.
