“Sunny!” cried Santa. “Somebody!”
Santa had a high voice. Santa was... Arianna White. Why wasn’t he surprised?
He moved to the corner of the house where she was standing, rubbing her arms, trying to stay warm. The woman had a gift for getting stuck outside in the cold.
“Got a problem?” he called up.
She frowned. “Yeah, my sleigh was hijacked.”
“Seems like your sleigh should be at the North Pole and so should you.”
“It’s Christmas in February,” she informed him. “We’re having a party and Santa had to greet everyone as they arrived.”
In the rain. He nodded. “Of course.”
“I knocked over the ladder getting up here, and the last guest went in before I could ask her to put it back up. Someone will come out any minute,” she added.
“Someone is out. Which side of the house is it on?” he asked.
“The one nearest yours.”
He nodded and made his way to the side of the house where the ladder lay. The grass was sparse on this neglected side where trash and recycle bins resided and the rain, added to what had already fallen, had turned the ground muddy and slick.
He picked up the ladder and leaned it against the roof, then held it for her as she got on. And admired the view of a cute round butt in oversized Santa pants as she started down.
“Isn’t it about time to give Santa a break?” he suggested.
“No. I’m not done making up for my sucky Christmas,” she said emphatically, and stomped down on the next rung as though stomping out Scrooge’s cigar.
“There’s gotta be an easier way.”
She looked over her shoulder and gave him a scolding frown. “Thisiseasy. I’m going to find my Christmas joy even if it kills me.”
Just then her booted foot slipped on the rung and she lost her grip on the ladder. Fortunately she was almost all the way down. Unfortunately she finished her descent by landing on him, and toppling them both onto the wet muddy grass. The ladder hit the ground with a soft plop. They both landed with an “Oomph.”
And suddenly, there he was, lying beneath his cute curvy clumsy neighbor as she tried to wiggle off him, and some crazed gremlin at the back of his mind rejoiced.
“Aack,” she cried, a frantic hand pushing his belly button into his backbone.
Never mind, said the gremlin.
She’d tried to get up too quickly and she came back down on top of him again, this time face-to-face, her cheeks pink with embarrassment and those big hazel eyes even bigger. He could smell her perfume. It would be so easy to wrap his arms around her...
“Sorry,” she muttered and made another effort to get up.
This time her foot slipped, sending her knee into jockstrap central, making him see stars.
Get us out of here, begged the gremlin.
“Aaaaah,” groaned Alden.
“Oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry.”
She leaned over him in concern. A curl popped out from under her sodden Santa hat. A raindrop fell off her nose and landed on him. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” he managed.Breathe, he told himself.
Let’s get out of here even if we have to crawl, the gremlin implored.
