Chapter Text
“You do have to come out eventually, you know.”
“I know! I KNOW! It’s just—is this really...? Oh, ugh! Five minutes!”
Stevie reclines back against the headboard of David’s bed, knowing he’d say her feet up on his bedspread were incorrect even though she kicked off her Chucks and is just in her socks. But as long as he stays holed up in the bathroom, he can’t say much of anything about it.
Five minutes pass. Seven. Eight. No David.
“David, come on! It can’t be that bad,” she cajoles from the other side of the door. Seeing her most fashionable friend cosplaying as the jolly old man in the red suit is too much for her to resist but she does need to get back to work at some point.
“It’s not that it’s bad exactly. It’s just, well, okay. Here.” The door opens and he emerges.
Stevie had expected—hoped—to see David Rose with a padded belly in a fuzzy red suit and hat, wearing a white wig and beard and maybe even a pair of old-man spectacles perched on his nose. The whole Santa Claus look. After all, he’d been hired to play Santa for a few hours at an office party in Elm Glen. Once she stopped laughing hysterically at this prospect, she agreed to help him get ready. Or at least give him a final lookover.
But this is not what either of them were expecting.
Stevie sits up straight, resting her chin in her hands and tucking her socked feet under her body, to take in the scene more fully. David stands before her, hands on hips. And—well yes—he is technically wearing a red and white Santa coat. But this sleek satin jacket is short-sleeved and fits tight across his biceps and chest, held together by a single black button. David’s dark chest hair peeks out from the top and bottom of where the coat is fastened. Instead of baggy pants, he is wearing tight red shorts with white fur trim stretched across the meat of his thighs. A thick black belt is slung low at his hips and his calves are accentuated by tall black boots and black socks with a single red stripe. To top off the look, he’s got on mirrored aviators. The only part of the traditional costume that is as Stevie had imagined is a Saint Nick hat perched on the back of his head.
Stevie lets out a long wolf whistle. “Wow! That is...wow, David. Is that all of it?”
“I mean, it is. This can’t be right, can it?”
“Well, let’s be clear. Were you hired as a Santa-themed stripper for this party?”
“No!”
“Racy Christmas-gram? Fantasy boytoy for yuletide festishists?”
“No! I mean, okay, I don’t think so. Ugh, Stevie! They said I was supposed to show up in costume, hand out gifts from their corporate office and give the employees pictures with Santa Claus. Here—you tell me.” He removes his sunglasses, pulls out several pieces of paper from the garment bag and thrusts them at her.
Steve shuffles through the paperwork. A smile sneaks across her face.
“David, you weren’t just hired to be any old Santa,” she says gleefully. “You’re SEXY SANTA!”
“What. The fuck. Is that,” he says, impatiently. “That’s not a thing.”
“Oh, it most definitely is,” she answers, looking especially pleased as she reviews the contract. “It says so right here.” She points to the little checked box. “They even paid extra!”
“Let me see that!” David snatches the papers back and peruses them quickly. “Um, oh, is this...? Well fuck. Robin was pretty adamant that I be the one to take this assignment. She said it would pay well but I didn’t ask why.”
Stevie lets out a loud, hearty laugh.
“What am I supposed to do now?” he says, voice rising.
“Are you kidding? David, this might be the best thing that’s happened to you this whole holiday season. When was the last time you had sex?”
“I— I don’t see how that’s any of your...”
“Because I seem to remember you complaining to me the other night after half a joint and a bottle of wine that no one has touched you in months. ‘Stevieeee, come look for rannnnndoms with meeee...I neeeeeed to shagggg someone new...’” She flings her arms around dramatically. “Just wondering, does that sound familiar at all?”
“First of all, I do not talk like that. That sounds like Bridget Jones.” David pauses. He has a vague memory of insisting on a rom-com marathon that night and falling asleep while Hugh Grant and Colin Firth were fighting in a fountain. “Um, okay. So I might have said that. But how does this help me?”
“David, if you show up looking like this at an office party where everyone is liquored up from the all-you-can-drink nog fountain, you’re gonna get some attention. Damn. You want randoms? This is gonna work as well as—maybe better than—your trusty leather jacket.”
“Mmm,” David says. “I suppose. I mean, I’m already booked for the gig and I’m obviously going to need the money after...” he trails off, waving his hand expressively. No need to finish the sentence; they both know what’s coming for him professionally on December 24th.
“Yeah, that part sucks. It really does,” she says, nodding sympathetically. “Still, isn’t it ironic that Christmas World is going out of business at Christmastime? Don’t ya think?”
David huffs. “Thanks, Alanis.” He scrunches his face and gives her his most derisive of micro nods.
She rolls her eyes and continues. “Look, I know it’s a huge drag to be out of work but maybe it could be...a blessing, too? You still have most of the check you got when you left the Blouse Barn and it sounds like you’re going to make a little extra scratch tonight before you’re once again, well, unceremoniously unemployed.” He scowls at her.
“Sorry,” she says, not sounding especially sorry. “But you never liked that job anyway. What did you call the latest window display? The Nightmare Before Christmas Massacre? The Walking-in-a-Winter-Disasterland?”
“Well, obviously. Who could have guessed that playing ‘The Christmas Shoes’ on a loop while peddling imported ornaments and tacky silver trees couldn’t keep management from driving the store into the ground, just like the general store before it?” he muses. “Or maybe my mom’s right. Maybe that location is cursed.”
Stevie looks at him like he’s being ridiculous. “I’m just saying, maybe you can take that money and invest in yourself. Write your own life plan rather than accepting the next crappy job that comes your way.”
David isn’t ready to admit to his best friend that he’d never completely given up on the idea he had for the space before Christmas World moved in and dashed his hopes, burying them deep beneath a mound of year-round fake snow. He smiles as he thinks about it. A one-stop-shop for unique local products. A branded immersive experience. His very own, very specific store. Maybe he doesn’t have to say it; maybe Stevie already knows. They share a look that is thisclose to becoming sentimental when Stevie saves them both.
“Dashing in the snow,” she starts to sing off-key, clapping loudly in a disturbing rhythm. “Christmas World’s your store.” David scowls upon hearing her sing the radio jingle that is played incessantly in the tri-county region. “We’re always here, spreading cheer,” she continues, belting out the annoying earworm, “and ho-ho-so much more! Ohh! Christmas World. Christmas World...”
His idea was so much better, is so much better than this. Isn’t it? David just knows that in the right hands—the hands of someone with faultless taste who understands what people want and need—the store could be quite lucrative.
Maybe the money he earns tonight can bring him one step closer to making that a reality.
Okay, then. Sexy Santa it is.