Good Elf Gone Wrong: A Holiday Romantic Comedy

I shouldn’t have been so taken aback that Hudson would want me to pay for my share of dinner. He’d just heard my mom talk about eating caviar at the country club, not to mention he was telling me about a cheesesteak place only people who worked minimum wage jobs knew about. This was all after I’d spent way too much money on dog treats.

“Hudson thinks I’m a spoiled princess,” I said miserably.

“You can’t seriously be falling for this guy,” Dakota said. “He is not at all your type. He must really have a magical D.”

The dull thudding sound of Hudson chopping wood outside in the cold sounded through the windows.

I sat down on a bench and looked around the venue. We’d made progress, just not enough.

“I’m going to tell my mom to make everyone come back,” Dakota told me.

“It won’t help. I’m going to have to chase after everyone to make sure they’re doing it right then have to redo it myself anyway,” I said dejectedly.

Thud.

Outside, the axe continued to fall.

“Just peace the fuck out,” Dakota insisted. “We can steal Hudson’s truck and just drive. Shoot, we could go back to the city, give Kelly a taste of her own medicine.”

We both looked out the window to where Hudson was in his T-shirt, chopping wood.

“I feel like he’s just showing off,” Dakota mused as we watched him, body twisting like a dancer’s as he split the heavy logs.

“He’s had a stressful day,” I said, wincing as the log split with a crack. “He probably needs to blow off the steam. Or maybe having him chop several cords of wood is the thing that is going to send him over the edge. Who knows?”

“Aw, so you weren’t losing the V-card. Or wait—did you, and that’s why he’s stressed out?”

“Shhh,” I hissed at Dakota. “No one can know.”

Though I had promised my parents to not give it away like my sister did, I assumed that they and the rest of my family thought that I had lost my V-card eventually.

Little did they know that I carried that bit of repressed toxicity with me. Now I was coming up on thirty, and I was sure they would like to believe I’d already lost it because otherwise it was a pretty big red flag on my part. Yet here I was, all alone at my sister’s wedding venue, lusting after a man who I had paid to be my fake boyfriend.

“Does he know?” Dakota asked, eyes wide.

“Yes,” I admitted, “and I think he hates me for it.”

“You hired him, so what does he care?”

“I don’t know,” I whimpered, remembering the coldness in his eyes.

Gran was thankfully asleep, the eggnog and rum doing their job.

“I don’t want to sleep with him. At all. Like you said, Hudson is not my type. I do not find him attractive, and, unlike the rest of the women in this town, I don’t stare at a photo of his naked penis.”

Dakota snickered.

“You said penis.”

“Two master’s degrees, and she’s an eight-year-old boy at heart.” I stood up and grabbed a nearby box of Christmas lights.

Dakota sighed and climbed back on the ladder.

“You slept next to his naked body. I cannot believe you didn’t cop a feel. If you’re going to go to the trouble of paying a hot guy to be your sexy motorcycle-leather-wearing daddy, then you should get your money’s worth.”

“It would be completely unethical and immoral to sleep with Hudson,” I told her in a low voice as we strung up the Christmas lights in even loops along the brick walls. “He works for me.”

“Weren’t you telling me how he seems very insistent that you two needed to do the nasty?”

“That was before I told him … you know.”

My cousin shook her head. “You seriously need to keep that information under wraps. You cannot keep telling your boyfriends you’re an inexperienced virgin.”

“Hudson is an employee of sorts. He needed to know.”

“James didn’t.”

“I had to have a reason I wasn’t putting out,” I hissed.

“Or you could have taken it as a sign that the two of you were not meant to be together.”

“He thought it was exciting that he was going to deflower me on our wedding night.”

“Gross. Big waving bright-red flag, Gracie,” Dakota warned. “If you had told me that last year, I would have run over him with my car.”

The door to the venue opened, letting in the winter chill.

Hudson stalked over to me, large paper sack in hand.

“Dinner’s here.” He set the bag on the table and opened it.

My mouth watered at the smell of french fries, fried beef, Cheez Whiz, and fried onions filling the air.

“I got everyone a Coke,” he added.

“A Coke,” Dakota said dreamily beside me.

“Is there any more rum?” Granny Murray sat up from one of the velvet couches.

“Gran, come have some french fries,” I urged the elderly woman as, bones creaking, she slowly stood up.

“I ordered her a cheesesteak,” Hudson told me, still cold and distant, not like how he was earlier that afternoon, where if you squinted, he almost felt like a boyfriend.

Not your type. Bad boys are not your type, I repeated, moving the garland off of one of the tables, spreading out a table runner, and making a quick centerpiece from sprigs of garland and a few candles. “Where’s the cigarette lighter?”

Hudson pulled a metal one out of his pocket. “This is unnecessary.”

“Just because it’s cheesesteak doesn’t mean we can’t be civilized,” I argued.

He snorted and pulled out a cheesesteak, unwrapped it, and took a huge bite.

“But where’s the rum?” Granny Murray mumbled, sitting down at the table.

“She masturbates to Pirates of the Caribbean,” I told Hudson, handing out the Christmas plates and cloth napkins. “Just ignore her.”

Hudson inhaled the bite of cheesesteak.

I whacked him on the back while he coughed.

“That’s why you need to sit down and eat.”

He pulled out a chair next to Granny Murray.

I gave each person a helping of fries.

“Damn, these are better than sex in the back of a pickup,” Granny Murray said, stuffing several in her mouth.

“Gran, this is a nice dinner,” I warned.

“Damn right. I love cheesesteaks,” Granny Murray said happily as I handed her a sandwich and sat down, spreading the cloth napkin over my lap. “My ex-husband, that bastard, hated them. I think they’re great because I don’t need my teeth in to eat them.”

She popped her false teeth out of her mouth and set them in a snowman candy dish.

Hudson stoically ate his food. He was unlike the soft, refined young men I’d gone to private school with who used fish knives and got mad if their wine was the incorrect vintage.

I gave him more fries, and he wolfed them down like someone was going to take them from him.

“Does he eat pussy like that?” Granny Murray stage-whispered to me.

“This is the worst Christmas ever,” I said to the ceiling.

Hudson wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, took a long swig of Coke from the paper cup, then stood up.

I had barely made it through a third of my cheesesteak.

“Heading back to work already? Don’t you want me to give you a back massage first?” Granny Murray offered, pouring the rest of the bottle of rum Hudson had brought into her Coke cup.

“I’ll have to finish up,” he said, “to keep up with Gracie. Did you secretly blackmail Santa’s elves to come help you?” He inclined his head to the decorations.

“Oh!” I said brightly. “We still have a lot to do, but do you think it looks nice?”

“Nicer than your sister deserves,” Granny Murray said loudly.

That earned her a small smile from Hudson.

“It wasn’t too difficult to get all the bones in,” I said. This was how I decorated for my wedding around this time last year.

Hudson’s face was cold.

He didn’t have to say it; I could practically hear him thinking it:

Pathetic.