Good Elf Gone Wrong: A Holiday Romantic Comedy

“I don’t need you to fucking micromanage me.”

“You reek of Christmas,” Grayson replied in greeting.

I scowled at him.

He gestured with his beer to the seat across from him in the dank motorcycle bar in the bad part of the Gulch, the part that hadn’t been gentrified yet.

I slid into the sticky booth.

Grayson handed me one of the beers sitting in front of him.

“You have frosting in your hair.”

I brushed my fingers through it, feeling slightly self-conscious.

“I’m assuming that it’s all part of your grand plan.”

“We’re making progress,” I said. “Gracie’s sister clearly has it bad for me. It’s only a matter of time before I have her in an uncompromising position. Then there will be a big video reveal at the ceremony, and I propose to Gracie, and James has a fit. Her family finally treats her with the respect she deserves.”

“What,” Grayson said slowly, “the fuck. How is that in any way related to the information I’m paying you to find?”

Good fucking question, Hudson.

“I have to stay around her and give her a reason to trust me,” I said rapidly, trying to recover. “It’s working. I got a good lead today. Gracie admitted that her father did some shady shit early in the business. We’re delivering cookies to the family office tomorrow. She’ll log into a computer system, and bam, we’re in. Mission accomplished.”

“I could build another skyscraper if I had a dollar for every time you’ve told me that.”

I tried not to seem concerned. Grayson didn’t tolerate woolgathering. He paid for excellence. I had to make sure he was confident I would deliver.

“It’s under control.”

“And add a helicopter pad to my new skyscraper,” he said acerbically. “I have my next year’s companywide business plan riding on this. There is a European contract I’m going to be the only contender in the running for once I’m able to bring down Roscoe Energy. There are hundreds of billions of dollars at stake here, Hudson.”

“I’ll deliver. I always deliver,” I promised. “Gracie’s smart, competent, decisive, and she has a knack for sniffing out when something’s out of alignment. She actually would have done great in military intelligence. She has the mind for it. Only problem is when it comes to her relationships. It’s a blind spot for her. She thinks men don’t like her as much as her sister, but she’s wrong. She’s very alluring. She just doesn’t realize it. I’m staying solidly in that blind spot though, hence the cookies, the car, and the engagement ring. She’s going to hand me the information you need on a silver platter.”

Hopefully while wearing that elf outfit.

Grayson took a sip of his beer. He was a man who preferred $50,000 scotch, but he came from nothing, even more nothing than me, because at least I had my family. And he didn’t mind drinking cheap beer in a smelly bar.

He set the bottle down on the tabletop.

“You like this woman.”

“What? No, I don’t,” I said, forcing myself not to sound defensive.

I took a swig of the beer. It was worse than the homemade shit we used to drink in the military.

“Gracie’s not my type. She’s mousy and meek.”

“And yet she’s given you and your team the runaround.” The corners of Grayson’s mouth turned down slightly.

“It’s like she’s wearing the world’s best disguise. She lulls you into thinking she’s this precious object that need to be protected at all costs, then bam! she knifes you. You wouldn’t know it, but she’s sharp, observant, and has a filthy sense of humor.”

And filthy other stuff.

“She’s efficient, she wakes up early, she’s organized, she plans, and she takes care of her family, but,” I added, “she’s no match for me. I’m making progress.”

Grayson leaned back and crossed his arms.

“Uh-huh. So what kind of ring do you need for your fake engagement?”

“I’ll just buy one.”

“Like I told you with the car, I’m leaving nothing to chance.”

“I’ll get you your information before I have to propose. If not, I’ll have Jake pick up something that looks expensive.”

“If Gracie is the knife-you-when-you’re-not-suspecting type,” Grayson said, “then I don’t want you to just get a ring. Follow through with what you were planning with her. I don’t want her to scuttle my plans at the last minute because you weren’t detail oriented enough to keep from making her suspicious.”

I pulled up the file on Gracie through an encrypted app on my phone and navigated to the photo of her great-grandmother.

The smiling young woman looked a bit like Gracie; they had the same eyes. In her arms she cradled a pug, a historic one, not the one whose eyes looked like they were going to fall of its head, like Pugnog.

Prominent in the photo was a sparkling diamond ring on her left hand.

“I’d get her something like that,” I suggested.

Grayson peered at the image.

“Send that to me.”

I texted it to him and finished off the beer while he sent a note to his assistant.

“I’ll have my secretary find it. Lately she’s been on a roll for delivering difficult-to-procure items. Thank you for the information about my brother, by the way. He removed that woman from his life. Eventually. He ignored it at first, so I sent the information anonymously to my other brother Aaron, who made it very clear she needed to go.”

“Fucking little brothers, man.”

That earned me a small smile.

“Fucking little brothers,” Grayson agreed and downed the rest of the beer.

“One more round before you go back to the land of caviar and champagne?” I offered.

“Sure. Why not? It’s—”

“You fucking bitch!” a man yelled out over the din in the bar.

Grayson and I both stood up.

“Don’t insult my grandmother, asshole!”

“Fucking hell, is that Gracie?”