Julie was completely humiliated. She was a senior in college on full scholarship, achieving high honors, and already accepted to three schools, one of them Ivy League, for graduate work. Yet the only job she could find over the Christmas break was dressing up as one of Santa's elves in a mall. Flipping burgers would be better than dealing with those snot-nosed kids. Not to mention the parents. They were even more demanding than the kids. At least with her elf hat and pointy ears none of her hometown friends should recognize her. Unless they had kids that they brought into the "Winter Wonderland." Great. Something else for her to worry about.
As she struggled into her costume in the mall bathroom (there was no way she was walking into the mall in that getup) she counted down the days until Christmas Eve, the last night of the job. Only seventeen days to go, but she worked fifteen of them. For some reason, people weren't falling over themselves for this job, so at least she was raking in the dough on overtime. She was supposed to be saving the money she made for a down-payment on an apartment when she started grad school, but she figured the overtime money was fair game, and she knew just what she was going to spend it on.
The leather store was two shops down from "Winter Wonderland," and Julie passed it every day on her way to work. She wouldn't dare walk in while she was in costume, but she'd spied something the other day that caused her to come back into the mall after her shift. It was a tiny red leather corset, not the kind of thing she normally wore, or even had anyone to show it off to, but for some reason it turned her on and she just had to have it, even at eighty nine bucks. Stealing a little glance through the window as she walked past gave her the strength to face another day.
When she arrived at "Blighted Blunderland," as she liked to call it, she was surprised to find Santa's Workshop already unlocked with Santa inside. Ralph was notoriously late, and she'd invented a stockpile of reasons to give to the kids, everything from "Rudolph needed his nose polished" to "Mrs. Clause had to sew Santa's buttons back on his shirt." Santa might be fat and jolly, but one thing he was not was punctual.
As she ducked into Santa's Workshop, the small building where they kept the props and photographic equipment, she was greeted with a bellowing "Ho! Ho! Ho!"
"Give it a rest, Ralph," she complained, hoping to get everything set up early to prepare for the as-soon-as-the-mall-opens parents and tots. Even on weekdays they were hit hard right at 9:00. Didn't these kids go to school?
"Better be careful, little girl, or you'll end up on my naughty list!" Santa rumbled to her. Ralph had probably said three words to her in the week she'd been working with him, so this was very odd. She turned to look at the jolly man in the red suit. It was hard to see much behind the beard and mustache, fake eyebrows, and wig that was attached to the hat, but Julie could tell quite clearly that this was not Ralph.
The man in the red suit must have seen her look of surprise, because he dropped the fake deep voice and said, "Ralph had an accident last night. I'm going to be filling in for him for the rest of the season."
He had deep blue eyes, so dark they were almost purple. There were very few lines around his eyes either, so he couldn't have been too old. And his voice was just sexy as hell. It was ridiculous to be getting turned on by Santa Clause, but she was.
"Uh... Hi, I'm Julie." She stuck out her hand awkwardly, feeling like a dumb high school freshman with a crush on her teacher. Julie would know. She'd had a crush on one of her teachers freshman year.
"I'm Alvin," the voice behind the costume replied. "Ralph is my uncle."
"Is he all right? What happened?"
"Dumbass got drunk and slipped on the ice at my folks house. Put his bad hip out of place. Again. Lucky me, I'd just gotten home that afternoon so my dad volunteered me to take over for Uncle Ralph. And since the other two Santas can't work weekdays, I had no good excuse."
"Oh, it's not that bad," Julie lied. "Do you have any questions about what to do?"
"I just sit back and get all the glory while you do all the work, right?" he winked at her.
"Yep. That's pretty much it," she replied. She was glad to hear he had a sense of humor. She couldn't wait to see him out of that costume. She blushed at the double meaning behind that, but it was true. She hadn't been with a guy for nearly two years. She was hoping that would change soon.
The day passed pretty much the same as usual, except that now Julie had a little more interest in what Santa was doing. She hoped Alvin would have lunch with her, but he went off to the food court, and Julie didn't want to waste time changing and there was no way she was going in costume.
About an hour before she was due to leave, the manager called to ask her to stay for an extra shift. She reminded him she was already putting in a whole extra day on Saturday, but he begged her to stay and offered her a $25 bonus on top of the overtime pay, so she had to say yes. That would give her enough to buy the corset even without Saturday's overtime, so she'd have plenty of money for presents and partying as well.
As the 5:00 Santa arrived to join the 3:00 elf, Julie and Alvin headed into Santa's Workshop to finish up their paperwork for their shift. Alvin took off the Santa hat and beard, and Julie's heart nearly stopped. He was even more gorgeous than his voice implied. He looked a little silly with the fake eyebrows, so she reached over and plucked them off.
"Ow!" he complained. "Now you're going to have to take me out for dinner."
