18. The Third Day Before Christmas #2
“No?” Duke asks, closing the small gap that Mal put in between them. “Because from what I heard, you’re a piece of shit cheater.”
Mal licks his lips, his eyes darting all around, though not on me. Duke still stands in front of me, protecting me. “Relationships are complicated. By the end, we were really falling apart. Barely together, really.”
“And did Sebastian know that you were barely together?” Duke snarls.
“Sebastian?” Mal asks, frowning. “Why would I tell him anything?”
Olivia ignores him. “From what I heard, you were still together enough for you to continue taking money and living like the leech you are.”
Mal narrows his eyes, at least until Curio, Valentine, and Captain come sprinting out from their stations to stand beside Duke and Olivia, making a wall in front of me.
“What’s going on?” Valentine asks.
Olivia juts her thumb towards Mal. “This is the ex. I guess he didn’t like how the conversation went this morning, so he came here to finish it.”
The guys, my wonderful, sweet, goofy, loveable Santas, harden. They stand in front of Mal like a wall of muscle. Instead of their usual golden retriever energy, they now exude angry mountain lion.
Part of it feels nice. These guys really are my friends and they’re willing to protect me. Another part though, the part that sees a crowd start to form to watch the four angry Santas confront a guest, feels like my heart is getting pulled out of my chest.
“Listen,” Mal says, increasingly agitated in front of the studly Santas. “This is all so out-of-proportion. I know I messed up—”
“I’ll say,” Duke huffs. “What you did to Sebastian was fucked up. I would never, never hurt him like you did.”
Mal freezes. “I don’t think I hurt Sebastian, really.”
Duke goes to take another step towards him, but the other Santas hold him back.
“You dick!” Olivia screams. Many parents rush to cover their child’s ears. They don’t move away, though. Can’t blame them.
“Really, I don’t even think he liked me that much,” Mal says, looking confused. It’d be hilarious, if it wasn’t the prelude to my life crumbling.
Although maybe, just maybe, there’s a chance this won’t be as bad as I think it will. Hopefully.
Just then, Maria pushes her way through the crowd of watching people. For the first time since I started working here, the parents look more invested with what’s happening than the kids. “What’s going on?” she barks, looking completely furious at us, but also unsurprised.
Everyone ignores her.
“Seb gave you everything!” Olivia yells, in a way that only the boss’s granddaughter could possibly feel comfortable yelling at her place of employment.
“ Sebastian? ” Mal asks again. “He didn’t give me a damn thing.”
“That’s it!” Curio says, removing himself from restraining Duke. “I’m going to fight him myself.” He pushes up the sleeves of his Santa suit, while stepping towards Mal. “Sebastian is one weird dude, but he’s a good one. Way better than you.”
Mal eyes Curio over. He doesn’t have the same intimidating stature that Duke does. “Listen, Santa. You don’t know the first thing about me. I’m a doctor . I save people’s lives for a living, while you are nothing but a seasonal clown.”
Evidently, that’s the line for Maria. She shoves Curio out of the way and gets right in Mal’s face. The Snowspruce staff all backs away from the scene. She may be older and smaller than all of us, but she is the scariest one here.
“Well, Doctor, ” she spits. “I’ll have you know that these boys are some of the finest young men around.
” The Santas swell with pride. “While they may be complete idiots, they’re better than men like you who only do good deeds as a point of pride or status.
Every day, they work their buns off to bring joy to children—not for any of the reasons that I’m sure you chose to be a doctor, but because they’re good men.
” She takes a deep breath after having raised her voice at him.
Then, she brushes calmly at her elf skirt, reinstating herself at the pinnacle of professionalism.
“Now, if you please, Snowspruce Christmas Village has the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason. So, leave.”
Mal grits his job. “Not until I speak with Viola. She is severely mistaken if she thinks she can push me around.”
“Viola?” Maria asks. “Who’s Viola?”
“Sebastian’s sister,” Duke offers.
Maria frowns. “I thought this was Sebastian’s ex? The one he needed to talk to this morning?”
“What—” Mal starts.
“It doesn’t matter,” Duke says, staring Mal down.
“We don’t give a fuck who you want to talk to.
You’re done. Done with the Pearson twins.
Done with Snowspruce. Done with whatever bullshit scheme you have to coerce Seb into giving you anything more than he’s already given.
So, bye.” He turns around dramatically, locking eyes on me, making sure I’m okay.
“Now listen here,” Mal says, weaving around Maria to get to Duke.
Duke must hear him as his feet crunch on the fake snow underfoot.
He spins around to look at him. When he does, his fake belly smacks into Mal, shaking them both like two bowls full of jelly.
They both fall over. Duke lands on the velvet rope, getting tangled as the posts topple over under his weight.
Unfortunately, I’m also standing right at the rope watching them. When Duke goes down, the rope swings out from under him, taking me out at the ankles.
“Shit! Sebastian!” Duke says, scrambling from the ground, trying to catch me.
It doesn’t work. I land painfully on the ground, my hip hitting the oddly hard fake snow. I yelp out in pain—in a very non-Santa, non-male voice. I scramble to right myself, but the fake snow is slippery. When I finally get my bearings, I realize that everyone is looking at me.
That Mal is looking at me.
“Viola?” he asks.
From his place beside me, Duke’s fingers, like so many other times, reach up to touch my cheek. This time, there’s nothing in the way. His fingers stroke my cheek. The slight drizzle of the never-ending winter misting rain pecks at my skin. My bare skin.
On the ground in front of me is my beard. It lies on the fake snow, blending into the monochromatic scene. It seems so unobtrusive, so unimportant, so benign for all the damage its absence will do.
“Viola?” Duke asks, his eyes shimmering with wetness.
“We need to talk,” Mal says, lifting himself off the fake snow to stomp his way over to me. He towers over me as I still sit, broken on the ground. “What you did at my apartment this morning was beyond cruel. How could you possibly do that to me? To someone you said you loved?”
Something in me boils over. I’ve had it with him.
“I don’t care what you say or how you try to manipulate me.
It’s not going to work. I’m tired of giving everything to you until there’s nothing left of me.
I choose me this time, Mal. And nothing you say or do can change that.
I won’t be renewing our lease, and I want my stuff back. End of story. End of us.”
“You’re going to regret that, Viola,” he snarls, nostrils flaring.
I don’t answer him. Instead, my eyes dart around to all the Snowspruce staff. They all look on at me with variations of horror on their faces.
“Viola?” Olivia asks, trying out the unfamiliar name.
Captain rubs at his eyes. “So, Duke’s been jonesing for Sebastian and his sister, but they’re the same person?”
“No,” Valentine says, his eyes flitting furiously over me, “Sebastian wouldn’t lie to us like that. There’s got to be some explanation?”
So many disappointed eyes stare back at me, including the little faces who look on at the horror scene made up of my bare face and my downed beard. The only one who looks pleased in all this is Mal.
“I see,” he says, still looming over me.
“You and Sebastian pulled a little twin switcheroo.” He turns to the crowd.
“They’re always doing stuff like this.” It’s not true, but I’m too ashamed to say anything.
I want so badly to crawl into a hole and die.
I want all this to go away. “This is immature, Viola. Even for you.”
My eyes burn as fat tears roll down my cheeks.
“Oh god,” Maria mutters. “The liability.”
More tears fall from my eyes. I’ve truly ruined everything. Unbidden, my eyes meet Duke’s. He’s still on the ground, close to me, staring at me in a way I can’t decipher.
Maria’s still verbally processing all the legal ramifications, but it’s only Duke’s voice I listen to.
“You lied to me.” He takes a ragged breath.
“You knew how confused I was—about everything, about myself —and you kept lying to me. Even after we… You didn’t think I was worth the truth, Seb—Viola? ”
“I—”
Mal barks a laugh drier than my lady parts the last time we boned. “You seem like a good guy, so I’ll tell you now, man to man, she’s not worth it. She’s just an unambitious leech who tried attaching herself to a doctor. Only it didn’t work, so I guess she’s moving onto some Magic Mike wannabe.”
All the Snowspruce staff erupts anew. Duke’s up and scrambling towards him, the other guys are holding him back, and Olivia’s in Mal’s face yelling about how he wishes he were Magic Mike. Only Maria keeps her calm. Placing two fingers in her mouth, she screeches out an ear-splitting whistle.
“Get him to the loft before he does something even more stupid than usual,” she barks to the other Santas, pointing at Duke.
All the Santas, including Duke, protest, but Maria shuts them up.
“A friend helps their buddy fight. A true friend keeps their friend out of trouble that could mess up the rest of his life.”
“No, come on, guys…” Duke pleads as it becomes increasingly obvious that the guys are going to drag him away. I hold my breath, waiting to see what else he’s going to say.