Chapter Four –
Light the darkness…
Klutz, Calamity, Gauntlet, Harley, Grey, Christian, and Cody - Calamity’s POV
(Tye and Carmine escaped this because they had games! Lucky devils and Jared and Aaron were at the clubhouse.)
“T his all needs to go out?” Gauntlet asked incredulously.
“Yep,” Jodie said with a frown on her face. “Although it doesn’t seem to be all here.”
“Are you sure?” Klutz questioned sarcastically.
“Yup, smartass. There’s stuff missing. Christian, Cody, fetch!” Jodie demanded.
Her brothers sent her a dirty look as I snorted, but they did as they were told.
“Calamity,” Jodie said, turning to me.
“Jodie.”
“We need to start hanging the lights in the trees. They go from the field that’s the overflow car park all the way up. Then we have to decorate the trees around the house. Then we need to build Santa’s grotto and the elf village. We’ve also got to put the ornaments out for the sleigh path and the ones that light up. There is the outside of the Hall to decorate and also Rivendell and Ewok Village.”
“And the rest,” Christian stated as he carried two reindeer that lit up.
“There’s only seven of us,” I said, looking horrified.
“Eight, I’m helping, well, supervising,” Jodie replied with a grin. “That stack of boxes there. They contain the lights for the trees on the driveway to the Hall.”
I looked at the pile and blanched. They were piled sky-high. This was going to be a nightmare. Harley rode around the corner, followed by Grey on snowmobiles pulling trailers.
“I’m not traipsing back and forth in the snow moving these boxes,” Harley said, and I saw he’d already placed ladders in the trailers.
“If you want to load up, we’ll let Cody and Christian get the rest of the garden decorations. I’ll fetch two more snowmobiles,” Jodie suggested and disappeared before anyone could agree or disagree.
This was going to take hours, I realised. I swapped grim glances with Klutz and Gauntlet. We’d thought we were getting off easy, but we all forgot how much Phoe decorated.
“Hey, wasn’t Mac in charge of lighting up the walkways and the sleigh path?” Klutz suddenly asked.
“Yes, he fuckin’ was. Ring him,” Gauntlet answered.
“Mac’s stuff has already been put to one side. He’s on his way,” Jodie responded as she parked another snowmobile.
“Ain’t gonna help much,” I complained.
Jodie disappeared again, and I looked up as I saw a group of Hellions approach. Eddie was in the lead. With her were eleven others, boys and girls.
“Eddie, we don’t have time to mess about today,” Harley said as he lifted a box.
“Oh, we know. We’ve come to offer help… for a price,” Eddie stated, looking at us with a sweet smile.
“Yeah?” Klutz asked, and I almost groaned aloud. Why did he bite?
“Well, I know where all the candy canes, chimneys, trains, silhouettes, Santas, penguins, and blah blah go. We can do all of them and save you tons of time,” Eddie replied.
“How much?” I demanded.
“There’s twelve of us, and this will take us a few hours. It’ll take us at least a morning. I think that’s worth one hundred bucks each,” Eddie stated.
“Twenty,” I bartered.
Eddie threw back her head and laughed. The Hellions joined in. I was wondering whether I should be paying them because, for once, they weren’t fighting.
“Good luck getting everything done within a week,” Eddie said, and they began to leave.
“Fifty bucks, Eddie, and not a cent more,” I offered.
The Hellions gathered together and discussed my offer before agreeing.
“We’d have gone for thirty,” Ami, Cowboy’s girl, added sweetly.
“They agreed fifty; too late now,” Aiden, Gunner’s boy, stated.
I glowered at him, and the little shit smirked. He might not share Gunner’s blood, but he had Gunner’s facial expressions nailed.
“Do it properly, or there’ll be no fifty bucks each, nor will there be presents,” I threatened. Several of the Hellion’s blanched, but Eddie held my gaze, the blasted child.
“If we didn’t do it properly, then Santa wouldn’t know to come to us. That’s why we decorate so much for him, so he knows he’s welcome here,” Eddie explained with a sideways glance at some of the younger children. The eight- and nine-year-olds still believed.
“Santa will come because he’ll think we look like the North Pole,” Bonnie, Rock’s daughter, said with a toothless smile.
“Holy hell, those teeth fell out all at once!” I exclaimed.
“Yup, and the tooth fairy brought me five bucks each!” Bonnie shot back.
“Wow, thirty whole bucks,” Klutz cheered.
“Yes, and I’ve got two more loose. Mom said it’s because I hate giving anything up, and I am a tightwad. That’s why they all fell out at the same time. I’m not sure what she means,” Bonnie replied, frowning.
I did, and I hid a laugh. Carly had issues spending money, but when Rock forced her to, Carly would go nuts. However, she still hid cash. Rock had found several piles of money since they’d been together. It was a throwback to Carly’s childhood, and Rock indulged her. Bonnie had no doubt seen Carly hiding it and was doing the same.
“Well, I’m sure the tooth fairy will bring you more soon,” Gauntlet replied.
“Me too!” Bonnie agreed happily.
“Come on, let’s get shi—stuff started,” Greg, Texas’s boy, said.
“Quicker we get it done, the faster we get paid,” Amelia, Jett’s daughter, stated and eyed everyone.
The kids grabbed boxes and ornaments and disappeared.
“They’ll take care of the gardens,” Jodie announced with a chuckle. “And Eddie’s right, between her, Tony, Timmy, and Scout, they know where everything goes.”
“Good, because I don’t have a clue,” Gauntlet said as Cody finished loading up the trailers. Klutz, Gauntlet, and I scrambled up onto a snowmobile, but the three Michaelsons and Grey disappeared. Jodie climbed onto her snowmobile, too.
Ignoring my raised eyebrows, Jodie waved us on. Easily, we drove down the drive to the gates, the snow not stopping us. It had been snowing for several weeks on and off now.
Phoe had installed them for her first Halloween, but she’d left them up. The wrought-iron gates fitted in with the gothic atmosphere of Reading Hall.
“How are we going to get the lights up top?” Gauntlet asked Jodie.
“Yeah, the ladders won’t let us reach the branches,” Klutz agreed.
“That’s why we have them,” Jodie said with a nod, and I shook my head in disbelief. I might have guessed.
Clearly having a race, Harley, Cody, Christian, and Grey raced towards us in small cherry pickers.
“We position them around the trees and put the lights up,” Jodie explained as the four of them took up position.
Klutz, Gauntlet and I watched as they draped the lights around and then down the trunk.
“How do they light up?” Grey asked.
“There are sockets every couple of trees. All we have to do is run the wiring down to one,” Jodie answered and did just that. The tree lit up in bright white.
“Before we wrap around the trees, we better check that each set works. I’m not putting a set up only to find they’re broken,” Klutz said.
“Good idea,” Gauntlet agreed.
We worked straight through for four hours and had only got one side done. Who’d have thought fuckin’ lights took so much effort?
We headed into the Hall for lunch and discovered the Hellions chomping down on a hearty stew. Mrs Ames pointed us towards a pot and left us to help ourselves.
“We’re done with the ground stuff, if you want to check?” Eddie said to Jodie as she dipped a thick slice of fresh baked bread into her bowl.
“Yeah, I will because I know what you’re like,” Jodie replied.
“Why aren’t you filming?” Grey asked.
“I’m taking a two-month break. They’ve had my character in a car accident and in a coma. I have worked solidly without a break since two thousand and fifteen. That’s seven years. The producer and director weren’t too happy, but enough is enough. Everyone else takes at least a month off through the year, and I’ve not. They owed me this.”
“Damn, has it been that long, Jodie?” I asked, surprised.
“Shocking, isn’t it?” she replied, and I nodded.
“And now you’re a household name. The famous Jodie Michaelson,” Cody teased, and Jodie threw a piece of bread at him.
“Not as famous as Serenity. That bikini shoot shot her straight to the top,” she retorted, and we all winced and looked for Drake.
Drake still couldn’t come to terms. His daughter was a model. And worse, she’d done several swimwear shoots. But Serenity was famous for her lingerie pictures, and it drove Drake insane.
“She’s been modelling seven years as well,” Jodie informed us, and we slowly nodded.
“Drake freaked the fuck out at Serenity’s first cover image,” Gauntlet said with a dark chuckle.
“I missed that. I joined Rage just after,” I remembered.
“Yeah, trust me, you were lucky, too.” Jodie laughed. “Dad was so traumatised. I thought he was going to poke everyone’s eyes out.”
We were all laughing when a scream came from what sounded like the front of the house. It was followed by more screams. We all dropped our spoons and rushed towards where the commotion was coming from. I heard Jodie moving the kids to safety with Mrs Ames.
Cody, Christian, and Harley were first through the drawing-room door with weapons drawn, and the rest of us weren’t far behind them.
“Shut the door!” Phoe screamed from where she was standing on a sofa. Clinging to her and shrieking was Penny. On an opposite armchair was Carly, who had her own gun out and was aiming at the huge Christmas tree.
To my amusement, and clearly Klutz’s woman’s, Aurora Victoria was sitting in an armchair, calmly sipping a cup of tea as she watched the mayhem.
“What the hell’s going on?” Gauntlet yelled just as Sin, Jemma, and Dana all let out matching shrieks and danced on the sofas they were standing on.
“Kill it!” Jemma shrieked as we looked around for the threat.
“What?” Klutz replied.
Something scurried across the floor, and I reeled back as eight screams deafened me. On turning, I saw Lindsey and Willow. Willow was standing on a table while Lindsey was on a wooden chair.
“That!” Willow yelled as she pulled her gun and aimed.
“Don’t shoot my rug!” Phoe screeched. The critter ran at Phoe, and she changed her tune. “Shoot it! Don’t let it get me!”
“What the hell?” Harley demanded, finally catching sight of the creature running about.
“There’s two of them, we’re being invaded. They hissed at us!” Carly cried.
“They’re chipmunks,” Harley announced, putting his gun away. “Jesus, calm the fuck down. You’re scaring them more.”
“Cute critters,” Grey said, bending down as he cornered one. He reached out slowly, and the little shit leapt at Grey and bit his thumb. Grey let out a howl, which set all the women off, and they screamed with him.
“Motherfucker,” Grey muttered, eyeing the sofa the chipmunk had run under.
“How did they get in?” Christian demanded as Cody and Harley appeared with two cages.
“That fuckin’ tree! It’s the bane of my life!” Phoe shrieked.
“Stop being a drama queen,” Christian said, and everyone drew in a sharp breath.
Phoe’s eyes fixed on her son, and he shrugged.
“Seriously, Mum, screaming and making such a commotion is scaring them. You need to shut up and calm down,” Christian continued as he searched for the chipmunks.
Silence fell, and I began planning Christian’s funeral.
Phoe’s narrowed gaze remained on him, and he crouched down and looked for the critters. Cody smirked and swapped an amused glance with Harley. They both seemed relieved it wasn’t them in Phoe’s bad books.
“Such a brave, idiotic prospect,” I muttered and flinched when Phoe’s glare swapped to me. I instantly got busy looking for the culprits of this mayhem.
“It was nice knowing you, Christian,” Aurora Victoria chipped in.
“There!” Gauntlet cried and dived at a running chipmunk. The chipmunk skidded on the wooden floor, its paws frantically scrabbling as Gauntlet flew past and slammed into one of the sofas, tipping Carly off.
Carly landed on Gauntlet, who grunted and wheezed for air. The chipmunk had a fuckin’ suicide wish because it reared up and hissed at Carly. She screamed, and Gauntlet winced and lost his breath again as she kneed him straight in the groin in her rush to get away from it.
“Fuck!” Klutz groaned as he went to help Gauntlet and ended up with an armful of Carly. She scrambled up Klutz like it was Artemis climbing Ace for monkey sex, and somehow Carly managed to get on his shoulders.
Klutz reached out and gripped Carly’s butt and then yelped. He moved his hands to her thighs and winced again and clutched the calves of her legs in the end.
“Good move, husband,” Aurora Victoria commented, looking amused.
“Don’t anyone tell Rock I grabbed his wife’s ass and thighs,” Klutz warned, glaring at everyone. The threat might have been more effective if Carly wasn’t shaking his head one way and another in her panic.
“Creepy little shits,” she muttered as the chipmunk staring at her hissed.
Grey helped Gauntlet into a kneeling position, but the moment he let go, Gauntlet keeled over on his side, still holding his groin.
“Go get him an ice pack,” I ordered Harley, who nodded and disappeared.
“Okay, let’s tackle this logically. Cody, go get some cheese and fresh fruit. Then lay two trails around the floor leading to cages,” I said.
Cody left and returned quickly, and we laid trails. The chipmunks were clearly hungry as they gobbled up our offerings and were soon inside the provided cage and locked up securely.
Everybody breathed a sigh of relief, although Gauntlet was still trying to breathe through his pain.
The women climbed down off the furniture and were starting to relax when Phoe looked horrified and knocked Penny down as she jumped on the sofa.
“There’s another one! It’s an invasion,” she screamed.
I sighed along with everyone who owned a dick while Aurora Victoria cackled loudly in her armchair as all the old ladies leapt back up onto their higher platforms.
◆◆◆
Twenty minutes later, we had removed a family of four chipmunks. The fourth we’d found when Christian had stupidly shoved his head into the tree to find their nest. The last one had attacked Christian with all the fury of a possessed kitten and plastered itself to his face. He now sported scratches down either side of his cheeks.
After I called Rosie to come and check them over before releasing them, she suggested they’d probably been scrounging for food when the guys chopped the tree down. And then, frightened, they had stayed hidden within the thick branches.
An hour later, we were back in the snow, hanging lights. What a brilliant idea this had been of Drake’s… not. Christmas was going to be a disaster. It would take us weeks to get all these lights finished, and we weren’t even a quarter of the way through the list.
Finally, we’d done the trees on the drive and those leading up to the Hall. It was dark, and all we needed to do was flip the circuit breaker, and the area would be lit up.
“We need help,” Klutz admitted.
“Yeah,” Gauntlet agreed.
“So why didn’t you book the decorators that Mum uses every year? They manage it in a weekend,” Christian asked.
“What?” Klutz demanded, turning to the prospects.
“Mom has a team for the inside and one for the outside,” Cody informed us.
“Are you kidding? We could have paid someone to do this?” Gauntlet snarled.
Harley eyed us. “We did try to suggest yesterday when you ordered us here that we get help. And macho man there,” Harley pointed at Klutz, “snapped and said we were fully capable of decorating the Hall.”
Gauntlet and I turned to stare at Klutz, who shrugged and stood his ground.
“That would have been cheating,” Klutz retorted.
“And Wild, Cowboy, and Savage did not cheat when they realised Phoe had placed an order for the trees?” I asked. “Who else has cheated?”
“Jett, Hunter, Slate, and Blaze. They didn’t go shopping in time and half their list was sold out. We let them sweat for a couple of days, as we’d already bought every single toy on the list. Then we gave Blaze the missing ones,” Grey announced.
“Really? Sneaky shits, ain’t ya prospects?” Klutz demanded.
“Dude, you know how much Christmas means to the women. And honestly, none of you have any idea of how much goes into it. So yeah, we’ve booked the team to come in tomorrow and Monday. Dad told you to take care of it, not actually physically do it. Which means you owe us a marker like the others do,” Harley explained.
“And if we don’t give you a marker?” Gauntlet asked.
“Then we will pay the people even though you didn’t want them, and we’ll struggle for the next week getting this done,” Cody responded.
“You got your markers, and we’ll pay for the decorators,” I said after swapping glances with Klutz and Gauntlet.
“Thank fuck this shit is over,” Gauntlet hissed.
“Jodie said the kids have put all the ground stuff in the right positions. Let’s flip this breaker and head inside,” Cody suggested.
We had turned the electrics off after we’d checked all the lights were working because we didn’t want to blow a fuse by tripping over the wires. And we’d all tripped over at least one.
Gauntlet flipped the breaker, and, for a brief moment, the trees all lit up beautifully. I had to admit, it was impressive.
Then, there was a bang, and the circuit blew, and the grounds and Hall plunged into darkness.
“Not again!” Phoe screeched from somewhere inside the Hall.
“Aw shit!”
Phoe
I tapped my foot as Mr Ames and Albert headed downstairs yet again to restore power to the Hall. What was it with the brothers that they kept blowing my electrics? Considering the wiring was all new, not even a decade old, I had no idea how they managed to keep doing it.
“Hey Phoe, the gardens are lit up,” Aurora Victoria called.
We’d all wrapped up planning to check the gardens out that had been decorated. I had a sinking sensation in my gut because every time Jodie looked at me, she began giggling. Clearly, the brothers had done something.
I headed outside with the gaggle of women and stopped at the sight that met my eyes on the back lawn. Fornicating reindeer were everywhere.
My mouth dropped open as I stared at a reindeer orgy. Jodie collapsed into laughter, followed by Carly and Aurora Victoria.
“Wow, is that one being gang-banged?” Penny asked, and I turned to stare. Holy shit! How the hell had they managed that?
I made a strangled noise as Jemma started taking photos, and Willow began filming.
“Not sure if I should be worried that Grey is apparently into bestiality,” she muttered, and the old ladies began screaming with laughter.
I blinked and headed further down towards my rose garden. There, I let out a shriek.
“I’ll never look at candy canes the same way again,” Lindsey choked out through laughter.
A Santa was bent over, and the end of a candy cane had disappeared between his red plump ass cheeks. Another Santa seemed to be banging, another one that was bent over. A third Santa hugged a large candy cane as if it was pole dancing. Everywhere I looked, there were scenes of sex acts being carried out.
“Should I check the other gardens?” I whispered, appalled. This needed cleaning up before the Hellions saw it.
Jodie broke into gales of laughter, and I shook my head. No. I daren’t.
“Klutz, Calamity, Gauntlet, Harley, Grey, Christian, and Cody!” I screamed at the top of my lungs and headed to the Hall. The old ladies continued their tour as I went to find the culprits.
The lights came back on in the Hall and the guys appeared looking pleased with one another.
“Are you kidding me?” I hissed at them, and they stopped and looked at me. “Do you really think that is acceptable? With the Hellions around?”
“Mum, what are you on about?” Christian asked.
“That!” I shrieked and swept my hand outwards. I saw the moment they noticed the scene and realised they’d no idea about this. Horror and shock crossed their faces, and suddenly, I guessed what had happened.
“Tell me you didn’t get the Hellions to help you?” I demanded.
Slow nods met me.
“I got penguin porn here!” Dana shrieked from the darkness, and gales of hysterical laughter met her.
“Well, let’s say these Elves are having a real party, whips and chains included,” Penny yelled.
“That I need to see!” Lindsey cried.
“Get your asses out there and sort that out before the younger children see the porn movie you allowed the Hellions to create on my lawns and gardens!”
The guys all winced but shot off into the garden to repair the damage.
Giggles came from behind me. I closed my eyes and pinched my nose.
“How much did they pay you?” I asked Eddie.
“Fifty bucks each. Don’t worry, Mama Phoe, the younger kids all think they’re playing leapfrog and stuff,” Eddie replied.
Lindsey appeared and handed Eddie some money. “That, child, was well worth it.”
“Thank you, Aunt Lindsey!” Eddie chirped.
“We all chipped in. There’s another five hundred bucks there, kid. Go share it with your co-conspirators, and I’ll get your mom a stiff drink,” Lindsey said.
“Thanks!” Eddie cried and dashed off.
“Come on, Phoe, let’s get you a double shot of whiskey. You’re going to need it!”
Lindsey had no idea!