Chapter 2
KEIR
“These test scores are remarkable,” I said, looking up from my desk at my assistant, Lance.
Lance’s eyes took on an excited shine. “I haven't seen scores like these in years. Not since Dmitri ran ground control for Santa's Sleigh.
“That was before my time. But I've heard good things.”
“With the technology we have now, he would have been even more miraculous.
I've been around for 75 years and I've never seen anybody do such quick and complicated equations in his head like Dmitri could. But the scores on this test tell us we might have another whiz-kid on our hands. I’ve got him scheduled for an interview on Friday. Kordy will take it.”
“No. I think I’ll interview him myself.” I looked down at my computer. “Fallon is his name?”
“Yes, sir. And also, he’s from the elven community.”
“All the better for me to do the interview.”
I was one of the only elves on the Santa’s Sleigh team.
This department was reindeer shifter territory, just like the workshops belonged to the elves.
Sometimes exceptions were made and there was cross-hiring.
I was one, a prodigy hired by Santa himself fifteen years ago after I’d proven myself with a double college degree in meteorology and flight navigation.
I’d worked hard to earn my way into the trust of the reindeer community.
I made head team manager when I was twenty-five.
Normally, when job openings came along, we advertise it in the reindeer shifter community. But this application had come from elven territory. The only reason it had been flagged were those scores.
After Lance left, I read more of Fallon’s online application. He was twenty-two and had not yet graduated from college. With those test scores, I wondered why. I also worried that he was far too young for the job. I had many questions for him.
On Friday, I would find my answers.
“I allocated money for three mathematician spots,” Santa said. His jolly face took up the entire large screen of my computer. His blue eyes twinkled. His beard glowed like moonlight on snow. “Two are filled. What about the third?”
“I have an interview for that position this afternoon, sir.”
“Let’s hope that works. As you recall, I had some time shift glitches last year. I received those corrections far too close to dawn’s light.” For us, sunrise was a designated time frame. We were in twenty-four-hour night mode here at the North Pole.
“I recall.” The team had worked frantically to solve the problem, but almost didn’t make the sunrise deadline.
“I want a smooth flight this year.”
“I’ll make sure.”
“I know you will, Keir.”
Sometimes promises were made that I couldn’t actually control.
Weather was a big factor. Every type of weather condition had to be planned for in every time slip and zone.
The reindeer leading the sleigh had to be informed about weather changes as much in advance as possible.
We communicated to them during the Christmas Eve flight through earbuds.
They couldn’t answer us, but they could hear.
Santa’s Sleigh reference sources, programs and calculations took up more bandwidth than Norad.
Plus, we often needed to re-calculate at a moment’s notice.
That required more than fancy programs. Sometimes ground control had to rewrite programming sections during Santa’s live flight.
It had the potential to turn into chaos.
“I’m counting on you as I always do,” Santa said. His red bow lips formed a smile as the connection ended.
I got up and made sure everything was in order for the interview.
My office was mostly white, including the hearth where a fire always burned. The walls sloped like most of the offices and hallways in the building, mimicking a snow cave ambiance. The huge window behind my desk overlooked Snowman Plaza.
I had a light tree in one corner and candy canes in a jar on my desk. I was set.
I wasn’t trying to impress this young applicant. All this attention to detail had to do with my alpha penchant for perfection. Maybe I couldn’t control the weather on Christmas Eve, but I could control my immediate surroundings. It was what made me a good leader of the team.
My intercom buzzed.
“Yes?”
“Fallon is here,” Lance said.
“Send him in.”
The door opened. In walked a young man with shiny brown hair pulled back into a neat tail. I immediately saw round ears.
“Are you Fallon?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re not an elf,” I said.
He stared at my face, no doubt seeing blond hair and pointed ears. “You’re not a reindeer shifter.”
I went behind my desk and stared at his application again. “It says here you’re from the elven community.”
Fallon nodded. “I was adopted.”
I immediately scented he was an omega. I’d worked long enough with shifters to know that for a fact.
Being raised by elves myself, and knowing their work ethics, I decided this was to Fallon’s advantage.
Plus, he would instantly be welcomed by other shifter team members.
We had an entire interview to go through, but I had to admit this was a good surprise.
“Were you young when you were adopted?” It wasn’t my business, but I spoke as if it was part of the interview.
“An infant. A foundling. My mom wanted me the moment she rescued me. The adoption was quickly approved.”
Close family ties meant loyalty. That was good. But why would he want to leave his adopted community? I reminded myself of his test scores. He obviously wanted to work within his aptitude.
“It says you currently work at Santa’s Workshop.”
He nodded.
“Which unit?”
“Dollmaking.” He swallowed hard. “I’m decent at it, but not great.” He made a face. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. I am a good, hard worker.”
Something about him. Slightly na?ve. Green. Introverted. Delightful?
He sat before me, hands tightly clasped, hesitating before he spoke.
“Have you ever been on a job interview before?”
He shook his head. “I was expected to go to work at the workshop when I turned eighteen. Um, my mom manages South Wing.”
“Full time?”
“Yes.”
“How have you managed college classes and studies?”
“Nights and weekends. That’s why I haven’t completed my major yet.”
“Which is?”
“Math.”
“That explains some of your test scores. But you chose to take the physics tests as well.”
“That’s my other focus. I might do a double major.”
“And your plans after?”
“Masters. If I can scrape up the money. PhD.”
“You want to go as far as you can, then.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s a lot of work in addition to your job.”
“It’s not work. I mean, the math part. It’s fun for me. If I get this job, I’ll give it all my attention.”
“Here, we encourage extra classes. But we also encourage outside interests to avoid burnout. What are your hobbies?”
He squirmed. “Hobbies?”
“Outside of work and school.”
He sat silent. Awkward. His hands turning over and over in his lap. His nerves made me nervous and I rarely experienced that. It wasn’t that I was a hard-hearted boss, but I was firm in my convictions. My team knew it. Always. But that meant a lot of us played hard on our time off.
I decided to help him out. “Do you like skiing? Ice sculpting? Tree decorating?”
His dark reindeer eyes got very big.
“What about flying?” I added.
He glanced away. “Is that a requirement?”
I frowned at his reaction. “Not unless you’re leading the sleigh.”
“Oh.”
I waited.
In a small voice, still looking down, he said, “My reindeer can’t fly. I almost died when I was born. I—I was left outside.”
Something turned over in my chest. My stomach muscles tightened. Who would do that to an infant? Reindeer shifters were close-knit. Family-oriented. Whatever had happened to Fallon, however, had not affected his brain.
I already knew I was going to hire him, but the interview wasn’t over.
“That shouldn’t happen to anyone,” I said.
He quickly glanced up. “I’m sleeping when I’m not working or studying. Does sleeping count as a hobby?”
Was he making a joke? “No.”
I decided to move on, asking him to go to the whiteboard by my window and work out a few equations I gave him. His hands shook at first, but as he worked on the first one his confidence grew, and by the last equation he made powerful strokes with beautiful handwriting to finish with a flourish.
He turned, marker in hand, and faced me for my verdict.
In truth, he solved everything I gave him faster than anyone I’d ever interviewed. But there was something in that last equation that puzzled me. It wasn’t in the usual order of things.
I walked up and pointed to a section of it. “Why this and not the standard rule?”
“It’s a shortcut,” he replied, for once not looking worried at all. “It gets the same result."
I studied it further. “I don’t understand.”
In a slow, soft voice, he began to explain. When he finished, I couldn’t think for a moment. He had surpassed me. I didn’t like it. I loved it.
“If you tell me to do standard procedures, I will. I can. I’m sorry.”
I tilted my head. “Why are you apologizing? We encourage creative thinking. Santa needs quick nav adjustments that sometimes aren’t straight-forward. I simply hadn’t seen that before.”
He nodded. “It’s like that at the workshop, too. He likes toy spinoffs. Plus, we have to keep up with modern technology.”
This was different. Or so I thought. This was about Santa’s entire ability to deliver millions of gifts in one night. But then I reminded myself something I’d always been taught as an elf child. Without the toys, there would be no Christmas Eve flight to manage.
I liked to think my job was the most important in Santa’s Village. My opulent office and high six figure salary had my alpha traits in overdrive, especially when I was younger. People were put off by me. Intimidated. My personal life suffered.
Now, here was a young omega reindeer who did math beyond what I could understand. My alpha side was tempted to run for cover.
Fallon continued to watch me. I squared my shoulders and went back to my desk.
“Like I said, Santa encourages creative thinking.” I saw him still standing by the whiteboard and waved my hand. “You can take a seat again. I only have a few more questions.”
He set the marker on the board’s ledge and hurried back to the chair. His thick sweater rose up over his black slacks revealing slim hips and a nice shape.
I quickly chastised myself. I didn’t look at workers like that.
I noticed—or my alpha did—but I didn’t objectify.
Employees were off-limits not because Santa decreed it, or even because of the fraternization rules, but because it was my own personal decision not to get involved with anyone at work.
In my position, responsible for all of Santa’s Sleigh, it couldn’t happen.
I asked a few more mundane questions, which Fallon answered succinctly.
When it was finished, I said, “Thank you for coming in.”
“Are we already done?” he asked.
I nodded, typing in a few notes.
“Um, okay. Thank you.” He started to stand, then sat again. “I want to say that I can work on that hobby thing.”
The way he squirmed. He really wanted this. Stringing him along was not nice of me. But in my defense, he’d spurred my alpha side. He’d out-mathed me, and my alpha was a bit jealous. And enchanted.
“You sound worried.”
Fallon tilted his head. “I want this job.”
“Oh that.” Stringing him along. Why was I being so bad? “You already have the job.”
His mouth fell open. “What?” His eyes got huge. “I do?”
All the tension in my chest melted to witness his joy. I stood and reached into my jar of candy canes. I came out from behind my desk and held it out. “Here. It’s official. This candy isn’t given to everyone.”
He took it as if it was a fragile bubble about to pop.
I added, “Can you start on Monday?”
He jumped up. “Yes, sir. I’ll be here.”
“Before you leave, go to HR and fill out all their forms.”
I watched him go down the hall, shoulders back, head high.
I liked that I had done that. Made him happy.
But I was happy, too. Last year’s close calls on Christmas Eve had left me rattled.
I had a great team, but I already knew deep inside.
Fallon was going to make it greater. I needed him for Santa’s Sleigh.