Chapter 1
SAMPLE: NAUGHTY-ISH
Where is that fucking elf on a shelf doll?
In preparation for the upcoming Christmas holiday, I’d been searching everywhere for that damn creepy imp that sits on a shelf, pretending to monitor my children’s behavior in the weeks before the holiday.
Naughty or nice, Nash and Eloise are my favorite two people in the world.
But that elf really annoys me.
I couldn’t keep the festive doll with the other decorations for fear the kids would discover him, thus ruining the ploy that he appears on the Feast of St. Nicholas.
A tradition which includes setting out your shoes—in our case, by the front door—and if you are on Santa’s nice list, candy fills your footwear.
A kid on the naughty list receives a lump of coal.
My parents used this setup when I was a child, which was long before that shelf elf was even imagined. It was another gimmick propagated by adults to keep their children in line during the holiday season.
“If you’re on the naughty list, there’s still time to right wrongs.”
I’ve said those very words myself, although my children are not bad kids.
They aren’t angels by any stretch, but with the year we’ve had, they’re damn near perfect.
My ex-husband is the one who belongs on the naughty list. Actually, he belongs on the dirtbag’s list, but that’s neither here nor there tonight as I tackle my first holiday season without his presence.
I want it to be a pleasant Christmas for my little ones. They deserve it.
“Shoes,” I mutter aloud, standing in the wintery darkness of ten o’clock in my living room.
Before the kids went to bed, Nash put his gym shoes by the front door beside Eloise’s Sherpa-lined boots.
She thought St. Nick might bring her more candy if she had taller footwear.
St. Nick is on a budget this year, kiddo.
Of course, she doesn’t know the tradition is all make-believe.
There isn’t a saint named Nick checking in on us.
There isn’t even a Santa Claus, but I’ll wait a few years before breaking her heart on that one.
Lord knows she’ll have bigger heartbreaks in her life. I’ll shield her as best I can, for as long as I can. But what happens when she’s older and on her own? What do I do if she ends up like me, marrying a schmuck?
Mitch hadn’t been a schmuck when we married. He was everything I’d been looking for in my early thirties. What does the heart know though, right? Good sex brought us together, but it apparently wasn’t good enough because he eventually went elsewhere.
Once. It only happened once.
On a scale of zero times it should have happened, his infidelity occurred one time too many.
His decision shattered me. No marriage is perfect, but that kind of slip-up means there was an issue I hadn’t noticed buried underneath the daily life of a married couple with young children.
I faulted myself in some ways. Not for him stepping out on me.
That was all on him. However, I’d been blinded by a sense of security I had with my ex-husband. And blindsided by his actions.
Now I was forty, wiser, and wary.
And Mitch’s construction boots are conspicuously absent from our collection this year.
“Shoes,” I mumble again. Snapping my fingers, I recall what I was doing—looking for the elf.
Eventually, he’ll be placed on top of the fridge or the china cabinet because he needs to be out of reach from Nash, who is only five.
At eight years old, Eloise is the one with questions.
And shoes are the answer tonight, as the wily elf is in a shoebox on a shelf in my closet—a place the children would never go.
Climbing the stairs of my new-to-us home, I find the little rascal in an old box for heels I no longer own.
Once retrieved, I look about the house seeking a good spot to place him.
Eloise already wrote him a long list of questions, and I’ll need to forage through her letters from last year (also placed in the box) to recall previous answers.
She’s a smart one, my little girl, and she remembers this shit better than me.
As the litany of her questions spans a sheet of paper front and back, a glass of wine is in order to navigate this process.
As a right-handed person, I’ll have to disguise my handwriting by using my left hand to write the answers.
A full glass of red matches the holiday spirit, I decide, although I don’t have a stitch of decoration up in this house yet.
I haven’t had time. Returning to full-time work after the divorce, plus carpools for extracurricular activities, and the daily grind of getting my children to and from school, then dinner and homework, baths and bedtime routines, I’m beat by the end of the day.
Besides, Thanksgiving was just over a week ago.
After a hardy drink, I focus on the first question.
Number one. Do you like peppermint dick?
I blink, certain I’ve misread and realize I have.
Do you like peppermint stick?
Sweet baby Jesus in a manger, my imagination got the best of me there, or perhaps it’s more my subconscious, as I haven’t been with a man in over a year.
Feeling dirty and unwanted after what Mitch did, the dry spell hadn’t bothered me at first, but now, twelve months later, I miss the sensual touch of another human.
My own fingers have worked willingly but not provided the wonder of connecting with someone else.
Number two. How many—
THUNK!
“What the hell?” I glance over my shoulder, peering behind me through the small window in the eating area. Something has just hit my house.
Another thud and then something clatters outside, out of sight of the window.
“When up on the rooftop, there arose such a clatter,” I mutter the famous line from Clement Clarke Moore’s poem ’Twas the Night Before Christmas.”
Standing, I hold my breath, awaiting another thump when a different thought wafts through my head. The poem is actually titled A Visit from St. Nick.
Impossible.
Bemused, I breathily laugh at myself. Clearly, I need more sleep.
Willing my shoulders to relax, I prepare to sit back down when I hear the telltale sign of an aluminum ladder clanking and a light thud of metal connecting with my house again.
On second thought, is the verse arose such a ladder?
Shaking my head, I realize I’m losing my mind, but something is definitely banging on the side of my home.
With wineglass in hand as if that will protect me, I slip into my own set of Sherpa-lined boots and step out the back door leading to the driveway I share with my neighbor.
My single car garage is detached from the house, and I don’t park in the slightly leaning building.
The space covers bikes, summer furniture, and boxes I haven’t unpacked yet.
We’ve only been in the house for seven months.
Standing on the back stoop, I pause. What am I doing? I’m a single mother living alone. I shouldn’t be out here investigating in the dark.
Then I hear the metal clang of a ladder against the siding once more coming from my front yard and curiosity gets the best of me. Despite the cold, I walk along the side of my home and down the drive toward the front. Cupping the wineglass against my chest, I slowly approach the corner of my house.
“Shit.” A deep male voice whispers in the night.
My heartbeat ratchets up a few thumps. Is someone trying to break in? They’re making quite a racket if that’s the case. Not to mention, the only thing of value in this house are my two children nestled all snug in their beds.
Rounding the corner, I shout, “What the hell are you doing?”
My sharp voice rips through the quiet night air, causing the man standing on the low roof overhanging my front stoop to slip.
With a curse from his lips and the slide of his feet, he scrambles to stay on the narrow strip of roofing.
Only his left foot goes over the edge, kicking the gutter.
He does an awkward split motion before his body slowly glides to the end of the roof, and his weight takes him off it.
“Oh my God!” I cry out, rushing toward the large body dangling from the overhang.
Not more than ten feet from the ground to the start of the incline, his stretched form shows he’s roughly six feet plus.
He only has a few feet to drop if he lets go of my gutter, which is starting to strain under his weight.
He’s too far away to reach the ladder, which is propped up on the opposite corner of the overhang.
With a swing of long legs in jeans that accentuate the thickness of his thighs and the firmness of his backside, he tucks forward before lunging back and dropping like a cat to the ground, clearing the stairs that descend from the porch.
His back remains to me for half a second, and red buffalo check flannel strains over the expanse of thick muscles and flexed biceps in a shirt that hugs his body. Slowly, he turns to face me.
“Nick?” I choke.
With a bright red knit cap on his head, my next-door neighbor stares down at me.
He has these intense, dark blue eyes and cheeks like cliffs, matching the mountainous stature of his body.
His jaw holds an artful combination of black and white scruff, which is more snow than earth-colored despite his hair still being a shade of charcoal.
And I know these details about Nick, my next-door neighbor, because he’s hot with a capital H.
Nick Santos was already living next door when the kids and I moved in.
My first interaction with him was when I’d pulled into my driveway one evening to find him making out with a woman against his front door.
He didn’t break away from her mouth until I’d parked my car, gotten out, and walked toward my front entrance.
Only a sliver of grass separates our single car driveways.