Chapter 11
CHAPTER 11
T WO WEEKS LATER—the night of the pantomime
Noah stood in the wings, feeling nervous as all hell, watching Mrs Melba doing her piano act, with her snakes joining in on the keys for the final crescendo.
He could hear the audience laughing as one of the snakes went rogue and hit all the wrong notes. On purpose, of course.
Beside him, Harper slid her small hand into his and squeezed.
He looked down at her, the light from the stage falling on her face. She was so pretty in her sparkling green and red outfit, with glitter all round her face and in her hair.
As for him, well, he looked down at his pants. Perfect fit. Harper was a great seamstress, and she’d also made the Santa jacket fit better with a couple of darts in the sides. If it wasn’t for this stupid cotton wool beard making his face itch, he’d think he looked pretty cool—as far as Santas went.
“You ready?” Harper whispered.
“Yeah, as ready as I’ll ever be.”
It had been easier learning his lines than he’d thought. Making love with Harper in between practices relaxed him, and he found reading the words so much easier when he was relaxed. Which meant, of course, they’d had to make love a lot, to ensure he was relaxed enough to learn his lines.
Oh yeah, it had been a busy two weeks.
It was fortuitous he’d made good money on that fishing trip because he’d barely had time to go out to sea. At least playing Santa paid something into his bank account.
But who needed money? They’d get by. They had each other.
And now there was a round of applause, and Mrs Melba was up out of her seat, bowing, her snakes winding around her.
“Our turn,” Harper whispered.
Toby, playing compere, and looking very suave in a black cloak and red bow tie, came to check on them. “All ready, my dears?” He looked wistfully at Noah. “You both look gorgeous.” He sighed, but he clearly only had eyes for Noah.
And then he flew onto the stage. “And now, boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, it is time for our finale. Santa and his elf will be giving out the Christmas gifts. With the help of their wonderful gizmo gift-producing machine and… Biff the goblin.”
Biff joining in had been a last-minute decision.
No one quite knew why they had volunteered, but there it was. Gran had said it would be good to have a grinch in the cast.
The lights blinded Noah for a moment, but luckily, he couldn’t see all the faces in the audience.
There were wolf whistles. Catcalls.
Someone called, “Get your gear off, Santa.”
Shit, this was embarrassing. But then Harper ran out and curtsied and blew kisses and everyone cheered madly.
Once he got going with his lines, Noah found his nerves evaporating. He was quite enjoying himself as he strode around the stage, calling “ho ho ho” and swishing his tail around.
The Gift Gizmo machine started to gurgle and gripe and burp and belch.
First, they used fairy dust. He let the canister out and glitter went everywhere.
“Well, the fairy dust isn’t working, Let’s add dragon flames,” Noah said, dutifully reciting his lines. “Who thinks we should add dragon flames?”
“Yes!” everyone shouted.
Noah went and grabbed the canister of dragon flames and aimed it at the Gizmo machine.
Smoke went everywhere, and the flames looked rather too real.
An ominous burning smell filled the theater.
“Oh dear, I think they gave us the wrong canister,” Harper said, looking up at him out of wide eyes.
Noah looked back at the Gift Gizmo machine. The conveyor belt was on fire.
A couple of the props guys came running out with fire extinguishers and started squirting at the flames, to shouts of glee from the audience.
Suddenly there was a whoosh overhead. Water started to spray from the ceiling, and within seconds Noah and his elf were standing in the middle of the stage, soaking wet.
Harper’s wings were bedraggled. Her hair hung in wet streams around her face, and her mascara had run.
Noah knew he didn’t look any better. His Santa outfit was soaked and sticking to his big selkie frame. His beard was a soggy white mess around his face.
Now what? he wondered, standing there dripping.
“Hey, Santa, take that wet shirt off!” someone heckled from the audience.
“Yeah, let’s see the real Santa.”
Suddenly all the old folks were cackling away like a bunch of harpies.
Noah grinned sheepishly and made to leave the stage. There was a lot of booing.
“Show us what you got, Santa!” Louder this time.
Noah looked around. Harper was nowhere to be seen. She’d already skedaddled to get out of her wet elf outfit.
But then he saw Biff on the edge of the stage, waggling their eyebrows, arms crossed.
“Go on,” Biff said, “make me smile.”
There was a challenge if ever he’d heard one. With a grin, Noah walked back to center stage, peeled off his bedraggled beard and threw it on the ground.
Loud whoops ensued.
Then he unbuttoned his shirt and with a suggestive swing of his hips, stripped it off and threw it aside with a flourish. The audience erupted into another round of wolf whistles and catcalls.
Yeah, he was getting into this. He flexed his biceps. Strutted up and down to more catcalls.
And then out came Harper, in a different outfit, a little silver and gold thing with a puffed-up skirt, her hair still wet but her face cleared of the mascara streams.
Well, from here they were going to have to ad lib, because things had certainly not gone to plan.
Someone—Maeve, he was sure—sang out from the back of the hall, “Kiss the elf,” and suddenly everyone started to chant, “Kiss the elf, kiss the elf.”
Noah looked at Harper and popped his eyes at her.
“I think they may have an inkling about us,” she said. “So now they want evidence.”
Noah ginned. “Well, let’s make them work for it, shall we?”
Harper winked at him and turned to the audience, clasping her hands together and batting her eyelashes wildly.
“Oh no, I couldn’t kiss Santa. Especially now he’s lost his shirt.”
“Yes, you can!”
“No I can’t.”
“Oh, yes you can.”
“Oh, no I can’t.”
Noah stepped forward and grinned down at his beautiful elf, pursing his lips.
“Should I?” Harper asked the audience, hands on her hips now, waggling her eyebrows. “Surely, it’s not okay to kiss the boss?”
Suddenly, Biff barreled in from stage right, holding a step ladder and a sprig of mistletoe. They put the ladder down, stood on it and held the mistletoe over Harper and Noah’s heads.
And good gods, Biff was smiling. No, scratch that, Biff was grinning from one goblin ear to the other.
“Now they can kiss, right?” Biff shouted gleefully to the audience.
Everyone chanted, “Yes, yes, yes!”
“Okay, then, one little, teeny, weeny kiss. Just because it’s Christmas.” Harper laughed.
As Noah bent his head, Harper stood on tippytoes. He put his arms around her and lifted her up just high enough that her sweet lips could meet his in the perfect clinch.
The applause nearly brought the old theater roof down.
“Well, my dears, I have to say, last night’s performance was the most fun we’ve had at a Monsters of Mercy Christmas show ever.” Eleanor beamed at the assembled cast at the debrief the next day.
“Sorry about the Gift Gizmo machine,” Harper said. “I’m not sure what happened there.”
“I think things might have got a little overheated.” Gran smirked, her eyes darting between Harper and Noah. “Maybe it was the chemistry between Santa and his elf.”
“Oh, Gran!” Harper rolled her eyes.
Gran sailed on, “As for you Biff, that was, quite honestly, a stroke of genius.”
Biff grunted.
“Here are your pay checks.” Gran handed out the envelopes and the other members of the committee, sitting casually in a circle as they shared morning tea, all applauded.
“If you want to be our Santa next year, Noah,” Toby said, with a barely disguised lustful smirk, “I for one would welcome you.”
“He’s taken, Toby,” Gran sighed. “We won’t hold you to that, Noah. But we do hope you’ll come and visit us with Harper, some time in between.”
“I sure will, if I’m invited.”
“Consider it an open invite. Now, off you hop, you two lovebirds. Shoo, shoo, go enjoy your Christmas.”
Harper frowned. “Aren’t I supposed to be cooking Christmas lunch for the residents?”
“Oh gosh!” Eleanor’s hand fluttered to her hair. “I forgot to say, darling, Jasper our cook is coming back. Biff apologized to him over the jam drop incident. Didn’t you Biff?”
Biff shrugged. “Kind of.”
Harper had to hide a smile. After Biff’s descent into unbridled merriment yesterday, things were pretty much back to normal.
No smile in sight.
“Anyhow,” Gran said, “they’ve made peace, spirit of Christmas and all, and so Jasper is taking back the reins. I honestly think he missed us all. I even think he missed Biff.”
Biff shuffled in their chair, the idea that someone missed them obviously too uncomfortable to acknowledge.
“Don’t be upset darling,” Eleanor told Harper. “I know how much you wanted to cook for us all.”
Harper wasn’t upset—in fact, she could hardly hide her smile. If she didn’t have to cook all day tomorrow, well, that meant… waking up in bed with Noah, making mad passionate love with Noah. It would also mean Christmas lunch with his mom and… eek, Wyatt and Dina.
Noah had been so disappointed that she wasn’t going to be at his side. But now, they’d be together for their first Christmas as a couple.
She reached out and squeezed his hand and he squeezed hers back, sending her such a look of love that it was good they were seated, because her bones practically melted.
When they left the meeting room, Biff mumbled, “Merry Christmas,” as if it was the gloomiest thing ever, then scurried off. When the goblin was halfway along the path, they turned and came back. After a moment of shuffling their feet, they leaned in and gave Harper an awkward hug. Biff then shot out a calloused hand and, without looking Noah in the eye, mumbled, “Thanks for making me smile.” Then shot off at speed down the path toward the café.
“I think you just received the biggest compliment of your life.” Harper laughed.
“I should have bottled it.”
“Biff’s probably happy Jasper’s coming back. Gran told me they have a real love hate relationship. I guess they’ll fall out again at some stage.” Harper sighed. “But let’s hope it lasts until after Christmas.” She cocked her head. “So, um, talking of Christmas, can I invite myself to Christmas lunch?”
“Oh babe, you’re the one I want to spend Christmas with more than anyone.”
“And it won’t be awkward? You know, with Dina and Wyatt there.”
“Not for me. It’ll be like the year before last,” Noah said. “When I was with Dina, and you were with Wyatt. When, according to Wyatt, I was eye fucking you across the turkey.”
Harper looked at him incredulously. “What?”
Noah dropped a tender kiss on her head as they walked back to her little cottage. “Yep, he reckons we’ve been doing it for years.”
“I guess that’s true. Seems like the only ones who couldn’t work that out were you and me. But now we don’t have to, because we can do the real thing.”
They’d reached the gate of her cottage by now and stopped, still holding hands.
“You offering, babe?”
“Well, I guess I won’t have the cottage for much longer... And my bed at Sweet Clams is a lot squeezier.”
“I could get a bigger boat. With a bigger bed.”
She sighed, and shivered as snow began to fall softly around them.
“I guess we have plenty of time to work all that out. Right now, I need you to come inside and warm my toes.”
“Just your toes?”
“Nope.” Harper put her key in the latch. “All of me.”
And with that, she flung open her front door and dragged her big handsome selkie inside.
To warm her toes.
And other places…