Page 101 of Santa's Baby
“I didn’t need to see his face. I just knew. I knew the way he felt when I sat on him. I recognised him.” I rub my temples, trying to explain it. “I just knew, ok? And then I saw his eyes, and he saw mine, and the rest is history, as they say. Or in my case an absolute fucking nightmare.”
Ella holds the cushion tighter to her chest, and Josh shakes his head, trying to process things.
“Shit, Tiff,” he says, and that about sums it up.
It is shit.
And it’s way more shit than they know.
“It gets worse,” I say.
“Worse? Jesus, Tiff, just take it from the top, will you? Fucking hell.”
I take it from the top. The very top.
I tell them how I fell in love with Reuben right from the off, even though Josh doesn’t want to hear that part, since he’s heard about plenty of my infatuations before. He thinks this is a mega crazy one that’s torn me apart, because I’ve fucked someone I should never have touched in a million years, and I’ve been spat out by him. That I should have seen it coming. But he’s wrong.
I see his expression change as my story continues. He pulls me into him as I cry, reliving the special times Reuben and I shared. How we holed up together, and kissed all night, andneededeach other. I manage to smile as I point to my elf tights, and tell him and Ells how being around kids even got to be fun for me, helping at the grotto. Josh looks choked up himself at that, because he knows how hard being around kids is for me, after I miscarried Kian’s baby during a massive row… before he walked away and left me grieving.
Only I didn’t grieve. I partied, and fucked and pretended I didn’t give a shit, because I didn’t want to be a mother anyway. I was a dirty bitch, not amummy. I swept it under the rug and let myself run wild.
“That’s where you’ve been the whole time, then?” Josh asks me. “That’s why you postponed your proposals? You’ve been holed up with a founder, falling in love with him?”
Ells smiles at me, and there is a knowing in her eyes. She gets it better than Josh does. She met Santa – Reuben – herself when he booked her for a fake proposal last Christmas. He was feigning desperation to see if anyone would support him out of charity.
Ella did, and he rewarded her for it. And in turn she rewarded everyone else for his generosity – sharing the crazy amount of cash around homeless people and struggling families.
“So why did he call it off?” Josh asks me. “Why the fuck did he call time out, if you needed each other so bad?”
Time for another deep breath. I’m shaking as I prepare myself to confess.
“Because I cancelled a founders’ booking. I messaged Orla and said I had flu and was too ill to attend.”
“Holy shit!” Ella says.
“You did fucking what?!” Josh says.
The pair of them sit bolt upright at that. Josh’s hands shoot to his cheeks, and Ella’s mouth drops open.
It sounds so stupid now I’ve said it out loud. I cancelled a founders’ booking. The most powerful men in the Agency. The hidden masters behind it all. You never cancel that kind of gig. Ever. It’s beyond fucking ridiculous.
How could I have possibly expected no consequences? How could I have been so fucking dumb?
“Did Orla pull you up on it when you cancelled?” Ella asks me. “Did Reuben freak out about it? I mean, he must answer to them too, right?”
She knows the gig. Any entertainer who goes within a fifty-mile radius of a founders’ proposal is obliged to uphold confidentiality to the utmost degree. Even we don’t usually talk about them – me, Josh and Ells. That’s how sacred it is.
“Orla didn’t pull me up on it, and Reuben didn’t freak out. It was Reuben who asked me to do it. To call in sick and fob them off.”
My best friends look confused as fuck, and I don’t blame them.
“Why are you in a state, then?” Josh asks. “If nobody freaked, what’s the problem?”
I close my eyes.
“Because the other founders themselves must have suspected something was going on. Two of them turned up to see Reubenat the grotto, and I burst in on them wearing a fucking elf costume with a sexy snow globe in my hand, laughing my head off. I didn’t know they were in there, but I recognised them the second I saw them, even though I’d never actually seen them. Another crazy experience like with Reuben. It was fucking crazy. And fucking horrible.”
“Oh shit,” Ells says. “Well. I guess they recognised you, too. You’re quite recognisable, even with a bobble hat on.”