Santa's Pet

by Rachelle Ayala

  “I know all about their monitors and I will not be spied upon.” Grandpa crossed his arms. “A man’s got to have his dignity.”

  It was true that the retirement center had cameras in every room, with motion detectors and heat sensors. But it was for the protection of the residents. “I’m sure they don’t turn on the video feed unless one of the sensors show a problem.”

  “Yeah, like increased heart rate.” Grandpa chuckled. “You and I can think of several scenarios where you wouldn’t want anyone charging into your room for that.”

  Whoa. Wait. If Grandpa was seeing another woman, why was he upset at Dad for remarrying?

  “Don’t tell me.” Ben kept his voice level. “You have a woman friend?”

  Grandpa grinned and patted his chest. “This old ticker’s still got a few beats left.”

  “Oh, okay. Well, then, maybe she can monitor you overnight.”

  “We’re not that close yet. She’s offered, but I wouldn’t want to take advantage of her.”

  “Who is she?” Ben scratched his head. Maybe the reason Grandpa wouldn’t return to the cottage had less to do with missing Grandma, but more to do with this new love interest.

  “We’re not ready to go public, so don’t worry your sweet little head. Now, tell me, is anything going on with you and Brittney? Bob and Cece came by all upset that their precious granddaughter had gone missing, and I supplied them with the clue. Looks like I was right.”

  “Damn. I really screwed up.” Ben palmed his face and squeezed his eyes shut. Every muscle in his body ached, but the biggest one of all, his heart, was a cannonball shot through with agony. His chest was hollowed, emptied of all hope. He’d lost Brittney—all because he couldn’t handle her relationship with Nash. The more he thought about it, the darker his despair. He could blame her stubbornness, but the end result was, he’d lost her.

  Grandpa’s hand fell on his forearm. “What happened? You and Brittney took off to the cabin.”

  “We did, and I threw away the thing I wanted most.”

  His grandfather waited, not commenting. After a while, Ben continued. “I thought Brittney was the one for me, my perfect partner. But it turns out she’d been with Nash before. I punched out Nash and asked Brittney to cut her friendship with him. She refused, and let me go. Like a puppy taken to the pound. She let me go. She doesn’t want me anymore.”

  “Do you want her back?” Grandpa’s voice was level and calm. “Is she that special to you?”

  “I’ll never get over her. If only Nash hadn’t stuck his grubby paws where they don’t belong. She was perfect before he ruined her.”

  “What did Nash do to her?”

  “I’d rather not say. It’s private, but I wish it had never happened.”

  Grandpa cleared his throat long and loud, taking Ben’s hand. “She can’t change her past. It’s up to you to decide how you want to deal with it.”

  “That’s just it. I can’t stop comparing. Nash always lorded over me growing up. He was always smarter, more charming, and a lady’s man. I never got any dates when he was around with his guitar, and he’d tag every girl I even thought twice about.”

  Ugh, he sounded like he was still a sophomore in high school with a face full of pimples.

  “Then you need to decide if she’s important enough for you to overlook this. Nash and Brittney are good friends. He’s doing the benefit concert for her. Last year, when Brittney went through a bad spell, he was there for her. I bet you didn’t even give her a passing thought.” Grandpa was the voice of reason. The problem wasn’t reason, but feelings, and if there was ever a snake in the garden, it was Nash.

  “I didn’t know she’d be the ‘One.’ I was too busy playing football.” Truth was, he hadn’t been aware of Brittney, not until she’d dressed as a sexy elf and plopped into his lap.

  “It sounds like you’re looking for the impossible—a perfect love. Let me tell you something.” Grandpa beckoned him close. “The ‘One’ doesn’t exist. Or at least not in the way you think.”

  “But, you and Grandma. You two were the perfect pair.”

  “Only because we worked at it. The ‘One’ for you, Ben, is the one you end up with and work on loving. There’s no mythical person out there who’s perfect.”

  “No one is. I know that.” That was logical, but could anyone blame him if secretly, in the heart of his heart, he still dreamed of the sort of completion his mother had set him up for? Hadn’t she been sure his father was the ‘One’ for her?

  But then, he’d turned around and remarried before her body was cold.

  “If Brittney’s important to you, you must go back and apologize. Try to win her back.”

  “I can’t. After she told me she was letting me go, I said that she was only a little bit of ‘fun’ and not to think anything of it. I hurt her deliberately and she’ll never want to speak to me again.” Ben held his head in his hands, digging his fingers into his scalp.

  “Then you have to accept it. You screwed up. Look, Bob and I were at each other’s throats over the lawsuits between you and Brittney, but we apologized, and we’re back to being friends again.”

  “That’s different. You were buddies before. You go all the way back to the Korean War.”

  “You must have experienced some sort of connection while at the cabin to be feeling so bad.” Grandpa smoothed the hair over Ben’s head. “Brittney’s a shy girl and she doesn’t date much, if at all. Lacy’s the opposite, and I knew there’d be trouble when Lacy dressed Brittney up. If what you said is true, you hurt a beautiful flower, plucked off her petals and ground your heel in the center.”

  The image Grandpa painted could destroy him. He hurt his Brittney, the beautiful and fragile flower. His eyes ached as much as his heart and his breath caught over a gut-heaving sob. Grandpa rubbed Ben’s back as he laid his head on the hospital bed and wept the tears he’d held back since his mother and sister died more than ten years ago.

  A few moments later, Grandpa’s hand stopped moving across his back. “Nash, my boy, how good of you to come.”

  Ben looked up in time to see his brother swagger through the doorway.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  ~ Brittney ~

  Right before I leave Sammie’s apartment, I receive a text from Lacy that Nash had moved out. Good. I head back to my apartment, after buying a sack of bird seed for that noisy cockatoo.

  Big Blizzard is happy to see me, fluttering his wings and wiggling his tail. “Hello, hello, hello.”

  I don’t have time to talk to him, so I find a parrot training playlist on the internet, and dock my tablet into a pair of portable speakers. There, he can talk and chat to his heart’s content.

  A pair of noise-cancelling headphones later, I’m so engrossed in the dim light, searching and pattern-matching Samantha’s router logs with the remote access logs I saved that I don’t hear the door.

  Thud. Someone slams it so loud I remove my headphones. Footsteps come toward me. I freeze in the darkness, hoping the intruder won’t see me, buying myself one more second before my concentration is disturbed.

  If I’m not mistaken, Samantha’s login was used during the time she was at work by the hacker who came in through her router. This is something we have to keep better tabs on. She can’t be at two places at the same time. I make a note to remind Sean to tighten the VPN access and crosscheck with internal wifi connects.

  “I figured I’d find you here.” My sister Lacy steps into the kitchen, turning on the light. She plops onto a chair, groaning as she stretches her feet and adjusts her pregnant belly. “I can’t get comfortable no matter where I am.”

  Okay, so she’s starting with the velvet gloves on. No mention of He Who Shall Not Be Mentioned. At least not yet. If I can stick to the baby talk, I’ll be golden.

  “You’re carrying a little person.” I tickle her big belly. “Shall I get you some water?”

  “I’m good. How long have you been holed up here? Have you even eaten dinn
er?” She stands to her feet stiffly, holding one hand on her back and goes to the refrigerator. “Ew … Gross. There’s nothing in here but dried pizza and curdled milk. Oh, and craft beer.”

  “That would be Nash’s beer. Guess he left it.”

  “Guess he did.” Lacy comes back and sits down. She taps the table. “Will you look at me? Or are your eyes glued permanently to the screen.”

  I wish I hadn’t given her the keys to my apartment. Sheesh. How am I going to catch the hacker if she keeps bothering me? Keeping one eye on the scrolling log where I set an alarm if someone logs in from Samantha’s router, I turn toward her. “Did Nash find a place to stay?”

  “I dropped him off at his grandfather’s house. Says he’s going to the hospital to visit him.”

  Warning bells clamor over my eardrums, and tiny spikes prickle the back of my neck. “What about Ben? Isn’t he staying with his grandfather?”

  “Whaddabout Ben?” the cockatoo in the cage repeats. “Whaddabout Ben?”

  “Guess he is.” Lacy shrugs. “What’s it to you? I thought you were done with both of them.”

  “I just wondered.” A flush of sweat tingles my pores. I’ll never be done with either of them. Not that I’m ready for them.

  How do you acknowledge a guy you slept with who pretends nothing happened? Loser me. Now I have two notches—oops, make that three notches on my rarely used lipstick case.

  “Wonder what they’ll be talking about? Or killing each other?” Lacy tilts her head, studying me with those light brown gypsy eyes of hers.

  “I don’t care.” I focus back on the computer screen with the running log file.

  “You do care. You know, Nash was so sad about losing you as a friend. He practically cried on my shoulder all the way through Marin county and into Sonoma.”

  “Too bad, so sad.” I tap the keys and issue a command through the wormhole. I’m so close to catching the asshole, if only my sister would stop playing Chatty Cathy. I’m not callous, but that last thing he said to me was really cruel. He doesn’t share with his brother. As if …

  “Sad, bad Nash, bad, sad Nash,” Big Blizzard screeches and flaps his wings.

  But, as my bad luck would have it, Lacy continues singing his praises. “He’s your best buddy, your go-to-friend, the only one who understands you.”

  “He’s also ruining my life, or what’s left of it.”

  Sheesh, how can I watch the intruder log, if Lacy’s interrupting me?

  “Ah ha, so you do care about Ben,” Lacy prattles on. “I told Nash that something must have happened between you two.”

  “Nothing of note happened. Can you drop it?”

  “The way you two were so jumpy, like fleas off a fat dead hound, I find it hard to believe nothing happened.”

  “Fine, shit happened, okay?” I continue staring at the computer. “I have a hacker to catch, so if there’s nothing else you need …”

  “Shit! Shit!” Big Blizzard screams from his cage. “Shit happens.”

  “I’ll get to the bottom of this. Mark my words,” Lacy said. “Remember, nothing you tell me will shock me. Nothing.”

  “Coming from you, I can see why.” I can’t help the snide remark. My sister is known for the outrageous, the daring, the unbelievable. She’s the one whose naked selfies ended up on her boss’s phone—and now her former boss is her husband. How did that figure?

  “I know you too well. You bury yourself in work when you’re hurt.” Zing. She hits the mark, but I keep my face stony.

  “I’m not hurt at all. In fact, I’m about to find the hacker.” I point to the flashing red script from the alarm I set. “Yes! Someone has just hit the Shopahol network from Samantha’s router, and I know for a fact she’s at work. They’re not going to know what hit them. Once I hijack the tunnel, I’m going to sneak a piece of code into their network which monitors everything they do.”

  “All over my head.” Lacy affects a bored know-it-all voice. “Don’t tell me you’ll be jailed for hacking.”

  “Not at all. I’m already in contact with the FBI. Instead of inserting my own monitoring code, I’ll put theirs in the payload, cloaking it inside a juicy picture.”

  “Juicy picture!” Big Blizzard hollers. “Jui—cee!”

  “Juicy picture? Of what?” Lacy’s mouth drops open.

  “Let’s just say twin coconuts.” I hiss with an evil giggle. “Once installed, the FBI will be monitoring all their hacking activities. These dweebs are going down!”

  “I don’t care about the dweebs.” Lacy waves her hand in my face. “I want to know what’s going on with you.”

  Uh oh. My sister is a homing pigeon for trouble, especially if she thinks I’m holding out on her. I quickly attach the FBI tracker to the tunnel and hit “send.”

  “The dweebs are going down.” I watch the progress bar on the upload. “Aren’t you happy I’m outing the hackers?”

  “Dwweeebs, juicy dweebs!” Big Blizzard doesn’t want to be left out. “Juicy shit hap-ppens. Whatddabout Ben?”

  Lacy claps her hands slowly. “Congratulations, smart sister. Too bad I know you so well. Something happened with Ben. You haven’t been acting normal ever since you returned from the cabin.”

  What the hell? The upload fails and the tunnel closes.

  “Shit! Lacy, you screwed me. The tunnel closed before I could get everything uploaded.” I wipe both hands over my head. Dammit!

  She takes my hands from my head. “Give it up, Brittney. Let the FBI handle it.”

  “No. no. no. This is my company. My life. Don’t you have somewhere to be, a Lamaze class or a breastfeeding benefits seminar?”

  “Breast Ben fits.” The cockatoo hops on his perch. “Breast Ben fits. Whaddabout Ben?”

  “Shut up!” I shake my fist at the bird.

  “The bird’s right. What about Ben?” Lacy’s never deterred. Why haven’t I learned? She inserts her face between me and the computer screen. “I think I know what happened. You slept with Ben and you’re in love with him. But Nash is effing things up, and Ben’s jealous.”

  “Ben’s juicy jealous!!!” the cockatoo crows. “Ben’s juicy jealous.”

  “He’s not jealous, okay? And you shut up!” I scream at the bird.

  “You shut up!” Blizzard dances on his perch, bobbing like a hip hop dancer. “Ben’s juicy jealous shit happens.”

  I run from the room with my ears covered. Of course I still love Ben, but I won’t love myself if I give in to his demands to dump Nash as a friend.

  My feelings swarm over me like a cloud of angry wasps. But the truth is still true. How could Ben have held me so tenderly and made love to me like he loved me, only to claim it was a little bit of fun? He couldn’t have faked the look in his eyes, the way he caressed me, his entire demeanor of loving and accepting me. He was so open to me, so in tune with my feelings, and then he had to go ruin it with those spiteful words.

  “So, let’s get back to Ben.” Lacy chases after me. She’s still talking, used to being in a monologue with her nerdy sister. “If he’s jealous, he still cares about you. He’s hurt. Come on, you know how men are. Especially an alpha male like Ben. He has to be bigger, better, more capable, number one in your heart. It can’t have been easy for him to hear about your sexcapades with his smirking, smooth, heartthrob brother.”

  “Why are you on his side? He said I was only a little bit of fun. That’s all.” There’s no sense hiding it. She’ll only dig, and dig, and dig. I need to get rid of her so I can find another way to trap the hacker.

  “And?” Lacy fixes me with her spill-it-now stare.

  “And what? We’re over. I let him go. I can’t let him dictate my life. He’ll never get over the fact I slept with Nash.”

  “Ah …” She snaps her fingers. “I was right.”

  I’m prepared to debate her—whatever her theory is. Even though she’s probably right—the way she always is, I’m not ever going to admit how Ben took my heart and squeezed out all the b
lood, then stomped on it a few times, grinding his heel in the carcass.

  “Stop acting so smug. You don’t know me at all.”

  “Fine, I don’t know you at all,” she concedes. “But I know men. They’re insecure little bastards.”

  “I can’t erase what happened in the past.” My head’s starting to ache. When was the last time I ate? Oh, that’s right, I stole some of the trail mix I gave the bird.

  “But you can forgive him for being possessive. Do you remember when Brandon shut down the kissing booth?”

  “Yeah, so? Now he’s standing at your side kissing every Jane, Debbie, and Susan.”

  “It’s because he knows he’s number one in my heart. If Ben knew without a doubt he’s first, or, actually the only man in your heart, he wouldn’t mind as much.”

  “Kissing other men isn’t the same as sleeping with them.” I grip my head in my hands. “Have you seen how they’re slut-shaming me over the sexy elf pictures and the lewd misconduct? ‘Tech CEO bares all.’ ‘Hackers drill more than holes into her network.’ ‘From CEO to underwear model.’”

  My sister wraps her arms around me and holds me tight. “We’ll get through this. Nash is here to help. He’s gotten several celebrities to make appearances on ads against slut-shaming.”

  “But I slept with three men—two of them brothers. Maybe I am a slut.”

  “You’re not. And even if you were, what’s wrong with it? That’s the entire point. No one should be shamed or called a slut.”

  “It hurts. That’s why Ben took me to a place with no internet. It’s hard to not look when it’s everywhere. Now people are saying I hacked into my own network to slut-shame that actress.”

  “Stop looking at what they’re saying. I’ve been called slut—you remember. I was the Shopahol ambassador to the tech trade shows where drunk guys licked shots off my belly and signed their names over me.”

  “But you’re married now and Brandon adores you. Did it ever bother him? Your reputation?”