by JL Merrow
Just Like Santa
By JL Merrow
Published by JMS Books LLC
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Copyright 2019 JL Merrow
ISBN 9781646561933
Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America.
* * * *
Just Like Santa
By JL Merrow
“Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the—Jason, you’ve got your ‘Bah, Humbug’ face on again. That’s not going to impress the kiddies. Or their parents.” Maggie dumped the sack of presents in the doorway and stood there with her hands on her hips, apparently determined to fill me with holiday spirit by the force of her glare.
“It’s all right for you, isn’t it?” I countered. “All you have to do is put on a festive sweater and bung a bit of tinsel in your hair. I’m the one who has to shove a pillow up my shirt and go out dressed like the Ghost of Too Many Christmas Dinners Past.”
I loved working at the Bright Eyes nursery, don’t get me wrong. Yeah, it was a constant round of cleaning up floors, noses and nappies, but if you’ve never seen the look on a kid’s face when he’s taken his first few steps, well, you’re missing out, that’s all I can say. Sometimes, though, the people who run the place really got on my nerves. I mean, we worked all year round at creating a safe, familiar environment for the babies and toddlers, so they wouldn’t feel bad at being left by their parents and would actually look forward to coming here, and then what did management tell us to do?
We had to feed the kids up on cakes, biscuits, and sugary drinks and tell them something really, really special was going to happen, and when they were all literally wetting themselves with excitement, we had to herd them into another room. Then in would walk a big fat man with a beard and a sack and a scary deep voice going “Ho, ho, ho!”
It usually took about three seconds before the first child started howling in terror, and that would set all the rest of them off, of course. And that was with their parents there, mind, as the nursery always invited the mums and dads to the Christmas party. I think it was so they could see what we had to deal with just before they put the fees up in January.
I’m sure you’ve guessed where all this is going. Yeah, me being our only male member of staff, I was always the one who had to put on the Santa suit. And before you ask, no, it wasn’t much fun having all the kids suddenly hate me on sight. It wasn’t like it was even a decent costume. It must’ve been the cheapest on the market stall, and it hadn’t got any better for living crumpled up in the back of a cupboard 364 days of the year ever since.
“I don’t think this is going to last another year,” I told Maggie, picking at the frayed seams (at least no self-respecting moth would snack on fabric this cheap and nasty) while she made sure my polyester beard was hanging right.
“Just as long as it lasts for the next half hour,” she said with a grin, and gave me a playful dig in the belly. Luckily, the pillow that was standing in for a jolly, well-fed gut absorbed the force easily. Maggie’s digs could be vicious. “Now, do you want me to point out all the new single dads? Although it seems to me there’s only one single dad you’re interested in…” She broke off with a leer.
“Maggie!”
“That’s better.” She smiled. “You’ve got nice rosy red cheeks to go with the costume, now.”
“Um, Maggie, how did you know I was—”
“Women’s intuition.” She tapped the side of her nose. “And don’t worry, love, I wouldn’t dream of saying a word to the dad in question.”
“Anyone,” I corrected hastily. “You mean you won’t say a word to anyone.”
“Don’t be silly.”
I heaved a sigh of relief.
“I’m pretty sure everyone else already knows,” she went on. “Now get along with you. There’s children out there to frighten!”
Swallowing hard, in I walked. And off they went, howling the place down. Still, it was traditional. I sat down on one of the nursery chairs, which isn’t easy when you’re six foot tall and the seat’s designed for the average two-year-old. Parents started dragging their terrified tots up for presents, and giving me embarrassed smiles when the poor little things refused to go anywhere near the scary red man. In other words, it all seemed to be going pretty much as per usual. Except that some of the parents—especially the mums—seemed to be finding it a bit more fun this year. And Poppy’s dad stared at me the whole time. I couldn’t even be sure if was a good stare, like, say, a what a great guy, not afraid to look a prat for the kiddies stare, or if it was more of a Bloody hell, what an idiot stare.
I looked after the older kids, the ones who were almost ready for pre-school, and Poppy was in my class this year. She was a sweet kid, just turned three. Dark-haired, pretty, and really, really chatty, so I knew all about her not having a mummy. Her dad was called Alec. He was a banker, but hey, we all have our flaws. And he looked good in his pinstripe suits; lean and fit. I guessed he ran—he wasn’t bulky like a gym-bunny, although there was a very nice breadth to those shoulders. Every now and then, we’d get talking when he came to pick his kid up, and each time I’d think, maybe he might be interested—but I’d never had the nerve to try to find out.
When Poppy’s turn for a present came, Alec led her up by the hand. She was bolder than all the rest and didn’t cry or hang back. I was so proud of her, standing there proudly in her pink tutu skirt over her jeans—but instead of taking her gaily wrapped pack of felt tip pens, she turned to her dad and announced loudly, “Santa’s got funny pants on!”
I almost broke the no-swearing rule when I looked down and saw that my costume had split right along the inseam and up to the crotch, giving all the kids and their parents an elves’-eye view of just what Santa kept under his baggy red trousers. Sod’s law, I would have to be wearing the briefs with little cartoon hearts all over them my ex gave me for Christmas last year. I shut my legs so fast you could hear my knees bang together.
The mums burst out laughing. I’d like to think Alec gave me a sympathetic look, but I was too busy wishing I could sink through the floor to so much as sneak a shame-faced glance his way.
The rest of Santa’s visit passed in a haze of embarrassment and deafening crying. I got out of there as soon as I could—not even stopping for a mince pie—and fled to the office, where I ripped off that bloody costume and chucked it in the bin. I didn’t care if management ended up charging me for a new one. It was absolutely bloody typical. The first chance I’d got to maybe talk to Alec about something other than whether Poppy ate her lunch or how she got that graze on her elbow and I’d ended up making a complete, heart-covered arse of myself.
; “Jason?” Maggie’s voice cut into my self-pity party as she opened the door a crack. “You decent? You can’t hide in there forever, you know. Some of the parents are going to want to see you.”
“What, you don’t think they’ve seen quite enough already? Bloody hell, Maggie, you could’ve told me!” I was pulling on my clothes as fast as I could.
“I was standing behind you with the rest of the staff, all right? I didn’t have any more clue than you did about your little bit of exhibitionism.” She grinned. “Some of the mums are saying this has been the best nursery Christmas party they’ve been to for years. Come on, love, just smile and it’ll soon be over.”
Trousers firmly belted and shirt buttoned up to the neck, I made my way out into the crush, smile dutifully plastered on. Maggie’s tight grip on my arm didn’t give me a lot of option, really. It could have been worse. Only two of the mums pressed their phone numbers into my hand.
Poppy’s dad seemed to have left, which although disappointing was probably just as well. I’d have blushed as red as the hearts on my undies if I’d seen him.
After we’d wiped the last tears and biscuit crumbs off the kids’ faces and all the four-by-fours had driven off, I went round checking the playgrounds were locked and nothing had been left outside. It was fully dark by now, only the security lights casting a warm glow over the grounds, and there was a freshness in the air that hinted of snow to come.
There was a squeal of “Jason!” and a pint-size whirlwind in a bobble hat flung her arms round my legs.
“Poppy?” I crouched down to talk to her—she was rosy-cheeked from the cold and her nose needed wiping, so I pulled out a tissue and got her to blow. “I thought you’d gone home, Popsicle. Where have you been hiding?”
“Daddy let me play outside. It was too noisy indoors. I found a conker.” She held up a battered looking fir cone.
“That’s not a conker, sweetie, it’s a fir cone, from a fir tree. Like a Christmas tree, you know?”
Poppy looked at the fir cone like it had been hand-picked by Santa himself and sent down the chimney especially for her.
I heard a throat being cleared and stood up to find Alec smiling at me. “Interesting visit from Santa, wasn’t it?” he said with a smile that made his eyes crinkle up at the corners, like birds’ footprints in the snow. “Oh—before I forget.” Alec fumbled with his wallet and pulled out a couple of notes. “Here. It’s a donation. For a new, ahem, pair of trousers for Santa?” His eyes were twinkling.
I gave a mock groan. “Thanks,” I said ironically, shoving the notes in my back pocket—but suddenly I didn’t feel so bad about it all.
“Is Jason going to give it to him?” Poppy asked.
I nodded. “I’ll make sure Santa gets it. Wouldn’t want him getting cold while he did the rounds on Christmas Eve, now would we?”
Poppy’s little eyes widened, and she shook her head so violently her hat fell off. I bent down automatically to get it, and almost banged heads with Alec when he did the same thing. “Sorry!” we both said in unison, and then laughed. He had a nice laugh, and his cologne had hints of spice. There was a place under his jawline he’d missed with the razor this morning, where the stubble was longer than the five o’clock shadow that added definition to the rest of his face. Not that I was drinking in every detail or anything.
“And I’m sorry about earlier,” Alec added as he plonked his daughter’s hat back on. “I was going to say something to you discreetly about the, ah, wardrobe failure, but I’m afraid Poppy beat me to it.”
I gave a lopsided smile. “I would have to be wearing my most embarrassing underwear, wouldn’t I?”
“Present from your girlfriend?” Alec asked, with a lightness in his tone that somehow didn’t ring true.
“My ex.” I took a deep breath. “Ex-boyfriend, actually.”
He didn’t look shocked, or embarrassed, or revolted. He looked pleased, as far as I could tell. I wondered if I should say something, ask him if he fancied going for a coffee sometime…
“Can Jason come to tea?” Poppy burst out. “We’re having pasta shells!” she added proudly.
I glanced at Alec, ready to make an excuse a three-year-old would accept. But the naked hope on his face stopped me short. “We’d love to have you,” he said with a serious tone and a hope in his eyes that made my stomach flip over. His mouth curled up again, and his dark eyes seemed to glitter. “Although I’m afraid we really are having pasta shells.”
“Good thing they’re my favourite, then,” I said, grinning down at Poppy.
* * * *
It wasn’t just pasta shells, of course. Alec made a pretty decent sauce to go with it, and we all had chocolate mousse for afters, because Poppy insisted. I helped Alec put her to bed, and we sat down with a beer and watched the football, and when the match ended he leaned over and kissed me long and slow, his lips warm, soft and tasting of lager.
“All right?” he asked, pulling back a little.
“Yeah. Just as long as you don’t kiss everyone Poppy asks home for tea, mind.”
Alec laughed. “You know, you’re all she ever talks about when she gets home from nursery. Jason did this. Jason said that. Jason told me off for throwing my peas on the floor and made me pick them up.”
“Yeah, well, she’s one of my favourites too.” I hesitated. “So how does a nice guy like you get to be a single dad?”
Alec shrugged. “Got married to prove I was straight, found out it didn’t work like that. But by that time Rachael was pregnant, which wasn’t exactly planned.”
“Ouch. I’m guessing you weren’t Mr Popular?”
“Not much, no. But she was great about it—agreed to go through with the pregnancy on condition that I’d take full responsibility for the child. She’s not exactly the earth-mother type.”
“So no problems getting custody?”
“God, no. Rachael sees Poppy as often as she can, but she’s more like an aunt than a mum. She’s working in New York now, doing far better than I ever will.”
“I think you’re doing fine,” I told him, brushing his thigh with my fingertips. “You’ve got a great kid, a good job,” I waved my hand around, “a lovely house, and you’re really fit. I don’t think it gets better than that.”
Alec raised an eyebrow. “Oh? I can think of one way things could be better.”
“Yeah? How’s that then?” I challenged.
His eyes were crinkling up again. “You could come over here and kiss me again—and better yet, give me another look at those ‘funny pants’ of yours.”
Well, I wasn’t going to refuse an invitation like that, now was I? I leaned over and took hold of his chin, the stubble rasping under my fingers, making them tingle. I kissed him, harder than he’d kissed me, and he responded in kind, his tongue darting between my lips. The angle was awkward so without breaking the kiss I twisted and lifted a leg over his lap, straddling him.
Alec moaned into my mouth as I settled down against his hard cock, pressing my own erection into his stomach. “God, that feels good,” he breathed.
“Don’t I know it,” I told him, pushing his shirt up to bare his chest. He’d changed when we’d got here, out of his business suit and into a t-shirt and sweatpants. I liked that. Much as he rocked the businessman look, casual wear was definitely easier to get him out of. Bending my head, I tongued first one nipple and then the other, the salty taste and the feeling of them hardening sending a jolt straight to my groin. Alec’s hands ran down my back, over my arse, and then around my hips to start fumbling at the fastenings of my jeans. Every time they brushed against my cock I had to fight back a whimper. “God, if you don’t get my kit off soon I’m going to come right inside my jeans.”
“Couldn’t have that, could we?” Alec murmured, his fingers now running deliberately up and down my erection, just hard enough to drive me wild.
“Fuck!” I broke off what I was doing to grab those wicked hands and pin them against the back of the sofa. “You�
�re a right bastard, you know that?”
Alec looked up at me, his eyes dark as sin and sparkling with devilment. “So what are you going to do about it?”
“This.” I let go of his hands, stood up—and grabbed his sweatpants by the waistband and yanked them down his hips, half pulling him off the sofa.
“That had better not be all you’re going to do,” he teased, taking them off the rest of the way himself. There was a spreading damp spot in his boxer briefs that marked the tip of a sizeable erection. He sat back on the sofa with his legs wide open, taunting me. I locked eyes with him and very deliberately ran my tongue around my lips. My peripheral vision was easily good enough to see the twitch in his cock that provoked.
“Take your shirt off, too,” I told him. Alec raised an eyebrow, but complied.
God, he was gorgeous. He had a runner’s body, lean and sinewy, with just a hint of extra definition in the shoulders and upper arms to suggest he worked out as well. His chest was lightly haired, as pale as you’d expect of an Englishman in winter, and there was a lump on one collarbone. He caught me looking at it. “Broke it in a motorbike accident when I was sixteen.” He laughed. “Didn’t realise I’d done it until I tried to push my bike off the road and my arm wouldn’t work. Of course, the concussion might have had something to do with it as well.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You, on a bike? No offence, but you look like you’re wearing a suit even when you’ve got your kit off.” That wasn’t to say I wasn’t going to have fantasies about him in scuffed leather from now on, though.
He grinned. “It was my rebellious phase. Didn’t you have one of those?”
“Rebellious type, are you?” I grinned back at him. “Looks like I’m going to have to take you firmly in hand.”
“Don’t count on it,” he warned. “Maybe I’ll take you in hand.” He leaned forward and grabbed my arse, pulling me to him, and then set to work on my jeans again. I pulled my shirt off while he was at it, desperate to get skin-to-skin with him, and he seized my moment of distraction to plunge his mouth over my cock where it was straining to get out of those godawful briefs.
