Page 8 of He Sees You

Or maybe I’ll have earned enough to own my own studio and never have to play Santa’s helper again...

“Wait. Real quick. What were you and Nadine talking about before? It looked serious.”

Nothing you need to know about.

I shake my head, laughing him off as I grab the tripod. “Just what she’s hoping to get for Christmas from her secret Santa when we have the work party next week.”

I know he can’t be my secret Santa—my private one, I mean, not my work one since I didn’t sign up and have no intention of going to a Christmas partyafterChristmas—but I check to see his reaction all the same.

That was a mistake. Eye contact was a mistake.

His eyes—a rich, dark brown instead of my Santa’s green—turn heated as they meet mine. “I know what I want for Christmas,” he says, reaching down to palm my ass.

I go stiff. Wow. Woooow. He made it until Christmas Eve, keeping his hands at least a little PG, but the second we shut down, he grabs me.

Though I have half a mind to clock him with the hefty camera, I swallow my rage and give him a tight-lipped smile. “Merry Christmas, Jerry. I hope you enjoy yours alone as much as I’ll enjoy mine.”

I leave it at that, hoping like hell that he won’t go bothering Nadine about our conversation. At the very least, if Jerry gets wind of our side hustle, the slimy bastard will either want in—or he’ll use it against me in a way worse than a simple ass grab. He’s too afraid of Sammy, Nadine’s longterm Dragonfly boyfriend, to hit on her, but I have no doubt that, if he learns what I’m doing when I’m not at Waverly’s, he’ll find a way to blackmail me into going home with him after all.

If I’m fucking any Santa this Christmas, it’s my secret Santa—and since that’s not happening, I guess it’s me and one of my toys tonight once I get out of here.

Unless I get a call and need to go out, that is.

I’d like to think that one of our regulars wouldn’t be so hard-up that they’d need a fix on Christmas Eve of all days. But that’s the naive Dove speaking, the girl who thought that trading a small Colorado town for one of the biggest cities on the East Coast would help her achieve her dream of becoming an in-demand photographer sooner.

Instead, I live in a rundown apartment building, barely making enough to survive before Nadine cut me in on her deal with Sammy. I take department store pictures, which while better than being a paparazzi, it’s still nowhere where I want to be as I close in on thirty.

The realist that I’ve become over the last few months says that addicts are addicts, creeps are creeps, and you have to do whatever it takes to survive this nitty, gritty city.

And that’s exactly what I’ll do.

Nadine wasn’t too off.Just before four o’clock, she hunts me down in appliances, drags me to the docks, and the both of us take the gift bags that Sammy Hunt hands us. Nadine kisses her boyfriend goodbye, promising him a merry Christmas of his own later, while I ask her to punch me out so I can go straight to my car.

It’s starting to flurry again as I make my way home, the gift bag tucked under my passenger seat in case I somehow get pulled over. I’m driving the speed limit, taking my time, but while I’ve gotten used to carrying a couple of grams on me, I get nervous when it’s like a whole fucking kilo.

I say hello to Norm, the old guy who works the front desk most afternoons, and wait to see if I got any packages waiting for me in the mail room. When he shakes his head before wishingme a happy Christmas, I try not to be too disappointed that my secret Santa didn’t drop off one last gift before the holiday.

I shouldn’t have been. Because there, propped up against my door—further proof he got past the doorman since Norm was at the desk when I left at nine this morning and is still there now—is a long, skinny box wrapped in shimmering silver paper.

Dropping low, I swoop it up, feeling lighter than I have all day. There’s a big, ugly sticker in the middle that says ‘don’t open until Xmas’ that I plan on ignoring as soon as I get into my apartment.

Once I have, I carry the box, my phone, and the gift bag into my bedroom, kicking my work shoes off as I go. Quickly, I hide the gift bag in my bottom dresser drawer. Since there were only two small baggies in there, I guess Nadine was right to have Sammy give me a fresh supply, but since I’m more distracted by the wrapped present, I just kick the drawer closed before moving toward my bed.

What can it be? I have no clue, and I’m even more confused when I shake it and it has a muffled ringing sound coming from the package.

Tearing off the wrapping paper, I see it’s a white box. Even more curious now, I open it up. It’s shadowed inside of the box, and all I see is a deep-red… tip.

What the…

Turning the box over, I dump the object inside of the box into my waiting palm. A small, white notecard flutters out behind it, but as I stare at what I’m holding, the notecard is completely disregarded.

Holy shit.

It’s acock.

Not a real one, obviously. It’s made of a thick, heavy silicone, and is a rich, Christmassy red. To make it even more seasonal, ithas honest-to-God jingle bells that make it ring out as I lift it up to my face, eyeing all the realistic ridges and veins in the thing.

I twist the toy. The jingle bells tinkle, and I have to swallow an amused laugh.

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