Page 24 of Mistlefoe
“Would it be so bad to kiss me?” I ask, chewing on my snack.
“I’m not even going to dignify that with answer.” She starts walking backwards, away from me.
I swallow my snack and say, “By the way, the elf peddling Santa is right behind you. I guess you’ll have to kiss him instead.”
With a yelp, Sierra launches herself forward and since I don’t move away, she slams against my chest. I tilt my face down just as she does the opposite. Her eyes are as wide as they can be when she checks over her shoulder and finds a grand total of no one. Not a single person or elf.
“Ugh!” She pushes against me so hard that I stumble.
“Aww, bummer,” sexy Mrs. Claus pouts at us and steps back into her stand.
I’m chuckling as I follow right after Sierra, but I pause alone under the mistletoe and inspect it. I take a picture, not because I don’t know what it looks like, but because I want to remember.
After I catch up to her, I mention, “We forgot to put mistletoe on the list.”
“There’s no way we’re putting mistletoe in the venue. That’s an HR issue waiting to happen.”
“I don’t see the big deal. There was mistletoe at the Aspen inn last year. Didn’t Karl from legal and Mindy from HR get together because of it?”
“Really?” She pauses. “I thought they got together before the Christmas party.”
“I don’t really know. My point is that Christmas is also a season of love, so we should put mistletoe everywhere.”
She whirls around and plants herself in front of me. “Not everywhere.”
“Some places.”
Her frown intensifies. “One place.”
“Two places.”
“One and that’s final.”
“Fine, right at the entrance.”
“So if you walk in at the same time as Richard, would you kiss him?”
I shudder. “Okay, somewhere at the back.”
“That’s a good boy.”
I bite my churro. “Are you comparing me to a dog?”
“Hmm, someone did say that you’re hairy and with pretty eyes.” Is it just me, or are her cheeks darkening? But then she clears her throat and I figure she really is embarrassed at giving me some sort of compliment. “Anyway, I think I’m having a few ideas now. And you?”
Oh, yeah. A few ideas around mistletoe all right.
It takes me a second to figure out that she’s referring to the Christmas party, and not about mistletoe kisses.
“Right, yeah. A few. That velcro Christmas tree we saw got me thinking.”
She cocks an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
“What if we get that thing, wrap some baseballs in felt, and make people throw them at the tree to decorate it? Whoever gets more balls to stick wins a prize or something.”
“Like a twist on a fair booth?”
I shrug. “It’s not the Olympics theme but it might be fun, especially if people are drinking spiked eggnog.”
