Page 1 of Grump Hard
One
Luke Landon Ratcliffe
* * *
A billionaire with a bad attitude about the holidays.
(And just about everything else…)
* * *
“Silver Bell Falls. More like Silver Hell…” I sink lower on the sleet-dusted park bench in Silver Bell—Hell—Falls town square, glaring at the massive tree twinkling by the gazebo.
Tomorrow, the decorating committee will cover the monstrosity in gaudy, oversized ornaments. By tomorrow night, the entire town will have gathered to sing carols, swill hot chocolate, and pretend there’s a reason to believe there might someday be peace on earth.
I know better.
One of the most successful subsidiaries of my multi-billion-dollar conglomerate manufactures electrical wiring for nuclear arms facilities. If there were a reason for hope, the company would be on the verge of bankruptcy.
But business is booming.
“Pun fucking intended,” I slur to the tree, lifting my cup of spiked eggnog in a grim toast. “You, energy-wasting bastard.”
“Easy there, Holiday Monster, or you’ll set the tree on fire with your eyeballs.” My brother, Elliot, appears at my side, his messenger bag swollen with whatever maple-flavored, flannel-covered, Vermont-themed garbage he picked up at Kathy’s Kountry Store.
“That’s another thing I hate.” I intensify my glare at the “holiday magic” vomited all over the gazebo, the tree, and the businesses surrounding the square. Even the Victorian town hall on the hill behind the graveyard is so covered in garland and giant bows, you can hardly make out the historic architecture underneath. “The deliberate butchering of the English language. Neither Kathy nor her Kountry—with a K—store are cute. If I were in charge, people who called country stores, ‘kountry’ stores, would be dragged out into the street and pelted with snowballs.”
Elliot clucks his tongue. “Yet again, you choose violence. Why must you always choose violence during the holidays, big brother?”
“Fuck off,” I grumble.
“I will not,” he says. “It’s the happiest time of the year, and we’re honoring our grandfather’s dying wish by spending the season together in the beautiful home he left us.” He thrusts his arms into the air. “And we all like each other! How many brothers and sisters with crap parents like ours can say the same?” He pats his bag with a grin. “And I have enough Santa-shaped cookies, chocolate drizzled peppermint popcorn, and triple maple fudge to keep all four of us wasted on sugar until morning.” He nudges my shoulder. “Now, come on. We should head back up the mountain before the weather gets any worse. Ashton and Bran will be worried.”
Elliot glances over his shoulder at the mansion high above town, where our younger siblings are busy decking the halls, even though Christmas isn’t for another month.
“Snow we can handle, but they’re predicting sleet before midnight,” he continues, as I slug down another gulp of eggnog and wish my sister weren’t an interior decorator, highly skilled in blanketing sixteen-thousand-square-foot estates in wreaths and reindeer. “We might lose power before the night is over.”
My lips curve in a grim smile. “Then we should stay here, where they have a generator to keep the fairy lights glittering every second between now and whenever they’re finally giving up on Christmas these days. January 3rd? The 15th? Valentine’s Day? When do these monsters finally un-deck the halls and let the rest of us weather the winter in peace? The Fourth of Fucking July?”
“You’re going to freeze to death if you stay here,” Elliot says dryly, ignoring my rant. “A suit is hardly winter clothing, you forgot your hat, and your heart is at least five sizes too small.”
I shift my glare his way.
He lifts a hand in surrender. “Don’t kill the messenger. I’m just saying—people with cranky, holiday-hating hearts are more susceptible to the cold. It’s been proven by science. Half of all hypothermia deaths occur in people with Grinch-itis.”
Arching an unamused brow, I take another slow sip of my whiskey-soaked nog.
The Grinch…
I remember the cartoon about the grouchy green creature who hates the holidays, but only the broad strokes. The last time I spent Christmas with my brothers and sister in the mountains, watching cartoons and frolicking in the snow, I was ten years old. The next year, my father decided it was time for me to learn the family business, and playtime for this Ratcliffe was through.
I haven’t ‘frolicked’ a day since, and I’m not about to start now.
When Dad had his midlife crisis, running off to Tahiti with Stepmom Number Four, it was my rigid, structured, some might say “humorless” personality that held our family together. Bran and Ashton were still in high school when I was granted custody of my siblings. I was the one who ordered groceries, scheduled doctor appointments, and took over the reins at Ratcliffe Universal. I funded both Elliot and Bran’s start-ups, as well as Ashton’s six years at an Ivy League University.
I learned to put foolish things aside in the name of taking care of my family, and I see no reason for that to change.
And no reason to budge from this bench…
