Page 33 of Clause & Effect
Christmas Themed.
The hottest, sexiest guy I’ve ever seen has reindeer named after Santa’s?
“Do a lot of your people have reindeer?” It’s the only question I can ask. And PS— I don’t even know who his people are.
“My people?” Stetson raises a brow.
“I’m assuming you’re Nordic?” I state the obvious.
“I am,” he nods. “And the answer to your question is, I don’t know if ‘my people’ have reindeer. It’s not something I ask people when I’m walking around town.”
I nod and look at the sweet looking deer.
“Well, you do know it’s rather….different.”
Different? Fuck, Charlie! That’s the only world you can come up with? It sounds like he has some sort of learning impediment.
“I’m a different kind of man.” Yeah, because that answer is so much better.
I look over at him in all his glory.
Yes, he most certainly is. Why are all the pretty ones weird? Why must they have strange fetishes or anger issues or randomly cry and shout at lights for turning on—it was one guy a blind date, and I felt sorry for him okay?
“Now that I have the signed clause, I think it’s time for me to tell you how different I really am,” he says.
My stomach drops as our eyes lock.
At least now I’ll get answers, as disappointing as they may be. RIP— the band aid is about to be ripped off. It was wrong to get my hopes up anyways.
“Okay,” I say. “I’m ready to hear it.”
I’m really not, but gotta face the music.
He holds out his hand.
“Now that you’ve met my reindeer,” he says with an intensity in his eyes that I can’t quite decipher.
“Okay?” I don’t know where this is going, I smile awkwardly. “Do you have a Christmas village in the North Pole too?”
I don’t know what he’s about to say.
But I do know that I think he’s really hot and I want more of him. I don’t care if he’s a little crazy adjacent… I mean, who isn’t these days? I’m doing a lot of heavy justifying here. I’m not stupid.
“Let’s go,” he says to me and pulls me out of the reindeer room, up the stairs again and into another room that looks like some sort of control tower that connects to the entire world.
Seriously.
I’ve never seen anything like it.
It’s a room with what feels like a million screens.
Okay, I’m exaggerating. Maybe, like a hundred. Or something close to that—and it’s high tech and super cool and looks like some sort of geeked out sci-fi concoction.
“Holy shit, what sort of recon do you have going on in here? Are you a secret agent?” I gasp out loud as I stare around the room in awe. “Oh is that why I had to sign something?”
I feel so much better. He’s not crazy! He’s not crazy!
He’s in the CIA!
