Page 31 of The Santa Swap

Three large green totes were stacked alongside the back of the cafeteria. “I need two volunteers from each team.” she said.

Six people stepped forward and Olivia instructed them to stand in front of the bins in pairs. “Can I get thirty-seven minutes on the clock, please?”

Once the time was set, Olivia led the group in a countdown. The blue team grabbed their bin first and ran to the table, tearing off the lid as soon as they could. A minute later, she sent the red team running back with their supplies. The extra two minutes the green team had to wait felt like torture, but Olivia held the volunteers back until the hand hit 34 minutes on the clock.

“Go, go, go,” she said, running behind Brett to where their team was gathered. She tried to hold back a laugh watching the team pull items out of their bin.

The first items were the obvious ones. Stockings were quickly passed to each member of the group. Then the glitter glue started to come out, followed by sequins, pompoms, and ribbon.

In the first few minutes, there was a frantic frenzy as people grabbed what they needed. Olivia lunged for a bottle of pastel green glitter glue but a heavy hand clamped down over the top of hers, also trying to grab the glue.

She looked up at the person holding the glue, flushing to the tips of her ears when she realized it was Luke. Feeling self-conscious, she dropped the glue like it was on fire. “You can have it,” she said, but Luke had already let go.

“I can use blue,” he said. He reached across her stocking to grab the glue on the other side of her, putting his muscular arm directly in Olivia’s way. “Maybe some of these shiny things, too.”

Olivia tried to focus on the stocking in front of her, but that was difficult to do with Luke’s arm sitting there. He smelled incredible. If he didn’t move quickly, Olivia was going to push his arm out of the way. She didn’t need to be making any physical contact with him when just his proximity was making her breathe a little faster.

“Those puff balls look interesting,” Luke said. He gave Olivia a sideways glance and her resistance broke.

“Alright, Mr. Sabotage. Are you trying to make us lose?”

“What do you mean?” Luke raised his eyebrows. “I might need some of this ribbon.” He dangled a green ribbon in front of Olivia’s face.

That was the final straw. Olivia snatched the ribbon from his hand and tucked it by her side. When Luke lunged for the ribbon, Olivia jumped up from her chair. “I’m going to check the time,” she said. She needed the heat in her cheeks to cool down.

Luke clamped his hand over hers, holding her in place, and the heat ricocheted up her arm.

“Nice try,” he said, a smile dancing across his lips. “But this ribbon is staying here.” He took the ribbon, but he gave her hand a little squeeze before he let go.“If we weren’t on the same team, I’d be tempted to report you to the judges.”

Olivia turned her head to the side to hide her smile. Somehow, that didn’t seem too bad.

“Are you ready to work on your stocking yet?” Olivia asked. She waited for Luke’s nod, and then she slid into the seat beside him. “Now, please pass the green glitter that you were stealing from me earlier.”

Luke’s low chuckle washed over her like a wave. “Sure thing, boss.” He passed the tube over, and Olivia forced her mind to focus on the task at hand. She didn’t want her team to lose because she was busy flirting with a man who was off limits.

The smell of hot glue guns filled the air. Olivia sprawled her name across the front of her stocking with glitter glue, impatiently fanning her hand back and forth in front of it so it would dry. Then she grabbed a handful of sequins and made her way to the glue station. Before long, her entire stocking was outlined with silver sequins.

One of her coworkers leaned over to inspect her progress. “That’s pretty cute,” she said.

Olivia read the name on the stocking in front of the woman. “Thanks, Brielle.” She had a sudden flash of inspiration. All she had to do was snap a photo of each employee with their stockings at the end, and she’d have a built-in cheat sheet for name recognition.

When Olivia made her way back to her seat, she held a hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh. Luke’s stocking looked like it had been run over by a small car. The letters of his name were smeared, and there were lines of glue running every which way across the top.

“How’s it going over here?” She couldn’t help but grin at the mess in front of her.

Luke looked up with a guilty expression like he had been caught doing something wrong.

“I was trying to be creative,” he said. “There was obviously a disconnect between my hand and my brain, because this is definitely not what I was going for.”

A few of the team members crowded around Luke to give encouragement, but they all ended up laughing.

“Sorry, man,” one guy said. “That stinks.”

“Hey,” Olivia said. “Only encouragement, please.”

Luke held out his hand. “Nope. He’s right. This work really does stink. Anyone got a solution? I’m pretty sure I don’t want this hanging anywhere in the building.”

The team huddled around Luke’s stocking, brainstorming solutions. In the end, he added more swirls of paint to cover the entire front of the stocking. Once the lines were filled in, it looked more like a mosaic than a disaster.

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