Holiday Madness: A Boyfriend Thief Christmas Story Read online

  HOLIDAY MADNESS

  A Boyfriend Thief Christmas Story

  by

  Shana Norris

  Copyright 2012 by Shana Norris

  Cover photograph: Copyright 2012 by Oleksandr Dorokhov | Dreamstime.com

  This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All Rights Reserved.

  Smashwords Edition

  No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the author.

  “Welcome to Diggity Dog House’s Holiday Wonderland!” I called out, forcing my lips into my best cheesy smile. It was ridiculous to even bother smiling, since my face was hidden behind a mesh screen, but I had hoped that smiling might put me into the Christmas mood.

  It didn’t work.

  The old woman looked me up and down, her eyebrows knitted together. “What are you supposed to be?”

  “Hot Dog Santa.” I attempted the best bow that I could manage inside the giant foam costume, waving my hands with a flourish.

  The woman’s eyes lingered on the ratty white beard attached to the front of my hot dog costume, then the bright red Santa hat perched on top, and finally, as if the rest of the outfit wasn’t humiliating enough, the red shoes with bells on the toes.

  “There’s no such thing as a Hot Dog Santa,” the woman told me. Then she humphed and walked past me, down the sidewalk.

  “I have coupons!” I called out to her back. “Get fifty cents off any meal with every item you donate to our canned food drive!”

  The woman kept walking, not even looking back at me.

  “Come on!” I shouted, jumping up and down as I tried to get warm. Despite being wrapped in a giant cocoon of foam hot dog, the cold late December wind still found a way in. “It’s for a good cause! Don't be such a grinch!”

  But the woman disappeared around a corner as the other pedestrians passing by shot me wary looks before crossing the street to the safety of the other side. Yes, everyone stay away from the crazed Hot Dog Santa with her canned food and coupons and fingers that had turned into icicles long ago. My toes had probably already fallen off inside my oversized jingling shoes.

  The interior of Diggity Dog House looked so warm and comforting through the big glass windows along the front wall. My best friend Molly was inside, leaning across the counter while she talked to her boyfriend Elliott, who was working the register that day. The only customers sat at a table in the corner, a woman and a little girl. Business was S-L-O-W. It had been slow since Halloween. It had been my idea to organize a canned food drive to bring in business and do some good for our community. When that didn’t work, my boss Mr. Throckmorton printed up coupons in exchange for the donations. We’d gotten a few cans, which were stacked in a pathetic little pile under the wimpy Christmas tree near the counter, but not enough to change the fact that business was still slow.

  But really, who wanted to eat hot dogs at Christmas time? No one ate hot dogs for Christmas. People were filling up on Christmas cookies and pies and turkey and cranberry sauce and hot cocoa.

  Oh, hot cocoa. I’d eat my own hot dog costume for a warm cup of hot cocoa.

  I didn’t much care for cold weather. Unless it was accompanied by snow, but it rarely ever snowed in Willowbrook. A couple of flurries every five or six years that never actually stuck. Honestly, what was the point in having cold weather at all if there was no snow to make it at least look pretty outside?

  “You look like you’re turning into a Hot Dog Santa icicle,” said a voice behind me.

  I turned around, pulling off the mesh screen so I could scowl at Zac Greeley. “I think I’m in danger of turning into a Hot Dog Abominable Snowman,” I told him.

  “Well,” Zac said, rubbing his chin as he considered me with a sly grin, “I could warm you up, but I wouldn’t want my girlfriend to get jealous if she saw me kissing Hot Dog Santa.”

  “Just come here.” I wrapped my arms around him, cuddling close to his chest and sighing at the warmth radiating off his body. Zac wrapped his arms around me, crushing the foam hot dog costume as he rubbed his hands up and down my back.

  “Avery?” he asked after a moment.

  “Yeah?”

  “People are looking at us funny,” he whispered.

  I caught some kids giggling as they walked by and a man giving us an amused smile.

  “I hate winter,” I grumbled. “It doesn’t even snow here. It should just be warm all year round.”

  “You want snow for Christmas?” Zac pushed his coat sleeves up and then held his gloved hands to the sky. “Allow me.” He cleared his throat. “Sky, I command you to snow!”

  More pedestrians glanced at us before quickly hurrying past. My boyfriend, the town clown.

  Zac frowned and dropped his hands. “Sorry. I must have left my weather control gloves at home.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Let’s go inside. Mr. Throckmorton can come stand out in the cold if he wants to, but I’m done for the day.”

  Zac held the door open while I waddled into the restaurant. The woman and little girl waved to me on their way out the door.

  “Couldn’t take it any longer, huh?” Elliott asked as I made my way over to the counter.

  I struggled to pull the velcro flaps in the back of the costume open, then freed my upper body from the foam, letting out a sigh of relief.

  “You try standing in thirty degree whether for two hours,” I told him.

  “I did it yesterday,” Elliott said. “And I actually stayed out there the whole time.”

  I gritted my teeth. I would not let Elliott Reiser get at me. He knew standing out in the cold made me cranky. And he also knew that I could be a bit competitive sometimes. He liked to see how far he could push me just to drive me crazy.

  “Don’t be obnoxious,” Molly told Elliott.

  “I thought you liked it when I was obnoxious,” Elliott teased her, leaning across the counter for a kiss.

  “Did we get any more cans?” I asked, turning away from the PDA.

  But I knew the answer when I looked at the Christmas tree. The collection still looked the same as it had earlier that day. And yesterday. And the day before, and the day before that.

  I sighed. “Where is everyone’s holiday spirit this year?”

  The canned food drive was my latest project. I had been volunteering at the local soup kitchen every Saturday morning and I noticed how many families came in for food. It had taken all of my powers of persuasion to convince Mr. Throckmorton to hold a canned food drive inside Diggity Dog House. It would be the perfect way to help all the needy families in Willowbrook for Christmas.

  Or at least, that was what I had hoped. It wasn’t turning out as successfully as I had planned.

  Molly snorted. “You’re one to talk. I thought Santa was supposed to be jolly. You practically bit my head off earlier when I asked you to do the Diggity Dog Shuffle.”

  “I was freezing my bun off, if you hadn’t noticed,” I snapped.

  “I was trying to warm you up by getting you moving,” Molly replied.

  Zac slipped an arm around my shoulders. “It’s the economy. People don’t have much to spare right now.” His dad’s locksmithing business wasn’t doing so well either. Zac worked there part time, though he was now working for free because his dad couldn’t afford to pay him. Everyone’s business was slow, not just at Diggity Dog House.

  My single-parent h
ousehold was low on money too, as usual. That was the reason I was still working at Diggity Dog House, even though I’d wanted to quit a hundred times. I needed the money to buy gifts and to keep padding my savings account for future expenses.

  “But they can spare a can or two,” I insisted. “If all of our usual customers donated a can, we could help out a lot of needy families.” We had only three days left before Christmas and the team from Willowbrook Helping Hands would come by on Christmas Eve to pick up the cans we’d collected. It didn’t look like we’d be helping many people at this rate.

  “Maybe,” Elliott said. “But we have to find a way to get them interested in helping out.”

  Molly patted me on the top of my head. “We all know you want to save the world, Avery, but a lot of other people are just apathetic. You have to give them something in return for doing a good deed.”

  Elliott flicked the stack of coupons I’d tossed on the counter. “No offense to Mr. Throckmorton, but fifty cents off a hot dog just isn’t cutting it.”

  I leaned against the counter and crossed my arms. “What else do we have to offer them?”

  Silence fell as the four of us tried to think of something. What would make people want to come into Diggity Dog House during the holiday season? Hot coffee and hot chocolate? Everyone else was doing that though, so why should they come here instead? Candy canes were cheap, but again, everyone would be doing that.

  We needed something unique to Diggity Dog House. Something they couldn’t get anywhere else.

  “A dancing hot dog!” Zac exclaimed, his brown eyes wide.

  We all looked at him like he’d lost his mind. Zac’s brain went about a million times faster than anyone else’s I knew and it was usually hard to keep up. He’d flit from one idea to another with no warning.

  “Yes, I’m a giant hot dog,” I said, gesturing to the costume crushed around my waist. “Three days a week, right here. What’s new about that?”

  Zac shook his head. “No, I mean, everyone loves Bob, right? And everyone wants to see Bob do the Diggity Dog Shuffle. So what if every time someone donates a can, you do the shuffle?”

  He began pacing back and forth across the diner floor, his arms waving wildly as he talked.

  “It could be like a dance-a-thon. Hot Dog Holiday Wonderland Hop! We could advertise that we’re on a mission to keep Bob dancing all day long. As long as the cans keep coming in, Bob will keep doing the shuffle. It’s fun and silly and people will have to take notice. It’s a giant dancing hot dog dressed as Santa, they’ll have no choice but to watch. Kids love Bob. They’ll probably beg their parents to donate cans just to see you dance.”

  He turned to us, his eyes shining as he grinned. “What do you think?”

  Before I could say anything, a voice behind me said, “It’s brilliant!”

  Mr. Throckmorton walked out from behind the counter. His hair stuck up on one side of his head and he had visible crescents of sweat around the underarms of his shirt, despite the fact that the heater was set to low inside the restaurant to save money. Mr. Throckmorton was the definition of stressed out.

  He clapped Zac on the shoulder, his face shining. “You, sir, are a genius.” Mr. Throckmorton pointed at Zac and looked to the rest of us for agreement. “Isn’t he a genius? His idea is going to save our canned food drive and bring in some business. Genius!”

  “Lights!” Zac said. He bent over his notebook, scribbling this at the bottom of the already long list. “All kinds of colors. Maybe a disco ball too. For the ‘dance’ kind of feel, you know? Oh, a stage! Bob has to dance on a stage so everyone can see him.”

  I raised my eyebrows as Zac added these newest ideas to his notebook. “Are you sure you’re not going overboard just a bit?” I asked.

  Zac gave me an exasperated look. “It’s a dance-a-thon, Avery. Featuring a giant Hot Dog Santa. I think this thing went overboard long ago.”

  I was trying to be the supportive girlfriend, I really was. I loved that Zac had crazy ideas and could be so passionate about things. It was what made him completely different from me and what drew me to him.

  But there was still a little part of me that was ticked off that I didn’t think of this idea first. The canned food drive had been my thing. And it had taken a lot of convincing just to get Mr. Throckmorton to agree to it in the first place. Now Zac had this crazy idea and Mr. Throckmorton was all over it with no hesitation at all. Since when did Zac care about canned food drives?

  And even though I loved Zac, I had to admit that sometimes he let things get out of hand. Over summer vacation he decided to run a dog walking business to earn some extra money. Was he satisfied with just walking four or five dogs? No. Ten? Nope.

  He somehow found thirty-two dogs to walk. And then he tried to walk them all at the same time, while cleaning up poop and keeping the dogs from fighting with each other. He ended up getting dragged on his stomach across the park when the dogs spotted a squirrel.

  “We could do little surprises in the meals too,” Zac went on. “Like, find the fry container with the special hot dog sticker on it and win a prize.” He tapped his chin. “Maybe a gift card somewhere?”

  Thankfully, I was not dancing in this Hot Dog Holiday Wonderland Hop. I tried to avoid showing off my terrible dance moves in front of people whenever possible. Elliott had volunteered to do it. Zac had put me in charge of selecting music to play during the dance-a-thon. I had suggested Christmas music, since it was, you know, Christmas. But Zac said people would be tired of Christmas music (probably true) and he had instructed me to find fun, poppy dance music. So I was sorting through his iTunes playlists, which, unfortunately, contained a lot of songs about Fridays and dancing.

  It was undeniable: My boyfriend had a weakness for bubblegum pop. This was one of those things I probably should have asked him before we started going out.

  “Where are we supposed to get gift cards?” I asked. “Mr. Throckmorton hopes to make money by drawing people in for the canned food drive. I doubt he’s going to spend money buying gift cards to give away.”

  “I’ve already thought about that.” Zac shuffled through the papers hanging out of his notebook and then produced a bright green sheet that he handed to me.

  SPONSOR THE DIGGITY DOG HOUSE HOLIDAY WONDERLAND HOP/CANNED FOOD DRIVE!!!!!

  Despite the overuse of capital letters and exclamation marks, the flyer was well designed and eye-catching, and provided a lot of information about what we hoped to do.

  “Do you really think anyone is going to buy a sponsorship for our fundraiser?” I asked. “They’re probably all doing their own things. And we only have two days.”

  “I’ve already sold four sponsorships.” Zac grinned, looking pleased with himself.

  My mouth dropped open. “When did you do that?” How could he have gotten so much work done in such a short time?

  “This morning. I visited a few of the shops around my dad’s store. I can be very persuasive, you know.”

  “No kidding,” I said, smirking at him. “You did convince me to go out with you.”

  Zac made an exaggerated hurt face and clapped his hands over his heart. “You wound me. All this time, I thought it was my exceptionally good looks that made you crazy for me.”

  I turned back to the iTunes library. “One of us certainly is crazy. I'm not sure which.”

  Zac grabbed the back of my rolling chair and pulled it across the carpet toward him. He swiveled me around to face him, his arms and knees fencing me in on each side.

  “Admit it,” Zac said, leaning toward me. “You can’t resist me.”

  I pretended to yawn. “Actually, I’ve been feeling a bit bored. Where’s the life? The spontaneity? It’s the same old thing, day in and—”

  Zac leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine, interrupting the last of my sentence. Oh, yeah, that was another thing I liked about him. He was crazy, hyperactive, smart, funny, and cute. And whoa, could he kiss.

  “What were you saying?” Za
c asked, his lips still millimeters from mine. His warm breath brushed across my skin as he breathed out.

  I didn’t want to think about hot dogs or dancing or the annoyance I still couldn’t push aside at Zac taking over my project. “I forgot.” I wrapped my arms around his neck, shivering as tingles spread through my body when our lips met again.

  “Don’t forget to donate to our canned food drive!” I called out to the couple as they left with their hot dogs and onion rings to go. Cringing, I added, “And have a Diggity Dog day!”

  Mr. Throckmorton had to be making up all these ridiculous phrases and dances just to drive me crazy.

  As if he sensed employee unrest in the air, Mr. Throckmorton emerged from the swinging door that led to the kitchen area where my other tormented coworkers were trying to look busy.

  “Where’s Reiser?” Mr. Throckmorton asked, his hands on his hips.

  I shrugged. I hadn’t seen Blake all day. “I don’t know.”

  “He was supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago.” Mr. Throckmorton pulled a dingy handkerchief from his pocket and mopped at his sweaty brow. “That boy is pushing my limits. First the whole ketchup fiasco and now he’s late.”

  I didn’t think that stepping on a packet of ketchup on the floor and accidentally squirting a customer in the leg really counted as a “fiasco,” but Mr. Throckmorton had had his eye on Elliott ever since the incident. At least it took some of the pressure off me, Mr. Throckmorton’s former least favorite employee.

  “Your boyfriend is getting everything ready for this hop thing, right?” Mr. Throckmorton asked, eyeing me with skepticism etched across his face.

  “Yes, sir,” I answered. “I think he has it all just about done.”

  The Hot Dog Holiday Wonderland Hop would be taking place in less than twenty-four hours, on Christmas Eve. We’d open early just for the event, and Willowbrook Helping Hands would come by when we closed at five to pick up all the cans. I frowned as I looked at the small stack of corn and peas under the Christmas tree. Hopefully Elliott’s dancing could convince everyone to donate.