Good Elf Gone Wrong: A Holiday Romantic Comedy

“That didn’t go well.”

Only I would set out to fire someone then get talked into putting all my trust in a man who had literally called me a slut to my family the night before.

“You have no backbone.”

I couldn’t lie though. Part of me was thrilled at the prospect of grinding James and Kelly into dust.

After buying another gigantic coffee to go, Hudson had left to try to miracle a green truck, and I had gone back to my parents’ house to—you guessed it—cook.

At least I was alone, and the Christmas season was looking a little brighter. Hudson, even though he was rude and antisocial, was in my corner. Sure, I was paying him to be there, but it took the edge off while I had to listen to my sister regale the rest of our family members with her big wedding plans.

Kelly swept into the kitchen. She had taken to only wearing white the last few months and was now in a flowing lacy white knee-length wrap dress.

“Gracie,” my sister said haughtily. “Aunt Janet suggested, and I agree, that we should serve pistachio cookies at the cookie bar at my wedding.”

“We already have twenty-five different types of cookies,” I reminded her, trying to keep the panic out of my voice.

I had a baking schedule planned down to the minute. I couldn’t whip up two hundred pistachio cookies. They sounded simple, but it was a multistep process. I had to roast the pistachios, bake shortbread, make chocolate ganache filling, make a different type of chocolate frosting and carefully draw a lattice pattern on each cookie and sprinkle it with crushed pistachios while the chocolate design was cool enough to not run everywhere yet hot enough to adhere to the pistachios. And, of course, do all of the above with no help from anyone.

“It’s my wedding,” Kelly snapped. “And Aunt Janet thinks it’s a good idea. Everyone is expecting them now.”

Just say no.

Except I couldn’t.

“Okay,” I said, feeling harried. “I’ll make them.”

My earlier festive mood, buoyed by Hudson of all people, had deflated.

A timer beeped, and I pulled the pans of olive cheese bread out of the oven then gave the spinach salad another toss.

“Is lunch ready yet?” my sister asked, inspecting her perfect manicure. “We’re supposed to go pick out more Christmas trees for my wedding welcome party. I don’t want to go when it’s dark.”

“It’s almost ready.”

The back door to the kitchen that led out to the deck opened. A shadow was cast over the kitchen as a huge man filled the doorway.

Hudson stomped the snow off his boots then stepped inside.

“Hi—uh …” Honey? Babe? Sweetie? None of the pet names sounded right.

“Hi, Hudson,” I stammered.

I was a terrible actor.

Hudson wasn’t.

He crossed the kitchen in two long steps and slapped my ass, hard, making me yelp in surprise.

“You look cute in that Christmas apron. Wear it tonight. Nothing else.”

Kelly sucked in a breath.

Hudson leaned down, his breath hot in my ear.

“You need to act like you’re happy we’re fucking when I manhandle you, Sugarplum.”

He released me and headed for the fridge.

“Lunch is going to be ready soon,” I squawked.

I was frazzled and out of sorts. The kitchen was supposed to be my safe space, but it felt claustrophobic and too hot with Hudson filling the room with his arrogance and his maleness.

He slammed the fridge door, beer in hand, and bit the bottle cap off with his teeth.

I watched in horror.

My sister watched in fascination.

I resisted the urge to scold Hudson and tell him to take care of his teeth. He wasn’t a five-year-old. He was a grown man—one who wasn’t my friend, who I didn’t care about.

Hudson locked eyes with me and drained half the beer.

I handed him a dish towel before he could wipe his mouth on his sleeve then pulled the mini sliders out of the oven. I set the large pan on a wood trivet and turned to pull the next one out of the oven.

“Why didn’t you kiss her if you two are so into each other?” Kelly demanded. “You barely even touched her.”

I almost dropped the pan.

Hudson took another long draught of his beer.

I scuttled away from him, pretending like I needed to check on the tray of condiments and toppings for the sliders.

If he kissed me, I was going to scream, and this whole revenge plan was going to come crashing down like an alcoholic Santa busting through a chimney.

I stared at Hudson, mouth dry as he gave me a predatory gaze, his eyes slowly sweeping down to my kitchen clogs and back up to my sweaty bun.

“Gracie read me the riot act yesterday,” Hudson drawled, “and doesn’t want her father to watch me tongue fucking his daughter. I’m trying not to act like a wild animal.”

He finished off the beer and set it down on the kitchen island.

“Besides, your panties would be ruined if you saw it, and I’m trying to spare you. Gracie tells me you’ve been wearing your special bridal lingerie, and I wouldn’t want to be the one staining those.”

“Someone’s cocky,” my sister said, hand on her hip.

Hudson smirked at her.

Kelly made a big show of fussing with her top. Hudson’s eyes tracked the motion.

“Excuse me,” I said too loudly. “I need to get lunch on the table.”

Neither of them offered to help.

It’s part of the plan, I reminded myself.

After all, to actually break up Kelly and James, Hudson was going to have to sleep with my sister.

I felt a little nauseous thinking about him with her.

You just drank too much coffee, I told myself firmly. It’s good if he sleeps with her. Then James can get a taste of his own medicine.

James and my father were already seated at the long dining room table, pretending to discuss business.

“… think that we should plan on expanding our offerings next quarter,” James was saying, “and maybe expand our client base.”

“EnerCheck cannot expand our client base,” I interjected as I set out the trays of sliders. “Roscoe Energy Solutions made us sign very stringent noncompete clauses. And before you ask, no, we are also not expanding any offerings because we do not have the manpower.”

James shot me an ugly look. Normally, I tried to ignore when he made stupid suggestions and just log it in my Festivus book of grievances, but seriously, he was going to tank the company with his incompetence.

“Maybe we could cut off the gravy train and hire some actual employees, or at least make people come into work.”

My ex’s voice dripped with condescension. “While it’s cute you’re trying to look after the company, you don’t know what you’re talking about. So why don’t you leave the big decisions to the—”

James let out a little scream, and I jumped as Hudson slammed his fist down on the table, making the dishes rattle.

“Don’t talk to my woman like that,” Hudson said, voice dangerously soft.

Violet fanned herself.

I hated to admit it, but I was starting to see the appeal of a bad boy.

“Hudson came for lunch,” Kelly trilled, walking into the dining room, carrying the salad bowl.

“Oh, Kelly, thank you for making lunch.” My father beamed at her as she handed me the salad bowl.

I set it down heavily on the buffet.

My father hurried over to me.

“I know you made lunch, but the therapist said that we need to give Kelly praise for any positive actions,” he whispered furtively.

“Yes, that is what the therapist said, Dad,” I hissed back. “When she was ten. She’s a grown woman now.”

My dad looked hurt.

I scurried back into the kitchen while my aunts made a big show of giving Hudson the best seat at the table.

My family was already loading their plates when I returned with the remaining trays of olive cheese bread. I’d barely set it down before my cousins were all over it.

I dished myself up two sliders and some spinach salad. Though I loved the olive cheese bread, it was a popular item in my family, so I liked to let everyone else have a piece first.

“Are there any more croutons?” my uncle asked me right as I was about to find a seat.

“I have some extra,” I said. “Let me go grab them.”

I raced back through the house—historic homes used to put the kitchen all the way in the back—grabbed the dish of extra croutons, and returned to the dining room.

Everyone had already started eating. My food was growing cold. I was used to eating lukewarm food though. I had been raised to be a good hostess, putting the needs of my guests first. It felt good to know that I had at least this one part of my life under control, to be the master of my own universe even if it was just lunch.

“Gracie, is there any more ginger ale?” Aunt Giana called, right as I picked up my plate of food from the buffet. “The punch needs freshening up.”

I set the plate down.

“Sure thing. Anyone else need anything from the kitchen?”

“Honey mustard?” my brother asked hopefully.

I came back with the condiments and soda a few minutes later, along with more beers and some chips that I knew my younger cousins were going to request.

Hudson was almost done eating, I noticed. He didn’t eat like a refined gentleman. He ate like a soldier, hunched over his food, wolfing it down in large bites.

Before I sat down, I dished him up two more sliders. I even gave him the last slice of olive cheese toast.

“You look hungry,” I chirped then gulped as those Ghost of Christmas Past eyes locked on mine.

“Gracie,” one of my younger cousins asked, “are there more caramelized onions?”

“I have a few left. Let me …”

“No.”

Hudson’s deep voice cut through my family’s chatter.

“But I—”

“Sit down,” he ordered me. The chair next to Hudson scraped as he pushed it out.

“Get the onions yourself,” he told my cousin.

My face was hot, and I knew I was red under winter-pale skin. I should have taken Dakota up on her offer to go to that spray tan place, I thought as I sat down, feeling everyone’s eyes on me.

“I don’t mind,” I said softly to him.

“I do. I don’t want you up and down in the kitchen. Sit next to me and eat.” He put the piece of olive cheese bread on my plate.

“Gracie knows where they are,” my cousin started to protest then snapped his mouth closed after one glare from Hudson.

“The onions are in the cast-iron skillet, and he might scrape it,” I protested.

Hudson’s eyes bored into my teenaged cousin’s.

“You scrape that pan, and I’ll bash it over your head.”

“Yes … sir,” my cousin added for good measure and practically sprinted out of the dining room.

Hudson turned back to his food.

I perched on the far side of my seat, trying to get as far away from my fake boyfriend as possible without it looking like I was terrified to be that close to so much testosterone.

Your family is supposed to think you’re in a relationship.

Hudson set me on edge.

There was no way I’d ever be in a relationship with a man like him. I couldn’t take the heat.

Hudson was a flaming shot of whisky in a dive bar. I was more of a hot-cocoa-and-marshmallows-on-a-West-Elm-couch type of girl.

I stiffly stabbed a piece of the crisp romaine lettuce with my fork. It was Granny Murray’s old Christmas silverware from the fifties. After Granny Murray had finalized her divorce, she’d dumped it all on my mom’s doorstep when I got engaged to James. It was supposed to have been my wedding present.

My cousin raced back into the room with the onions in a little glass bowl. He stuck his phone in front of Hudson to show him a photo.

“See? I didn’t scrape the pan. ”

Hudson grunted.

My father and mother exchanged a concerned look.

“So, Hudson,” my mother said in a too-cheery tone. “Where did you two meet?”

“Um … we … um …” I stammered.

Hudson and I hadn’t discussed our origin story.

He kicked me under the table before I could launch into a half-baked story about him helping me carry my groceries up to my apartment, which would have been a really good meet-cute except that I lived in a ground-floor unit.

“Gracie and I met in a gas station restroom.”

The dining room was so quiet you could hear elf footsteps.

Hudson took a sip of his beer.

I scrunched down in my seat. I had a sinking feeling this was not going to be a wholesome story about how he’d caught me when I slipped on a spilled slushie.

“We hooked up,” Hudson said, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “I didn’t know her name.”

I handed him a napkin.

“Somehow Gracie tracked me down a few months later. She was convinced she was pregnant.”

I inhaled an olive and started coughing.

“Oh my god. Did you all hear that?” Bella said to the live stream that was being broadcast to the rest of my gossip-hungry family that hadn’t been able to make the lunch.

“I thought Gracie got fat this summer,” Aunt Giana said loudly.

“Obviously, she wasn’t pregnant, but”—he possessively grabbed the back of my neck, running his thumb along the vein on the side of my throat—“you know how hysterical women can be.”

“Ain’t that right!” Uncle Albert said and caught a dirty look from his wife.

“Anyone want some more wine?” my uncle asked meekly.

“I remembered what a good fuck your Gracie was, so we started hooking up again,” Hudson finished.

“Just in time for Christmas,” I added desperately.

My mother had her hand over her mouth and was staring at a spot on the wall above my head. “Where did I go wrong?”

“I have a list,” Granny Astelle said acerbically.

“She just wishes she was young and voluptuous like us,” Granny Murray whispered, elbowing me in the side.

My father gave me a pained smile. “So is this what the kids are doing these days?”

“It’s just a rebound,” Kelly snapped.

“Exactly,” James told my father in his I-know-better-than-you-because-I’m-a-man-who-went-to-Princeton voice. “Gracie is throwing a tantrum because her younger sister is getting married before her, and when she realizes she’s not getting a rise out of anyone, she’ll drop Hudson because he obviously doesn’t have anything to offer.”

“I hear he has a real nice truck,” one of my second cousins remarked.

“We can only hope,” my mother said faintly.

“I think it’s the bee’s knees that Gracie has a rebound hookup,” Granny Murray declared. “I’m trying to find myself a hobosexual too.”

I spilled my water all down my chin.

Beside me, Hudson made a strangled noise.

“I beg your pardon, a what?” Grandma Astelle said in horror.

“You know. A hot guy who travels from woman to woman, trading sex and masculine energy for food and a warm bed.”

“Gracie, you and I are going to have another conversation about this later. I can’t have Linda knowing you have a homeless person living with you,” my mom said, lowering her voice.

“Don’t get your panties all in a bunch, Bethany,” Granny Murray stated. “God doesn’t give with both hands. A man’s not going to have a giant dick, a hot body, and a big bank account. You have to pick one. You read too many of those dirty billionaire romance novels. I should have divorced your father earlier. God help me, but you married someone just like him.”

My dad’s mouth fell open, and Granny Astelle harrumphed loudly.

“Pro tip,” Granny Murray barreled on, “and I know Annedull—”

“It’s Astelle.”

“—didn’t know this, because someone with that bad of an attitude clearly wasn’t getting some on the regular, but you should mix the Viagra in his eggs. The protein makes it slow release. Keeps him hard for hours.”

“It’s a wonder you didn’t kill your poor husband.”

“Trust me, I thought about it, but someone needed to set the example for these children, and I couldn’t do that from jail.”

I wanted to crawl under the table and die.

“Do you have any single brothers?” Granny Murray asked Hudson loudly.

He shook his head, looking a little stunned.

He’s not your real boyfriend, he’s not your real boyfriend, I chanted to myself.

It didn’t matter that this lunch was utter humiliation because it wasn’t as if a wedding, babies, and a happily ever after was on the line. Hudson wasn’t ever going to date, let alone marry me.

We are in our villain season.

“I do not want to talk about this anymore,” my mother declared. “This is Christmas. It’s about family and making memories. Now, Hudson, it was nice of you to stop by uninvited, but we have Christmas-tree cutting planned, and that doesn’t seem like your style.”

Thank god. I could lose myself in finding the perfect Christmas trees and take a much-needed breather from Hudson and his stories about what a sexual minx I was.

“Mom, in the spirit of Christmas,” Kelly said, voice syrupy sweet, “I think we should invite the less fortunate. Hudson could use some Christmas cheer.”