Good Elf Gone Wrong: A Holiday Romantic Comedy

“Such a lovely party! I can’t believe she organized all of this while she was working, poor dear.”

Was Great-aunt Mildred talking about yours truly?

Of course not. Kelly got all the credit. She would always get all the credit. My sister was going to have an amazing wedding, a perfect life, and beautiful children, and it was all because Hudson took my money and ran.

I hadn’t wanted to believe it last night. I’d lain in the bed that stilled smelled faintly of him and wished with all my heart that he’d show up in the morning with the grand revenge plan ready to go.

Then I wouldn’t have to use my backup. I could forget that Dakota and I had even planned it.

However, in the cold light of morning, when I finally had stumbled downstairs unable to sleep, there was no Hudson waiting in the kitchen for me.

He didn’t show up while I was directing the caterers, he didn’t show up when I was changing into my cocktail dress, and now at the party, when all the guests had arrived, he still wasn’t there.

Hiding behind one of the large Christmas trees that decorated the space, I opened my clutch and looked at my phone, ignoring the backup plan in a baggie. No missed calls, no messages, no nothing.

Hudson was truly gone.

I wrapped my arms around myself.

“Eat.” Dakota appeared in front of me with a plate of reindeer deviled eggs and cranberry brie bites.

“All you’ve had today were three eggnog lattes. You need your strength.”

I scarfed down the food, barely tasting it.

“I can’t believe he abandoned me,” I said hoarsely. “I can’t believe this is the rest of my life. How was I so stupid? I need to go lie down. I can’t do this.”

“Cut the negative self-talk. Don’t you dare chicken out. There are moments in life that define who we are. This?” She tapped my clutch. “Is your moment. You regret the things you don’t do, and trust me, you will regret not getting payback on your sister.”

“Isn’t the best revenge a life well lived?” I said faintly.

“That’s for middle school bullies, not sisters who fuck your fiancé the night before your wedding. This calls for scorched earth.”

I was hyperventilating. I felt nauseous. Why couldn’t Hudson just show up?

“Maybe something bad happened to him,” I whispered. “Maybe he wrecked his motorcycle. Maybe he’s lying in a ditch somewhere freezing to death, wishing that I was there.”

Dakota pulled a bottle of eggnog-flavored vodka out of her purse.

“Or maybe he’s in Vegas getting wasted, spending all your money on strippers.”

“Hudson’s not that kind of man.”

“You haven’t even known him a month. In fact, you don’t really know him at all,” Dakota reminded me.

“I should go home. I don’t feel well.” I felt queasy thinking about that stack of cash I’d given Hudson. “Maybe it’s a misunderstanding. Maybe—”

“Stop making excuses for him. Have some liquid courage,” my cousin said, tipping the vodka to my mouth.

“That’s nasty,” I rasped after drinking a few swallows.

“Have some more.”

I was starting to feel a little bit better, more floaty. My heart was still racing though. I should cut back on the caffeine in January, I decided as I followed Dakota back out into the party.

“Where’s that boyfriend?” Kirk called out when he saw me.

I looked longingly to my hiding spot behind the Christmas tree.

“I think he might be working,” I stammered.

“You think?” Violet butted in.

“Didn’t you tell him how important tonight is?” Emily demanded. “You can’t just let people walk all over you.”

“He knows,” I said helplessly, wishing I were anywhere else.

“Then he’ll be here,” Granny Murray assured me. “Drink?”

I waved it away.

“It’s Christmas,” Emily insisted. “You can’t not drink on Christmas, Gracie.”

“I’m, um, I’m good.”

I wasn’t.

On the small stage at the front of the ballroom, my sister appeared, a serene vision, glowing in white. James had his arm around her as he escorted her to the head table with the rest of the wedding party.

I felt like puking. This was supposed to be my moment. I had been planning to have a big family baby shower here. Now I was watching my sister get married. Alone.

Because Hudson was a freaking liar.

Or he’s going to walk through the door … now.

… Now?

Maybe now?

My mother took the microphone.

“Gracie, why don’t you come up and say a few words?”

Is she freaking for real?

“Are you sure you don’t want a drink?” Granny Murray asked out of the side of her mouth.

“I’m not drinking.” I set down my clutch on a small table and slowly made my way to the front of the room.

My mother handed me the microphone.

I peered into the crowd. I felt hot and sweaty. Servers were passing out flutes of champagne. An antique silver champagne bucket was sitting on the bridal table, filled with ice.

I longed to grab a handful, just to settle my stomach.

“Thank you all,” I began, “for coming tonight to celebrate my wonderful sister and her beloved fiancé. We’ve had our ups and downs, but family is the most important thing. You and James”—I felt the tears threatening to come—“are starting your journey and creating your family.”

Which you thought you were going to have with Hudson except you’re completely delusional, and he’s not here, and this is going to be the rest of your life except that you’ll be $3,000 poorer.

“I can’t wait …” I forced out the words.

“… to be …”

Just finish.

“… an aunt—” I doubled over.

“Oh my god!”

“Gross!” came the cries of shock as I grabbed the champagne bucket and emptied the contents of my stomach in it.

“Shit,” I groaned.

“Oh, Gracie,” my mother scolded. “Look what you’ve done.”

“She was looking a little queasy,” one of my aunts said.

“You ruined my wedding!” my sister screamed.

I felt like I was going to faint from the nausea and the humiliation.

My cousins were recording the scene. Several people were taking photos, and everyone was pointing and whispering. My family was going to be talking about this for years.

“You just did this because Hudson dumped you,” my sister screeched. “And you’re jealous.”

“He dumped her?” came the murmurs from the crowd.

“Praise god!” Grandma Astelle declared.

“Screw you, you old bat. Hudson was a catch,” Granny Murray insisted.

“He was a bad influence,” Grandma Astelle said, staring down her nose. “Gracie gets that from your side of the family.”

“If you mean her ability to get top-tier dick, then yes, she does, and I’m proud of it,” Granny Murray hollered. “And it skipped a generation, because my daughter married a complete loser with a small penis.”

“You take that back. All the problems with my grandchildren are because your daughter is a terrible mother.”

Granny Murray took a swing at Grandma Astelle, who blocked it with her cane then pulled out her sword.

It was a slow-moving fight as the two old women went at each other, Astelle using two hands to slash the sword at Granny Murray.

“My party is ruined, and it’s all her fault, Daddy,” Kelly was whining, pointing at me.

“Gracie, clean this mess up,” my mom hissed, “and stop your grandmothers from fighting. We’re going to end up on the evening news.”

“You need to stop being so hard on a pregnant woman,” Dakota yelled, hands cupped around her mouth.

Granny Murray dropped the chair that she was about to throw at Grandma Astelle.

The ballroom went dead quiet.

“Are you pregnant, Gracie?” my father asked in horror, the microphone picking up his voice.

I looked around at my grandmothers fighting, my family with their cameras out, my sister with her smug face, and the champagne bucket full of puked-up vodka.

We die like men.

“Yes,” I said, holding my stomach. “Yes, I am pregnant.”

“So that’s why she was puking.”

“Congratulations!”

“Who’s the father?” Uncle Bic yelled out.

Everyone looked to me expectantly.

Granny Murray snorted. “It’s not James’s—clearly it’s Hudson’s.”

“Hudson!” my uncles roared.

Guess they’re excited … wait …

In the back of the ballroom was the man I’d been pining for over the last thirty-six hours and who couldn’t have picked a worse time to show up.

“Congratulations!” My cousins and uncles were shaking his hand while Hudson looked confused.

Behind me, I didn’t even have to look. I knew my sister was fuming.

“You don’t announce your pregnancy at someone else’s wedding,” she was snipping to her bridesmaids.

I stood there awkwardly, hand still on my stomach.

One of my aunts took the puke bucket away while another one handed me a cup of ice chips.

“I could tell,” Aunt Giana was saying as she petted my hair. “You were looking very round.”

“That’s why she wasn’t drinking,” Emily added, crowding around me with the rest of my excited family.

“Do you know if you’re having a boy or a girl?”

“When’s the wedding?”

Then Hudson was in front of me. He looked ragged, like he’d just survived a death march.

“Gracie.”

“I um …. Hi. I didn’t think you were coming. You ignored my calls.”

“Sorry. Work.”

“No worries!” I said, forcing my mouth into a smile. “So, surprise. Early Christmas present. I’m pregnant.”

“What?” he snarled.

Come on, dude, I sent silent thought-waves to him. Remember the revenge plan.

Sure, it wasn’t the full plan, but it was something. No, Kelly’s wedding wasn’t ruined, but we’d sure stolen the spotlight.

“You’re not pregnant,” Hudson said flatly.

“She is. Here’s the test.” Granny Murray stuck the pregnancy test Dakota had begged her friend from school to pee on since she was recently postpartum. The friend hated Kelly because Kelly had stolen her boyfriend and said she would do it for free, but those bribery cookies looked too good to pass up.

I smiled weakly at Hudson.

“You’re going to be a dad.”

“The hell?” He had a wild look in his eyes. “Gracie, you can’t be pregnant.”

“Please, Hudson,” I hissed.

Unfortunately, he did not receive my silent messages.

He ran his hand through his dark hair.

“I mean, fuck, you can’t think I’m the father, can you?”

The crowd let out a collective “Oooh.”

“Who else could it be?” James demanded.

Hudson stepped back shaking his head.

“It’s not me. I can’t—I’m not—that is not mine.”

I felt the tears start. Days of no contact, running off with my money, and now Hudson shows up and acts like this? Who did my fake boyfriend think he was, not acting like the fake father of my fake baby?

“You asshole!”

I threw the cup of ice at him.

“Coward!” I screamed as he turned away from me.

Hudson didn’t pause as he left the venue.

“Oh my god,” my cousin Connie was saying. “Did you see that? How many men is she sleeping with that she doesn’t even know the father?”

I wanted to crawl into bed, curl up under my covers, and not come out until spring.

How could Hudson just betray me like that?

My dad patted me awkwardly on the arm.

“Congratulations, sweetheart. Guess I’m going to be a grandfather.”

“I bet it is Hudson’s,” Logan was saying confidently to our cousins. “Logically, who else could it be? Dakota, was she dating anyone else?”

“Nope.”

“Hudson just got cold feet.” My uncle slapped me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. It happens. When your aunt told me she was pregnant, I started driving then ran out of gas in Pennsylvania, and she had to come pick me up. Happily married thirty-five years,” he said cheerfully.

“Poor Gracie.” One of my aunts draped a blanket around my shoulders. “Don’t cry. You just need to give Hudson a cooling-off period. He’ll come around.”

“I’m going to be a grandmother!” my mom was ecstatic as she told her sister.

At least someone was happy.

“They need to get married,” my dad was muttering, walking around, his fist balled up. “They just have to get married, that’s all there is to it.”

“… met him in a gas station,” Astelle was complaining loudly to anyone who would listen. “Gracie is having a gas-station baby. My granddaughter. The horror of it all.”

“I like gas stations,” Granny Murray argued.

Kelly took the microphone.

“I just want to say that normally a bride would be really upset that her sister would steal her thunder, but not me. I’m glad Gracie is having a baby because I have an announcement too. James and I are pregnant!”

“We are?” James was shocked.

“Surprise, baby! You’re going to be a daddy.”

Oh no. My sister did not just steal my fake pregnancy thunder.

There were cries of congratulations.

“And my man didn’t run off,” Kelly added as James kissed her.

Before I could stop him, James came over to me and kissed me on the cheek.

“Congratulations.” He was so smug and self-righteous.

“Don’t worry, Gracie, this is perfect. You can quit the company and watch both babies. I believe in charity for single mothers because, let’s face it, no matter what anyone says, Hudson is not coming back for you.”