“His girlfriend?”Tom asked.“Possible girlfriend.”
Kirsten nodded yes.“Poor girl.Always looking over her shoulder, so to speak.When your boyfriend is that hot and the whole world wants to bang him, how can you ever really trust him?”
Tom’s hand dove into her bag of Lay’s and grabbed a fistful of potato chips.He crammed them in his mouth.Crumbs tumbled onto his Décor Store apron.
“Cheer up, Tom!I’m sure Hot Mall Santa would be gay for pay.”
“Maybe.”He held back further commentary.
* * *
Tom wentto his car for his second fifteen-minute break later that evening.He needed to feel the fresh, chilly air on his face.He needed to get away from the chaos of the mall.He walked by a TV news van parked on the curb and people fawning over a real-life TV news van at the Oakville Mall.
He reached his car, parked at the edge of the parking lot, not too far from the bus stop was where he’d picked up Randall.Twenty-four hours ago.A simpler time.
“Hey, Tom!”Randall jogged over to his car.Tom immediately looked around to make sure he wasn’t being followed with reporters and screaming fans.
“Hey.”
“What a crazy day,” Randall said with incredible understatement.He pulled down his fake beard, and his smile warmed Tom right up.
“I thought getting interviewed for the six o’clock news and becoming a viral sensation was standard territory for mall Santas.”
“If it was, I was lied to during the job interview.”
Tom kept looking back at the mall, like it was magnet pulling them to opposite wings.
“I had no idea any of that was happening,” Randall said.
“It’s exciting.I’m happy for you.You should enjoy it.”
“I don’t know what I did to earn it.”
“You’re a sexy Santa.”
Randall shrugged his shoulder, unimpressed.Tom could see that he didn’t want that to be his only distinguishing characteristic.And after their talk last night, Tom knew that wasn’t true, that there was so much inner life underneath that body.Everything Randall had shared made him even sexier in Tom’s eyes.
“Can we sit in your car?”Randall shivered in his Santa suit.He still had not thought to wear a real coat to work.
They got inside Tom’s car.Randall checked in the rear windshield to make sure the bus wasn’t coming yet.He still had a few minutes.
“Are you leaving?”
“I’m on a fifteen-minute break,” Tom said.“I have to be back at the Décor Store in seven minutes.”
“Then I don’t have much time.I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed last night.”Randall said.His smile creasing his rugged face was enough to get Tom hard.
“Me, too.”
“Maybe we can hang out again sometime before I go.”
Before I go.He was moving on, off to another job in another state where he’d be ogled and where he’d find some quiet guy to have fun with.Tom had to keep reminding himself of that.
“How much time do we have?”Randall asked.
“Six minutes.More like two minutes since I have to get back inside.”
Randall’s hand grazed over Tom’s tented pants.He looked at Tom with anare you thinking what I’m thinkingexpression.
