But Petey was his little brother, and Wade loved the hell out of him. And these raffle tickets were a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, one that probably wouldn’t feel the same next year even if Peteycouldmake enough off them to pay for a nearly identical trip.
Wade sighed. “Fine. I’ll do it. But this is your Christmas present for the next three years at least.”
“Oh, you’re going to amend that to the next five,” Petey said, pressing Wade into the kind of bone-breaking bear hug that no non-shifter could have ever lived through. “The Christmas Village this year is anightmare, buddy. You don’t even know what you’ve gotten yourself into. But no take-backs!”
With no further ado, he flipped the OPEN sign on Wade’s Workshop to CLOSED and hustled Wade over to the Honey Brook Staff Outpost.
Since it was an outdoor mall, none of the stores backed up on to staff-only areas. All the locker rooms, break rooms, time clocks, and management offices were housed in the Outpostinstead. The building offered a lot of intra-mall camaraderie but not a lot of space or privacy.
As soon as Petey steered Wade inside, the locker room area erupted into laughter, cheers, wolf-whistles, and one very off-key rendition of “Santa Baby.”
Wade gave the crowd a resigned, disapproving look that clearly didn’t affect them in the slightest.
“You all knew this was coming,” he said.
“Of course we did,” the guy from the Pretzel Shack said.
The lady from the stationery kiosk nodded. “Who else was he going to get?”
“We had bets on how long it would take you to say yes,” the pink-haired kid from the games store added. “I won.”
“Oh, good for you, man,” Petey said.
Wade refused to second the congratulations, just on general principle.
The last thing he expected was for his polar bear to stir inside him, opening its dark amber eyes to fix him with an unimpressed gaze.
Don’t sulk, it said.This will be good for us. I like Christmas. I like Santa.
I like Christmas too,Wade protested,and—wait, you like Santa? How do you even have an opinion about Santa?
He has a proper layer of insulating fat,his polar bear said.It’s very smart to cultivate that in a subzero environment. I should know.
It was true that his polar bear washuge, as most polar bears tended to be, so Wade guessed it made sense that it would admire another North Pole denizen who had the sense to bulk up for long, cold winters. (Admittedly, they didn’t have too many of those in southern California, but his polar bear was ruled by nature, not nurture.)
Of course, if Santa were real, there was also every chance a wild polar bear would eat him if it got hungry enough, so his bear also probably thought Santa looked tasty, but Wade was going to concentrate on the mutual respect angle instead.
Got it. And how do you have an opinion about Christmas?
Coca-Cola ads,his polar bear said succinctly.
Well, that checked out. Coca-Cola’s holiday branding almost always featured polar bears, and everyone liked to feel important.
Huh,Wade said.Good to know. Okay, out of respect for your favorite holiday, I’ll do my best not to sulk.
He brought his attention back to the locker room, where—it turned out—he hadn’t missed anything except more gentle ribbing about his big-brother tendency to swoop in to rescue Petey from his troubles. Wade tuned most of it out as he concentrated on getting into the Santa suit.
Luckily, he and Petey were more or less the same height. Wade was a lot broader through the shoulders, but since the Santa coat needed to make room for the famous belly that shook like a bowlful of jelly, it had roomy lines and he could fit into it without too much effort ... as long as he left the fake belly off.
Petey examine the fit and clicked his tongue. “Mr. Marsh isn’t going to like that.”
“It can’t be that big of a deal. I’ve seen skinny Santas.” Maybe they weren’t ideal, but they were still an option. And he wasn’t even skinny. Like his bear, he was big and solid, built for power and endurance. He just wasn’tround.
“You haven’t seen skinny Santas at any Christmas Village Marsh has ever run,” Petey said. “He’s a real stickler about it.”
Wade doubted a Honey Brook newcomer like Marsh—who had only turned up in November—had any fanatical followers in the Outpost who would report back to him if they heard anycriticism, but just to be on the safe side, he kept his voice low before he opened the door to any shit-talking.
“I thought you said the village this year was a total mess. If he’s such a stickler, why can’t he keep it together?”
