There would be no coming back after today’s blunder, I feared.
“Excuse me,” I said to the nearest person in scrubs. I didn’t recognize them from the usual Thursday rotation. Then again, I usually stuck to the pediatric ward. “Can you point me toward room 274?”
“Take a right at the end of the hall. Second door on the left.”
“Thank you.”
“No worries.” Their lips kicked up to one side before they added, “Santa.”
I rolled my eyes and zipped down the hallway, bypassing the hospital gift shop. A thirty-dollar teddy bear wouldn’t make up for (literally) knocking Nellie off her feet. It was going to take a lot more than that.
I had completely forgotten about the annual Turkey Trot when I’d rounded the corner of Ocean Avenue and Pacific. What should have been a shortcut to my favorite coffee shop had turned into an hour of waiting for the paramedics, surrounded by sweaty strangers dressed like turkeys and pilgrims.
As the lone Santa in the crowd, I had stuck out like a sore thumb. It was my worst nightmare—people pointing and whispering, eyeing me with disdain. And who could blame them? Someone’s grandmother might have gotten run over bya reindeer at one point in time, or so the song went, but today would go down in infamy as the day some poor jogger got railroaded by Santa.
On an electric scooter.
What could I say? Parking was expensive in L.A.
I hefted the bag of toys up on my shoulder and trudged down the hall, boots clomping across the checkered linoleum floor. There hadn’t been any reason to change, not when I was expected in the children’s ward for “Storytime with Santa” at ten. Hopefully, Nellie would understand, or at the very least be able to forgive me.
Voices filtered out of her room before I even turned the corner.
“Please stop coddling me, Leigh Leigh.” There was no mistaking Nellie’s soft, melodic tone, even tinged with annoyance. It wrapped around my heart, tugging me two steps closer. “I promise, I’m fine.”
“You fractured two bones in your foot, Nell. That’s not fine.”
Fuck.The one time I’d taken a shortcut. Nellie was laid up in the hospital with a fractured foot, meanwhile I had walked away—well, scooted away—without a scrape. Sometimes, it paid to be on the fluffier side.
I anchored my neck around the door jamb, stomach sinking when I saw her propped up by five or so pillows in a hospital bed, still clad in her cropped sweatshirt and spandex shorts. The skimpy bottoms gave way to two shapely legs that I had spent more than a few hours dreaming about wrapped around my waist—or head. I wasn’t picky.
What could I say? I had a thing for women—and men, for that matter—who did living room yoga and pranced around the kitchen in their underwear.
“I still think I could have finished the race,” Nellie grumbled, pouting her bubblegum-pink lips. I bit back a smile.Of course,that was what she was most upset about. “And don’t you dare call Mom.”
“Too late,” her sister, Leighton, answered from beside the bed. I had never officially met the curvy brunette, but from what I had heard, she was something of an up-and-coming fashion designer.
“Great,” Nellie said begrudgingly. “I swear, if she hops on a plane and shows up at my apartment, I’m telling her you’re pregnant.”
“Please don’t even joke about something like that.”
“Then please, get me out of here.” She rested her manicured hands atop her flat stomach. “I’m going to be pissed if I miss out on Bowie’s dinner.”
“Er, can I help you, Santa?” I nearly jumped out of my boots when a hand tapped my shoulder. I turned toward the familiar British lilt, coming face-to-face with a blond-haired giant whose bushy beard rivaled my own. “Or do you prefer St. Nick?” he hedged, arching a brow.
Had we never spoken before, I might have thought he was Thor, or at the very least, the guy who played Thor on Hollywood Boulevard. But Killian and I had exchanged pleasantries in the courtyard that divided my and Nellie’s apartment on more than one occasion.
“Uh, yeah.” I removed my velvet hat and polyester beard, fluffing out my natural brown facial hair beneath. “It’s Austin, actually. We’ve met before—”
“I remember. You’re Nellie’s neighbor. The photographer, right?” He extended his hand.
I smiled and took it. “That’s right.”
“And Santa Claus, apparently.”
My cheeks flushed. “Yeah, about that . . . I—”
“You.” I spun on my heels. Nellie’s eyes narrowed with recognition, piercing through my thick layer of velvet as well as the cotton T-shirt beneath. “You’rethe one who ran me down?”
