No matter how it came about, I dodged a bullet. That’s what I need to remember.
“I’m glad my pain entertained you. But really, she did me a favor. We were never right for each other.”
Truthfully, I’m not getting any younger. I’ve always wanted a family, and I thought Annabelle would be an acceptable choice for a partner. Turns out I couldn’t have been more wrong. Looking back, I realize now that she would have been a terrible mother and an even worse wife. We hadn’t even seen each other for almost three months because of our conflicting schedules before the fateful Christmas party. I honestly do not know why I thought I should ask her to marry me. I was settling, and I knew it.
“Maybe you’ll get lucky tonight and your runaway bride will be running away again. You could make it a yearly thing.” Eric lifts his glass to me and shakes his head. “Only you could pick up a woman while dressed as Santa.”
After Annabelle’s confession at last year’s party, I took myself to the hotel bar while security escorted her from the building. I planned to drink top-shelf whiskey until I passed out while Eric and my assistant, MaeLynn, removed every trace of Annabelle from my apartment. I would never entertain the thought of reconciliation with someone who could cheat on me so easily and then ask Santa Claus for help to cover it up. I’m not that desperate.
I may have been planning to drown my sorrows in whiskey, but when a curvy brunette in a wedding dress sat beside me and ordered three shots of tequila and a double margarita, plans changed. After that, figuring her out became my new plan. A more appealing prospect than ruminating over Annabelle’s confession to Santa. I sat there transfixed as she swallowed the shots like they were water, asked the bartender for three more, then turned, looked right at me and said ‘What’s up, Santa?’ with a single lift of her chin. For some unknown reason, I replied, ‘Hey there, Bride.’ The sheer ridiculousness of the exchange caught me off guard and, with the help of the several whiskeys I’d already consumed, I completely lost it. I’m not sure how long I laughed, but when I finished, she was still there, smiling at me and sipping on her margarita.
The rest of the night is a bit of a blur, but bits and pieces have come back to me over the past year. I know I laughed harder that night than I ever had before in my life, and I know I ended up back in my hotel room with the bride. I never even learned her name. I called her Bride all night, and she called me Santa. I’m not sure what I called her when we had sex, but the fuzzy memory of the words “Yes, Santa” being moaned in my ear still gets me hard when I think of it. By the time we made it back to the hotel room, we were so hot for each other that our clothes practically flew off. Even the six hundred or so buttons on her dress didn’t slow us down.
When I woke up the next morning, she was gone, and she’d taken the jacket of my Santa costume with her. The costume shop was not pleased that I’d lost it, and I was not pleased that she took it and didn’t leave her phone number. It wasn’t like I was in a position to start a new relationship right then, and I doubt she was, either, what with the wedding dress and all. Even so, it would have been nice to have a way to contact her later on.
That night is still the best I’ve ever had.
“I highly doubt she’d be running away from another wedding only a year later,” I say to Eric. “She didn’t seem like the type to run in the first place, let alone to do it on multiple occasions.”
“What do you know, man? You would have proposed to that witch, Annabelle, if you hadn’t found out about her cam girl debut. Your judgment is clearly flawed.”
“Yeah, yeah. Not my finest hour.” And it really wasn’t. I was proposing more out of the sense that that’s what I should do in my life at my age, and not because I loved her. Again, thank god she was so drunk she didn’t realize it was me in the Santa costume or I might never have learned her secret.
Eric throws back the rest of his drink and stands up. “Well, I’m heading back to the party,” he says, placing his glass on the desk. “Shoot me or MaeLynn a text when you want me to announce your entrance.”
Once I’m alone in my room, I take a seat at the desk. Thinking back on that night almost a year ago, all I can do is smile. Truthfully, Annabelle hasn’t crossed my mind in months. The only person from that night who crosses my mind these days is the beautiful bride who made me forget my problems. She crosses my mind more than I’d like to admit.
I looked for her the next day, but without a name, I had little to go on. This is a giant hotel, with a few large ballrooms and several smaller ones, and there were several weddings, not to mention other parties, that night. Plus, no matter how much I pleaded, the hotel staff wouldn’t give me the names of the couples who were having weddings. Something about protecting the privacy of their customers. I couldn’t even find anyone who was willing to take a bribe, which was equally impressive and frustrating. All I have left are some blurry, disjointed memories, and the lingering certainty that it was the best night of my life.
Still, as far as relationships go, even my runaway bride proved they’re not all they’re cracked up to be. She ran away from her wedding, after all, and then she ran away from me. If that doesn’t scream relationships never work, I don’t know what does.
“Is this what happened at the end of the party last year?” I yell to Eric as I walk through the ballroom looking for any items my staff may have forgotten. “You wandered around looking for lost toys?”
As if the embarrassment of last year’s failed proposal weren’t bad enough, it was my first experience hosting the company Christmas party since I’d taken over. We’d had Christmas parties before, of course, but when my father ran the company, they tended to be uptight affairs full of his golf buddies and other uptight society pricks. The asshole didn’t even bother to invite the staff to the party. If that doesn’t tell you what kind of man my father is, then nothing will. When I took over, one of the first things I did was to dismantle the party-planning committee that my father had staffed with his friends’ mistresses and hire an actual event-planning company. I also gave them strict instructions to make the party family-friendly.
I volunteered to play Santa because I wanted to see the faces of my staff when they finally got to attend the party. That and I wanted to see the kids’ faces when they got all the latest toys and gadgets. With their parents’ permission, of course. I didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes by giving their kids video game systems and electronics without telling them first. I wanted to make my staff and their children happy and to see the smiles on their faces while I did it. Annabelle nearly ruined that for me, too, by jumping to the front of the line and sitting on Santa’s lap before any of the kids had the chance.
I should have thrown her on the floor then and there, instead of waiting for her to spew her betrayal in the form of a wish from Santa. What kind of idiot asks Santa Claus to help her lie about cheating? If that’s not naughty list material, nothing is. Once again, I’m reminded of how thankful I should be that I decided to surprise Annabelle with a Christmas proposal and that her powers of observation are so abysmal. If she’d recognized me, I’d never have known she’d cheated, and we’d probably be married already.
Eric laughs at me from across the room. “Not exactly. If you’ll recall, MaeLynn and I moved every trace of Annabelle out of your apartment while you went out with your runaway bride. Some of the other guys took care of rounding up lost items.”
At least this year, I got to enjoy the rest of the party. Last year, after having Annabelle escorted from the premises, I forced myself to stay and hand out the gifts to the kids because I couldn’t bear to disappoint the kids, but I left soon after. Compared to that, I’m doing great this year. Hell, I even made it out of the costume.
I’ve already been back to my hotel room to remove the Santa costume and I’m wearing the burgundy three-piece suit I bought specifically for the party. Well, most of it anyway. After playing Santa and handing out toys to all the kids and cash bonuses to the adults, I needed to get out of that damn Santa suit so I could be myself and enjoy the party. I didn’t count on it being so warm in the ballroom even without the costume, though. My jacket came off almost immediately and I haven’t put it back on since. It’s still hanging on the back of a chair backstage where I left it.
“You coming out for drinks after this? We’re hitting that new club that opened up downtown. I hear only the most beautiful women get in. What do you think? Isn’t it time you ended your dry spell?”
Another effect of being humiliated by the woman I’d planned on proposing to? I’ve been celibate since that night. After my runaway bride ran off the next morning, I had no interest in looking for another hook-up. I let everyone think it was because of Annabelle, but the more time passed, the more I realized she had nothing to do with it. After my runaway bride, I gave up.
But it might be time to get back on the horse.
Or a woman, as it were.
“You know what? I think I will join you,” I say, trying to muster up some excitement at the prospect of meeting someone but falling short. “Who else is going?”
“Just the guys. Mason knows the owner, so they’re in the VIP section. He’s already there with Damien and Lucas.” He scans the ballroom. “Looks like we’re done here.”
I look around. He’s right. There’s nothing left but the cleanup and the hotel takes care of that as part of the fee I paid for the ballroom. Nothing is stopping me from going to that club, finding a willing woman, and taking her home for what will most likely be a mediocre time.
