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Peter stared at his phone. Why had Jonny been checking up on him? Why not just send him a holiday message and wait for Peter to answer?
They’d moved too fast, Peter realized. He and Jonny had barely known each other a week, and Jonny was already acting possessive and tracking his every move. That was not good.
He didn’t know how to answer the text, so he ignored it, even though it taunted him every time he got a new message from one of his co-workers or the other reindeer.
The week after Christmas, the shifters met at the outpost for their last official rendezvous of the season, to recap what had gone right and wrong with the Christmas deliveries.
After the video presentation by Santa, and some general discussion, Peter decided to ask some of the other reindeer for advice about how to deal with Jonny.
Comet Chris had been married for nearly twenty years, and he’d never told his wife anything about his skills, or his mysterious absences on Christmas Eve. “I make sure to spike her eggnog with rum, and she’s out like a light by ten o’clock,” he said.
“You can get away with that because you don’t have kids,” Blitzen Barry said. “And because your wife isn’t a suspicious bitch.”
Suspicious, Peter thought. That pegged Jonny, and they hardly knew each other.
“Despite all the excuses that Santa’s daughter came up with, my ex didn’t believe that I had to work Christmas Eve,” Blitzen continued. “She hired a private detective to follow me because she thought I had a secret family somewhere else.”
He laughed harshly. “Guess that’s what you guys qualify as. My secret family.”
Despite Blitzen’s bitterness, Peter had to agree with him. The shifters were a secret family.
Blitzen sipped a glass of spiked rum and continued. “The detective took photos of me shifting. My ex freaked out, wanted to sell the story to a tabloid. ‘I married a reindeer!’ kind of thing. I was embarrassed as hell that I had report the whole story to Santa. He arranged a memory wash for my ex and the detective, but she still knew something was wrong, and we got divorced a few months later. Now my closest relationship is with my right hand.”
The reindeer laughed uncomfortably, and Peter wondered if that was the way he’d end up. Casual encounters, jerking off to the memory of how amazing sex had been with Jonny.
“I’ve got to speak up for the other side,” Dasher Dan said. “My girlfriend is big on reading these paranormal romances, vampires and witches and all that kind of stuff. So I figured she might be okay with it. I took her out in the woods one day and shifted right in front of her.”
“Did she freak out?” Blitzen asked.
Dasher shook his head. “Nope. Her eyes got really wide, and she came up to me like I was a dog, holding her hand out for me to sniff.” He laughed. “I leaned down so she could climb on and we went for a flight together. It was awesome. We still fly every couple of months.”
“And your kids?” Blitzen asked.
“They go to bed early enough. “I’m not sure what we’ll do when they get to be teenagers.”
Peter couldn’t help connecting his experience of being gay with that of being a reindeer shifter. He had kept the first secret until he was in college, when he had come out to his parents and his friends, and they’d taken it well enough, though his father had been surprised that a big, athletic guy like Peter could go for guys rather than girls.
That had been awkward, but they’d gotten over it. And since his parents were really more into each other than into him, it ended up not mattering.
Most of the guys Peter spoke with sided with Comet and Blitzen—it was easy enough to keep the secret as long as they were careful with their cover stories. Four of the guys lived close enough to each other to play poker regularly, and they told their wives and girlfriends that they were playing a game when they had to be on duty. The rest of them used excuses provided by Santa’s daughter, who was an endless font of emergency text messages, job requirements and so on.
The winter months after Christmas were Peter’s favorite time of year. He could ski and snowboard as much as he wanted, without the pressure of having to report to the reindeer outpost for transports and flight practice. He’d found an isolated clearing in the Green Mountains near Mount Ellen where he could shift when he felt the urge to fly, and he reveled in the sheer joy and freedom of galloping through the sky with no agenda or timetable.
He still felt bad about leaving Jonny hanging, but eventually so much time had passed that there was no way he could get back in touch. By March, when he saw a sign that the Middlebury Snow Bowl would be closing at the end of the month, the memory of Jonny had faded to an occasional ache.
On the last Thursday of the month, when he didn’t have to work until the evening, he decided to hit the Snow Bowl for one last run before conditions deteriorated.
He was having a great time, schussing down the slope, avoiding moguls, until he came around a curve and spotted a rocky outcrop where the snow had worn away. He turned too quickly and took a tumble, ending up ass over teakettle on the slope.
He took a quick inventory. His left ankle hurt, but not badly, and the only other thing that was injured was his pride. As he struggled to stand up, another skier came to a graceful halt beside him.
“Can I give you a hand?”
Peter looked up in astonishment. “Jonny?”
“Peter? What happened?”
Peter nodded behind him to the rock he had zigzagged to avoid. “Guess that’s why they’re closing down this week.”
“Yeah, the snow has been patchy for the last week. Here, let me help you up.” Jonny reached down a hand encased in a ski glove, and Peter grasped it. He was surprised at how much strength Jonny used to pull him up.
“You okay?” Jonny asked.
“Yeah. My left ankle feels a little wonky, but not broken or anything.”
Even as he stood, he felt a warmth generating from it that indicated it was healing—one of the great things about being a reindeer shifter was the way his system was able to heal minor injuries quickly. Something useful when you were taking off and landing on four legs a hundred times or more an hour.
“Let me guide you down,” Jonny said, snaking his arm in Peter’s.
“Honestly, I’m good.”
“Come on. You helped me once. Let me return the favor.”
Peter had to admit that his arm felt good in Jonny’s. They skied carefully down the remainder of the slope, and when they reached the bottom Jonny let go of Peter’s arm. “Good to see you again. You take care.”
He turned to walk away, but Peter stopped him. “Jonny. Wait.”
Jonny turned back. “You need help getting your skis off?”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just... your text. It freaked me out that you were checking up on me, when we hardly knew each other.”
“Yeah, I obsessed about that for a long time. Longer than I should have, I know. You have your own business. It was wrong for me to jump to conclusions.”
“I deliver gifts to kids on Christmas Eve,” Peter said in a rush. “It’s a charitable thing. But we wear costumes and keep ourselves anonymous, so that kids can keep believing in Santa.”
That was one of the excuses Santa’s daughter had come up with. She had even created a website where poor people could request visits for their families. Of course, those names went up high on Santa’s priority list.
“That’s so sweet,” Jonny said, and Peter’s heart leapt. He wasn’t lying, really—that’s exactly what he did with his Christmas eve. He was just putting a more believable twist on the story.
“Do you forgive me for ghosting you? I didn’t know how to explain.”
Jonny smiled. “Forgiven.”
Peter was so pleased to be back in Jonny’s good graces that he let his mouth rush forward. “Forgiven enough to have dinner with me?”
“I don’t know, Peter. Things got hot and heavy quickly for us back at Christmas. It was freaky the connection we had.”
“I know. I felt it, too. So let’s give it another try, moving more slowly this time. We’ll get to know each other, see if the connection is still there.”
A young woman with two little boys in matching snowsuits approached them then. “Jonny? The boys are ready for their lesson.”
“Sure. I’ll be right with you.” He turned back to Peter. “Let me think about it. Same number?”
“Same number. I hope you’ll call.”
Jonny smiled, and then turned back to his client.
