Elf on the Beach (5 page)

Roone held his breath as he waited to see how Kyle would react.

Kyle glanced down but didn’t draw his hand back as the ice crept up his arm. “Are you going to do that until it encases me?”

Roone let himself smile for the first time since leaving Kyle’s apartment. “I was wondering if you could still see it.”

“Of course I can.” He paused and frowned. “What else am I going to start seeing?”

“Go to the mall. Check out the helpers at Santa’s grotto. See the way the kids’ eyes light up while the adults stand there bored out of their skulls.”

“So, what does that prove? That there are more of you?”

A few elves did travel during the holiday season but not many, and they were specially chosen… maybe he could try out. But the odds were against him. Here he was telling Kyle to believe anything was possible while he doubted himself. “You can choose which one you want to be like.”

Maybe he did want to go home after all… but then he looked at Kyle and he was all torn up again. He’d liked moving, as he was never in one place long enough to fall in love. He should’ve moved on after the surfing lessons, but he was still here. He still wanted Kyle. He wanted Kyle to have the magic in his life that he deserved.

“What is the point? What difference will it make?”

Kyle stepped back, and Roone could see the walls going up.

“You’d be surprised. Or maybe not, because if you really believe”—Roone tapped Kyle’s bare chest, and a small snowflake formed there—“then you would know it was going to happen.”

“You are like an evangelical elf.”

Roone shook his head. “I’m not trying to convert anyone. You did that yourself. I just happened to be there.” He handed the gift over. “Open it up tonight.”

“And what, Santa will fill it with all the things I never got as a child?”

Roone looked at Kyle for a moment. In that heartbeat he knew what Kyle had wished for as a kid because Kyle’s heart was open—not much but enough for Roone to get a glimpse. All he’d wanted was for his mother to get clean and claim him. His mother had beaten her addiction. Her boyfriend hadn’t, and he’d killed her. Kyle had never received his wish so he’d stopped wishing.

“I can’t bring your mother back.”

Kyle stepped back. “How do you know that?”

“That was all you wished for as a child, but your mother didn’t come for you even when she did get clean, and that’s when you stopped believing.”

“I stopped believing because my foster parents didn’t care about what us kids wanted. Where was your magic then?”

Roone pressed his lips together. “It was there, but if you don’t believe in it, it doesn’t work.”

“Nice one, so it’s my fault I have always had crappy Christmases.” He thrust the parcel back at Roone. “I don’t need your help.”

Roone drew in a breath and ignored the hurt that was now grating on his skin and rubbing him raw. “I wasn’t trying to help you. I was trying to show you a little bit of my world.” He’d thought that maybe Kyle would want to see it.

Before he could get shot down again, he stalked back across the hot sand. He put the gift on Kyle’s windscreen, knowing it would be safe, and then walked away.

K
YLE
DUSTED
the ice off his arm. It hadn’t melted as fast as he’d expected. Nothing was how he’d expected. This wasn’t what he’d imagined his affair with Roone would be like at all. He stared at the elf’s back, willing him to turn around, but he didn’t.

“Damn it.” He kicked the sand.

If he believed Roone was an elf—and he wasn’t sure he did, even though it felt like the truth—then it meant that it was his fault for not believing. But how did that make any difference? Would the elves have worked their magic on his foster parents? He wanted to ask, but it was a bit late now.

Had he blown it?

Did he care if he had?

A drop of cold water rolled down his chest. The icy flake over his heart was melting.

He’d never found anyone as easy to talk to as Roone. No one had ever swept him up into an impossible fantasy either.

What had Roone asked him to do? Go to the shopping center and see, really look, not just accept what most people did. He could do that. Maybe he’d see nothing. He shivered as though the sun had vanished.

He doubted that would be the case, since he could see Roone’s pointed ears even in daylight. It hadn’t been an illusion brought on by beer and moonlight.

An hour later he was aimlessly walking around the mall. At least it was cool in here, but it was crowded with last minute shoppers too. He dodged prams and knots of people chatting. Avoided some men staring blankly into jewelry store windows as though the perfect gift would suddenly become obvious.

Would it, if they believed it would?

Should he be trying to find Roone something? He didn’t know if he was ever going to see him again.

But he wanted to.

Really wanted to. He drew in a breath and listened to the carol that made his skin crawl. The overly saccharine songs this time of year usually pissed him off. Today it was tolerable, but he wasn’t here to shop, and he knew there was nothing here that Roone would want.

Roone wanted to make a decision. He wanted an answer. That was his Christmas wish. There would be no answer found here. But Kyle kept walking. He bought some new beach towels because they were on special. Then he stopped to buy an ice cream and try not to be caught watching Santa’s grotto like some weirdo.

So as he ate he fiddled with his phone while surreptitiously glancing at the helpers and Santa. At first he saw nothing, and he was sure that Roone was just having him on or trying to force him to get in the Christmas spirit. A cheap set and a fake Santa did not make him believe.

But Roone had never claimed Santa was real. It wasn’t Santa that he should be looking at.

Elves are real. Magic is real.

Kyle closed his eyes and recalled the feel of Roone’s pointed ears beneath his fingertips. The beautiful icy patterns that he could make with a single touch. And the way his vision had slipped between seeing reality and the magical reality. He still felt like a fool for even considering magic was real, but he opened his eyes and tried to see what was really there instead of what he thought was there.

There was a shimmer. One of the helpers in striped socks had that grin as she spoke to the kids. There was a light in her eyes. He glanced around, but she was the only one. He let his gaze drift to the line. The younger kids chatted and bounced as they waited, secure in their belief. The older ones rolled their eyes, as if they couldn’t believe they were having to do this again. Some of them looked as though they wanted to believe. There was that air of hope.

Then there were the parents standing by and watching. They looked harried, as though the spirit of Christmas was dead and buried but they had to drag it out for their kids.

That was how he usually looked this time of the year as he tried to avoid all things Christmas. That wasn’t how he wanted to look.

Had he ever thought of Christmas as a magical time the way those little kids did? He didn’t know. He looked away, aware that if Roone was right, most of those kids would lose the belief and magic. They’d end up as adults, weighing up bills and presents they had to buy for relatives they didn’t like.

Roone had known about his mother. The way he’d asked for Santa to help his mother so he could go home. But he’d heard his foster parents talking about her and how she didn’t deserve a second chance. He turned away from the happy kids. He’d been four, barely old enough to understand that his mother wasn’t coming for Christmas dinner. He’d cried in his room while the family had eaten.

After that he’d refused to go anywhere near Santa.

The old cynicism crept back up. He could feel the warmth as the poison slid through him. When he glanced back at Santa and his fake elves there was nothing special about a bunch of overexcited kids and bored teens.

In that moment he hated himself for sneering at the kids’ obvious joy.

His mother had gotten clean. She had been trying to get him back, but when she’d tried to leave her druggie boyfriend, he’d killed her. He’d learned all of this when he left school. Maybe his wish had come true, only to have it unravel by the actions of one sick man. Those actions had stolen the color and magic out of his whole childhood.

Kyle closed his eyes and sighed. No more. When he opened his eyes there was a shimmer everywhere. A family passed by, their kid almost glowing while the parents were dull. How dull he must look to Roone.

And yet Roone obviously saw something in him. Something worth saving.

He squared his shoulders. This might be the only decent Christmas he ever got. When he got home he was going to hang up the damn stocking Roone had bought him, and he was going to believe as hard as he could that he’d get what he wanted on Christmas morning.

He hoped Roone would get what he wanted too.

He hoped he hadn’t blown it with the best person ever to grace his life.

Before he left the shopping center, he bought a small plastic Christmas tree. The tips were dusted in white like snow. It was rather pathetic, but it was a start. The first Christmas ornament he’d ever bought.

He smiled as he set it up, and he even turned on the radio to listen to their mix of pop songs and carols. While he had nowhere to hang the stocking—he had no mantelpiece—he left it under the tree.

The part of him that was still scoffing at the idea refused to be silenced, but he was going to give this one shot and do it right. He’d bought a tree, put out a stocking, and he was going to leave out a plate. He had a vague memory of leaving out carrots for reindeer, but he couldn’t remember who he’d done it with.

He had no carrots, and Roone hadn’t mentioned reindeer or flying sleds. Leaving out a plate of cookies was dumb. He added a beer—twist top to make it easy.

Now he felt like a real tool. If anyone saw it he’d be laughed at. For a moment he wanted to shove the tree in the bin and drink the beer himself.

No.
He refused to let the fear of failure gain traction.

The magic hadn’t failed him as a kid, but he’d been too young to know. Now he knew he had a chance to change direction. It was the chance he needed to change his life.

And if nothing happened?

Nothing had been lost.

He put a glass on the table and a paper napkin to make it look a bit prettier. This was like setting up an occult altar to an ancient god that no one believed in anymore.

He bit his lip.

Was this part of the ritual of belief?

Going through the motions of belief wouldn’t be enough. Roone had warned him. If he didn’t really believe, then nothing would happen. Kyle wasn’t sure what he wanted to happen.

But he was home instead of out drinking with his childless friends and getting wasted.

He was giving magic a chance.

He was giving Roone a chance.

He channel surfed through three different Christmas movies. Before he went to bed, he checked everything again. However, instead of saying a silent prayer to the man in the red suit, he prayed that Roone get what he wanted too and that he believed enough for Roone to be true. That he hadn’t messed up and pushed away someone who actually cared.

It was possible for someone to care about him and for him to care about someone. Roone had made him realize that if nothing else. He regretted not spending Christmas Eve with Roone or making the most of the short time they had together.

He woke up more times than he cared to count during the night. He wanted to blame the heat, but that would be a lie. Even though the temptation to get up and check on things burned in his veins, he made himself stay in bed until his room lightened to gray, until sunlight slunk through the gaps in the curtain.

By then his hands were shaking. What if it had all been for nothing?

He didn’t want to go out there and find his stocking flat, the beer undrunk, and the cookies stale. He just couldn’t. So he closed his eyes and pretended he wasn’t avoiding facing the truth.

R
OONE
KNOCKED
on the door. He had the right flat. He’d dreamed of the address. Had the urge to get here and had caught a lift with someone else from the hostel who’d been going in the same direction. Some people would call it luck. Roone knew better.

He tapped again. It was still early, and he didn’t want to wake the whole apartment block.

He swallowed, suddenly nervous. What if Kyle turned him away despite what he longed for. That was why he was here…. Kyle’s desire had called to him.

The door opened. Kyle was there, dressed only in a pair of shorts and a grin that lit up his whole face. “I knew you’d show up.”

Roone smiled, not daring to hope too hard. “Did you now? How’s that?”

“Because of this.” Kyle held up a ticket to the North Pole. That was no regular airline ticket.

Roone reached out but didn’t touch it. If that was what he thought it was….

“What on Earth did you wish for?” While it wasn’t uncommon for elves to return from their year away with a human partner, humans didn’t just get invited.

“I wanted you to find your decision, and I wanted to know more about your world. Was that the right thing to do?”

Roone lifted his eyebrows. “How did you know that the magic wouldn’t work on me? That I can never get what I wish for?”

Things went his way, and his life was filled with magic, but he didn’t get wishes like humans did. Even as he’d gone to sleep last night—late because he’d been celebrating with some of the other tourists in the hostel—he’d been thinking about what he was going to do. This morning he’d felt sure. He was going home, and he was going to put himself on the path to becoming a messenger elf, so that once a year he’d get to travel the human world.

He knew he was setting himself up for a whole lot of hard work. But everything he’d done and seen this year had cemented that desire. Wasn’t that what the purpose of the year was? He’d found the calling.