Elf Against the Wall: A Holiday Romantic Comedy (The Wynter Brothers Book 2)

“You know,” I said as Sawyer and I dragged a table closer to the wall, “I really feel like Anderson is just misunderstood. Maybe all he needs is the right woman to fix him.”

Ian rapped his knuckles on an oversize vase he was filling with poinsettias for the table centerpieces.

“Hear that? That is an alarm bell.”

“I don’t mean me! I am not that woman. Just making an observation.”

“Can we worry about our own lives?” Sawyer took a steadying breath.

“She says as we sit here decorating the Canal Club for Grandma Shirley’s big holiday party.” Ian waved around a roll of ribbon. “Without the help of any of the party beneficiaries.”

“It’s good to do things for family,” I protested.

“Fight! Fight! Fight!” Granny Doyle hollered from the couch. “What the hell is the point of a hockey game if you’re not going to fight?”

“See?” Sawyer pointed at Granny Doyle. “They could at least come and watch the game and pretend to work.”

“Honestly, I’d rather not have them underfoot.”

“Uh-huh.” Ian rolled his eyes.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“This entire year, you’ve been trying to make people like you again with acts of service. It hasn’t worked yet,” Ian said. “Cookies can’t counteract the smear campaign waged by Felicity and Braeden.”

“Instead of blackmailing him to help bust Braeden, you should have paid him to sleep with Felicity and ruin her relationship,” Sawyer said.

“She’s a victim too.” I threaded hanging wire around a wreath. “Braeden was lying to her.”

“In the event that the murderer you’re blackmailing miraculously comes through, Felicity is still going to hate you.” Sawyer unwound a new packet of Christmas lights. “The only thing that topless photo proves is that you are a homewrecker.”

“But I didn’t know!” I cried.

“Then you’d better hope that armed and dangerous sex toy you’re parading around family functions is actually going to come through.” Sawyer plugged in the lights to test them.

“I have faith in him.” I turned back to adjusting the garland on the chandelier of the Canal Club.

“I love this venue. I’ve always dreamed of getting married here—a white Christmas wedding. Wouldn’t it be magical? The view across the snowy lake, Dad proud of me as he walks me down the aisle to the man of my dreams.”

“I hope you’re not envisioning Anderson,” Sawyer warned me.

“Of course I’m not.” I squashed the vision of Anderson in a suit.

“He’s hot, and you should totally tap that, but Anderson is not marriage material.” Ian positioned a ladder. “He is covered in red flags.”

“Maybe he’s just dressed up for Christmas.” I pick up the box of cloth napkins I’d starched and folded into snowflake shapes earlier and carted them over to a long table near where Granny Doyle was still watching the hockey game and drinking spicy holiday margaritas.

“You have terrible taste in men. It’s cute but toxic.” Ian made a heart shape with his hands.

“This is not the first time we’ve had this conversation,” Sawyer reminded me, hoisting up the Christmas lights. “You scrapbook whatever joker you’re lusting after into your fantasy life, and then he breaks your heart.”

“Anderson doesn’t have my heart, so he’s not going to break it.” I looked around, the daydream fading away to my cold, harsh reality. “I’m falling behind. Mom was only a couple years older than me when she had Henry. She had a college degree, a handsome husband, a nice house. I have nothing. I’m officially a failure.”

“You have a dog.”

“You have us,” Ian said, and he and Sawyer sandwiched me in a hug.

“Neither earns me cred with the parents or rent money. I should have tried harder to get a boyfriend when I lived in New York,” I said, extricating myself to set the head table. “Like an investment banker or something. Everyone would be impressed if I brought home a rich guy. Bonus points if he was hot. I shouldn’t have been so picky.”

“I’d say you could actually afford to raise your standards,” Sawyer said pointedly.

“I told you to sign up for that escort service.” Ian inspected the half-decorated ballroom.

“Don’t let your mother hear you say that,” Gran called, tipping more tequila into the pitcher. “Didn’t I tell you she made me delete my OnlyFans account?”

“One of the dancers in my company met his boyfriend through an escort service. He quit,” Ian said. “Now he’s a stay-at-home dog dad.”

“I wanted the romantic meet-cute, when our eyes meet across the room and we know we’re meant to be together.” I sighed wistfully, wishing I could be in love, wishing for the happily ever after, the perfect life.

The door on the far side of the ballroom opened, the daylight darkened by a lopsided shadow.

Then Anderson came in, blinking in the low light. His silver-gray eyes locked with mine, and he mouthed, Seriously?

I put my finger on my nose and pushed it up, making a weird face at him. “I’m a Who in Whoville! Merry Christmas!”

A laugh escaped his mouth before he could stop it. “Not funny, Gingersnap. You have a problem.”

Last night had been easy, magical, dangerous. Because for a moment in time, Anderson Wynter wasn’t my family’s sworn enemy. He was just a hot, fun guy who seemed like he was into me.

No need to keep that up. A little cringe was just what the doctor ordered.

The tools on his belt clanked as he adjusted the ladder on his shoulder, his tight gray T-shirt riding up to expose the tattoos that scrolled around his hip. Over the other shoulder was slung an oversize tool bag.

“Damn,” Sawyer said as she and Ian watched appreciatively. “Even if he is a murderer, the man is fine.”

“I got a report the air wasn’t working,” he said as he set down the ladder.

“You work here too? How do you have time to break into people’s houses?”

“I only do that part-time, Gingersnap.” He tugged a piece of my hair.

I rocked on my heels. “Is the Canal Club hiring?”

Anderson looked down at me. Rubbed his jaw. Sighed.

“I own it with my brother. But that just means that I do free maintenance work,” he warned me.

“You can’t hire me?” I wheedled.

“You’re already blackmailing me, and I have a photoshopped picture of your tits on my computer and not because we’re dating. I’m as enmeshed in your life as I’d like to be.” He looked around the half-decorated space. “Where are the rest of the helpful Murphy elves?”

“You mean the motherfuckers in this family who don’t do shit? Currently receiving very nasty text messages from me,” Sawyer said loudly.

“I’m not helping on principal,” Granny Doyle said from her spot on the white couch Aunt Trish had dropped off as her contribution. “I’m drinking my way through the tequila.”

“That’s not Christmassy, is it?” A smile played around Anderson’s mouth.

“If you put it in a red glass, it is. You want a tipple on the nipple?” Gran offered.

“Can’t drink on the job.”

“You’re not getting paid.”

“You have a point.” He took the offered shot glass, drained it, then wheezed. “Jesus, that is not tequila. That tastes like kerosene.”

“It’s the stuff Aunt Trish made,” I explained.

“You need to stop accepting food from that woman.” Anderson made a face then pulled a cat hair out of his mouth while Sawyer gagged.

“If you can’t get the heat to work, sonny, then we can just light this tequila on fire.” Gran hoisted her glass. “Sure, it might take the garlands with it, but at least Shirley’s party will actually be exciting.”

My friends and I worked on the rest of the decorations while Anderson was up and down the ladder, checking the ductwork and testing the heat.

Though I definitely preferred a man with a lean, emo-boy body, soft hands, and the money to pay people to clean, I had to admit I did see the appeal in a man who could fix shit.

“Seriously? He’s just showing off at this point.” Ian stood next to me as we watched Anderson straddling a ladder, tipped backward, shirt riding up to display a ribbon of muscular torso.

“Are we ogling Evie’s latest bad decision?” Sawyer stuck her head between us.

Anderson swung down off the ladder gracefully.

“Offer to suck his dick.” Granny Doyle, in a cloud of booze, popped up next to me. “Then you can finish this shrine to Shirley’s ego, and we can head to the bar before this party.”

“Shirley’s having a dry party?” Anderson sauntered over to us, lifting up his T-shirt to wipe his face and exposing an expanse of tattooed six-pack.

Sawyer and Ian drooled.

“As if anyone would come. It’s lame enough when you’re drunk. Sober, and you’d have people slitting their wrists in the holiday punch bowl.”

“I’m shocked you got an invitation.”

Gran sniffed. “Only because she knows I’d throw an even hotter, more kick-ass party, and no one would come to hers.”

The furnace kicked on, and warm air started flowing into the chilly ballroom.

“Thanks, Anderson,” I told him.

He reached out and smoothed back one of the curls that had escaped my bun. “Don’t want you all to freeze out of your party.”

“Can’t be too warm. Aunt Lisa is having an ice sculpture of Felicity as an ice princess delivered.”

“That’s her Christmas contribution?” Anderson frowned.

“It cost seven grand.”

“The fuck?”

“Our family is privileged and spoiled,” Ian said solemnly.

“I’m chipping off her nose to put in my drink,” Sawyer declared.

Anderson looked down at the eight oversize reindeer made out of wicker and festooned with poinsettias that we had to somehow suspend from the ceiling. “Do you want me to carry those somewhere before I go?” he offered.

“Are you going to do it shirtless?” Granny Doyle cackled.

Anderson smirked.

“Ignore her. She’s been drinking since ten.”

Anderson reached down to pick up the closest reindeer while Granny Doyle whooped, “Look at that gun show!”

“We’re going to have to hang them up,” I said hastily, trying to take it from him. “The theme of the party is ‘home for the holidays.’ It’s about tradition and family.”

“Ah yes, the traditional poinsettia-covered reindeer. How could I forget?” He smirked.

“I spent a lot of time placing these flowers.”

“I believe it, Gingersnap.”

I reached for the reindeer.

He jerked it away. “Just tell me where you want them. You’re a walking disaster, and the last thing I need is for you to drop this reindeer and put a hole in my floor.”

After securing the reindeer using some sort of lift machine on wheels, Anderson helped us finish stringing up the lights and garland.

Family members chattered excitedly as they entered the ballroom while Anderson was draping white ribbon across the ceiling. Grandma Shirley was explaining loudly where she wanted the ice sculpture.

“That table isn’t in the right spot,” she said loudly, not even greeting us as she walked into the space, mouth pinched, inspecting our handiwork.

“You there.” She snapped her fingers at Anderson. “Come down and move this table at once.”

The rest of my family didn’t even notice it was Anderson. To them, he was just the hired help.

“Stop pretending like you’re helping,” Sawyer said loudly to Felicity as she made miniscule adjustments to the table settings. “We’ve been here freezing our tits off and setting up the venue.”

“It doesn’t even look that good.”

“I want the buffet lined up on this side,” Grandma Shirley said while I trailed her.

“But, Grandma, the sketch you sent over—”

“That was a suggestion, Evie. I asked you to see how it looked in the space. Obviously, it looks terrible. Hurry up, boy,” Grandma Shirley demanded, not looking at Anderson, as she was preoccupied with the table arrangement.

“You can’t come in here and boss him around!” Granny Doyle came screaming over in a drunken rage. “He doesn’t work for you. Evie’s the one sucking his dick. You should ask her if her boy toy can move your table.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You’re sleeping with the laborer too?” Felicity sniffed. “Why am I not surprised?”

The platform lift finished lowering. Anderson stepped off.

“You brought him here to my party?” Grandma Shirley sputtered, indignant. “He must leave at once.”

“He was helping us, Grandma,” Ian interjected. “Since none of you bothered to show up.”

“We’re here now!” my cousins protested.

Nat shrieked, “I would have come to help if I’d known there was going to be eye candy!” Then she lowered her voice and asked Sawyer, “Did he take off his shirt?”

“If you’d been here, you’d know.”

“Oh-em-gee, he did!” Nat clapped her hands on her head.

“Just move these tables!” Grandma Shirley thundered.

“Evie, where do you want these tables?” Anderson asked.

Grandma Shirley’s wrinkled mouth puckered in annoyance. “I wanted them on the other side.”

Anderson was still looking at me, waiting for my instruction only.

“Just line them up over there, please. I’ll grab the centerpieces.” I hurried to the nearest table.

“No college degree, not good for anything except manual labor,” Grandma Shirley was saying not softly, “and he can’t even follow directions.”

And this was why I didn’t want the family over when I was trying to decorate.

“Thanks, Anderson.” I felt awkward.

The gray eyes were cold, his body language aloof.

Why did my family have to be so rude to him? I mean, sure, there was the attempted murder, but you know, aside from that?

“I’ll see you at the party, Hot Stuff,” Granny Doyle called after Anderson finished moving the last of the furniture.

“The party?” Grandma Shirley was horrified. “He is not invited.”

“Kind of a shitty thing to do, use Anderson for free labor then kick him out,” Sean said into his glass of tequila.

“Is anyone surprised? That’s how her husband died,” Granny Doyle declared. “She’d just lie there on the bed and make that poor old man do all the work, and it took out his heart. We should go have a party at my house.” Gran poured Sean another splash.

“Evie’s not going to come if her boyfriend can’t come,” Uncle Jacob argued with his mother. “She’s supposed to make the crab-and-cheddar potato bites.”

“I’ll make them,” Felicity offered.

Nat made a retching noise. “I’ve been saving up my calories, and I’m not wasting it on the dog food you call cooking.”

“And the punch,” Lauren added. “Who’s going to make the punch?”

“There is a dress code.” Grandma Shirley’s voice was shrill. “Anderson has to wear a suit, which I’m sure he doesn’t have.”

“I’ll lend him one of Ross’s,” Aunt Kerry offered.

“Uncle Ross is a good head shorter.”

“I can let out the hem.”

“A nice suit. Well fitted. Tailored.” Grandma Shirley raised her voice. “I’m sure you understand, Anderson.” My grandmother’s mouth curled up on his name.

“Even if he showed up in a trash bag, he’d still be the hottest man here,” Nat observed.

“Yeah, it’s not right that Anderson can’t come.”

“Let him come,” her adult kids and grandkids said.

“I really don’t want to come.” Anderson picked up his tool bag.

“You see?” Grandma Shirley nodded. “He doesn’t want to come.”

“Because you’re bullying him!” Granny Doyle booed.

“There’s a game on anyway.” Anderson took a step to the door.

“There’s a game on?” My uncles perked up. “We could have a party at—”

“No. This is Granny’s annual holiday party,” Felicity snapped.

“But there won’t be any punch!” a cousin wailed.

“Fine,” Grandma Shirley spat out. “If he finds a suit, he can stay. If he finds a suit.”