Jingle Bell Hell (Bad Luck Club) Read online

  Jingle Bell Hell

  Bad Luck Club Series

  A.R. Casella

  Denise Grover Swank

  Copyright © 2021 by A.R. Casella and Denise Grover Swank

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  ARC—This one’s for my sister, Jennifer, for letting us shamelessly mine her life for inspiration; for my nephew, Julius, who will never read it; and for my daughter, Frances, because everything is for Frances.

  DGS—To Jenna: I’m so proud of the woman you’re becoming and excited to see the mark you leave on the world. Always be like Molly and go for what you want. (And now I think you have more dedications than your siblings. #WhoskeepingScore #YouAre.)

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Mary

  Chapter 2

  Jace

  Chapter 3

  Mary

  Chapter 4

  Jace

  Chapter 5

  Mary

  Chapter 6

  Jace

  Chapter 7

  Mary

  Chapter 8

  Jace

  Chapter 9

  Mary

  Chapter 10

  Jace

  Chapter 11

  Jace

  Chapter 12

  Mary

  Chapter 13

  Mary

  Chapter 14

  Jace

  Chapter 15

  Jace

  Chapter 16

  Mary

  Chapter 17

  Jace

  Chapter 18

  Mary

  Chapter 19

  Jace

  Chapter 20

  Mary

  Chapter 21

  Jace

  Chapter 22

  Mary

  Chapter 23

  Jace

  Chapter 24

  Mary

  Chapter 25

  Jace

  Chapter 26

  Mary

  Chapter 27

  Jace

  Chapter 28

  Mary

  Chapter 29

  Jace

  Chapter 30

  Mary

  Epilogue

  Fraudulently Ever After

  Fraudulently Ever After Sneak Peek

  Also by A.R. Casella and Denise Grover Swank

  About the Author

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Mary

  Sometimes I need to pretend that life can still be predictable. Which is why I’m Christmas tree shopping with my son, Aidan, the day after Thanksgiving, just like always, even though our lives have changed in every other possible way.

  It is not going well.

  Problem one: I imbibed too much at my little sister’s Thanksgiving gathering, and now I have a serious hangover. I haven’t had many, admittedly, but this may be the worst.

  Problem two: The man who’s trailing Aidan and me around the Christmas tree lot like a bad stench is wearing a Santa suit. Aidan hates it when men who aren’t Santa wear Santa suits. According to him, it’s the bad kind of pretending, especially when the fraud doesn’t have a single strand of white hair, and this one doesn’t.

  Problem three: Not-Santa smells strongly of liquor, and he keeps looking me up and down as if Tinder suggested me as a match and he’s thinking about swiping right. He clearly doesn’t care that I am at a Christmas tree lot with my son, wearing a coat that completely conceals my figure. (Confession, I only know about Tinder because my youngest sister, Molly, keeps downloading it on my phone, telling me it’s time to get “back on the horse.” I’m pretty sure she isn’t suggesting riding lessons.)

  Problem four: The last time we picked out a tree, we were a family of three, but Aidan’s dad, Glenn, abandoned us the week after last Christmas.

  Can anyone really blame me for not feeling jolly? I’d just as soon forget the whole thing, but there’s Aidan to think of. And if there’s any joy to be seized from this holiday, I’ll do it for him.

  “What happens to the trees that look like that, Mom?” Aidan asks, gesturing to a tree that’s almost skeletal up top, with thicker needles at the bottom. It looks like one of the mangy dogs at the animal shelter run by my other sister, Maisie. Why do they even have a tree like that? Thanksgiving fell early this year. This sorry-looking tree should be one of the ones left on the lot at the end of December.

  “Oh, I doubt anyone will want that one,” says Not-Santa. “Straight into the wood chipper.”

  Aidan flinches and starts playing with his zipper, up and down, up and down.

  “I’m sure it won’t come to that,” I assure him under my breath, giving Not-Santa a pointed look over my son’s shoulder. I’m trying to convey we don’t need help, thank you very much, but apparently the scotch has robbed him of his senses—if he ever had any—because he says, “Yeah. Half a dozen to a dozen of ’em every year. Makes a nice mulch.” He winks at me. “I could make you a good deal on some. Buy it now, and you’ll be sitting pretty when summer comes around.”

  “Sitting pretty?” Aidan asks, his eyes still on the tree.

  “He’s saying we’ll be happy we did it,” I explain.

  “We wouldn’t,” my son says. The zipper’s going faster now. “A Christmas tree is supposed to be a Christmas tree. It’s not supposed to be mulch.”

  “What’s wrong, kid?” Not-Santa asks. “Waste not, want not.” He adjusts his paunch. No, not his stomach. It’s obvious he’s stuffed some kind of pillow down the front of his Santa coat.

  Isn’t there someone else this guy can help? I glance around and see half a dozen people wandering the lot without assistance. A red-haired guy hoists a tree over his shoulder, and I’m not entirely sure he’s not stealing it. There’s one other Santa-suited attendant, darting from one customer to the next, and I catch him giving Not-Santa a pissed-off look that’s either missed or dismissed.

  Aidan casts a lightning-fast glance at Not-Santa. “Why does he have a pillow down his shirt?”

  “That’s not a pillow,” Not-Santa says, patting it in a way that makes his lie more obvious. “It’s my belly. Haven’t you heard that poem? It’s like a bowl full of jelly.” Another leer at me. “Your mom can touch it if she wants.”

  “I don’t,” I snap.

  “You gonna leave out cookies and milk for me this year?” he presses.

  “We’re lactose intolerant,” Aidan offers. “We only drink lactose-free milk.”

  The man just laughs and pats his pillow belly again.

  I groan internally. This guy is ridiculous, and given he’s already followed us to five different trees, he’s not going to back down easily. I’d find his manager, but since the other guy looks at least a decade younger than him, I’m guessing he is the manager. I haven’t felt this uncomfortable since Maisie’s high school boyfriend tried to hit on me by saying he preferred older women, and the pounding in my head is not helping. But I can’t just leave. I promised Aidan we were going to get a tree, and if we go home without one, he will spend the rest of the night in his cool-down zone. So our best strategy is to pick a tree as soon as possible and get out.

  A little girl runs up and hugs Not-Santa from behind, and a flask falls out of his pocket, landing in a patch of dead weeds.

  “Is that hot chocolate?” the girl asks with delight.

  “Yeah, girly.” Another wink is thrown my way. “That right th
ere is the reindeer’s favorite. Keeps ’em warm and toasty all through the night.” He rips out a belch that puts a confused pout on her face.

  “You’re not really Santa, are you?” she asks. “You must just be one of his helpers.”

  “Me?” he asks, snapping his suspenders. “I’m his right-hand man. I have access to the naughty list, so you make sure you’re a good girl this year.”

  A man quickly guides the girl away, his lips pressed thin.

  I try to do the same with Aidan, but he stays put, rocking a little on his heels. It strikes me with certainty that this is too much for him, especially after the holiday yesterday. We had two Thanksgivings. First, we ate dinner with Maisie’s family. Her husband’s extended family came too, so it was a large group, complete with three children under the age of one, and at one point all three of them burst out crying in unison. Babies are a mystery to Aidan, even his little cousin, Mabel, whom he sees on a regular basis, and he had to wear his noise-cancelling headphones for most of the meal. My little sister, Molly, stopped by early on in the madness to say hello, but she celebrated separately with her boyfriend and some of their friends, so Aidan and I went to her house for Thanksgiving Round Two (a.k.a. dessert).

  Everyone at Molly’s place was very sweet with Aidan, but I now realize that second stop was a mistake. And not just because it was overwhelming for my son. One of Molly’s friends, a frankly terrifying woman with pink hair and a nose ring and a very direct manner, cornered me and asked me dozens of questions about my dumpster fire of a life. For some reason, which may or may not have something to do with the delicious spiced wine she kept pouring, I found myself sharing more than I should have. I say pink-haired friend because I honestly don’t remember her name…or what, exactly, I told her. What I do know is that I had to ask Molly’s boyfriend to drive us home. I can only hope the whole thing doesn’t end up biting me in the butt.

  Given my current record, I don’t have high hopes.

  “Chocolate would be bad for reindeer,” Aidan says. “You’re not Santa Claus. It’s not nice to pretend to be other people. People who do that end up in jail for fraud. That’s usually a felony.”

  The man laughs as if Aidan told a funny joke. “That’s only if you’re pretending to be someone real, kid. If pretending to be Santa were a felony, there’d be thousands of fat men in red suits carted off to prison every Christmas.”

  He picks up the flask and belches loudly.

  Oh crap. Oh crap. Oh crap. Oh crap.

  This man just broke the sacred, unspoken pact of adults everywhere—you do not, under any circumstances, tell someone else’s kid that Santa is fake. Most of the time, Aidan is oblivious to the subtext of what people are saying, but with a comment this direct…

  I look at Aidan and let out the breath I was holding. He looks confused but not gutted. It’s going to be okay. This man’s idiocy passed over his head, just like most of the comments people have been making about Glenn.

  “What are you, anyway? Eleven? Twelve?” Not-Santa says ruminatively. “You’re old enough to know the truth, kid.”

  I turn to Not-Santa in horror and take a step toward him, ready to grab the pillow out from under his shirt and hold it over his mouth, but I’m too late.

  “Santa’s not real,” he continues. “Shit, I found out when I was seven. It’s past time someone leveled with you.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I snap. Rage bubbles up inside me, so hot and toxic it needs an escape. “He’s six. Six.”

  Not-Santa’s eyes widen a little, and he gives a little oops, oh well shrug that has me feeling murderous, but Aidan lets out a strangled cry, and my attention shifts firmly to him. There’s a look of complete betrayal in his eyes.

  “Mom, is Santa pretend?”

  Oh, this is not happening. My shattered heart drops to the ground to break a little more, and my head keeps up its awful pounding.

  I want to lie. The last thing I want to do is take one more piece of my son’s innocence from him, but he asked me directly, and I don’t like lying to him, and…

  “Honey, Santa is a really beautiful story. Like The Octonauts.” My frantic mind registers the fact that he got over his interest in that show at least a year ago, so I quickly shift course. “Or Dinosaur Train. He’s not real real, but he lives in our hearts and our imaginations.”

  “What does that even mean?” he asks, enraged now, his voice high and tinny. The zipper’s going again, up, down, up, down, the movements furious. “A person can’t live inside us. That’s another lie! Who are the presents even from?”

  “Dad and me,” I say. But that was another mistake. Because I’ve called attention to the most messed-up part of this scenario: his dad just left him one day, and he hasn’t come back.

  He won’t be back.

  Despite knowing better, I reach for Aidan. He bats my hands away, tears rolling down his cheeks. I pull back, giving him the space he needs, even though what I need is to put my arms around my little boy, and he sinks down to the dirty ground littered with rocks, his hands over his ears.

  He’s making a horrible sound, a keening, but I can’t go to him. I can’t. He needs space. If I touch him right now, it’ll only make his meltdown worse.

  Not-Santa finally seems to realize he’s not wanted, or maybe that there’s a subzero chance he’s going to get laid, because his eyes go wide and he slips away, probably to sneak another sip from his flask behind an alpine fir.

  I stand there, feeling a lack of control that is so appalling, so overwhelming that I want to join Aidan on the ground. But he finally stops, and he lets me pick him up. I carry him back to the car like he’s two, not six, and the relief of at least being able to do this—to hold him—is staggering.

  “I don’t like it when you lie to me, Mom,” he says softly, his voice small, as I buckle him into his booster seat.

  I grab his weighted blanket from the trunk, where I keep it for his occasional public meltdowns. Tears are still running down his cheeks, but they’ve slowed. I let myself sweep some of them away.

  “You always tell me lying is bad,” he continues. “This is a pretty big betrayal.”

  Guilt spears through me. I do tell him that. I’ve also told him the biggest lie of all, and he’s bound to find out someday.

  I kiss the top of his head and get out, closing the car door behind me. Then I slide behind the wheel.

  “What are you doing, Mom?” he protests.

  “I’m bringing you home, honey.”

  “But we need a tree! Even if Santa’s a lie, we still need a tree. We always have a tree. Always. Where are we going to put our ornaments if we don’t have a tree?”

  The look on his face tells me how much he needs this small sliver of normalcy. But I also know he’s not ready to go back out there. Frankly, I’m not ready for him to go back out there.

  “I’ll stay in the car,” he offers. “You can play carols for me.”

  I turn the radio on, tears pressing against my eyes. Ever since he was a toddler, listening to Christmas carols has calmed him. Maybe because they help drown out all the other noise. “Too loud?”

  “No, that’s good.”

  I turn in the seat. “Did you like any of the trees we saw?”

  “We need to get the Charlie Brown tree.”

  “Oh,” I sputter. “You liked that one?”

  He looks at me like I’ve just said something unforgivably stupid. “No, it’s a bad tree, Mom. Really awful. It’s probably the worst one I’ve ever seen. But I don’t want it to go in the woodchipper.”

  “No, neither do I,” I say, feeling that press of tears again. Because I don’t. And heck, maybe a tree with mange is the perfect way to close out this horrible year.

  I leave the car running, Christmas carols playing, and tell Aidan at least five times to call me if he needs me. Of course, the other attendant, the one who’s presumably not drunk, is busy assisting other customers, so I’m stuck with Not-Santa. I stroll up to him, all confidence—b
ecause that mask is something I need—and say, “We’ll take the Charlie Brown tree.”

  “You can have it for free.” He sounds almost sober now, but in a weird way that makes me feel worse. He clearly feels sorry for us, like he thinks there’s something wrong with my son because he’s different. “I wasn’t joking. It probably would have ended up in the chipper anyway.”

  “No,” I say, getting the money out of my wallet. “Here. It said thirty-five on the price tag.” I shove the money at him. “Just so you know, though, I have every intention of writing reviews everywhere I can post them to warn unsuspecting parents that you enjoy crushing the dreams of six-year-old children. Merry Christmas.”

  “Um. Don’t you need me to get it on the roof?” he asks.

  Huh.

  I nod regally. Or at least I hope it looks regal. “Right this way.”

  As I lead him toward the car, where Christmas music is still streaming softly from the speakers, it occurs to me that Aidan probably won’t react well to Not-Santa opening his door, so I tell the man to get it on top and leave the rest to me. My father taught my sisters and me his Boy Scout knowledge of tying knots.

  The guy works quickly, giving me a wide berth, and then backs away, like my problems might be the kind of disease that’s catching.

  When I open the back passenger door to tie the twine around the metal loops affixed just inside the opening, my gaze falls on Aidan. His head is drooped against the side of his booster seat, his eyes cinched shut, but I know he’s not asleep. He looks so innocent, his dark hair curling slightly at the ends, his long lashes brushing his cheeks, and I just want to bundle him up and protect him from the whole world.