Casper Gets His Wish (2 page)

He inhaled, a long breath that brought Hollyberry’s head up and made him stand straight. He looked almost like he was listening.

Casper didn’t waste his chance. “But since I’m here, do you have it now?”

The assistant moved, scurrying over to grab a pile of loose papers from the top of the desk. There was a half-eaten candy cane stuck to them, wet where someone had recently sucked on it. Casper looked up again, caught that damn twinkle just in time, and froze.

Dmitri had the sheen of peppermint on his mouth. “A pleasure to see you as always, Casper. A joy to be working with you.”

Their
one
agreed-upon rule was apparently already forgotten. Casper tightened his lips and felt the itch in his throat that meant his voice was going to crack when he spoke. He felt like a pot of fudge about to bubble over and gritted his teeth to contain the explosion.

“Just don’t make me have to come down here again!” he snapped, as he turned on his heels and headed out. It wasn’t clever or witty, but he was only an accountant, and no one expected creativity from him, as he was painfully aware.

His rosy cheeks were not from the cold and he could feel too many eyes on him, all of them full of amusement as he walked back out through their privileged, crazy workspace toward the elevator to go back to his floor.

–

Exactly one month later it was the same thing. Casper was steaming out of his ears as he pushed past the artists and toy designers in his way and cleared a path to Hollyberry’s office with the twitching of one eyebrow.

He’d
warned
him. He had repeatedly and even, on occasion, quite nicely, told the man that he had to get his monthly billing statements and expense reports done on time. In the early days, he had emailed, he had sent memos, ordered clerks to retrieve paperwork that couldn’t be retrieved because it hadn’t been filled out. Yet that very first year he’d ended up heading down to Gift Development himself because it was the only way to ensure a response from the slackers in that department. From the head slacker. From a cosseted, overappreciated, overindulged genius who probably never thought of anyone but himself.

Casper sailed in and interrupted Hollyberry’s conversation once again, and once again he didn’t give a flying fudge. Pinebough was there, as always, wearing a reindeer sweater that was too tight and making a face as she taste-tested some candy and toy combination. The candy looked gooey. Casper thought of it getting near his suit and nearly shuddered. But then he forgot about the sticky sugar as he focused on his target.

“And yet here I am again,” he announced in a snarl. He spoke as though no time has passed since he’d last been in this office, as though there hadn’t been a long, boring month of work completed easily and going home alone, four solid weeks of knowing Dmitri Hollyberry would forget all about him—his paperwork—and how Casper would have to face him again.

Dmitri blinked, then came out from around his impressive desk and offered Casper a smile brighter than the midnight sun. His gaze went up and down, no doubt taking in everything from the pin in Casper’s tie to the gleam on his shoes. Then his smile grew wider.

“Did you forget what manners are, up there in your big office?” Hollyberry sounded polite, even curious, but Casper knew the truth. Hollyberry had meant that Casper had forgotten his manners because he had no one to talk to up there. Casper’s office was so big because he was the only one in it. Yes, it was rather large, but he was Assistant to the Director of all Non-Creative Divisions, accountable only to Director Frostyair and the Big Guy himself; he needed a lot of space and no distractions to finish his work.

But the idea that even his office was a joke to Hollyberry stung. Casper knew he was an unwanted creature. There was no need to rub in that he was lonely as well. Hollyberry might as well be taking a shot at Casper’s rather pitiful love life, though if he tried, if he dared, Casper was prepared to—

He stopped himself there, feeling his skin go hot as though his tie was too tight, and glanced away, only to immediately make himself scowl back in Hollyberry’s direction.

“Manners aren’t productive,” he declared boldly. It was the best he could do. Trying to be flippant wasn’t really in his nature, but he was watching Hollyberry, so he got to see the twinkle in the other elf’s eyes dim, as though with hurt or disappointment.

That was all Casper needed, the precious artist getting his feelings hurt. Luckily, if that were true, it would mean that Casper mattered to him, and clearly he didn’t.

But he dropped his gaze and tugged at his suit jacket all the same because it really wasn’t in the proper holiday spirit to be rude. His suit, delicious though it was, was little comfort. He’d chosen all black today, with a red and white striped tie. He thought it fit him well, and that its tone, while serious, hinted at something playful.

He had no idea what Hollyberry thought, though the way the elf was watching him doubtless meant he had something to say. Casper decided to cut him off.

“I’m here for your expense reports, which, naturally, you didn’t send up with everything else.” The fact that everything else had been sent up at all had been a surprise, a surprise pleasant enough to make Casper pause, and then somehow disappointing enough to make him frown. Then Casper had noticed the missing bits and hadn’t thought about anything else but how fast he could make it down here.

Typical, he’d railed to himself, his heart pumping fiercely as he’d jabbed at the elevator buttons to make it move faster. He’d never once thought half-assed respect would be worse than none, but he’d been wrong. It was infinitely more hurtful, and infuriating, to know he’d
barely
crossed Hollyberry’s mind.

It was enough to make him direct a sharp glare at his slacker nemesis and then at his slacker nemesis’s assistant. Both of them were staring at him,
blankly
, he realized. As though they had no idea what he was talking about.

The loud, angry exhalation left him with no warning. His face felt impossibly warm as he pinched the bridge of his nose. He tried to think of marshmallow worlds and happy, jolly snowmen but it was no good; he could lose control at any second.

He scrubbed at his stinging cheeks and spoke like he was addressing children. “It is the
end
of the
month
.” Well, not how he’d talk to real children, but two children who he was amazed ever got any work done, because clearly they were
idiots
too busy playing with markers to notice the grownups around them, like Casper. “Do you seriously not understand?”

“Sorry.” Hollyberry coughed. His voice was strangely rough. “I must have forgotten them.” The rasp in his voice only got worse when Casper exhaled again, the sound more like a garbled scream than a sigh. He knew what that rasp was—suppressed laughter. What else could it be?

“But I did do them,” Hollyberry took a small step forward and waved at his desk. He was actually smiling warmly, beaming like the light in his eyes, as though getting the bare minimum of work done was supposed to be enough to have Casper ecstatic. “They’re over there, Casper—Silverbell.”

Casper quickly, but not too quickly, turned to look in that direction, taking a step and instantly fumbling. There was a mess on the floor. Someone ought to clean it up.

Nonetheless, mess or no mess, the tips of his ears were burning at the echo of Hollyberry saying his name like that,
trying
to say it how Casper wanted. It was more teasing, he was sure, but focused a little desperately on the toy prototypes closer to the desk.

Blocks and dolls were always popular, but the scope of toys demanded by children now always astounded him. Secretly, perhaps, sometimes, he even admired that this department could not only keep up with that demand, but produce more, and better, toys. Toys that clearly outdid most of the gifts made before Hollyberry’s arrival here, in part due to Dmitri’s drive and his determination to expand what it was that toys did.

It wasn’t the toys themselves that kids loved, Hollyberry had said in a speech during his first year here, it was the freedom to imagine that the toys gave them. And that was what he required of all his gifts, from the most complex board game to the fluffiest teddy bear, that they would captivate and stimulate in ways previously unheard of.

Even his dolls had a flair to their design, a hint in their eyes that girls or boys holding them could be transported anywhere, could be anything they wanted. It was the kind of beauty in creation that Casper knew qualified as art. For all his complaining, he knew why this department got special treatment. He didn’t have to like it, however.

He curled his hand around a doll before he could stop himself, his fingers trailing down through tight brown curls, over mischievous eyes, and then on to the oddly simple dress. Her chin was up. She looked like a princess in disguise, waiting for her moment at the ball, although Casper couldn’t say why or where he got that impression. 

“Like that one?”

Casper half-raised his head at the question, his eyes still on the elegant angle to her head, the suggestion of temper in her eyebrows. He felt a whisper of heat on his cheek.

“She inspires, doesn’t she? What she is on the surface is not what she is underneath, and that’s what I like to see.”

Distantly agreeing, Casper nodded, inching back toward the warmth of that voice, his fingers slowly relinquishing their hold on the doll. Inspiration had always been the policy, but that policy had never been so brilliantly carried out. The gifts themselves, joyous though they were to see underneath a tree, were jumping off points for the soul and the mind, and making them took time.

“She took a few days, like a lot of things down here, and I suppose, like always, time got away from me. But,” Dmitri’s voice dropped even lower, his words trickling out like maple syrup, and Casper blinked, hot all over as he angled his head up to catch the rest. “I recognize that others have work to do too, so I stayed up all night thinking of you, and what you might do if I didn’t get everything just right.”

Casper frowned, a little frown, not quite following what was being said, and then jerked away in surprise as he leaned into what must have been Dmitri himself—Dmitri Hollyberry’s body, warm and strong under his too-thin, ragged, disgrace of a shirt, his arms moving as though he wanted to pull Casper closer. Casper pushed forward, burning to realize that Hollyberry had come up behind him and had been practically whispering in his ear and he hadn’t noticed.

He twisted around and caught Miss Pinebough’s openly amused look.

Right. How could Casper have forgotten who and what he was to them? He yanked at his waistcoat and stalked away to the other side of the desk in order to snatch the expense reports. There was a noisy, disappointed sigh from Hollyberry’s direction, which he ignored.

He flipped through the file, nearly tearing the paper. “What is this?” he bit out, and then dared to look up for half a second, long enough to see the twinkle. He looked back down. “What
language
is this in?”

He reached into a pocket and pulled out the velvet bag for his glasses. Once they were on and carefully pushed into place, he tucked the bag away again.

With his world in focus, Dmitri was suddenly too close again, hovering at Casper’s side, and staring at him with a bright intensity. 

“Oh,” Dmitri said, almost drowning out Pinebough’s soft giggle. “Oh I… Oh, Silverbell. Silverbell, you are—” He cleared his throat though he wasn’t moving away or backing off, the big oaf. “Like I said, I worked on it late last night for you. It might not make sense in the light of day.”

It had been light all last night as well. Casper didn’t point that out though it would have meant a chance to brag about the window in his office. He cleared his throat, not quite glancing up over the rim of his glasses. He could feel a flush move under his skin. Snow drifts, he thought. Frozen ponds. Icicles.

“There was no need to sacrifice your personal life, Mr. Hollyberry.” Mercifully, his voice didn’t crack.

“Dmitri.” Dmitri—Hollyberry—corrected.

“Hollyberry.” Casper drew in a desperately needed breath and inhaled the scent of peppermint. The man only pressed closer. Casper would have inched away, but their opinion of non-creative elves was already bad enough he wouldn’t have them thinking him a coward too. He lifted his chin and met those eyes. They weren’t twinkling now. If anything they seemed dreamy and almost lost, though the idea was so fanciful Casper felt a little lost too.