Argh, this Christmas elf is the most annoying kid on the face of the planet.

“Is this your first job?” I snap, as she literally drags me off my stool at the hot desk toward the cinema.

“Oh, is it that obvious?” she giggles. “I’m eager to please the boss. Aren’t you?”

“Not really,” I come back, maybe a little too fast. “We have different bosses though.”

“Yours is hotter than a well-stoked fireplace,” she says. “If I was Tania I’d never let him out of my sight.”

What does that mean? A rip goes through my chest that could send the buttons from my shirt splattering around the room. I shouldn’t even care if her boss is hooking up with mine. Why am I suddenly palpitating?

“You think they’re hooking up?” I ask and yank my arm out of Pixie’s grasp. “Slow down, I’m wearing heels.”

“Oh, sorry. And I shouldn’t really be talking about Tania’s private life.”

“No of course not. I don’t care anyways.”

“So you have to put this on,” she holds up the mask she picked up off my desk.

“I’ll take care of it,” I snatch it out of her hand and pull open the door to the projection room, before she has the chance to insist. The space is decked out with velvet recliners like an old time movie house. I stand at the back, looking for an empty seat. The place is packed and there’s only one available, a double pair at the back. I scour across the backs of heads, looking for Milo. I don’t want to be anywhere near him for some reason. But I can’t tell who’s who, aside from Van Millison who’s six feet eight and has curly bright orange hair, unmissable even in the darkness.

“This way,” the annoying high-pitched voice beside me says. Pixie’s popped up again, clutching a sleeve of popcorn and wielding a flashlight that she points at the carpet to guide me to the only available seat. I could have easily found it myself. I plonk down on the aisle side of the chair, leaving a spare seat between me and Brad Fanks on the other side. He doesn’t even react to my arrival, too engrossed in the cheesy Christmas movie on the widescreen. I think it’s Scrooged. But I can’t be sure. Comedies aren’t really my thing, not Christmas ones at least.

“Hot dog?”

My heart leaps and I grab at my chest as a bulky figure slips into the seat beside me. I look down at the hand holding a sausage slathered in mustard and ketchup in front of me. A hand I’d recognize anywhere. A hand that infiltrates my dreams when I’m least aware, wondering how it would be to feel both on me. Those broad palms sliding down my shoulders over my chest, cupping around my rear. Oh god.

“Where did you come from?” I snap, my hands still clutching at my cleavage, as though trying to push back on my pounding heart.

“My office,” Milo Locksley says, without a trace of irony.

He nudges the dog at me, urging me to take it. I can’t do it. There’s no way to wrap my fingers around it without them brushing against his. I’m mesmerized by them, the hard round tips, both smooth and rough at the same time. Without my permission, my mind conjures images of those fingers pushing inside me.

“Are you enjoying the movie?” Milo asks, “Bill Murray, such a genius.”

He flattens out his palm to shelve the hot dog, as though he read my thoughts, not letting his eyes move from the screen. Then he leaves his hand sitting right in front of me, his elbow resting on the armrest between us, his upper body curving in toward me. He could leave it there all day. I have no choice but to take his offering. I carefully lift it at each end, using all my fingers and thumbs like tongs, careful not to graze a single pore of my boss’s thick skin.

“It’s an oldie but a good one don’t you think?” he says, waving his now empty hand at nothing in particular.

“Cheesy,” I hiss.

My comment is drowned out by a roar let out in unison from all the guys in the packed cinema. As one they lift their glasses and throw back their heads, downing a shot of who knows what.

“Dang we missed it,” Milo grins. He waves his hand more urgently and another pixie, this one Mexican, appears in the aisle beside us.

“Sorry, sir,” she whimpers as she fills two shot glasses from her tequila dispenser.

“It’s barely noon,” I hiss.

“You don’t like drinking games either?” My boss asks. “You have to shoot every time someone says ‘Merry Christmas’ onscreen.”

I roll my eyes, then realize he’s looking at me and noticed. I really am pushing his patience.

“Cheesy,” I repeat.

“Okay, Alexa, take note, no Christmas comedies, no drinking games either.”

I look around, then realize he’s being ironic and there isn’t actually the advanced order-taking virtual assistant unit his firm developed anywhere close by.

“With respect Sir, if we weren’t going to do any work today, I’d just as soon have had the day off.”

“Then we wouldn’t have this chance to get to know each other,” he says with a confident smirk I’d like to slap off his arrogant but decidedly gorgeous face. Is he just toying with me while his current squeeze sets up the party? Such a manwhore.

“Come on, we’re in the same room together, in the dark, that’s progress.” He insists.

“That’s performance art,” I snap right back and elicit a deep raspy laugh.

God he’s even more gorgeous when he’s laughing, throwing his entire soul into the mirth. Like some decadent Santa Claus.

“What do you have against me, Aura? Have I ever mistreated you, taken advantage of you?”

“Only in your patriarchal attitude to women sir. But it’s to be expected from men of your generation.”

“Ouch. Are these dudes here all so much better then? Because I don’t see you cozying up with any of them for the movie.”

“Why do I have to cozy up with any man?” I snark, although the idea sounds so nice that tingles warm my skin.

“Maybe because it’s winter and it feels good.”

I treat my boss to another eye roll and lean to the aisle side of my luxury chair. Problem is he’s right and I’d like nothing more than to climb into one of these wide lazyboy style recliners beside some man who would wrap me under his wing and into his chest. I know all these guys think I’m uptight and I don’t care because they’re all too young for me, by way more than the two or three years that separate us. I don’t feel any kinship of ideas with them – they all think they’re gods gift to the tech world. Doing something that only they and their cronies could ever understand.

The only man that sets my tummy tingling is Milo. But he’s a devil in a dark suit and I know not to stray too close. I’d be playing way out of my pay grade and I don’t fancy joining the legions of multicultural beauties that only get to grace his personal display unit once before being consigned to cold storage.

“Milo, can I have a word?” Tania leans across me in a heady swarm of exotic perfume. Too close, as though I’m part of the chair and she doesn’t see me sitting here.

Something is definitely going on. Her entire stance implies possession. And I can tell, sense it in her pores, that she doesn’t want me sitting beside Milo.

“What is it?” he gruffs. “Love, Actually is about to begin.”

Seriously? Love Actually. I unsuccessfully stifle a spurt of laughter and Tania suddenly notices me.

“Oh that’s my favorite,” she purrs. “They all get a happy ending at Christmas. I know Santa will slip that in my stockings too. Maybe later?”

I’m waiting for Milo to come back with equal flirting, telling her only if she’s a good girl or some shit. But he pulls out his phone and takes an imaginary phone call as the credits roll up on Scrooged and Love Actually begins. I’d never have thought my boss was one for happy endings.

Theo from development jumps up in the front row, turns to the rest of the staff with his arms raised like a savior and shouts “Merry Christmas’. A cheer goes up and everyone drinks.

Everyone except me.

“You aren’t going to get me drunk,” I hiss at Milo, seeing him gazing at me questioningly with his intense stare.

“Okay.”