The Boy in the Santa Hat

A/N: Hello Wattpadders, this is my obviously belated Christmas SS :P I am nothing if not fashionably late. I wrote this for Stephanie's winter/Christmas story contest because of an idea I got on Christmas Eve when I wondered about how many people break into houses on Christmas Eve and, of course, all of the burglars must be hot and wearing a Santa hat ;) Anyway, I hope you like it and had an awesome holidayy! Oh, and a BIG thank you to BlushesScarlett who made me the beautiful and very delicious cover for the story :)

The first time I ever caught a glimpse of Thompson Everett was Christmas Eve, partially dressed as Santa and crouched with a bent in his beck near what my mother dubbed The Christmas Tree. I thought this was a lie, though, because I felt like a true Christmas tree should touch the ground and the tips of the star resting on the top grazing against the ceiling, but this “Christmas Tree” was placed upon a coffee table with faded circular lines laid from perspiring glasses (usually filled with some kind of alcohol my mother claimed was the only thing that kept her from flipping through the pages of the phone book for a new divorce attorney because she married her last one, Hank, who would be the one she would be divorcing in that case) and with wobbling uneven legs.

The tree itself was pitiful. Whoever decided it was a good idea to chop down pine trees, string them with popcorn and silver ornaments, and stick them in our living rooms with wrapped presents underneath would be ashamed of us. It was fake, an ugly shade of pink that hurt my eyes in the morning, and Christmas ornaments of kittens playing with balls of yarn and chipped earns adorning it. They were Hank’s. Or, more like his ex-wife’s old ornaments which were left in his attic before his house was foreclosed. And, of course, my mother (always looking for an excuse to use money for buying Marlboros) agreed instantly to abandon the idea of having an actual tree instead.

But on Christmas Eve, having downing a glass of milk the day after its expiration, glancing at the pathetic Christmas tree once more before stalking barefoot down the ratty, stained, off white carpet to my room, and then climbing under the covers and staring at my ceiling for half an hour, I heard faint footsteps in the living, which I knew shouldn’t have been there. Hank was gone, probably off to buy my mother a last minute gift again, and my mother grasped the nose of a bottle of beer an hour ago between her fingers, burped, and told me she was going to sleep away Christmas Eve. I knew my mother. After a bottle of Bud Lite she was out—for hours.

We didn’t exactly leave in a secure neighborhood. Instead, we lived in a fifty year old apartment complex and I was pretty sure our neighbors across the hallway—Evan and Rick—were selling drugs. So when you think you hear footsteps around here, it’s usually because someone’s trying to grab your decade old TV and jump down the rusty fire escape. That’s why I think my reaction was perfectly responsible and reasonable.

I grabbed a neon green water gun and crept toward our living room.

It wasn’t even filled, just glistening with drops of moisture clinging to the internal sides of the transparent green pool toy. But it was on my dresser and maybe, in the dark, it would actually look like a weapon or something. Just enough to the scare the punk off away from the kitten ornaments.

I treaded on the tips of my poorly pedicured tops where the teal Wet ‘N Wild was beginning to chip on my pinkie toes and completely disappeared on my second toe but that was Hank’s fault and that stupid, pink tree’s. Last week, after Hank claimed he had the perfect solution to what my mother called The Christmas Tree Problem, and laid a cardboard box the size of a microwave sitting in the front of the hallway, I stubbed my toe on it. Then my mother scolded me for cursing as I clutched my socked foot, just hours after she cursed out a trunk driver who cut her off on her way to dropping me off at school. My mother was hypocritical like that. She also told me once that she would kill me if she ever caught me smoking while she was leaning out the window in her bedroom, one leg swung over the opposite size, with a smoking cigarette placed in between her index and middle fingers.