He Sees You When You're Sleeping, Part 2 (finale)

Tonight, I was to really be Santa. I was responsible for all of Chicago. Though there was one house that I planned to leave for last. A special one that held the rest of my heart.

I knew something was different about today. Hell about this year.

The Aurora Borealis gave off all the signs. Sweeping lower than it ever has before. It is like the stories that I heard as a child told by my mom. Supposedly, my grandfather, and his great- grandfather before him, followed the lights down farther into the world than our own land. There they discovered the women that they were set to marry. Their other half. This has happened so many times in our history, but these were the more recent ones.

Mostly my family marries within itself. Not like direct relations or anything, but we tend to stay with our own. My mother is an elf. My younger twin siblings as well. My mother and father are cousins twelve times removed. It is my mother who leads the brigade of having the gifts ready for Christmas. My great-grandmother before her did it before she passed the duties off.

I never knew my grandmother. She was human and had such a short lifespan. But oh how my grandfather loved her. He talked of their love story constantly. How he visited a small town in Finland and discovered her at a Christmas market. He thought that he was bound to marry a cousin as well just to be able to pass on the family legacy since he was already a hundred before he met her. Instead he discovered what he claims was his obsession. His other self. The heart he had became huge only after he discovered her.

It was exactly how I felt about Camille. The obsession. The want. The absolute need to have her in my life.

My father felt the shift as well. He pulled me to the side just yesterday. There is a special bond that gets created when one of us finds that person. An aura surrounds us that shines brighter than the sun when the connection is complete. I’m not there yet, but soon. I can feel it. And I suspect that today might be the day especially with the assignment that my father laid at my feet.

“You have the extra bag?” My mother asks of me as I strap on a set of shiny black boots.

“I do.”

She gives me a huge smile. “I have an extra special surprise in there for you. Just close your eyes and think about how you feel about Camille when you reach in and it will appear.”

“Thanks, mother.” I pick her up and hug her to my chest. She barely stands at half my height normally so this is the only way that we get to really connect anymore.

My older brother snickers from the doorway. “Just had to prove that you were meant to replace dad.”

I shoot him the middle finger behind mom’s back.

“Drew,” my father bellows from down the hall where he is being monitored on the office computer by our sister. “I saw that.”

I roll my eyes. “Of course he did.”

“You know she is my kid, right?” Michael says as he straightens while I set mom down.

“Yeah.” That was a surprising discovery. Melissa isn’t even Camille’s child. She is her niece.

One that she has raised on her own since she was a baby. Her twin sister, Marta, passed away in childbirth after she was thrown and killed by the man she believed to be her baby daddy. Only it was my brother, her one-night stand, who left the baby in her womb. Like it was meant to be that even the child that I would bring into our lives was still actually family.

Mother rubs my leg. “You must go if you are to make it on time.”

Tonight, I was to really be Santa. I was responsible for all of Chicago. Though there was one house that I planned to leave for last. A special one that held the rest of my heart.

By the time I was able to get there I was exhausted. Damn. I don’t know how my father did this with billions of people in such a short time. No wonder he fell asleep after he returned home and didn’t wake up for almost two months. The powers that we have to expend to do this are astronomical. I had a feeling that I was going to be down for a week after tonight.

I blink inside Camille’s apartment. My last stop of the night. Instead of just a glowing Christmas tree, there is a very angry redhead woman awaiting my presence. She looks like she is barely awake with her droopy eyes and hand cradled around a glass of almost empty cold coffee.

“Hey, baby,” I greet her. I take a step towards her dropping the bag in my hands. “Merry Christmas.”

Her mouth hangs open and I push it closed with one finger under her chin, while I let a slow grin take up my features. “You’re… you’re…”

I shake my head. “No. Not yet. But for tonight.” I let out a deep belly laugh that sounds a lot like my father’s. Oh, the magic of Christmas. “I had some special deliveries to make for my trial run.”

“But…”

It’s so cute how she can’t finish her sentences and yet I can tell exactly what she wants to say. “I know you feel it. Just like I can.”

I step into her space and pull her towards my chest. The heat lights up from within me and the two of us seem to glow. “Can I kiss you?”

She nods slowly and I dip my head towards hers. My mouth captures the lips I have been dying to taste for almost two weeks. And sunbursts shoot around us glowing the entire apartment.

Her arms wrap around my shoulders as I lift her up into my arms. I glide her legs around my waist to support her weight as I walk to the couch.

“You’ve been here every night,” she whispers as I let us up for air.

“I’m always watching, good girl.” I let out a moan as she shifts on my lap. I want nothing more than to have her grind over the part of me that hurts the most right now.

She reaches out and strokes my beard. “Do I have to call you Father Christmas?”

“Daddy is just fine,” I say with a wicked grin.

Camille slaps at my chest as I trail the backs of my fingers over the soft skin of her cheek. “I’m not calling you Daddy.”

“Drew works, too.”

A soft smile lights up her face. “I can do Drew.”

“Good. Memorize it, because it is what you’ll be moaning later.”

She tugs at my beard. “At least take me on a date first.”

I stand up and place her back on the couch. “Hold that thought.”

I go to the bag and close my eyes. I picture little Melissa and her gifts poof out of the bag and under the tree.

“Neat trick,” Camille says with a laugh.

I look over at her and wink. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

My eyes shut once more and I picture Camille and I. Something lands in my hand and I pull it out from the sack and tug it behind my back, while I set the bag back down. Making my way over to Camille I drop down on one knee. Her hands lift to her face as reach back around to show her what is my hand. “I know this is fast. I know you want to date, and I am all for that, but I want to know, for everyone to know, you’re mine.” I lift the lid to the box in my hand. Inside is the magic necklace that has been passed down through generations to all the women who had been the other halves of our whole. I thought it was Micheal who would have inherited it to give to someone whether it be his woman or his son. But it looks like I was the one after all who was to live the legacy.

“Will you wear it?”

“Yes.” I lift it up and place it around her neck. This will truly answer for sure if she is the one.

There is no clasp. It will seal itself around the neck of the one who is meant to wear it and it will not fall off until her last breath.

Easily it slips together.

“Camille Scottsdale, you’re mine. Until our last breaths.”

“That should scare me,” she says with a shaky breath. “But I knew. Somehow I knew the moment I saw you that…” She shakes her head. There are so many words tumbling around her head. It is no wonder she lost what she should say.

“That we were meant to be somehow?” That is exactly how I felt. She’s lightning in my system. I felt it the moment we met.

“Yeah. Weird, huh?”

“Nah.” I get up and sit next to her on the sofa. “Let me tell you a story. One about Santa Claus long ago…”