The Twelve Days of Randy Read online

  Know when to up the ante…and when to fold.

  Randy and Ethan are ready to enjoy their first Christmas in Vegas, but Ethan is still struggling to find his feet as the owner of the casino. He’s stuck in the office while Randy’s ex Crabtree enjoys Ethan’s husband’s holiday antics. When it’s clear Ethan feels left out in the cold, Crabtree tries to mend fences by suggesting Ethan make Randy’s fun and games a main event at the casino instead of a backroom sideshow. This way Ethan can have his cake and eat it too, especially since Randy’s the one jumping out of the center.

  Randy knows Crabtree’s motives are never entirely pure and that the gangster can easily twist Ethan’s thinking. Playing naughty elf isn’t worth it if it’ll cost him his cozy holiday with his husband, and as The Twelve Days of Randy spin slowly out of control, Randy fears his perfect Christmas will come crashing down around him. It’s going to take a Christmas miracle to untangle this mess.

  Luckily, miracles are Herod’s specialty.

  This ebook is not transferrable. Any effort to sell, share, or give this title away constitutes an infringement of the copyright of this work.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Heidi Cullinan, POB 425, Ames, Iowa 50010

  Copyright © 2017 by Heidi Cullinan

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-945116-24-7

  Edited by Sasha Knight

  Cover by Kanaxa

  Proofing by Lillie’s Literary Services

  Formatting by BB eBooks

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  First publication 2017

  www.heidicullinan.com

  The Twelve Days of Randy

  Heidi Cullinan

  To Leigh, who loves Randy as much as Ethan and I do.

  Table of Contents

  About the Book

  Copyright Page

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Author’s Note

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  About Tough Love

  About the Author

  Other Titles in This Series

  Other Books by Heidi Cullinan

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to all the Randy Jansen and Ethan Ellison fans everywhere, and to everyone who loves and supports this series. And of course thank you as always to my patrons, especially Pamela Bartual, Rosie M, Tiffany Miller, Marie, Sarah Plunkett, and Sarah M.

  Author’s Note

  This novella features characters from the novel Double Blind, the second novel and third story in the Special Delivery series. While readers are welcome to enjoy my work in any order they wish, be aware this short story contains elements considered spoilers for the novel which precedes it in its timeline.

  Also it’s worth noting at the time this story was originally written, only a domestic partnership, not marriage, was an option for Ethan and Randy in Las Vegas.

  If you read this short and decide you’d like to try the other books in the series, check out www.heidicullinan.com or look for more details in the back of this book.

  Chapter One

  ONE SATURDAY NOVEMBER morning as Randy and Ethan lay spooned sleepily together in bed, their cats curled up at their feet, Ethan asked, “What are we going to do for Christmas?”

  Randy had been drifting back into unconsciousness, but at Ethan’s question he opened his eyes. He’d have been safe if he’d been behind his husband, but wrapped up tight, his head pillowed on Ethan’s arm, his legs tangled and naked, he was exposed. Especially when, at Randy’s silence, Ethan lifted his head.

  Ethan sighed. “Wait, don’t tell me you hate Christmas.”

  Randy glared at him. “Excuse me?”

  “I saw the expression on your face. You were panicking. Guarding against letting me see your reaction too.”

  Randy pulled a pillow over his head. “I should never have taught you to play poker.”

  Ethan drew the pillow off again. “I’m serious. It doesn’t have to be a big deal, but I’d like to do something.”

  “This is Vegas at Christmas. There will be ‘something’ everywhere you look.”

  Ethan frowned. “I hadn’t thought casinos would do anything.”

  Randy regarded him dubiously, then realized Ethan wouldn’t know. The two of them had only been together for a year, and last Christmas they’d been in the Caribbean on a private island for their honeymoon: a wedding and Christmas present from Crabtree. “Wait until you see what your casino does for the holiday. I hear last year they had quite the fun decorating your golden demon statue.” He glanced at his husband. “Unless you’re going to stop them from celebrating, but I advise against that. You saw how much money this season made you last year.”

  “Of course I’m not going to tell them to stop. I’m delighted to hear Herod’s has a history of celebration, and yes, I’ll have Sarah put in a call to Caryle right away about upping the ante on the way we put on the dog.” Ethan ran a finger down Randy’s nose. “I’m not talking about Christmas at the casino, though. I’m talking about celebrating just you and me. The two of us here. I’d like to at least have a tree. Maybe we could have some people over for a small party.”

  This sobered Randy. “Do not tell me you want to have your parents down.”

  Ethan raised an eyebrow at him. “You think they would come? They were sure I’d gone to the devil before when I was just entertaining a married man on the occasional weekend. Now that I’m married myself—”

  “—domestically partnered,” Randy interjected automatically.

  “—married to a man and running a casino in Sin City, all they’ll do is pray for me.”

  Randy relaxed. He’d met the Ellisons once last summer, when they’d gone to collect the last of Ethan’s things from Utah. It hadn’t exactly been a pleasant experience. He propped himself up on the pillows and turned to face his partner. “Who do you want to have over, then? People from the casino?”

  “Well…I was hoping maybe Sam and Mitch. Crabtree if you think we must, but I wouldn’t mind leaving him out.”

  “Ah.” Randy’s smile was wry. “You can try to invite the Tedsoe-Kellers, but likely they won’t come. Sam has this thing about wanting to be cold at Christmas.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad. I was looking forward to seeing them for the holiday. Maybe we could go to Iowa? But no, they’re not in Iowa right now. Where are they? Illinois?”

  “Wisconsin.” Randy patted Ethan’s leg. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll do something here.”

  “We can just put up a little tree. I don’t mean to make a fuss if it’s going to bother you—Ow.” Ethan rubbed his leg where Randy had pinched him. “Why did you do that?”

  Randy shoved the covers back, untangled himself, and climbed out of bed. “Would you mind starting coffee? I’m going to take a shower.”

  Ethan called his name, but Randy didn’t answer, only double-timed it to the bathroom. He kept an eye on the door as he undressed, half-assuming Ethan would come bursting in and insist on continuing the conversation, but he didn’t.

  Randy wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed.

  For a long time, Randy stood under the spray, head bowe
d, staring at the tile above the hot and cold knobs and the faucet. He wondered if he should tell Ethan the truth. Well, no, he didn’t really wonder. He knew he needed to let his husband know he’d read the situation wrong and this had all been a misunderstanding, this idea that Randy didn’t care for Christmas, but he didn’t want to do that. Not yet.

  Maybe it was because Ethan had brought up Sam and Mitch. In the past Randy had spent the holiday with them. Granted, he was often busy trying not to let them know how jealous he was of their relationship, but he’d enjoyed those holidays. They were golden times in his mind.

  How was he supposed to explain to Slick he didn’t know how to make sure their first Christmas together at home was just as great as those times with his friends, preferably greater?

  They hadn’t been able to test run things the year before, because they hadn’t been home. First there had been the domestic partnership ceremony, which Crabtree and Sam had insisted should be a big deal, but mostly it was rushed and insane. One second Ethan was rolling wedding rings onto the craps table, and before Randy could take a breath, he was lying naked on a white sand beach, his whole body throbbing from fantastic honeymoon sex. And rum. So much fucking rum.

  If they’d been home for Christmas last year, they could have gotten over the awkward first-Christmas thing then. Which, maybe—probably—Randy was making too much out of this, and he shouldn’t feel pressured about their first Christmas together being so great.

  Except all his instincts told him Ethan was going to try, and sure as shooting those attempts would backfire. The problem was they were both working, particularly Ethan, who was still feeling his way around running a casino in general and had the added burden of making a small outfit function in a flagging economy against a sea of giants.

  Additionally the two of them weren’t in that shiny new relationship stage any longer, high on the thrill of being two men in love. They’d always fought with each other, but now their scuffles were over who had scooped the cat litter and whether or not Ethan was eating dinner at the casino too often. They were small, irrelevant arguments in the big picture, but they added up like grit in the gears, and Randy worried how they would whip up a fancy Christmas together in the middle of all the other hectic whatevers.

  There was a third liability lingering in the air, and it was in Randy’s mind the most important. Crabtree.

  Crabtree was, to put it quaintly, Herod’s resident gangster, a dinosaur leftover from when the place had been owned and operated by the Chicago Outfit. It wasn’t any longer—Ethan had the deed fair and square—but Crabtree liked to stick his nose into everything and make sure things were being “done right” and that Billy Herod, the former owner and his deceased lover, would approve of the decisions Ethan was making. Because Randy had played around a bit with Crabtree in the past, Crabtree also felt he had the right to butt in to Randy and Ethan’s marriage and tell them how he thought things were going and what they could do differently.

  Crabtree would definitely get in the way of Ethan and Randy having any kind of a cozy Christmas together.

  Randy wasn’t sure why he cared so much about this, either. He should go with the flow of whatever festival preparations happened at the casino, let Slick put up his baby tree and have his tiny party, and not expect miracles to happen. No question, he was overthinking this and making it more complicated than it needed to be.

  Trouble was, though he could acknowledge the truth of that statement, it didn’t mean he could stop wishing for something more or worrying that no matter what, this was going to end up being a mess and a headache.

  Sighing, Randy shut off the shower, threw back the curtain, and swiped a towel. Once dry, he wrapped the terrycloth around his waist and peered tentatively into the hall, but it was empty, and he could hear Ethan bustling around in the kitchen. By the time he climbed into jeans and a T-shirt and followed the smell of coffee, Ethan was at the table with his laptop open, scrolling through spreadsheets and making notes on his steno pad beside his coffee cup. He glanced up and smiled at Randy, but he made no further comment about Christmas.

  It was probably for the best, Randy told himself as he grabbed his own mug out of the cupboard. Still, he found himself leaning against the counter for a long time, trying to decide how to restart the discussion before he eventually gave up and went to gather up the laundry.

  ETHAN’S FIRST CLUE that he’d read Randy’s opinion of Christmas incorrectly came when Sarah brought him the file of past Christmas party expenditures he’d asked for during a dealer’s meeting. She said nothing, only placed the file on his desk, but the file’s label was clearly visible, and when they saw it, everyone in the room burst into explosions of excitement.

  “The Christmas Eve party! Oh my God, I can’t wait,” a female blackjack dealer exclaimed. “Especially because Randy’s back this year.”

  “They’ve been planning since July this time, I heard. It’s going to be big.”

  Ethan’s head whipped around at that. “Who has been planning?” Why in the world didn’t he know about it?

  “The staff party committee, obviously.”

  Ethan had no idea such a committee existed. He felt ridiculous.

  “I heard stories of the 2008 party,” a male dealer said, his grin tipping sideways and his voice full of innuendo.

  “About the cake?” another woman said, looking eager. “God, I wish I could have seen that.”

  “I heard they had him spread out on the table after he came out of the top, and fifteen different people licked frosting off him.”

  “Yeah, and that Crabtree took care of the crotch and ass areas personally. In his office. For an hour.”

  A few people glanced nervously at Ethan, who as usual went still at the mention of Randy and Crabtree together, but apparently this story was so good even the boss’s displeasure couldn’t stop the retelling.

  Except for a handful of years when he’d been away, it seemed Randy was the star of the casino’s private holiday party. There were stories of how he’d appeared in a Santa costume one year and given “treats” to all the partygoers, ranging from kisses to back rubs and in the case of a particularly drunk manager who didn’t work at Herod’s any longer, a hand job in the bathroom. Another time Randy had been the dealer in a poker tournament where the winner won him as a personal chef and shopping assistant for twenty-four hours. That had been the first year he’d worked at Herod’s. Crabtree had won the tournament, and their casual affair had begun during Randy’s term of service.

  It annoyed Ethan how frequently stories of Randy and sexual escapades always seemed to include Crabtree.

  Ethan went home from work that night with his ears still ringing with tales of his husband’s Christmas-themed exploits, only to find the star of the stories flipping through the pages of a well-worn red-covered cookbook. At Ethan’s entrance, Randy closed it and shoved it casually aside with a smile.

  “Hey, baby.” Randy’s smile faded. “Fuck. What’d I do now?”

  Ethan shrugged and headed to the fridge. “Nothing.”

  He had the door open for all of two seconds before Randy was between him and the appliance. “Spill it, Slick. I’m not in the mood to dance around. Tell me.”

  This just made it worse, because of course Randy hadn’t done anything wrong. Ethan was not going to have the I-know-I-don’t-have-to-be-jealous-of-Crabtree-but-I-still-am discussion. He sighed and braced his palms against the counter ledge as he stared down at the tile.

  “You didn’t do anything, and I’m not angry. I just heard some stories about your Christmas party exploits, is all.”

  Randy murmured under his breath and turned, opening the fridge door at the same time. When he shut it, he had a lime and tonic water in his hand, and he grabbed two tumblers from the cupboard. “They’re going to be disappointed, because I already told Sarah I’m not doing any stunts.” He slid Ethan’s drink toward him and reached for his Jamesons and Baileys from the other side of the liquor cupboard.


  Ethan didn’t pick up his drink. “Why not?”

  “Why not? Because of this reaction you’re having right here.” When Ethan began to object, Randy waved him silent and spoke over the top of him. “Yes, yes. You’re not angry. You look jealous as hell and uneasy for no reason whatsoever.”

  “I’ll get over it.” Ethan picked up his gin and tonic but didn’t drink it, only stared into it. “I felt ridiculous, hearing them carry on about what a good time you were, and there I was, your fucking husband, with no idea any of it had happened. I didn’t even know we had a party committee.” He grimaced, then took a generous sip of the drink. “You don’t need to abstain on my account, either. Though if there’s frosting or hand jobs or sexual services, I claim them all now.”

  That at least got a smile out of Randy, but it didn’t bleed off much of the tension in his shoulders. Ethan thought he might be about to give one of his speeches about poker or life or how poker was like life, and then his face went completely naked, and Ethan forgot to breathe, because now Randy looked like he might be having one of those rare moments where he told stories about his past.

  Instead, he lifted the drink, took a swallow of it that would have burned off the throat of most men, and set it on the counter with a smile.

  “Dinner’s tuna and noodles, ready in about an hour. I got distracted and didn’t get started yet. Why don’t you go relax a little bit until it’s ready?”

  This was the end of the discussion. Ethan went to change and surf the internet, and when he returned to the kitchen, Randy had laid out a spread of tuna and noodles, steamed broccoli, and baking powder biscuits on their small table.

  “Delicious,” Ethan effused around a mouthful of food. “You could be a chef if you wanted, I swear.”

  “I thought about it, once upon a time.” Randy tore a biscuit in half and slathered butter into the steaming center. “Crabtree was all set to send me to culinary school and have me study under celebrity chefs working in the city. But I was pretty sure it would make me hate something I loved, so I stuck to prop.” He pursed his lips at the kitchen counter behind him. “I wouldn’t say no to a better workspace someday. But that’s just wishing on a star, really. Wants and needs aren’t the same thing.”