Devyn pressed the tips of her fingers into her skin, pushing hard against her hairline. Christmas was the last thing on her mind. She had a million other projects looming over her and the thought of adding finding a gift for some random coworker was not something she was ready to add to the list.
“I’m not,” Penelope said, sitting up straight in her chair. “They are drawing for a Secret Santa. It’s a $25 limit. Maybe you should get involved with baking something this year Dev. It can take some stress off you from this job.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head again, “adding anything but this job to my plate will cause more stress. I just want to get past this issue and try to stock these stores with the cosmetics they need by some kind of miracle .”
Penelope’s face twisted in frustration. “Why do you hate the holidays so much? As long as I’ve known you, you’ve always been annoyed with the holidays.”
“When you’ve worked in retail as long as I have, you start to hate holidays pretty quick.”
Devyn picked up the paperwork, thumbing through the stack. “Listen, I’ll meet you at the name drawing. When is it?”
“Three.” Penelope stood from the cream colored office chair and wiped her hands over her skirt. “Maybe it won’t be so bad. You could get Chad. Then you could give him a trophy that says ‘World’s Best Runner Up.’”
Devyn gave her an icy glare. Not only had Chad Weeks been the person running against her for the promotion at this branch, but he had spent the better half of her time there making her miserable. Devyn spent months putting together plans and improving her numbers to get the job, but Chad didn’t like it. He wanted the job, and that’s all he cared about.
Better job. Better money. Better everything.
He wanted to rub his promotion in her face, but he couldn’t. She won, and he couldn’t stand her because of it.
“Don’t even think about joking about that,” Devyn gritted her teeth.
“See ya later, Boss.” Penelope threw her head back and laughed over her shoulder before walking out the door.
Thankfully, the office hadn’t been decorated with a Christmas tree and fake snow like every other store, but the loop of music wasn’t helping Devyn’s already sour mood. The incessant ringing in her ears did nothing for the growing headache she had from staring at printer paper all day.
If she had to look at one more decline letter from a cosmetic line about adding their product to their store she would scream. Penelope stepped out from the crowd and motioned her forward.
“I tried to save you a seat away from everyone, but I lost it when you decided to show up late.”
“Sorry, I was trying to make sure the business didn’t go under,” Devyn sounded anything but sorry.
Penelope rolled her eyes, pulling Devyn deeper into the crowd of people.
One of the interns walked up to the front of the room, the bowl holding everyone’s name in her hands. She tiptoed up to the podium where she would stand awkwardly for the rest of the long, drawn out meeting.
Another person from the marketing department walked to the front of the room, pulling a cord for a microphone out of the corner. Devyn couldn’t remember his name, but he had been here longer than she had.
“Hello everyone,” he said to the crowd. “It’s time for our annual Christmas Party meeting.”
A handful of people clapped.
“For the new people, my name is Chris. I’m the director of Marketing and Advertising, and I am happy to introduce this year’s intern, Stacy Coleman. She is a second year student at the local university and will be helping me with the name draw this year.”
Another handful of people clapped, but Devyn was already on the verge of yawning. She was up to her eyeballs in paperwork and couldn’t be bothered to deal with an annual event she had always detested.
“First up to draw is Penelope White.”
Penelope jumped up, skipping over to the bowl. She dug her hand around in the slips of paper and pulled out a name. She opened the slip and her eyes shone.
She walked back toward Devyn.
“I have the best person ever,” she nearly screamed into Devyn’s ear.
“Next up,” he said, pausing for dramatic effect, “Riley Hayes.”
“I could literally fall asleep,” Devyn said too Penelope, trying to force her eyes to stay open. “I could be working right now. If I don’t get a handle on this crisis, I could lose everything I’ve worked for.”
Penelope rolled her eyes. “You probably don’t know how to fix it because you don’t have any Christmas joy.”
“You are seriously no help to me sometimes.” Devyn rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest.
The names felt like they were never ending. A company with over 30 employees shouldn’t have a Christmas party where the names are drawn one by one. Why couldn’t names be sent over email to save work time. The setup couldn’t be more impractical.
“Devyn Kennedy,” Chris called her name.
She stood and unwillingly let her feet move her to the front of the room. Her fingers grazed the papers in the bowl, and she wanted to jerk it away. She didn’t want to participate in the silly game her coworkers were playing.
Her hand closed around one of the papers, and she pulled it free. She unfolded the slip.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
The name glaring back at her was Chad Weeks.
2
Devyn had been avoiding Chad Weeks since she got the position they competed for.
Chad had been within the company longer than her, but she had a bachelors degree in management and retail experience. What she had yet to figure out was why he wanted to manage a cosmetic company to begin with. She didn’t even know why she wanted to manage this company, because in the six months she had been
