Free Casper Gets His Wish by R. Cooper Page B

of dark ink. The man was gifted. He could have at least dressed like it. Or admitted skateboards didn’t work well on snow and ice.
     
    Casper regrouped and focused back on Hollyberry’s face. Realizing he was being observed in return, Casper resisted the need to pat his suit. It was admittedly human-created, but he’d bought it in the early part of the previous century, and had always loved its neat lines, the precise, controlled pinstripes, the stiff, starched white collar it demanded.
     
    Hollyberry finally moved, his mouth curving up toward his twinkly eyes.
     
    “Maybe because of our productivity?” he offered, and the very idea that he was smiling, when nothing about this was funny, made Casper’s blood positively boil. But he clenched his fists at his sides and kept his words crisp and clear.
 
    “Nonsense. Every month it’s the same routine, and when you are late, I am late. Do you think I want to get my chestnuts roasted for your incompetence?”
     
    If possible, which it shouldn’t have been, Hollyberry only looked more slouchy and amused and then, when Casper bit back a gasp, even more twinkly-eyed.
     
    “Look, Casper—”
     
    “Silverbell.” Casper instantly jerked his chin up. “ Mister Silverbell to you, Mr. Hollyberry.” He would be taken seriously even if he wasn’t creative or a genius. He’d been dealing with this kind of reindeershit all his life and being direct was the only solution that had ever offered any sort of result.
     
    “Okay.” The loose shrug and ready agreement took him by surprise. Casper stopped, feeling the slight frown between his eyes. Nothing in his experience with this elf had ever been easy. He almost glanced at Pinebough, hoping the assistant might offer some insight, but then Hollyberry went on. “Mr. Silverbell. I’m sorry, what can I say? I didn’t mean to endanger your chestnuts. Believe me, that’s the last thing I’d want.”
     
    Casper registered the quirk to his full lips, too late, and felt his frown go from slight to monumental to think that he’d almost been taken in by such an obviously fake flirtation. Of course it had been a joke. Hollyberry thought this situation, thought Casper was hilarious. He always had, smiling like this at Casper from day one, as though he was the funniest thing he’d ever seen.
     
    It wasn’t a great shock, though Hollyberry bothering to flirt with him for even a moment was surprising. After all, Casper was a non-creative elf, and nobody wanted to date a non-creative elf, at least not long term. Every busy, buzzing, artistic elf knew they’d have nothing to talk about with an elf who didn’t make anything. Making things was the be all and end all of Pole elf existence, and an elf who instead monitored what other elves created, well, he was barely an elf at all.
     
    Not for the first time, Casper considered leaving the Pole and finding work elsewhere, maybe tallying the books at a shoe store somewhere among the humans, or perhaps ordering supplies for a baking company or two, but then he shook it off. He was who he was and he liked his job just fine, even loved it when he didn’t have to hobnob with snotty, superior creative types.
     
    He straightened to an even more correct posture, as tall and balanced as a column in a spreadsheet. Maybe he wasn’t a maker elf, but accounts had to be balanced, reports filed, even in the Pole, otherwise no one would get a Big Day. His job was just as important as theirs.
     
    “I don’t especially care what you want, Mr. Hollyberry.” He pulled at his suit, seeking comfort in the hand stitching and ignoring how Hollyberry’s eyes followed the gesture and watched closely as his hand skimmed over his hip. “Just get your paperwork in on time.”
     
    Hollyberry didn’t say a word.
     
    Casper blinked, not quite looking away as he waited for an answer. The urge to touch himself again was overpowering, an old nervous habit suddenly front and center. He knew his suit