Living in Sin
Copyright© 2025 by Al Steiner
Chapter 22: So This is Christmas
Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 22: So This is Christmas - Two single-parent sheriff’s deputies move into a wealthy, uptight neighborhood and accidentally set off a storm of paranoia, lust, and suburban meltdown. As judgmental neighbors spiral, sexually frustrated housewives come calling. Amid threesomes, gossip, and chaos, Scott and Maggie discover their friendship hides something deeper. Darkly funny, raw, and fearless, Living in Sin is a satire of morality, desire, and the lies we live behind picket fences.
Caution: This Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Fa/Fa Illustrated
It was Christmas Eve, Wednesday night. Everyone at the table knew there was no Santa Claus. Katie and Christopher had stopped believing years ago, but the charade went on because it was fun. Maggie and Scott still slipped wrapped presents under the tree after the kids went to bed, the kids still staged questions about Santa’s impossible logistics, and the whole house still played along as if magic were real.
The smell of Scott’s tacos filled the kitchen—griddle-fried shells, beef seasoned just right, cheese melting, a tang of fresh cilantro. Scott made both flour and corn versions, a family tradition now as much as the tree in the corner or the blinking colored lights in the window.
Maggie had just come from the shower, hair damp, clean jeans and sweater on, Nike tennis shoes waiting by the door. In a few minutes she’d leave for her shift. But for now, she sat at the table with her strange blended family, soaking in the moment.
She bit into one of Scott’s corn tortillas—crispy, messy, familiar—and couldn’t help the thought that slipped in. Corn versus flour. Both good, both satisfying, but very different.
It was exactly how she felt about sex. She’d come of age on corn tacos—Lena, Stacy, women like her. It was what she knew, what felt natural. Then flour tortillas had entered her life—Scott. Different texture, different heat, different mouth feel, yet equally good in its own way. She still preferred corn, still reached for it first, but maybe flour had its place too.
The kids felt the same way, though without the hanging sexual analogy. Their debate and equal love of each was more pure and innocent.
“Corn tacos are crunchier,” Christopher declared, chomping down. “Like, more action.”
“Flour ones fold better,” Katie countered. “You don’t lose all your fillings.”
Scott grinned, taking a bite of his own flour taco. “Two different strategies, both valid.”
“Like Xbox versus PlayStation,” Christopher said.
“Or cats versus dogs,” Katie added.
“Or physics versus metaphysics,” Christopher said loftily.
Scott arched a brow. “Physics explains how Santa can exist in all houses at once despite differing time zones and the sheer number of children in the world. Metaphysics explains why he only eats cookies and never anything with protein.”
That got them laughing, and the Santa Logic game kicked in, just like every year. This was the first year that Scott and Maggie lived in Gardenville together, but they had spent every Christmas Eve and Christmas Day together since the academy days.
“How does he hit every house in one night?” Katie asked, wiping taco juice off her chin.
“Quantum mechanics,” Scott said without hesitation. “Santa doesn’t move through space linearly. He’s entangled with every chimney on Earth.”
Christopher leaned in, eyes gleaming. “So, does he violate the laws of thermodynamics?”
“Constantly,” Scott said smoothly. “That’s why physicists can’t account for dark matter. Santa uses it all up one night a year.”
Maggie shook her head, smiling despite herself. “You’re corrupting the scientific method.”
“Improvising under interrogation,” Scott said. “Cops are good at that.”
Katie raised her hand like a student in class. “What about the Jewish kids?”
“Santa’s respectful and politically correct,” Scott said. “He knows who’s Jewish. Who’s Hindu. Who’s Buddhist. He skips those houses unless invited. Union rules.”
“So not believing in Jesus automatically puts you on the naughty list, even if you’re otherwise a model child?” Katie pressed.
“Of course not,” Scott said. “Santa’s ecumenical. The only unforgivable sin is leaving out Chips Ahoy.”
Christopher laughed, mouth full. “So he just skips our house if we buy cookies at Safeway?”
“Not just skips it,” Scott said. “He blacklists it for all eternity. Fortunately, we have those chocolate chip cookies that Nana brought us.”
“They’re not the ‘special cookies’ that Nana makes that we can’t eat?” asked Christopher.
“She guarantees it,” Scott said, though he suspected that Santa would actually enjoy one of Nana’s special cookies if his IAD wouldn’t fire his ass for trying one. It was an unjust world they lived in, that was the truth.
The table erupted with laughter, the tree lights blinked, and for a few minutes Maggie almost forgot she had to put on her jacket and walk into the chaos of Christmas Eve shift. Almost.
The tacos were chowed down fast, and soon enough the kids were on dish duty—scraping plates, loading the dishwasher, packing leftovers into Tupperware for tomorrow’s lunch.
At the table, Scott and Maggie lingered with the last of their iced tea. Neither mentioned the one subject hovering between them—the fact that they’d had sex once, and only once, and hadn’t gone back to it or really talked about it since. It was there, alive in the silence, but they let it sit.
Instead, Maggie asked, “So what time do you think you’ll get to bed tonight?”
Scott snorted softly. “Four in the morning if I’m lucky. Christopher’s bike has about a thousand bolts, and Katie’s laptop is going to want updates until the next century. I’ll get Office and Zoom installed while I’m working on the bike. By the time I’m done, Santa will be clocking out.”
Maggie smirked. “Santa never clocks out.”
“This Santa does,” Scott said. “I’ve got a kick-ass union.”
Her smile faded when she glanced at the window. Rain streaked down the glass, black sky beyond. A typical winter storm was blowing tonight. Lots of rain and wind. Cold air. No snow though. The Sierra Nevada Mountains would have blizzard conditions but Heritage County was only sixty feet above sea level. It snowed there about twice a century on average. She sighed. “Of all the nights to be stuck working Christmas Eve.”
Holidays were always busy for cops. Christmas Eve. Christmas Day. Families that couldn’t stand each other crammed under the same roof with too much booze—it was a recipe for fights, sometimes worse. Mother’s Day was the worst. Christmas and Thanksgiving were tied for a close second.
The kids clattered the last dishes into the dishwasher, shut the fridge door, and padded toward the stairs. Maggie pushed back from the table with a quiet groan. Time to go.
Upstairs, she opened the nightstand drawer, clipped her off-duty weapon to her belt, and tugged her sweater down over it. She came back down, pulled on her Nikes, shrugged into her jacket.
She kissed Katie goodbye, then Christopher—quick, affectionate pecks that made them both roll their eyes a little.
Then she turned to Scott. He stood there, steady, warm, and she felt a flicker of heat just looking at him. She stepped into his arms, hugged him tight. It was a good hug. Solid. Safe. Secure.
She didn’t kiss him. That was not part of their routine. She wanted to. And if the kids weren’t watching she very well might have. It seemed ... right.
“Be safe out there,” he told her, low and even.
“Always,” she said.
And with that, she turned toward the garage and the waiting night.
The rain came down steady, blown slantwise by a cold wind out of the south-southwest. It smelled of ocean brine and wet asphalt, San Francisco Bay pushing its weather inland. Maggie heard on the radio that Highway 16 over the Sierras was closed—whiteout conditions, chain controls ignored, too many spinouts. It didn’t matter for her night, but it set the mood. Winter had its claws in.
She pulled into the lot, hustled inside, and geared up. Locker routine. Duty belt snug, vest in place, radio clipped, body cam flashing its little red wink. Civvies off, work skin on. She grabbed her rain jacket and put it on over her torso. She checked to make sure her gun was kept free.
District I was overstaffed tonight. Normally there were six units on Adam-Watch, but holidays brought extra cops in for the expected onslaught. Ten tonight. Boulder and Carter were both with her in Northwood. And Jenkins would be one of the extras.
Detective Jenkins wasn’t supposed to be here. He was a robbery guy, eighteen years on the job. But Jenkins was an overtime whore. He popped up everywhere—graveyard patrol in South Hair, transport runs, courthouse security, even the jail or the airport—anything that paid. Word was he’d pulled down more than two hundred grand last year. Only twenty-five thousand shy of the Big Sheriff Himself.
And tonight he was in Northwood, working Adam-Watch, on Christmas fucking Eve. If there had been any doubt he’d take any shift for time and a half, this settled it.
Jenkins had three hash marks on his sleeve. Maggie didn’t have one. That meant the front rows of the briefing room were for her, while the old-timers sat in the back. But before Yee and Ransom made their entrance, she drifted back there anyway, remaining standing instead of sitting down.
“Didn’t think I’d see you in Northwood,” she said.
Jenkins grinned, leaning back in his chair. “Winslow, right? One of Yamato’s academy kids?”
“That’s right,” she said. “SBRA 21-oh-two.” Which meant her class had been the second Sheriff’s Basic Recruit Academy of 2021. “We called him Sergeant Gimee Thirty.”
“I bet you don’t carry things in your gun hand though, do you?”
“I do not,” she confirmed.
“You see? The system works. Anyway, didn’t think I’d see me either. I thought there were lines that even I wouldn’t cross. But Christmas Eve pays like a motherfucker. Double time after midnight. I got a vacation home in Kaui I’m paying on.”
“You got family?” Maggie asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “I married above my means. My wife likes money and vacation homes in Kaui and my chippie likes nice hotel suites to fuck in. So here I am.”
It was blunt, unapologetic. Jenkins didn’t fake sentimentality, and Maggie respected that. He was a good cop, everyone knew it. A little gruff, a little set in his ways, but sharp and resourceful. He had good stories too, and Maggie had learned early that good stories weren’t just entertainment—they were lessons. The kind you couldn’t get from a policy manual.
She hoped she’d get a few calls with him tonight. Watching how he worked would be worth more than half the academy. And maybe she could earn a little respect along the way. For Jenkins, anyone with less time than he had was a snot-nosed fucking rookie. Which meant pretty much everyone who worked uniformed patrol.
The briefing room buzzed around them, holiday energy with an edge. Extra bodies, extra chatter. Maggie found her seat in the second row just as Ransom and Yee walked in. Time to rule the night.
The briefing was the usual checklist of assignments, reminders, and warnings. Ransom kept it short, but not without his seasonal add-on.
“Sheriff wants me to remind you all—no Santa hats on duty. After last year’s fiasco, that order is carved in stone.”
Nobody needed details. The whole department remembered last Christmas Day. Hell, the whole county remembered. It had been in the papers for weeks. A drunk and belligerent man in the jail’s booking area had refused orders and gotten taken down by three deputies—clean, efficient, exactly by policy. The only thing the man walked away with was a small bump on his chin. But the Heritage Register got hold of the booking video, and what should have been a routine, textbook takedown turned into a circus.
Because one of the deputies had been wearing a Santa hat.
The paper plastered stills all over its front page, branding the department a bunch of unprofessional thugs beating citizens while playing dress-up. The Register loved smearing cops—Heritage PD was usually the target, but the sheriff’s department was always a solid backup. Especially when there was a Santa hat involved.
Everyone nodded. No Santa hats.
“And no fucking elf hats either,” Ransom added.
Boulder groaned theatrically. “Come on, el-tee, it totally matches my hair.”
Ransom almost cracked a smile. “I will agree you’d look cute, Boulder. Still a no-go.”
“What a rip,” Boulder said, drawing a ripple of chuckles.
And with that, briefing was over. Maggie and the rest of Adam-Watch hit the streets. And the streets were already busy.
The MDT beeped as soon as she put herself available in District 1, glowing against the rain-streaked windshield.
1911 Polk Avenue. Domestic dispute.
Maggie sighed, already knowing what she’d find. The Browns.
Mark and Tammy Brown were Northwood regulars, fixtures in the call log. Everyone who worked District 1 knew their address. The Browns didn’t just argue—they performed, staging loud, drunken dramas over every petty slight that had ever passed between them. None of it criminal. None of it solvable.
And once the Browns kicked off for the night, they never stopped. That first call was the starter pistol. By sunrise, they’d usually called four or five more times, always with the same accusations, the same cigarette smoke, the same stench of booze. Deputies knew that if you pulled 1911 Polk once, you’d be back. Over and over.
Mark and Tammy fought hard and loud, but never physically. He was a liar, she was a whore, he wasted money, she fucked his friends. All of it screamed at the top of their lungs, none of it meeting the elements of any crime. They always refused to separate for the night, and you couldn’t make them. They were at home, drunk and belligerent, exactly where the law allowed them to be.
Maggie steered through the rain, wipers thumping. Adding the fucking Browns to Christmas Eve in the rain was worse than a yeast infection.
She thumbed the mic. “Twelve-Adam, show me en route.”
Dispatch acknowledged, flat and routine.
As she turned onto Polk, she saw another set of headlights pulling in behind her. Boulder. Her cover unit.
Maggie swung to the curb, wipers slapping across the windshield as rain hammered the hood. Headlights painted the front of 1911 Polk: a sagging fourplex with peeling paint and half-dead Christmas lights strung across the railing.
The front window glowed with the orange pulse of cigarettes. She could hear the Browns before she even shut her door—two drunk voices overlapping, ragged and furious.
Behind her, Boulder’s unit parked as well. She climbed out, hood of her rain jacket covering her red hair, and fell in beside her with a muttered, “The fucking Browns. Merry Christmas.”
“Yeah,” Maggie said. “Just what I wanted tonight.”
She knocked hard on the door. “Sheriff’s Department!”
The door yanked open, and Mark Brown glared at her through bloodshot eyes. Tall but painfully skinny, wiry as a scarecrow, his arms were a patchwork of faded tattoos. His long hair hung greasy around his face, a cigarette bouncing from his lip. A wifebeater clung to his frame—though he’d never actually beaten his wife, as far as anyone knew.
The most striking feature was the eyeball tattooed on his forehead above his left eye. A professional job, sharp lines and shading, not a prison tat. Mark, they knew from running his name countless times praying for a warrant that never came, had never been to prison.
“‘Bout fuckin’ time,” he barked. “I called twenty minutes ago!”
“Try five,” Maggie said, brushing past him. “Where’s Tammy?”
“In here,” he snapped, trailing after her. “Where the fuck do you think?”
The living room reeked of smoke and beer. Tammy sat on the couch, eyeliner smeared, voice hoarse from yelling. Mid-forties, dirty blonde hair, and every bit of three hundred pounds on a five-three frame. She wore yoga pants and a filthy sweater with BBW OG! splashed across the front, the graphic showing a cartoon chubby woman in fishnet stockings lifting her skirt to flash her ass. The cartoon BBW was kind of cute. Tammy, not so much.
She wasn’t wearing a bra, and her tremendous breasts rested heavy on her stomach. A cigarette smoldered in her fingers while another burned in the ashtray beside her, the twin plumes of smoke coiling up like incense in a church gone to hell.
“There you are!” she screeched the second Maggie stepped in. “I told you, didn’t I? He’s a liar! A liar and a cheat!”
“Fuck you, Tammy,” Mark shot back. “Tell ‘em about the time you fucked Donnie in the bathroom at Applebee’s. Tell ‘em that!”
“That was two fuckin’ years ago, motherfucker!” Tammy screamed. “Two years and you’re still bringing it up! I don’t talk about that time you fucked Missy across the fuckin’ street!”
“I didn’t fuck her,” he yelled. “She just sucked my dick. If you’d suck it once in a while I wouldn’t have to have Missy do it!”
“If you’d take a shower once a week or so I might suck it!” she countered. “But you always smell like a fuckin’ Billy goat’s infected asshole!”
“Like you smell like fuckin’ shawn-tay number five? And your pussy! You can’t even find it no more you’re so fuckin’ fat! It looks like the fuckin’ Amazon jungle down there.”
“You still fuck it, don’t you! Fucked it last night!”
Maggie tried to wedge a word in. “Okay, enough about jungles and Billy goats. What’s the problem tonight?”
They both turned on her, voices climbing over each other in drunken stereo. He drank too much, she spent too much. He didn’t fix the car, she didn’t do laundry. He was lazy, she was a whore. Every grievance dragged out, none of it from this evening.
“Any physical violence tonight?” Maggie asked flatly.
“No!” Tammy shrieked. “Not yet!”
Mark jabbed a finger at her. “You hear that? She’s threatening me right in front of you!”
“Shut your fuckin’ mouth, dick face!”
“Make me, bitch.”
Boulder leaned against the wall, arms crossed, unimpressed. Maggie could feel her patience sliding away. Nothing here to arrest. Nothing here they could fix.
“Listen,” Maggie said. “You’ve both been drinking. You’re in your house—that’s your right. But you keep calling us out, and unless there’s an actual crime—”
“We pay your fuckin’ salary!” Tammy shrieked. “You’re supposed to protect me!”
Actually, Maggie knew, she was paying their salary. Both were on permanent disability, though they looked quite able-bodied. That meant they were being paid out of that part of Maggie’s paycheck she didn’t get to keep. But she didn’t point that out. The body cam was live, after all.
“What am I protecting you from?” Maggie asked.
“From him!”
Mark pointed right back at her. “Protect me from her!”
“You two really need to separate for the night,” Boulder said, tone even.
“Fuck that,” Mark barked. “This is my house.”
“It’s my house!” Tammy shot back. “My name’s on the lease!”
Maggie shook her head. “Then figure it out yourselves, because we can’t babysit you all night.”
That set them both off again, loud and furious. “You’re useless!” Mark shouted. “Next time we’re calling the police department. See if they give a shit!”
“Yeah!” Tammy screamed. “You can get the fuck out of my house!”
Maggie glanced at Boulder. Boulder shrugged. Nothing more to do here. They stepped back into the rain and let the door slam behind them.
“If only it worked that way,” Maggie said as they trudged through the rain back to their units. “They could just call the department they like the most.”
Boulder gave her a side-eye. “Law enforcement operating under capitalism. We should look into this.”
Maggie snorted. “Already been tried. Chicago PD during Prohibition. Didn’t end well.”
She slid back into her patrol unit. Thirty-five minutes gone, and it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet. And she knew the Browns weren’t done. Not by a long shot.
The next dispatch to the Browns’ quaint little domicile came in at 11:30. By then Maggie had already run three calls, all of them disputes. ‘Tis the season.
The rain was still coming down, though it had slacked off from the earlier sheets. Inside her patrol unit she had the air conditioner blasting through the defrost vents just to keep the windshield clear. The rain jacket made the cab muggy and damp, but the second she stepped outside it was cold as fuck, the wind cutting sharp with every gust.
She still hadn’t had coffee. The granola bar in her war bag was untouched. She’d been running non-stop since leaving the station.
And then the MDT lit up.
1911 Polk Avenue. Domestic dispute.
The fucking Browns. Again.
She scowled, then read the assignment line. Primary: 11-A-1. Jenkins.
Well. That could be interesting. She’d get to run a call with the legend after all. She wondered how he’d handle the Browns. Maybe, after eighteen years, he had some secret trick for dealing with these assholes. Maybe he’d walk in, say three magic words, and shut them both down. Or maybe he’d just suffer through like everyone else.
Maggie thumbed the mic. “Twelve-Adam, copy, en route.”
Dispatch clicked acknowledgment in that same bored holiday tone.
She didn’t need the mapping software. She rarely did anymore. Especially not for this address she had been to a few dozen times since being assigned to District 1.
The wipers clacked across the glass as she turned onto North Avenue, the glow of streetlights reflecting off the wet pavement. The second round with Mark and Tammy Brown was waiting.
Maggie pulled up to the corner of North and Polk, wipers thumping, rain coming down in steady curtains. She waited until the familiar green-and-white of Eleven-Adam rolled in behind her, then eased forward and parked at the curb just past the Browns’ fourplex.
She stepped out into the wet and adjusted her rain jacket. Jenkins came up beside her, tall and solid, moving with the easy confidence of eighteen years on the job. He gave her a sideways look. “Weren’t you just at this address a few hours ago?” he asked.
“Yep,” Maggie said. “Mark and Tammy Brown. Chronic domestics. They get hammered, start screaming at each other, call us out. It’s all verbal, never physical. No crime. They refuse to separate for the night, so we end up babysitting. One call is never just one call. Someone will be back here three, four, five times before the shift’s over. They smoke like chimneys, reek like a distillery, and scream about bullshit from two years ago. It’s like a time-share in hell.”
Jenkins listened, face unreadable. Then he shrugged. “Fuck that. I’ll take care of this.”
Maggie gave him a look. “You’re not gonna shoot them, are you?”
He grinned. “Too much paperwork. I’m going to solve this problem for the night, and I’ll do it in less than five minutes.”
She shook her head. “You’re joking.”
“Nope,” he said. “Watch and learn.”
They walked up the cracked concrete path. Inside, voices roared—Tammy and Mark at full volume, screaming about something Maggie couldn’t even parse.
“What’s the male’s name again?” Jenkins asked.
“Mark,” Maggie said.
Jenkins nodded once, then hammered on the door. “Sheriff’s Department!”
The door swung open and Tammy filled the frame, dirty-blonde hair hanging limp, her BBW OG! sweater stretched across her bulk, cartoon chubby woman flashing her ass like a punchline. Smoke billowed out around her.
She launched right into it. “That fucking asshole says he ain’t gonna fuck me no more if I don’t shave my pussy! But he won’t go down to the store to get me no razors or that fuckin’ shit you put on before you shave—y’know, the shit in the pink can?”
Jenkins didn’t even flinch. “Where’s Mark?”
“In the fuckin’ living room,” she said. “Watchin’ some fucked-up shit on that cable channel we pay too much for.”
“Go get him,” Jenkins said calmly. “I need to talk to him.”
Tammy spun around and bellowed into the house. “Mark! Get your ass over here! The fuckin’ cops want to talk to you!”
Mark appeared, tall and wiry, tattoos crawling up his arms, long greasy hair swinging. The eyeball tattoo over his left eye seemed to stare harder than he did. A cigarette dangled from his lip.
“She’s full of shit,” he announced before he even cleared the hall. “She don’t have no intention of shaving her pussy so I can fuck her. She’s just blowin’ smoke up my ass. She knows I can’t go down to the fuckin’ drug store this late to get that kind of shit.”
Tammy hollered right back. “You ain’t never satisfied, Mark! You wouldn’t know what to do with a shaved pussy anyway!”
Jenkins nodded like a priest hearing confession. He let them rant a few more seconds, then looked straight at Mark. “Step outside with me. I want to talk to you man to man.”
Mark blinked at him, suspicious, but the invitation of “man to man” appealed to his ego. “Fine.” He stomped onto the porch.
Maggie followed, confused. She had no idea what Jenkins was up to.
Jenkins turned to Mark. “Well, what do you know? You seem to be outside, in a public place, in a state of intoxication. That’s against the law.”
Mark straightened, outraged. “I ain’t in no fuckin’ public place. I’m on private property.”
“Not quite,” Jenkins said smoothly. “Since you’re plainly visible from the public street and the neighboring residences, you are, under the law, in a public place.” He gave a regretful shrug. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to arrest you for public intoxication. Turn around, put your hands behind your back.”
Mark exploded. “What the fuck! You can’t do this! You told me to come outside!”
Jenkins shrugged. “You didn’t have to,” he said. “That was only a suggestion, not a lawful command you had to follow. It was your choice to venture into public while intoxicated.”
“This ain’t fair!” Mark said. “Tammy, tell him this shit ain’t fair!”
From inside the doorway, Tammy shrieked. “Don’t you put your hands on him! He ain’t done nothin’ wrong!”
Mark kept shouting, but under Jenkins’ steady gaze, he turned, shoved his hands behind his back, and let the cuffs click shut.
Maggie stood there in awe. It was so simple. So clean. Not even illegal. A perfect solution to keep the peace in Brown Manor. Of course the charge would never stick, but that didn’t matter. The drunk in public law was never charged. It was just used to justify taking a nuisance case to jail for the night. And it was being brilliantly applied here.
Jenkins guided Mark down the walkway toward his patrol unit. “Problem solved for the night,” he said over his shoulder. “Watch and learn, Winslow.”
Maggie followed, still a little stunned. Five minutes. That was all it had taken.
Jenkins had not been bullshitting.
Maggie rolled into the driveway at 6:35 on Christmas morning. The rain had passed, leaving the streets washed clean and shining under streetlamps. Above, the stars were sharp for once, not blurred by haze. To the west, the gibbous moon hung fat and bright, sliding toward the horizon. To the east, a thin line of silver was creeping up, the first hints of dawn. It was going to be a beautiful day.
She hit the opener, let the garage door rumble up, and pulled her car into its usual spot. A tired sigh escaped her as she killed the engine and stepped inside.
The house smelled of coffee and cinnamon, warm after the wet chill outside. A full pot sat in the kitchen, steam rising, but the real glow came from the living room.
The tree lights blinked against the window, presents stacked underneath. Christopher hovered over his new bicycle, hands on the handlebars, eyes bright. Katie sat near the tree, hair mussed from sleep, trying not to look too obvious about the big gold-wrapped package she suspected held her “Santa” laptop she had asked for in her Email to Santa last month (along with a 3D printer, a GoPro helmet mounted camera, and a puppy).
Scott was there too, bleary in sweats and slippers, but his sweater stole the show: a lecherous-looking Santa winking with the words ASK YOUR MOM IF I’M REAL splashed across his chest.
Maggie laughed outright. “Dover, that is so you.”
Katie frowned. “It doesn’t even make sense. ‘Ask your mom if I’m real?’ What does that even mean?”
“Maybe in a few more years,” Maggie said, still grinning.
“We were waiting for you,” Scott said. “Haven’t opened anything yet.”
Maggie bent down and kissed Katie on the crown of her head, then Christopher on the cheek. Finally she turned to Scott. Without thinking too hard about it, she leaned in and kissed him softly on the lips.
He froze in surprise, then smiled.
Katie’s eyes widened. “You never kiss Dad on the lips!”
Maggie straightened, arching a brow. “I just felt like it this morning. Is there anything illegal about that?”
Christopher smirked. “You’re the cops. You tell us.”
“There is not,” Maggie said firmly.
She ruffled his hair and stepped toward the stairs. “Keep your jets on idle. I’ll be back in a minute and then we’ll open presents.”
Upstairs, she put her off-duty Glock into the nightstand drawer and locked it. She then traded the damp layers she’d been wearing for soft sweats. The bra went too, tossed aside without a second thought. From her dresser she pulled her own Christmas shirt—Santa hat, boughs of holly, snowflakes, and in glittery letters across the chest: SANTA’S FAVORITE HO!
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