Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Grumble Monkey and the Department Store Elf
    Grumble Monkey and the Department Store Elf
    Grumble Monkey and the Department Store Elf
    Ebook99 pages1 hour

    Grumble Monkey and the Department Store Elf

    By B.G. Thomas

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Kit Jefferies, a part-time department store Christmas elf, is an artist who loves life and his family. Unfortunately, his car dies at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere as he is heading home for Christmas. Enter Nick St. George.

    Nick is a very unhappy man—he's achieved his professional goals only to find the rest of his life bleak and empty. Deciding there was only one way to make everything right, he is on his way to San Francisco on a dark mission, and even the horrible sleet storm that blocked his path won't deter him. That's when he found Kit.

    At first, Nick is pretty sure rescuing Kit was a big mistake. Kit's personality is just too, well, effervescent. But as the miles go by, Kit begins to bring light to his dark heart. It might even be bright enough to illuminate a Christmas miracle.

    A story from the Dreamspinner Press 2013 Advent Calendar package "Heartwarming".

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDreamspinner Press
    Release dateDec 1, 2013
    ISBN9781627986045
    Grumble Monkey and the Department Store Elf
    Author

    B.G. Thomas

    B.G. Thomas lives in Kansas City with his two husbands—which yes, is different, but amazingly rewarding and wonderfully romantic. They have two sweet rescue dogs named Oliver (who the breed name Dorkie applies perfectly) and Frodo (who is just learning to be a dog). He is missing his soul dog Sarah Jane very much, but she will live on forever in several of his books and in his heart. He is also blessed to have a lovely daughter and they love to hang out. B.G. loves to read romance, comedy, fantasy, thrillers, mystery, science fiction, and even horror—as far as he is concerned, as long as the stories are character driven and entertaining, it doesn’t matter the genre. He has gone to literature conventions his entire adult life, where he’s been lucky enough to meet many of his favorite writers. He has made up stories since he was a child; it’s where he finds his joy. In the nineties, he wrote for gay adult magazines but stopped because the editors wanted all sex without plot, and edited his setups right out. “The sex is never as important as the characters,” he says. “Who cares what they are doing if we don’t care about them?” Excited about the growing male/male romance market—where setup and cute meets is where it’s at—he began writing again. He submitted a novella and was thrilled when it was accepted in four days. Since then the romantic tales have poured out of him. “It’s like I’m somehow making up for a lifetime’s worth of story-telling!” “Leap, and the net will appear” is his personal philosophy and his message. “It is never too late,” he testifies. “Pursue your dreams. They will come true!” You can read about whatever he’s working on right now or whatever he’s rambling on about at his website/blog at: bthomaswriter.wordpress.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/bgthomaswriter Twitter: twitter.com/BGThomasBooks He is always happy to hear from his readers!

    Read more from B.G. Thomas

    Related to Grumble Monkey and the Department Store Elf

    Related ebooks

    Romance For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Free Styling

      Aug 3, 2021

      Free Styling
      7 min read

    • Article

      Making Waves

      Feb 25, 2020

      Making Waves
      11 min read

    • Article

      Hunting T-rex

      Apr 3, 2023

      The Hunt for T-Rex had led us, eventually, to the small Southern Californian town of Taft, where we’d systematically searched the streets and found the white 1959 Cadillac that we’d learnt about through popular Bakersfield and Los Angeles hot rodding

      11 min read

    • Article

      They Got Their Show

      Aug 10, 2021

      It is midnight in Ponderosa and Nick Velasquez can’t sleep. The public doesn’t want him to sleep. It’s been like this ever since it hit all the big streaming platforms. The viewers stay up bingeing and he… well, he has been bingeing in his own way. W

      14 min read

    • Article

      Yule be SO BUSY

      Dec 9, 2020

      “The scene I am about to describe is one of such domestic bliss that we could have been advertising Oxo cubes, or one of those useful gadgets that beats as it sweeps as it cleans (or possibly kills 99% of household germs, I forget which). Picture m

      3 min read

    • Article

      Ready, Set, Let go!

      May 15, 2019

      Ready, Set, Let go!
      11 min read

    • Article

      Stockpiling for Winter

      Dec 14, 2018

      Stockpiling for Winter
      3 min read

    • Article

      Hardly Never in Vegas: Fat Johnny Little and Salty Salt Sue make a break for the desert.

      Jun 18, 2015

      Salty Salt Sue met Fat Johnny Little at a card game so hot it burned a girl, the sultry Louisiana night dampening her clothes, making her tingle from the waist down. She sat next to Vinnie DeLuca, who bore a passing resemblance to Dillinger—his penci

      11 min read

    • Article

      Hardly Never in Vegas: Fat Johnny Little and Salty Salt Sue make a break for the desert.

      Aug 8, 2013

      Salty Salt Sue met Fat Johnny Little at a card game so hot it burned a girl, the sultry Louisiana night dampening her clothes, making her tingle from the waist down. She sat next to Vinnie DeLuca, who bore a passing resemblance to Dillinger—his penci

      11 min read

    • Article

      Hunting T-rex

      Feb 12, 2023

      While ‘the little old lady from Taft’ doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as ‘the little old lady from Pasadena’ (who owned — according to songwriters Jan and Dean — a ‘brand new shiny red super stock Dodge’), Mark II and I were nevertheless on ou

      10 min read

    • Article

      Hunting T-rex

      Feb 12, 2023

      While ‘the little old lady from Taft’ doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as ‘the little old lady from Pasadena’ (who owned — according to songwriters Jan and Dean — a ‘brand new shiny red super stock Dodge’), Mark II and I were nevertheless on ou

      10 min read

    • Article

      Restless Souls

      Mar 6, 2018

      Restless Souls
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Dullard

      Jun 5, 2019

      The villagers of Yockenthwaite knew him as ‘Jack Dull’, ‘Jack Dolt,’ or sometimes just ‘The Dullard’. His real name was John Dullard, last in a long, illustrious line of Dullards, and a man – so they said – of quite miraculous stupidity. The kind of

      7 min read

    • Article

      Thornhope, Indiana

      Jan 1, 2020

      Thornhope, Indiana
      17 min read

    • Article

      One Man’s Hobby and His Marvellous Shed

      Mar 4, 2022

      The first thing you see at the door of the Matthews Vintage Collection is a gleaming red Singer Roadster. It looks as though it should be starring alongside Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in a big-budget movie. It’s a magnificent introduction to the collect

      4 min read

    • Article

      I’m Going To KILL YOU!

      Aug 23, 2023

      I’m Going To KILL YOU!
      2 min read

    • Article

      I’m Going To KILL YOU!

      Aug 23, 2023

      I’m Going To KILL YOU!
      2 min read

    • Article

      FotoQuick

      Mar 1, 2023

      FotoQuick
      12 min read

    • Article

      Thieves

      Apr 11, 2018

      Thieves
      25 min read

    • Article

      Rosemary Handy ANDY

      Jan 27, 2021

      “Readers who have been good enough to take notes might remember our neighbour Carolyn, who is something in insurance and obviously does very well because she drives a bright red soft-top car that makes Mr Dear sigh with envy every time he passes it.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Wheelie STUPID!

      Aug 15, 2021

      What’s the most ludicrous thing you’ve ever done? I don’t mean ill-considered, like that first husband you married. Or unwise, like selling shares at a loss when Covid struck. (Who’d have known they’d bounce back?) No, I mean just straight embarrassi

      1 min read

    • Article

      Chris Erskine: We're In Need Of A Little Refinishing

      May 1, 2018

      We are a house of half-done things. The tomatoes are semi-planted, and the old dresser may never be refinished. The other day, I noticed the electric pencil sharper has a little stub in it from when someone broke off a tip. One of the inmates was pro

      3 min read

    • Article

      Talking RUBBISH

      Jul 1, 2020

      “It was like a moment from a Noël Coward play. You know, the bit where the lovers meet again for the first time in many years and it’s all slightly formal and awkward. There always seems to be a moment like that in a Noël Coward play. Not that I’m

      3 min read

    • Article

      Street Meat

      Nov 4, 2021

      Street Meat
      10 min read

    • Article

      Robert C. Koehler: Reclaiming A Lost Sense Of Community

      Nov 25, 2021

      The first time it happened was bad enough. “It” amounted to this: It was Wednesday afternoon, I had finished my column early and walked out to my car, parked in the alley behind my house. I was on my way to an art show — very excited. I got in the ca

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Grumble Monkey and the Department Store Elf

    4/5

    1 rating0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Grumble Monkey and the Department Store Elf - B.G. Thomas

      Broughton

      Grumble Monkey and the Department Store Elf

      BABY, IT’S cold outside, declared the famous old song from the speakers of the car radio.

      No kidding, thought Nick. It was cold. It was colder than a well-digger’s butt in the Klondike, is what it was. Colder than a nun’s buns in a steel chastity belt.

      In other words, it was damned cold.

      The windshield wipers were icing up bad again, and Nick knew he was going to have to try to pull over and clean them—a prospect he didn’t relish, with its very real possibility of being struck by a passing motorist. The shoulder of the road was piled high with snow, and in most places there was nowhere to stop the car. In front of him was nothing but snow and ice and a gray and ugly sky. And sleet. It was the scariest driving he’d ever done in his life.

      And that’s when he saw the sign. Rest Area One Mile, it read, along with the information that it was twenty miles to the next stop. A distance that would take another hour at the speed he was being forced to drive. Nick hadn’t dared go over thirty-five miles an hour since he’d left the motel.

      At this speed, I won’t get there on time.

      When Nick woke up that morning in the tiny, crappy motel room and turned on the TV with its strangely yellow-tinted screen, the first thing he’d seen was the weather advisory. Sleet, sleet, and more sleet, and cautions to drive only if it was absolutely necessary. But wasn’t it? Hadn’t he made up his mind (finally) that it was completely necessary?

      Despite that, Nick thought about staying another night. But for what? Certainly not the scenic locale. Not the luxurious accommodations. Undoubtedly, not the cuisine. Dinner last night had been a bag of Lay’s potato chips, some trail mix, and an ancient Snickers bar for dessert (via the vending machine in the motel office). The little hole-in-the-wall restaurant across the street had been closed—as in permanently—and the local pizza place, several miles away and the only option for hot food, was closing as he called. The bastards had refused to deliver even when he offered them an extra twenty bucks. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t afford it.

      That’s what you get for driving so late last night.

      BUT HE wanted to get to San Francisco. He wanted to get there by Christmas Day, and that certainly wasn’t going to happen now, was it? Not if this ice storm didn’t clear up soon, or unless he drove far enough to move out of it. He’d already driven for sixteen hours straight.

      Why does it have to be Christmas Day?

      It was that internal question again, and he squashed it down and made the split-second decision to pull off the road. But even driving at only thirty-five miles an hour, it was too fast, and for one brief alarming instant (which seemed to last about a week), he thought he was going to go into a ditch as the car swerved first one way and then another. Somehow, through the grace of Who-knew-what (if there was any What, and Nick had stopped believing in fairy tales long ago), he got the car under control, just barely missing a red-and-brown Jeep at the bottom of the off-ramp. A moment later he sat—panting, heart racing, knuckles white from his grip on the steering wheel—in a parking space in front of the nondescript building in the middle of nowhere.

      This is ridiculous, he told himself.

      He should have stayed at that motel, hellacious as it had been, with its musty, moldy smell (except for the office, which had reeked of curry so strongly he’d hardly been able to breathe,) and its nasty-smelling towels and the dripping faucet and the dead pill bug by the drain (and where had it come from, he’d wondered). Not to mention the pair of panties he’d found behind the bed when he’d tossed his glasses next to the lamp, and they’d skidded across the surface of the end table and onto the floor.

      That morning, as he sat on the edge of that uncomfortable bed, watching the crappy television, he had known, ice storm or not, there was no way he was staying at that motel another day. So despite the weatherman’s frantic misgivings, Nick had hit the road—only to discover how bad it really was. Now he was sitting in a rest-area parking lot, hundreds of miles from his goal, his only shelter either his Bentley or a small building that most probably reeked of piss.

      Why should any of this be a surprise? Whatever could go wrong, would go wrong, were the words of the famous prophet and sage. Those words, and the equally well-known if it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all, were his themes. It had always been that way. Why should things change?

      Well, Nick thought as he sat there, his wipers still slapping noisily across the windshield. Might as well make do. Take advantage of the situation. He turned off the engine, along with the duetting voices of Barry Manilow and K.T. Oslin, pulled on his knit cap, turned up the collar on his Eddie Bauer coat, and got out of the car. He glanced at those ice-encrusted windshield wipers, shrugged and decided they would wait, and without another look, headed into the brick building.

      Nick was surprised when he walked into the lobby. For what it was, the word nice might almost have applied. The room was well lit, with nary a burnt-out bulb, and there was a pleasant smell, manufactured though it may have been, of lavender and disinfectant. The walls were clean, if not the floor (but that was due to the wet feet of travelers escaping sleety weather, not neglect). Nice photographs had been hung—a few nature scenes, as well as neighboring cityscapes—and there was a kiosk of maps and pamphlets for local attractions in one corner. Two nearly comfortable-looking couches were along one side of the room, as well as (of course) the ever-present soda and snack vending machines. At least these had packaging that looked new, and not from a previous century (he shuddered at the thought of last night’s petrified candy bar).

      Not too bad.

      Color me surprised.

      Of course, he hadn’t gone into the actual bathroom itself, had he?

      Nick braced himself.

      Once more into the breach.

      And surprise, surprise. Clean! Spick-and-span. The bathroom was all tile and stainless steel and mirrors that might have been cleaned in the last few hours, although the weather surely would have prevented that. The smell of the room deodorizer that was being used wasn’t so strong that it made him want to gag, nor was there the heavy piss smell he’d imagined. The dividing walls separating the toilets went all the way to the floor—no hanky-panky

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1