Chapter Nine
“Give me that!”
“Get your own!”
“That is my own, you donkey!”
“Stop pushing me!”
“I’m going to do more than push you if you don’t give me that pretzel! I’ll push you in front of the Polar Express over there.”
I shove Archie a second time, making a grab for my mall pretzel.
“I told you , get your own!” He shoves back.
Okay, that’s it. He asked for it. Time to pull out the big guns.
“Baaaaaz!” I whine.
And what does Baaaaaz do? My best friend in the whole wide world? The only man I have ever, or likely will ever, love?
Nothing.
He does nothing.
Zilch. Nada.
Less than nothing, even. He doesn’t acknowledge the fight, Archie – me.
His feet keep on moving forward, carrying him to the parking garage. His arms swing steadily, bags of presents swinging with them. His face – his beautiful, gorgeous face – stays pointed ahead, singularly focused on the doors fifty feet in front of us.
“Baz!” I all but shriek. He still doesn’t pause, but he does utter three words so filled with malice that I nearly take a step – or several – back. The only thing stopping me is that this is Basil. My Basil.
“Give. It. Back.”
Archie’s head snaps toward the larger man, and I watch with satisfaction as his face goes through all the stages of grief, one after another – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance – before he finally hands me the now half-eaten pretzel. I clasp it to my chest and move so that Baz is between us, only taking a bite once I’m firmly in the safe zone.
Archie’s eyes narrow, and his thumb runs across his throat in what I suppose he means to be a threat. I grin at him, pretzel salt sticking to my teeth, then take another bite. He glares.
Yeah. Take that, sucker.
As we reach the doors to the parking garage, I take my final bite, humming merrily along to the Christmas tunes blasting through the mall’s speaker system.
Once out of the building, I skip to Baz’s Jeep, waiting for the beep that tells me I can hop in. It comes quickly, followed by the sound of bags being loaded into the back – man stuff. Not my problem.
I focus instead on the music situation, loading up my favorite wintertime playlist to be ready to go the minute Baz starts the car.
I don’t have to wait too long. Soon enough, Baz is jumping into the driver’s seat as if the mall is on fire, barely waiting for Archie to hop in before he reverses out of our spot and speeding away. I turn around to Archie, raising my eyebrows. He shrugs.
“You okay there, honey?” I ask Baz, facing the front and hooking my phone up to the car’s radio. His hand darts out, grabbing my own in a firm grip.
“If you turn on a single Christmas song, I will throw your phone out the window,” he growls.
I bite my lip to hold in a laugh. Oh, my poor, sweet Bazzy.
“Okay, Baz,” I answer him softly after I’ve conquered the urge to cackle. “No Christmas music. Are you okay with CubeCraft music instead?”
He grunts his I don’t care grunt, so I switch to Archie’s playlist of collected CubeCraft songs, and Archie and I jam out the entire ride home, scream-singing every song at the top of our lungs. Baz grimaces a few times but doesn’t stop us. I make a mental note to make him some hot chocolate later. The man is in desperate need of a treat.
We make one stop at some sort of construction supply store, where Archie runs in and back out quickly, carrying several bags with wires sticking out of them upon his return. They go in the back with the gifts, and then we start our journey home, CubeCraft music fueling us.
We arrive at our house a little after lunchtime, and I walk over to Rosie’s to pick up our company-provided meal while the guys take all of the bags inside. A pink square breaks up the purple of her front door.
I grab the sticky note and scan it.
Not home. Lunch in your fridge. Love you, dears. -Mum
I smile. What an absolute angel.
I do a one-eighty and head back to my house, excited to see what delicious yummies Rosie has left for us. I beeline to the kitchen once I’m inside, not taking my warm outdoor gear off in the below-freezing temperatures of the house.
I pass boxes and bags and totes full of Christmas clutter, Archie and Baz standing amongst them, on my way.
“Rosie lunch is in the fridge!” I call behind me, then laugh at the sound of bags crinkling and boxes falling as they follow me.
Christmas! The downfall of covert operatives everywhere!
I beat them to the kitchen and am pulling out a large, snowman-themed gift bag from the fridge when they join me. We sit at the small four-person table that Baz made when he moved in. I take a seat in front of the spot where I carved Heidi’s Spot into the wood, and Baz sits to my right. Archie settles in across from us and grabs the bag, pulling out three bento boxes – red, purple, and black. Three more containers follow, smaller than the bentos, in the same colors. Lastly, three thermoses. Red, purple, black, he pulls them out.
I wiggle.
“Color-coded!” I squeal, taking the purple for myself and pushing the black at Baz. Archie grins as he opens his red thermos.
“Cider,” he tells us, moving on to the smaller container. “And Christmas cake!”
Baz slides his chair out beside me, the wooden legs scraping loudly against the floor, and gets us some forks, then settles back in his chair, and we dig in.
I hum in satisfaction at the delicious beauty that is Christmas cake.
“Your mom is the best!” I cry around the goodness in my mouth, earning a shake of Baz’s head and a glare from Archie, who gives me a reminder to mind my manners. I stick a cake-covered tongue out at him. He fakes a gag.
Bazzy’s hand covers my thigh under the table and gives it a squeeze.
Behave.
I pout, then swallow my cake.
“He started it,” I mumble, pushing aside my empty container. Baz’s hand flexes on my thigh again, then relaxes.
“You’re fixing the power after we eat?” I ask Archie as I open my bento, then get immediately distracted by the absolute holiday perfection that Rosie has made for me. “Oh my gosh! They’re wearing Santa hats! They’re like us!”
I gaze down at the three little rice elves. They have Santa hats, as mentioned, and hold in their tiny nori hands presents made of carrot and cucumber with miniature broccoli bows.
“I love them!” I proclaim. “I’m supposed to eat them? How? For why?” I shake my head. “I can’t. I’ll have to starve instead. They’re too precious – too cute. They must live on forever. There’s no other way.”
Baz’s hand leaves my thigh to rest on top of my head. He turns my face toward his, away from the beautiful creation his mother has made me, and shakes his head.
“But look!” I protest. I point at the elves. It’s clear he hasn’t actually seen them. If he had seen them, he would not dare suggest that I should chomp them up. Even he, cold-blooded ex-assassin that he is, could not suggest such a thing.
He spares them but a glance and shakes his head again.
Don’t waste food.
He lets go of my head, wasting no time turning to his own elves and biting one of their pointy-eared heads off. Sad face. Apparently, the cold blooded ex-assassin could dare to suggest such a thing.
I look at Archie, who similarly does not seem to have any qualms about the terrors the elves face. Two of his are fighting to the death in his box, hitting each other with cucumber presents and bleeding red sriracha blood. The loser of the elf battle finds himself further decimated by Archie’s teeth.
Okay. All right. I guess I will eat. But I do not have to like it.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell my elves, turning back to them, “but I’m sure you understand that this is always the way it was going to go. You were created to be destroyed – to bring life and joy to others for but a fleeting moment before your death, which will provide sustenance and even more joy, if you can believe it. Thank you for your sacrifice today.”
I bow my head in a solemn moment of silence, then, before I can talk myself out of it, I pick up one ultra cute head and shove it in my mouth. I chew, and as the taste of sweet and spicy chicken bursts through the rice, my apprehension melts away.
A little death isn’t so bad, is it? Surely not, if the result is this yumminess on my tongue.
“I will fix it after lunch, yes,” Archie says. I look at him, brows furrowed.
“What?” I ask, then shove another elf head into my mouth. It is just as wonderful as the last.
“The power?”
Ah. Yes. That.
I nod, swallow my elf, and give him a thumbs up. What do I care about electricity anyway? I have Christmas creatures to eat.
And eat we do, relaxed and with only minorly shivering.
Basil finishes his food first, then spends the rest of lunch feeding me bites of rice, chicken, and vegetables whenever I get too chatty at Archie. I thank him with a smile, and he bends over to rub his forehead on my shoulder.
You’re welcome .
Goodness, he makes it hard to be respectful.
After we finish our food, I gather up the dishes to rinse them while Archie gets to work on turning the lights – and heat – back on, and Baz heads outside to retrieve the tree for decorating.
I’m done rinsing out the bentos and have them neatly stacked in the sink to wash later before either of the guys are done with their tasks, so I make my way to the living room and start picking up fallen boxes and organizing them against the wall in neat stacks, separated by which room they decorate.
Bazzy comes in the front door, dragging the tree right as I’m balancing the final box onto the stack of upstairs decorations. I rush away from my box towers to set up the tree stand and just manage to get it ready by the time Baz has dragged the tree through the door, around the couch, and to the corner without knocking anything over or poking a million pine needle-sized holes into the fabric of the couch.
He is so talented, that Basil.
We work to get the tree upright on the stand. Meaning Baz gets the tree upright while I run around holding my arms out and yelling every time it tips too far in any direction. He does not thank me for my help, which I find rather rude, as well as the way his hands flick, shooing me elsewhere. I harrumph.
Fine. I can take a hint.
I grab the box at the top of the living room stack labeled “candles” and set them around the room, lighting them with the matches that were at the bottom of the box. The candles are various scents – pine, amber, vanilla, cinnamon, cedar – and they work together to make our home smell exactly like what I imagine the North Pole to smell like.
The tiny flames heat the room enough to make taking off my coat a good idea, so I do, hanging it in the closet and hoping I won’t need it again today. Surely it can’t take that long to fix a breaker box, right?
Wrong.
Baz and I are on box three of Christmas tree baubles before the lights come back on, and the house itself doesn’t feel warm until I’m on Baz’s back, reaching high to set the star on top of the fully adorned evergreen.
After I have it secured, I wrap my arms around his neck and smile.
“Christmas, Bazzy,” I whisper into his ear.
His body shivers beneath me, and I cling tighter, trying to lend him what paltry amounts of warmth I have. The hands he has on my thighs to hold me steady tighten, then loosen, signaling me to get down. I do, sliding down his back until my still-booted feet hit the ground, then I wrap my arms around his waist and squeeze three times.
He turns, dislodging me, and pulls me in for an even better hug. One, two, three.
I love you, too.
I smile and dig my face into his chest. The soft material of his shirt rubs against my skin, and I find myself grateful that he took his rough outdoor coat off around the time we were adding lights to the tree. I like the feel of cotton beneath my cheek, and I like even more that I can hear his heartbeat through it, steady and strong, without any pesky layers keeping the rhythm hidden from me. It is a song I never want to be far from.
I sigh.
Christmas – the most wonderful time of the year. Joy, peace, love, happiness. Everything that is good and lovely. Comfort and memories.
This moment, surrounded by the scent of the holidays and held in the arms of my very best friend.
“Can I ask you a question, Bazzy?” I speak softly, half hoping he won’t hear me.
No such luck.
He hums low, an affirmation.
“How come you don’t like Christmas?” My eyes well up at the question. It’s not fair to him, not even a little bit, but knowing he doesn’t love these moments the way I do, even if it’s only as friends? That kills a little something inside of me.
It feels like the worst kind of cosmic joke that I would be given this man – this kind, caring, wonderful, perfect man – only for him to never feel the same way as I do. Only for him to hate the bits of magic that are everything to me.
I mean, is it too much to ask?
Is it too much to ask for him to love Christmas?
Is it too much to ask for him to love me ?