Chapter 21
“It’s all starting to come together, oh mighty King of Bethlehem.”
Festive blurs of every color illuminated my apartment, warming every inch of my cold, dead heart.
I’d pulled my decorations out as soon as I’d gotten home, then couldn't stop myself from starting early, Luci or no.
I looked at Jesus to share in this joy and quickly had to hide my snort laugh via a giant gulp of carbonated grape juice.
The forty pound ball of menace sat swishing his tail on the coffee table, eyes glaring a hole through my forehead while he very pointedly told me mind-to-mind how much he hated the glitter Santa hat perched atop his head.
“Come on bud, don’t be so upset. You’re the reason for the season!” I threw up my hands and did a cheerful spin to prove all of this grandeur was a good thing. “An entire month dedicated to kissing your pink starfish and buying expensive shit for people they hate. Be happy!”
His dead-ass stare was now accented by a low growl. Apparently he didn’t love the sound of my joy.
“You can be sour all you want,” I pointed with a smile, “But I know you love Christmas.”
Wham!’s classic hit, Last Christmas, spread holiday cheer throughout my home as I decorated for my favorite holiday. I hadn’t put much stock into Christmas when I was alive. Probably because I had shitty parents. As a dead girl with adult money and a lifetime to spend it, though?
Ho, ho, ho, motherfucker.
I’d spent years honing my decorative collection, strategically picking each and every item until every nook and cranny was perfection. The trick was avoiding Hallmark stores. All of that generic bullshit lacked charm.
“Isn’t that right, Boswell?”
I straightened the green scarf wrapped around the neck of my taxidermied raccoon.
It was dotted with falling snow that really enhanced the sparkle in his glassy eyes and matched the elf hat sitting right between his ears.
I’d picked Boswell up from Marv’s Magic Mammals last year and doctored him up a little—glittered his whiskers, sewed some fluffy mittens to put on his paws, and even attached a bell to the tip of his hat.
“You are just the cutest little fucker in this whole city,” I said and booped his nose. “I’d let you hit it.”
Boswell was the last addition to my collection. I had birds, chihuahuas, opossums, ferrets, and every rodent you could think of. My prized possession, though, was Coca-Cola Carl.
I eyed the eight foot, one-hundred and fifty pound polar bear standing in the corner beside my live Virginia pine tree and sighed in total bliss. Other than the tree, he was my last decoration to complete.
I dove into the box reserved for Carl, humming along to the classic eighties Christmas song playing as I pulled all of Carl’s bells and whistles out.
“Scarf, check. Bedazzled Coke can, check.” Arms full to overflowing, I straightened and–“Oof!” The breath whooshed from my chest as I collided with steel.
Hands gripped my biceps, firm but not crushing, and kept me on my feet. Woodsmoke tinged whiskey hit my nose, and I knew before his lips ever touched my ear who stood behind me.
“Steady, Dany.”
Heat slid low, my knees went soft, and my breath hitched before my brain could catch it. Ridiculous, how one scent and two words could strike flint against everything I pretend is fireproof.
“Luci,” I panted; a sound I’d take the time to be embarrassed about later.
“You almost took quite the fall there.” His lilting accent sent a riveting chill straight down to my core.
I didn’t recover as quickly as I wanted to. Seconds felt like millennia as they passed while I tried to find some sense of composure. “Well,” I mumbled, trying not to squeeze my legs together to ease the instant ache his proximity caused. And then failing miserably.
“Does the cat have your snappy tongue, Dany?”
No, but I wish you did.
He laughed, low and controlled as if he’d heard my thought, the rumble of it vibrating my back where we touched. Every synapse in my brain misfired as a result. My back arched and, just as I could feel the start of him at my ass, Lucifer stepped back and left me wanting.
I refrained from looking at his face because I knew there would be a stupid fucking smirk on it and there was no telling what sort of lust heated my cheeks.
As much as I wanted to think that he didn’t realize what his presence does to me, I knew it was a damning lie.
He was the Devil, and sin was his five course meal.
I swallowed and took a deep breath, reaching for my deflection skills until I could get my shit under control around him. “Have you come to let me sit on your lap and read my Christmas list? Because I have to warn you, Santa, I’ve been a very, very naughty girl this year.”
Carl’s scarf slipped between my fingers, but I didn’t stop to pick it up. If I turned around now and saw his face, I’d likely combust.
“Dany,” Lucifer said.
“Mmm?” I hummed in response, paying way too much attention to how the Coke can was positioned in Carl’s paw.
He stepped toward me slowly, awareness prickling at my back with each dying inch between us. Fabric bristled and in seconds, Lucifer loomed behind me, wrapping the knitted red scarf around Carl’s neck.
“I’ve never seen a bear wear a scarf. Is this correct?” he asked and smoothed the edges.
I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t even think past the way he seemed to envelope me without even touching.
“Dany?” he tried again.
“Luci?” I answered breathlessly.
“I am sorry,” he whispered. “I was unkind to you–”
“Why?” I asked, turning on my heel and faltering when our noses almost touched. Judas help me. He was so close. His faded green iris marred by the scar crossing it from forehead to cheekbone shone just as beautifully as the other. “Why did you yell at me? Move up the deal?”
It was the question burning in my mind since that night. I’d been dead for thirty years Joe wasn’t my first fuck. Because, that’s all it was. A girl had needs, especially when she was using it as a BandAid for self-loathing. Never, though, had Lucifer punished me for it.
I had a theory though. One that made me breathless.
Say it, I begged. Jealous. You were jealous.
Fine muscles in his jaw jumped as he contemplated his words as if he were chewing on them. When he finally spoke, he said, “He’s not right for you. The life he dangles in front of you, it’s not real. And I…” he looked away before meeting my gaze again. “I will not stand to see you hurt for it.”
The words weren’t a claim, but they pulsed like one. Maybe jealousy. Maybe just him drawing a circle around me and daring the world to step in. Either way, I felt it.
“You yelled,” I said, softer than I meant to. “You moved the deal.”
“I know.” He didn’t say it shyly or back away. He didn’t bend the night into a story that suited him or shove the ledger between us like a shield. There was no claim that our fight was my fault. I hadn’t earned it. Lucifer named what he did and left it there.
Judas save me.
“And the deal? Has it still changed?”
His jaw clenched again, but he did not lie. “Yes.”
I considered him for a long moment, and then nodded to the polar bear and asked abruptly, “Do you like it?”
The corner of his mouth quirked ever-so slightly. “Your poor choice in decorum?”
“My fine taste in holiday cheer? Yes. In fact,” I said and stepped around him to drag the final tote over to his feet. “You’re just in time to help me decorate the tree.”
Lucifer eyed the wooden fluff of perfection standing proudly before the only window in my living room just as New Kids on the Block rolled in with White Christmas.
“Jesus!” I exclaimed. “Tell daddy I said thank you! He must have known this is my favorite song to listen to while I hang the stockings.”
“I highly doubt He cares enough to ministrate your holiday decorating ceremony,” Lucifer quipped.
I threw a ‘are you fucking kidding me right now’ face over my shoulder and said, “Seriously, Luci, don’t kill my vibe. ‘Tis the season, bitch. Get festive or get lost.”
I tried not to track his movements through my apartment as I pulled the start of my garland from its box.
It was impossible, however. As nonchalantly as I could manage, I wound the garland around the tree.
Lucifer surprised me again when I found him waiting on the other side to grab the garland, drape it on his side, and hand it back off to me.
Lucifer Morningstar was helping me decorate my Christmas tree.
“What is this made of?” He questioned with a slight wrinkle on his nose. “This isn’t any sort of ridiculously gaudy human tinsel I’ve ever seen.”
“Oh, this little ole thing?” I held it up for emphasis and then dropped the bomb. “Just a long string of intestines I worked really hard to harvest, dry, and sew together. Sooo, it is technically a gaudy human tinsel.”
I could tell by his pause that I’d caught him off guard.
Dany: one. Lucifer: zero.
I grinned and hoped it was as evil as it felt.
“I never pictured you as the domesticated type,” he murmured, the sound so quiet it took a minute for his words to register in my brain.
“Erm, which part of hanging intestines on an evergreen tree surrounded by taxidermied rodents wearing jingle bells screams ‘domesticated’ to you? Unhinged or psychotic, maybe, but definitely not domesticated.”
We’d wrapped the garland in comradery far enough around that it was getting to the point where I couldn’t reach it anymore.
“Hold this for a second,” I said and draped the end of the shriveled intestine over his shoulder.
Lucifer’s lip twisted into a small sneer as he asked, “Where are you going?”
“To get a stool,” I answered matter-of-factly with a slight edge of ‘duh, dumbass’. “I can’t reach the top.”
I ignored his sigh and opened my hall closet door with a matching huff of irritation. The handle of a rusty rake fell out, narrowly missing my head, followed by an old wooden pillory, a bloody hockey stick, and a few femur bones I kept for good luck.