Page 122 of The Badger in His Burrow

“And that’s why I need your hot ass,” he retorted, smirking, as he bent forward to take three cookies out of the package sitting on my legs.

“It’s not going to stay hot if you keep shoving your icy feet under it,” I grumbled.

“Oh, baby, your ass is hot no matter what temperature it is,” he retorted.

I rolled my eyes and pulled apart another cookie, eating the side without frosting first—I liked to save the best for last. “You say that now,” I replied. “But if my ass were cold, you wouldn’t be sticking your feet under it.”

He wiggled his toes, earning himself a mock glare. “I will never turn down sticking anything in your ass,” he told me.

“Jesus, Elliot.” Every now and then I forgot he was Hart’s best friend. And then he said things like that, and I was reminded.

He barked out a laugh in response, then grabbed the remote and turned on the TV, flicking through until he found a show about people living off grid in Alaska or Canada or Greenland or somewhere. Noah and I’d never had actual TV, but Elliot liked to watch it. I didn’t mind, I just had no frame of reference for who the bearded men were and why they were constantly traipsing through the snowy woods and not shooting anything in spite of carrying guns everywhere.

I pulled out my phone, then opened my e-reading app, pulling up the latest mystery thriller Noah insisted Ihadto read.

“Would you rather I didn’t have the TV on?” Elliot asked me over a commercial about some place called a Fleet Farm in Green Bay.

I blinked, looking up. “Oh, I don’t care,” I replied honestly. I can read through pretty much any noise—TV, music, Noah babbling at me… Then it occurred to me that he might not be asking about my comfort level. “Does it bother you if I read?” Maybe he wanted us to bond over his show.

One side of his lips curved up. “Nope,” he replied, his tone amused. “You’re kind of adorable when you do it, though.”

I stared. “I’m… adorable when I read?”

He nodded. “You get this little furrow right here.” He touched the spot between his eyebrows.

I felt my neck flush. “Oh. Um. Okay.” And now I was having trouble concentrating on the words on my phone because I felt self-conscious. Elliot laughed, but it was good-humored, not mean.

He wiggled his toes under my thigh, and I gave a mock sigh, earning another laugh. “Oh,” he said, almost offhandedly. “Thanksgiving at the Harts’?”

I’d forgotten his text.

“Um,” I said, and Elliot muted the TV to give me his attention.

“You don’t want to go over there?” he asked, sounding surprised. “Val said you stayed with them… before you got your apartment. I just figured you’d like that better than…” He shrugged a little. “But we don’t have to, I guess.”

“Noah and I always spent Thanksgiving at Hands and Paws,” I told him, feeling guilty about wanting to do that instead of spending it with the Harts because Judy and Marsh had been really generous and kind to me. “It was always our way of giving back.” I swallowed. “And I know Noah’s still in Richmond and I’m here, but I thought it might at least make it feel like we’re still spending it together if I did that.”

I couldn’t read Elliot’s expression, but I could tell it wasn’t disappointment. “That’s actually a really good idea,” he said softly. “More the point of the holiday, at least.” Then he flashed me a small lopsided smile again. “Makes me feel less weird about doing it, anyway.”

“Doing it?” I asked.

“Thanksgiving. It always makes me feel weird—since the whole holiday is basically a celebration of the exploitation and slaughter of Indigenous people.”

I blinked. “Well, that’s pretty much wrecked it for me, now, too,” I told him, then sighed. “I’m assuming that my rural Virginia schooling probably didn’t fill in a few details, since I was always taught that the point was mutual cooperation.”

Elliot snorted. “That’s what the white man wants you to think,” he informed me. “Colonizer bullshit.”

“There seems to be a lot of that,” I observed.

“Colonizer bullshit?”

“Yeah.”

He barked out a laugh. “Absolutely. Shall I destroy your innocent little white-boy understanding of colonist-Indigenous relations now, or wait?”

I snorted. “Go for it,” I told him.

We endedup spending Thanksgiving with the Harts anyway—not because we didn’t go to the Hands and Paws in Green Bay, but because when Elliot told them why we weren’t going to join them for the holiday, Judy Hart had insisted on coming with us.

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