Page 17 of The Nightmare Before Kissmas
“Unto the breach,” I finish, and we step inside.
I spot Dad across the room, closest to the Merry Measure with Iris and her father. Iris grins and waves—but getting to her means navigating a minefield of Christmas aristocracy, so I pull up my best smile as Kris and Ischmooze.
People are here from all the main houses that oversee various parts of Christmas. Jacobs, with toys and engineering; Caroler, with treats and song; Luminaria, with creatures and decorations; and Frost, winter and all the frozen shit. We may be celebrated in the southern hemisphere too, but being located where Christmas equals winter means we dip into that association more often than not. The Frosts are also Mom’s original house, and that small talk sucks the most, chatting aimlessly with a cousin about how yes I’m excited to be home and no I don’t have a favorite event I’m looking forward to, all while emphatically not mentioning Mom.
I guide Kris away after two minutes with the Frosts.
“We’ll catch up more at the next event, yes? All right. All right, yes—we’ll—yes, we’ll talk then—okay.” I spin around Kris and blow out a long exhale. He’s a little pale, and I hook my arm around his neck as photographers catch our angles at the edges of the room, and through my charming grin, I mutter, “Kill me.”
He doesn’t laugh. He takes a flute of champagne from a passing waiter and kicks it back as we finally,finallymake it across the room.
“Since when do you drink champa—” I start, but I get my answer when Kris realizes you can’t shoot a whole glass ofchampagne,andhe sputters a cough as the carbonation fizzes up his nose, cheeks billowing to keep from spluttering the whole mess down his suit.
I crowd in front of him, blocking him from any pics. “That was refined as hell.”
“Shut up.” He wipes the back of his hand against his lips. But it breaks the tension and he shakes his head with a self-deprecating smirk.
“Coal!”
I turn as Iris darts for us, and she somehow does so elegantly and in heels, her shimmery purple dress catching the light of the massive chandelier.
She throws herself at me and I catch her, grinning as much as she is. I haven’t seen her since October, when she and Kris last visited me in New Haven, and I give her a tight squeeze before setting her down.
She twists to Kris, who has recovered, and hugs him too. I’m very aware of our dads watching us, and of the snap of pictures being taken, so I behave and do not make any suggestive bedroom eyes at him over her shoulder.
Kris, though, must be able to tell I’m at leastthinkingof doing that, because the moment Iris steps away, he closes in on me and punches me in the thigh. A zap of cold comes with it.
He froze my pants to my leg.
I bat at the ice, breaking it apart so the cold shivers down my leg. “Dick.”
“Idiot.”
“Boys!” Dad spreads his arms like we’ll rush to him. He’s playing the Santa part with his styled white beard and scarlet suit.
I manage what hopefully passes as a cordial grin, and with Kris and Iris at my side, we join the group in front of the Merry Measure.
Dad sweeps both Kris and me into a pose for the photographers.
“Best behavior,” he says to me through his smile.
“Wouldn’t dream of anything else,” I say. “The people of Christmas will surely Marie Antoinette us if they don’t get their yearly photos of us hanging ornaments.”
His grip on my shoulder tightens. That itch of something beingout of place scratches me again, and my lips flatten, but the photo is over, and Dad spins me to Iris’s father.
Who has never liked me. And the whole “dating his daughter then ruining her birthday by almost destroying a small country” thing did not help.
So when his expression of greeting is a poorly capped glower that tells me he still daydreams about popping my head off my shoulders like a dandelion, I keep my back straight and do not do anything to make the situation worse.
“Nicholas,” King Neo says. “Are you enjoying school?”
Ah, pleasantries. “Very much.” It was nicer last year when one of my roommates would fool around with me, but Steven transferred this year. Somehow I don’t think Iris’s dad would care about that tidbit.
“Your father tells me you have yet to decide on plans post-graduation.”
I haven’t? I rather thought my post-graduation plans were destined from birth. “I—”
Dad dives in. “Hardly! Nicholas will be getting his master’s in Global Affairs, just as I did.”
