Page 48 of The Nightmare Before Kissmas
Part of me wants to be offended. The rest of me feels like Iris just forehead-smacked my psyche.
“Are you sure you haven’t been taking psychology classes too?” I mutter.
She huffs. “You’re not that difficult to figure out, Coal. I’m not saying we can’t joke around now. I know how uncomfortable talkingabout anything real makes you, and I don’t think we’ve ever had a conversation that stayed serious for as long as the one we just had. I’m saying I don’t want to joke around about this fake relationship shit. Not yet. Let’s talk about something else—you look like you’re going to vomit.”
That’swhy she’s been keeping stuff from me?
I pull one leg up onto the chair beneath me, unable to stop shifting awkwardly. “If you need to talk about it, or anything else, I’ll listen. I won’t mock it. I swear. And if you think I can’t do that for you, then I’ve been an epically shitty friend, and I’m sorry.”
Iris eats some of her melon mush and smiles. “I know you would if I really needed you to. But I don’t need that.” She pauses. “Not yet.”
“Okay.” But something still feels off. Unbalanced. Like Irisdoesneed to talk about how all this competing for her hand nonsense is affecting her, but she’s holding back, not because she’s not ready, but because she knows, on some level, that I won’t help her or be able to listen.
Fuck. Have I always been a shitty friend?
I know she doesn’t want to marry me, even if she was the one who convinced me to go along with this becausedutyandwhat will it do to our people,but is it getting too much for her? Is she having second thoughts?
Could I actually do anything to get us out of it if I tried, or would I just mess things up way worse?
I take a breath and blow it out, but Iris waves at my plate before I can try to begin piecing together an apology or an escape plan or anything beneficial.
“Eat.You only have an hour or so until reindeer racing.”
I smirk half-heartedly. “I think you meanweonly have an hour until reindeer racing.”
She sips her coffee, nonplussed. “I shall happily cheer on you and Kris from the heated spectators’ tent.”
“Coward.”
“What’s that?” She cups her hand around her ear. “It’s the soundof someone who had one mildly serious conversation yet is now so stricken with responsibility by it that he willsedatelydrive his sleigh instead of whipping carelessly around the track, which means he will—gasp—lose to his brother.”
“Don’t put your money on Kris. You know his competitiveness feeds my competitiveness until we’re a perpetual motion machine of egging each other on, and I really doubt one serious moment will break that grand tradition.”
Iris laughs, but the sound of it, the feel of it, rings hollow, tapping on the insecurity that’s always camped deep inside of me: that nothing I do has any real impact. That everything I’m capable of is so far short ofenoughthat I’ll never be able to help when it’s most needed, never be able to support those I love in any way that matters.
But Iris dives into talking about last year’s race and how both Kris and I lost, so I let her carry me on to that topic, cracking jokes, trying to pretend this isn’t the pinnacle of what I have to offer her or anyone else.
Reindeer racing is one time-honored Christmas tradition I have no problem with.
The track starts at the stables and meanders through the pine forest that beards the palace grounds, going up and down over hills and crossing natural ice bridges before ending right back at the stables. Every few years, someone gets the bright idea to make it an airborne race, but Dad usually decides it’s a waste of magic—so we’re grounded, which is all the better, because few people are skilled enough to drive flying sleighs.
The winner gets gloating rights. And a trophy, but mostly the gloating rights.
Last year, one of our cousins from House Frost won, so as Kris and I head down for the start of the event, our game faces are on.
But this is more about photos and press than any actual competition, so Wren and her stylists dolled us up in swanky yet surprisingly functional snow gear, not like we’re going full-on skiing, butmore like we’re doing a shoot for a magazine advertising skiing—sleek fleece and polar thermals. My blue jacket is thin enough to move in yet comfortably warm, and I tug down the knit white-and-blue hat that presses my curls to my forehead.
We duck out of a side door in the palace to Wren already waiting for us in her own functional outerwear, tablet in hand. Along with space heaters, energy-saving lighting has been set up everywhere, giant bright beaming contraptions to combat the fact that we’re in the top of the northern hemisphere and daylight is in short supply this time of year. But we’ve rather perfected mimicking the sun, and the lights make it look midmorning enough.
“Everyone else is in place,” she says. “Why are you two always the last ones?”
“Kris has a crush on you. You set him all aflutter,” I say, and Wren sighs heavily, the awkwardness of my snark too much of a burden.
Kris tugs on his gloves as we round the side of the palace, snow crunching under our boots. The air is so cold ittasteslike winter, that chilly, bitter trace that sinks in with each breath. But the sky is clear over the lights, no fresh snow today, and all around is the same buzzing, busy energy of Christmas prep alongside the chaos of event prep. There’s a whole layer of the North Pole that runs parallel to ours—we’re swept up in staged events while everyone else is working to bring Christmas to the world.
I watch a team of people oversee a delivery as Kris leans into me. “Once more,” he starts.
I spin to the setup by the stables. “Unto the breach.”
