Page 55 of The Nightmare Before Kissmas
“Really? Sven?” He points across my body, at my brother in the sleigh next to us. “Kristoff?”
“Kristopher.”
“No. That’s what’s funny. Sven. Kristoff.Frozen?”
I grin. “Really?That’syour sense of humor? Disney jokes?”
“You can’t deny the coincidence is amusing.”
“Yeah, I can, because I’m not eleven.”
Hex smiles at me, those full lips slightly crooked. “So the Christmas Prince has no opinion on whether he’d be Elsa or Anna?”
Is he bantering with me? My god, I think this guy isbantering with me.
“On your marks,” the announcer starts. “Ready—”
I rip off one of my gloves and let a pulse of magic flood my hand with snow. “Let it go, baby,” I say, and because I can, I wink, what the hell.
His smirk widens.
Then he sights something on my hand, and that smile freezes.
My nails. My black and orange nails, courtesy of Iris.
“Set—” the announcer bellows.
Reindeer stomp the ground up and down the row, the air misting with their anxious exhales. A few other racers whoop, but most are fixed in the concentration of the race.
I’m fixed on Hex.
On the way those eyes hit me when they rise back up.
“Not exactly Christmas colors,” he says. And he sounds winded now too, the same gust of missing air I’d felt when he’d laughed.
But I can’t read any emotion on him. Can’t discern any teasing or flirting or disdain. He’s in such delirious control of himself and it’s downrightinfuriating.
“GO!” A starter gun pops, and a dozen sleighs bolt into action.
“Shit.” I dust the snow off my palm and slam my glove back on to grab the reins and jolt Sven into action. He darts onto the track, second from last—Kris will never let me hear the end of this if I lose.
Hex grips the edge of the sleigh with both hands, but there’s tension in the air now. Again. Did it ever really leave?Werewe flirting, or am I completely unable to read him?
But there’d been a moment.
A beat where he’d been smiling at me.
“Watch out!” Hex recoils as the sleigh in front of us veers towards an ice patch, and I narrowly avoid it by pulling Sven to the left.
“I got it!” I call back, the wind pelting us with icy cold.
“Are you sure?”
“I’ve been driving sleighs since I could walk.”
We lurch around a turn, taking it maybe abittoo fast.
“Since you could walk?” Hex clarifies.
