Page 12 of The Amazing Alpha Tau Fratmas Experience
But worse, because Trey and I had fought yesterday and we hadn’t resolved things. We’d muttered apologies last night and shared a bed, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the slate wasn’t clean. I’d disappointed Trey, and maybe disappointed myself too. I didn’t know anymore.
Sad boy Christmaswasgoing to suck. And fuck Trey for coming up with that name, because now it was stuck in my head playing on a loop.
I pulled on my robe and went downstairs to make myself some coffee. At least I’d be able to drink it in relative peace.
Except… something was seriously wrong. With the fact there were people in the living room in general, and with Marty O’Brien specifically.
Why was he still here, and why was his boyfriend, Dalton, up a ladder hanging Christmas decorations in the living room while Marty shouted directions?
And why was Marty decorating atree—and where the hell had it come from? I was almost afraid to ask, but because it was Marty, I was also afraid not to. If the campus police were going to turn up asking questions about missing spruce pines, I wanted to know what I was denying.
“Why do we have a tree?” I asked him suspiciously. “And weren’t you meant to leave yesterday?”
Marty shrugged. “Time is just a construct, bro. And we need decorations in the background. Otherwise the pictures of Squirrel in his new Christmas sweater will look sad and lame.”
From anyone else I would have thought it was over-the-top, but coming from Marty, it was honestly on-brand. Of course he’d wait until he was meant to be leaving to decorate, because he was an idiot.
“You’re taking them down before you go,” I said. “And putting them back in… wherever they came from.”
“The Dollar Store,” Marty said cheerfully, somehow tangling himself in a garland.
“Well, just clean them up then,” I said. “I’m the last person in the house, and I don’t want to do it.”
Dalton climbed down from the ladder and helped Marty untangle himself.
“Don’t worry, Scout. We get it. You hate fun,” Marty said, snapping the garland. “Whoops. Do we have tape?”
“We’ll clear it all up,” Dalton said. “Promise.”
I shot a narrow look at James Two. “Didn’t youleave?”
He ate a sugar cookie from a tin. “Forgot my AirPods.”
Whatever. I didn’t care.
“Are you done with the ladder yet?” Briar asked, sashaying into the living room with his arms full of fairy lights.
“Why areyouinvolved in this?” I asked suspiciously. Briar was even less of a group project activity kind of guy than I was.
He shrugged. “Because it’s forSquirrel. Of course I’m helping.”
Which made sense, but was it wrong that I was jealous of a dog?
I left them to it and went into the kitchen in search of coffee.
Fuck. I’d been looking forward to the house being almost empty today, and now it’d be full of guys who should have already left but who were hanging around to help Marty stage a photo shoot for his dog. Which was exactly the kind of stupid thing that always derailed Marty’s plans, but usually the rest of us did our best not to get caught up in his bullshit. I wasn’t sure why they were all so invested today.
I just wanted a quiet day to feel miserable yet validated, okay, and to really ease my way into the deeper misery that awaited me at the end of the week. I’d been planning on putting on my velvet smoking jacket and wandering the house like a Victorian ghost. It was the sad boy Christmas way.
Knox was in the kitchen. He took one look at my expression, forced a smile, and then backed away.
Good.
Knox got me.
I made my coffee and then took it out onto the front porch to drink. The weather was cold and bitter and gloomy, which suited my mood more than the cheery warmth inside the house. I checked the weather app on the phone, and saw that yeah, it was about to get nasty. Maybe the guys weren’t just hanging around to help Marty with Squirrel’s photo shoot. Maybe they’d put off driving in the hope the storms forecast for later in the day would clear by tomorrow. That made sense, at least. Well, apart from James Two, who had apparently braved the drive back tocampus for the sake of his fucking AirPods, but I wasn’t his parent and I wasn’t in charge of his life decisions. Thank God.
The only person I was responsible for over the next few weeks was me, and at least I could be trusted not to do anything stupid.
