Page 17 of Missiletoe
“You don’t have to make it! We can go out to eat or order takeout,” I said in a rush in case that was what had Baz looking like he was about to implode.
Baz almost said something. Then he almost said something again. Then he covered his face, and his body shook a little. When he took his hand away, his mouth was pinched, and I thought maybe he was trying not to smile. Or maybe he was holding in a burp.
I don’t know. Baz is a mystery sometimes.
Finally, Baz rose to his feet and said, “I can make food, and you can tell me why you decided to sneak out without telling anyone. You’re lucky no one snatched you while you were out, you know.”
I waved my hand airily. “I know, I know…”
I changed into a different outfit (because taking an impromptu nap in the park tends to make a person’s clothes dirty.) and spent the next hour in the kitchen snacking and explaining to Baz how I didn’texactlysneak out. No, it wasn’t planned. Yes, I understood why there was a set of Vix safety protocols. Yes, I knew that even though the bad guys had been neutralized for the moment, it didn’t mean it was okay for me to run around unprotected. No, I didn’t think about how Baz and I had planned to go see the lights and decorations once he got home that evening, and yes, they would have been much prettier at night, and I forgot, okay? And no, no, dear god no, please don’t tell Gareth I snuck out or he’d put the monitor back on me that immediately let out a godawful screech and warned everyone’s phone if I tried to leave the property alone.
Gareth had tricked me into making it one day. He’d asked me to make something even a genius like me couldn’t disable, and I didn’t realize it was for me.
Sue me for being stupid, but I thought he wanted it for the crazy guy from Milwaukee who had been kidnapping and performing lethal experiments on the homeless population there. It had been a pet project of Gareth’s at the time.
I know what you’re thinking, but Milwaukee Guy and I are nothing alike. I don’t experiment on homeless people. My test pools are random, and I only test nonlethal things on my human subjects. And I don’t steal them from their homes. Okay, there was that one time I snatched a few unsuspecting people from the street, but they were supposed to pop right back out again. I didn’t know they’d get stuck in my machine, or I would have offered to pay them first.
“Fine, I won’t tell Gareth if you make that thing I keep begging you to make.”
There was no way I was making Baz a drone that shot lethal rockets at people. He’d been trying to get me to do it for years, but even I have my limits. Besides, there was no challenge to it. What was the point?
“Ha! I won’t tell Gareth about that thing you keep trying to blackmail me into making if you don’t tell Gareth what happened today.”
“Won’t tell Gareth what?” asked a deep, rumbly voice laced with the frustration only an overworked, single father of five could hope to reproduce.
A chill went down my spine, and Baz and I both turned at the same time to see Gareth enter the kitchen. He had to duck slightly to keep from banging his sandy blond head on the archway separating the kitchen from the hallway. The guy was built like a tank, and I’m not ashamed to say I nearly peed a little anytime he caught me doing things I shouldn’t.
“I’m so glad I decided to follow Gareth into the kitchen!” Apple, our newest housemate chirped as he skipped through the doorway right behind Gareth.
“Don’t let me interrupt the conversation. Baz, please tell me all about what you don’t want me to know.” Gareth pulled a ubiquitous knife from his jacket pocket and began to flip it between his fingers.
There was a crunching to my left, and I saw Apple perched on the counter and going to town on a bag of popcorn left over from our movie night yesterday. It should have been stale, but Apple was a lucky bastard. It probably tasted even better now than it did last night. I wanted some, so I snuck over to him while Gareth put the fear of God into Baz.
Now when I tell you Apple is lucky, I’m not talking about the kind of luck where he finds a dollar on the sidewalk, or he always gets a good parking spot. I’m talking wildly impossible, totally supernatural luck.
One time Baz shoved Apple down an escalator just to see what would happen, and I shit you not, an actualfacts sheik caught him and proposed on the spot. When Apple declined graciously, the sheik promised he would dismiss all his wives if Apple would reconsider.
If Apple’s husband Adam had been there it would have become an international incident, but then Baz wouldn’t have shoved Apple in the first place if Adam had been there. Aside from the fact that Adam would have killed Baz on the spot for shoving his precious reason for living down an escalator, Apple’s luck would have been dampened by Adam’s epically bad luck.
And folks? Apple’s luck is always way more fun to test when it’s at full power.
I also think life is way more fun when I’m not worried about getting punched by Adam. No,Iwasn’t the one who shoved Apple down the escalator, but Adam knows Baz and me well enough to know that Baz wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t expressed curiosity about what would happen if he did.
Apple doesn’t give a shit about things like that. As long as nothing threatens his precious husband, Apple is pretty much game for anything, including testing how far his ridiculous amount of luck can be pushed.
So far, unless Adam is around, the answer is inconclusive. I’m convinced we could shoot Apple out of a cannon, and he’d wind up the town mayor by the time he landed gently on a pile of pillows. Unfortunately, Adam heard me discussing said theory and threatened to exist inside my workshop if we tried.
Trust me when I say no one wants that to happen, but what Adam says goes, because Apple turns into a sickeningly sweet, clingy sap around his husband and will give him anything he wants.
Next time I come up with a brilliant Apple hypothesis, I’m keeping it to myself until Adam isn’t around.
As I helped myself to some of Apple’s popcorn—I was right, it was delicious—I completely forgot about Gareth and my impending doom until fingers snapped in front of my face, and Gareth’s voice brought me back to the present. “Vix, where did you go, sweetheart?”
“Huh?” Where did I go? Shit. What had we been talking about? “Umm…”
“Vix escaped and fell asleep on a stranger in the park!” Baz shouted, sounding exactly like a kid ratting out his little brother in order to get himself out of trouble.
“Traitor! Gareth, Baz keeps trying to blackmail me into making him a lethal rocket drone. And – mmmmph!” Baz grabbed me in a headlock and covered my mouth.
