Page 26 of Missiletoe
I flipped one of her floppy ears playfully and said, “If I were you, I wouldn’t want to come inside anyway.” If my bunny wasn’t there, I’d probably leave such an animal-unfriendly atmosphere, but he was, so I had to stay.
Usually, Trixie gave non-dog people a wide berth, so I was expecting her to wait outside or go do her own thing, but instead, she pressed against my leg andwuffedat the blond. She didn’t want me to go inside without her for some reason.
I crouched down beside her. “It’s okay, Trix. You know I can take care of myself.” I scratched behind her ears and stood up. “Don’t wait for me. I could be a while.”
Trixie continued to press against me, so I had to do the scootching thing you do where you keep the door closed as much as possible while gently shooing away the animal you want to keep on the other side of the door while simultaneously going through the doorway.
And let me tell you, Trixie does not shoo easily.
The misguided blond stood guard just shy of the threshold until I had the door closed. Once he ascertained that we were dog-free, he smiled and said, “Come with me.”
I don’t know if it was just me, or the fact that soon I’d get to see Vix, but the further away from the door we got, the less annoyed I was by the blond. By the time we reached a long hallway, he seemed downright decent. I bet I could find the right dog for him. Then we could be friends.
I realized halfway down the hall that it was in the opposite direction of Vix’s room, so I stopped. “You aren’t taking me to Vix, are you?”
“Nope!” The blond chirped cheerfully. “You gotta go through the gauntlet of dragons before you reach the fair maiden.”
I didn’t like how that sounded at all, but the little guy was just so sweet that I couldn’t bring myself to argue. Something about that didn’t sit right with me, so I stayed still instead of following when the blond continued.
“Come on, slowpoke. Can’t keep the dragons waiting, can we?”
Now that the little guy was further away, my good opinion of him dropped enough to get me thinking. Trixie had tried to warn me back on the porch. I was pretty sure of it. Something about the guy had tweaked her tail.
“There’s something wrong with you, isn’t there?” I asked. I couldn’t see any shadows on him at all, but we were in a dark hallway, so I couldn’t be certain.
“Ooo, youareinteresting, aren’t you? Wait, Adam isn’t here, is he?” He looked around to ascertain that we were alone. “Nope! This is so exciting, I should have brought popcorn.”
“Anyone want popcorn?” Baz called out as he went through a door at the end of the hallway. “I just had the urge to make some, but I don’t actually want any.”
“It’s probably for Apple,” came a familiar, grouchy voice from the room.
“Yay! Let’s go get my popcorn.” The little guy, who was probably Apple, tried to grab my arm, but I stepped back out of reach.
“I don’t want you to touch me, okay?” I gave him my stern face, and Apple backed away. He earned a lot of points from me for that, and I didn’t think they were fake points because I have always been a fan of people who understand that no means no when it comes to body rules.
“Yes, of course. But seriously, please come with me because I can’t see Adam until this is over, and as fun as this is going to be, it’s not worth my husband getting injured. I just know he’s going to have a concussion when I get back because a paper plane flew through an open window and startled him into knocking himself out on the suit of armor Gareth refuses to get rid of, and Baz, why did you leave the window open when it’s clearly against the rules?!” He was shouting toward the room Baz had vanished into by the end there.
Apple’s face had grown red as he got more and more worked up, and I was mildly concerned he might hurt himself in some way.
“Apple we’ve talked about this,” came a gruff voice from the mysterious room. “Stop getting yourself excited; Adam is fine.”
“You know that’s not true, Gareth,” Apple called out. “It’s never true, and it’s especially untrue since you’ve banished him to the other end of the house alone for this little meeting!”
Apple hurried to the door and motioned me to follow. I obeyed because I was about to meet the mysterious Gareth, but I kept several feet of space between myself and Apple. I didn’t know what was up with the guy, but if I was going to like someone, I wanted it to be because they were likable, not because they forced me to do it.
Vix was like catnip for me, but he didn’t stop being so after I left his side. I didn’t think he had some weird thing about him that was forcing me to like him the way Apple did. The emotions I felt around each of them felt completely different.
There was something off about Apple, but it was plain to me that Vix was perfectly normal. He was just a supergenius with serious sleep issues. And he had a murderer for a brother. He was also at least a thousand times niftier than anyone I’d ever met.
I went through the door and had to give Apple another dose of my stern face when he tried to sidle up to me. I made a shooing motion, and said, “Go stand over there.” I pointed to the opposite corner of the room from me.
I scanned the room and noted with displeasure the odd contrast of furnishings. One side of the room was sterile and unwelcoming. It was a well-organized bastion of efficiency, and I hated it on sight. The other side of the room was filled with a glorious hodgepodge of trinkets and soft furniture that looked and felt exactly like my bunny. I hated it on sight too.
I wasn’t a fan of the emotions stirring inside myself either. Was that what happened when a person found something they couldn’t let go of? Did they have an equal but opposite reaction of nastiness pop up to balance out the joy of the finding?
Baz gave me an ironic little wave from where he was perched on a massive desk like a Bond Girl, and I gave him a hesitant wave in return. I was nice and pretended like I didn’t see Vale lounging on a comfy-looking, overstuffed couch in the corner of the room. I didn’t want to scare him into running away again.
The grumpy ones are always the most sensitive for some reason. Maybe they’re grumpy because they have sensitive insides. I’m not really sure if that’s the case for Vale. All I can say for certain is that a dog or two wouldn’t hurt his outlook on life if he gave the idea a chance.
