Page 87 of Missiletoe
“Where is the rest of him?”
“Exploded.”
“Exploded? You stole my missile launcher, didn’t you?! I knew it hadn’t just gotten misplaced!”
See? I told you it would turn up eventually.
“Yeah, about that. I totally lied. I used it to blow up the cell they were keeping Mike in. There really wasn’t much of him left, but I managed to retrieve his toe for you. Merry Christmas!”
I didn’t mention what happened to Mike, did I?
Okay, so the day after Mike blew up parts of our house—not Apple’s part; it was totally fine—he showed up inside a jail cell with a boatload of evidence tying him to all of the fires he’d set. The cops searched Mike’s apartment and found the accelerant in his room with his fingerprints all over it.
The police were being wishy-washy about it because apparently, he hadn’t been processed properly, and they were trying to prove the evidence was faked. Mike had a lot of friends in the system.
We were about to have a house meeting over what we should do about him because even though Trixie had promised Paris that Mike didn’t have magic anymore, we still didn’t want him on the loose.
I handed the box to Paris and gave Baz a huge hug.
“I’d rather you let me take care of him myself, but thank you.”
I was waiting to break Paris in a little more before letting him see me actively commit a major crime, so it was thoughtful of Baz to do it for me. I had a feeling Paris would continue to love me with his entire massive heart no matter what I did, but still.
You gotta leave some mysteries unrevealed to keep a relationship hot.
The other upside of Baz taking care of Mike was that we didn’t have to have a house meeting.
I swear, half the time, we only have them because Gareth wants to hang out with everyone but doesn’t want to admit it, so he comes up with a tiny issue he has to spend an hour monologuing about.
Personally, I think that if Gareth is that lonely, he should start up a weekly Taco Tuesday in the house and make everyone come.
Paris, Baz, and I would be there with bells on.
Paris stared at the box for a long minute before shrugging and stuffing it in his back pocket. I hoped he remembered to take it out before sitting down or else we’d have a squished Mike toe in our trophy collection when I put it there later.
Baz’s gift started off a flurry of gift-giving. Once I’d gotten my fancy new toe, Baz gave Gareth the booklet we’d all pitched in to give him. Each one of us put in at least one promise that we had to keep no matter what, and Gareth could redeem them anytime he wanted.
I could tell he liked it by the way his face was all frowny. It was his happy frown and it meant he was touched by the gesture. Then he proved me right by tearing a page off and handing it to Apple right away.
“When we get home, you’re coming to my office to help me fix the damage Adam did to it.”
It was such a Gareth thing to do. He’d spent weeks trying to get his office back the way he wanted, but everything was just shy of Gareth's idea of perfection, and it was driving him insane. With Apple in the room, he’d have every computer glitch fixed, every missing mission file found, and he’d have his new desk and chair back in the perfect position.
Adam scowled because he was still pissed about what Gareth had let Vale do to Apple, but I’d gotten over it. There was no way either Gareth or Vale would ever do something like that again because the fallout had caused unimaginable damage to both of them.
Gareth had needed to tear his old office down to the studs and get all new everything, and Vale had been forced to move out of his wing temporarily since Adam had blown up his lab and Mike had blown out a good chunk of Vale’s first floor during his crazysauce spree.
The only reason Vale didn’t retaliate against Adam immediately was because he was afraid Adam would do it again.
Apple agreed readily to Gareth’s request without a whisper of complaint. I think it was because after Vale used Apple as a lucky sock-puppet, Adam had spoiled and pampered Apple for days.
In fact, it was probably why Vale still had any of his wing of the house left at all. If Apple had wanted it, there wouldn’t have been a brick of the structure left standing.
When it came to Apple’s turn to hand out gifts, he leaned over to whisper into Adam’s ear. Whatever he said made Adam turn bright red, yank Apple out of his seat, and drag him out the back door.
I thought maybe Apple would hand out the rest of our gifts later, but he never did.
What a cunt.
