Page 1 of Oh No, My Best Friend Hates Christmas!

Prologue

I love Christmas.

I love the smell of it – the feel of it. I love the twinkling lights and the snow in the air. I love buying presents and wrapping them up in red and green and gold. I love to hear the oven beep for gingerbread cookies while the notes of holiday cheer float from room to room.

But what I love most of all are nights like these – nights at home with the fire lit and the music low. Nights with Baz, eating chocolate-covered reindeer pretzels and cuddling in the corner of the couch, books in hand, like we are now.

His long legs stretch across the wider side of our big, cozy sectional. One massive arm rests on top of the couch back and holds a book aloft for his lolling head to see.

I’m perpendicular to him, my own head relaxed against his shoulder and my back nestled up to his side. I hold my book above his other arm, which rests along my collarbones. It rises and falls with each breath I take, his forearm brushing my lips with every inhale. It’s a torture I try not to notice.

This is Basil, after all.

Basil. Baz. Bazzy. My very best friend in the whole entire world.

So I absolutely do not notice any flutterings in my stomach or poundings of my heart at the touch of his skin on my lips.

Of course I don’t.

I’m a respectful girl, and there’s no one I respect more than Baz. So I don’t notice a single thing, thank you very much. Especially not when I speak, and he doesn’t end the contact, despite the fact that he has to feel it too – the way my lips moveagainst him.

“She’s giving him an observatory now!” I exclaim, then squeal, kicking my feet against the couch. “AnobservatoryBaz! Because he loves the stars! I can’t handle this. It’stoofreaking cute.She’stoo freaking cute. And he’s just so– ahhh! You know?”

Baz rubs his cheek against the top of my head.

“I love them. He says, ‘She’s beautiful. Her body is beautiful. Her every little mark is a new constellation for me to explore. And I could spend decades studying each. I plan to.’” I squeal again. “I swear, Bazzy, I really, trulycannothandle this. I am a puddle on the ground – okay, on the couch. Whatever.” I sigh. “He loves the stars, and she gave him an observatory, and he said that she is full of constellations, and I just– I can’t. Dig me a grave right now because I am dead. They’re too perfect. Nothing I read will ever live up to this. I have lived all the life I needed to live. I’ve enjoyed all the goodness literature has to offer. It was a wonderful life, and now it must end. Farewell, my dearest, most beloved fri–”

Baz lifts his arm, effectively covering my mouth and ending my final words.

Once he’s certain I’ve gotten the message –shut up, Heidi– he removes his arm from my lips to point at a bookshelf across the room. The shelf is full of colorful books written by the same author who wrote the one I’m currently finishing up – colorfulunreadbooks. I brighten.

I forgot about those!

“Of course! You’re so right. I have more!” I sigh. “Camilla Evergreen is a genius, Bazzy. An absolute genius. Which should I read next, do you think? I heard she has a Christmas book, but I don’t have it yet. Maybe the grumpy boss one? Oh, ew, no. No, no, no. Forget I said that. That makes me think of Stryker.”

I gag a little in my mouth. Absolutely not. Is the man attractive? Sure… objectively. But he’sStrykerfor goodness’sake. My employer and my friend – basically my big yucky brother. The last thing I want to do is read a boss-employee romance with him on the brain.

I wonder if she has a best-friends-to-lovers…

No. Stop that, Heidi. No best-friends-to-lovers books.

I am beingrespectful.

Respectfulfriends do not read books that encourage them to fantasize about what it would be like to experience the to-lovers portion of the best-friends-to-lovers trope.

Baz shuts the book he’s been reading with a definitive thwack and drops it in my lap. He plucksHow to Find Love When You’re Weirdout of my hands, then settles back down to read his pilfered story. I’m too gobsmacked by what he’s traded me to even protest.

How to Confess to Your Childhood Best Friendby Camilla Evergreen.

I do not read into this.

I couldn’t even if I wanted to, really, because Baz and I are not childhood best friends. We are adulthood best friends. So this book has nothing at all to do with us in any way, specific or vague.

I open it, ravenous.

Baz tightens his arm on my chest in a fleeting hug, and I push my head into his shoulder in return. He shifts behind me, and I feel the ghost of a kiss in my hair.

I close my eyes, letting the agonizing beauty of the moment wash over me.

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