Page 18 of Oh No, My Best Friend Hates Christmas!

He opens his mouth to speak, and I kick the closest appendage to me – a leg.

“Don’t talk, stupid. You can’t afford to waste the air right now.”

He wheezes a laugh, and I scowl. Baz chuffs beside me.

“And what do you think is so funny?” I ask, turning on him. “You’re stupid too if you honestly thought that was a good idea. He’s a lunatic, Bazzy! He gets off on that kind of stuff! That wasn’t about punishing him at all. It was about making yourself feel good. And what’s he going to learn from it? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! He’s havingfun.”

Warm steam puffs in front of my face as I scold him, and a raspy laugh comes from below.

“And you!” I look down my nose at Archie. “I don’t know what you’re doing or why–” Though I do have my suspicions. “–but you’re going tostop itright this instant! Get off the ground, fix our lights, and then scurry back to your own home like the little rodent you are. Got it?”

I glare at him.

He beams, nods his head yes, then shakes it no. Shrugs. Moves his arms and legs to make a snow angel on the ground.

“Archie!” I screech. He laughs, an awful sound coated in pain.

“Can’t fix it,” he croaks. My eyes narrow, and I cock my leg back for another kick. He grimaces.

“Not tonight,” he continues. “I can fix it tomorrow. I have to install a new breaker box.”

My foot lands on his knee this time.

“What did you do?” I yell, kicking him again.

Baz’s arms wrap around me from behind, then lift me up and away from the prone man.

“No, Bazzy, no! It’scold, and we’re supposed to go all night without electricity? Set me down. I’m going to kick him until his kneecaps crunch under my freezing cold feet!”

Baz, who is holding me just out of reach of Archie, turns at this, marching us straight up our porch and through our flower-covered door. He pauses just inside the house, twisting to lookover his shoulder at Archie, who is still on his back in the road.

“Tomorrow,” he calls out, and I start, unaware he had the capability of producing a noise that loud.

He leaves Archie with that, shutting the door behind us and heading toward the stairs in the dark without setting me down. I settle in for the ride, grateful that I will soon be in the vicinity of my sock drawer. The possibility of my toes falling off increases every moment they’re not encased in thick, Christmas-green fuzz after the shock of icy cold they were subjected to outside.

Stupid Archie.

We crest the top of the stairs, and I breathe a sigh of relief at the sight of the moonlight coming through the hallway window and falling over my beautiful, wonderful, daisy-covered door. There are socks beyond that door. Warm, wonderful socks.

I squawk as we walk past it.

“Basil! I need socks!”

He ignores me, shouldering open the door to his own room. He walks six feet in the darkness to what I know is his unmade bed and drops me onto it. I don’t hear so much as sense him leaving the bedside as I sweep my arms out in search of his blankets. I find them rumpled at the bottom of the mattress and throw them over me.

Ahh. Sweet, sweet warmth.

Silver light, blocked only by the outline of Baz’s body, fills the bedroom as he flicks open curtains on the other side of the room. He hesitates by the window, his head aimed down toward the road.

“Leave him,” I say. “He’ll be fine.”

Archie is always fine.

Baz grunts. Doesn’t move. Sighs.

I sigh too.

He comes back to the bed, tucks me in, kisses my forehead, then glides out of the room on silent feet.

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