Page 3 of Oh No, My Best Friend Hates Christmas!

He rolls his eyes.

“I’m problem-solving here, darling. Why don’tyoutry some of that?” he asks, British snootiness coming through loud and clear.

Have I mentioned that Archie is not the greatest therapist? I think he has too much childlike mania in him to truly be effective. Alas, beggars can’t be choosers.

“Because there’s no good solution!” I throw my hands up. We’ve been over this, oh, a hundred times? What doesn’t he get? “I love him. He loves me too, but not in the way that I love him. And I love him so much that I am going to accept the love that he is willing to give me while I show him the love he wants to receive and don’t mess up our love with any of my silly love! So I have to just keep loving him without loving him because he loves me.Whatis so hard for you to grasp here?”

Honestly! It is just not that confusing!

Archie’s dark eyes blink at me behind lensless frames, and he shakes his head.

“You can’t be helped,” he says. I groan, throwing myself back on the couch.

“It’s literally your job to help me. I’m not paying you for nothing!”

“You’re not paying me at all,” he replies dryly.

“Whatever. Mypointis that you can’t just give up on me. We’re in this together, whether you like it or not.”

I sit up to glare at him. He raises one thick eyebrow, looking down his nose at me.

“I didn’t say I was giving up,” he counters. I point at him.

“Youjustsaid I can’t be helped!”

“Helped? No. Manipulated? Absolutely.” He grins, and I shake my head.

“No.” I shake my head – hard. “No, no, no, no, no. Categorically no. No manipulation.”

I’ve seen that grin before. That grin istrouble.

“You do what you need to do, and I’ll do what I need to do,” he answers as he stands from the couch. Oh no.

“Stop!”

I lunge, just barely missing him as he flits around the coffee table. He laughs as I land on the floor, bumping my hip into a table leg. Oof. That’s going to bruise for sure.

“Archie, wait!” I call after him. “Come on! Don’t do anything you’ll regret!”

He’s nearly to the door now, and I scramble after him, half crawling, half running. The man is a menace, and if I let him leave this house right now, I just know he’s going to go off and do something insane.

“Can’t wait, mate! I’ve got some very important business to get to. You understand, yes? I’ll see you soon!”

I reach the door just as he crosses the threshold,almostgetting a handful of tweed before he spins out of reach. I pause in the doorway, unwilling to step into the cold snow with bare feet.

“Archie! Come back here!” I yell after him, watching helplessly as he skips and slips across the icy road toward his house. “Archie!” I screech. Maniacal laughter is all I get in return.

“This is not going to end well,” I tell the snow.

“What’s not going to end well?”

I shriek, whirling toward the sound of Baz’s voice. His British accent is rough with disuse, reluctantly clawing its way out of his body. And yet, it’s still somehow the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard.

“Baz! You’re back!”

He’s standing off the side of the porch, the thick trunk of an evergreen peeking out from behind him. He’s dressed in his usual winter uniform – jeans, black boots, and a brown winter coat. I know for a fact that underneath the coat, he has on a long-sleeve t-shirt with exactly three buttons at the collar. The shirt is either blue or forest green. The buttons are brown.

“You found a tree!” I exclaim, holding onto the door frame so that I can swing my upper body further out into the cold. “It looks perfect! So green!”

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