Page 3 of She's A Hot Christmas Mess

“This boy is a living legend," I reached across her shoulders and gave Pickles a pat on the back of his neck, twisting his halter in my fingers. He gave me another sideways glance, fixing his gaze on the glowing thing between us. “Behave," I muttered.

He gave me a wounded look and nuzzled the Santa hat he tried to eat earlier in the day.

"Are you talking to me or to him?" The girl between us laughed softly, rubbing Pickles, then wrapped an arm around both of us, pulling us together in a three person hug. “Smile!”

“What? Gah,” I growled, emulating Pickles’ best honk as a flash when off in my face, obliterating my vision. Pickles reared back, almost head-butting me. "The hell was that?" I swiped a hand in front of my eyes, but my vision was covered in snowy dots.

"Barry likes to make coffee table books. Don't you, Barry?" she yelled at the man who popped out from around his camera. “What’s your name?” she asked me in an undertone.

“Ford.”

“Nisha.” She rocked between me and the alpaca. “Barry, this is Ford.”

The short, balding man who looked more like the Godfather than a coffee table book maker, touched his ear where a small device sat and answered the question before the one she just asked. "Yes, ma’am."

I blinked, trying to catch up. “How many people can you talk to at once?”

A gaggle of tourists on an opposing tour darted at us from the other direction. Nisha waved, yelling something out another woman replied to before herding her crowd in the opposite direction. She lurched across me to grab Barry’s arm as the photo vendor teetered sideways against the influx of pedestrian traffic. A quick glance at ground level showed the man wore a prosthetic.

I scrambled for change in my Santa hat. “How much?"

The man rattled off his prices as I extracted a twenty from the depths of the reed velvet. I pushed all the change into his hand, shaking my head when he tried to take the coins only.

“Merry Christmas.”

He scribbled a name on a card along with an email address and grinned broadly. "I remember the alpaca."

I smiled. "Probably."

“Thanks, Barry. See you tomorrow.” The effervescent Nisha pushed me onward, talking over her shoulder in a tour guide voice to the gaggle at her back, dragging us all along like so many obedient workshop elves.

"–a better use of your money?" She aimed at me, pausing to draw breath, and then threw the next line of her tour over her shoulder.

"As long as it gets me to the Plaza Hotel, sure." I rubbed the back of my neck, bemused as Chriatmas chaos whirled around me in a frenzied glow of Christmas lights and reindeer face paint.

"We’ll get you there."

She nodded, her glowing antlers bobbing and emitting a soft Christmas carol I couldn’t quite put my finger on. She continued to drag Pickles and I across what felt like half of New York City, pointing out various landmarks and yelling in a bright voice the entire street could hear. Probably the next few blocks.

My ears were ringing by the time we navigated across the next intersection, and she pointed out the Plaza Hotel on my left where a branded, stoic doorman waited, his hands held stiffly and his sides like a giant nutcracker.

"And your final destination is right there. What are you in town for again?" She collected cash from each of the tourists as her tour ended.

Shadows lengthened around us while I picked out landmarks on the opposing corners so I wouldn’t get lost again.

“Uh, thanks,” I started as a gray-headed granny pushed her way through to Nisha, wrapping her arm around the tiny woman’s neck and embracing her until all I could see was the glowing tips of her antlers.

In a flurry ofthank yousandgoodbyes, the tour group departed in their separate directions, more than one bundling their arms around themselves as they walked. Pickles, the traitor, snuggled up to my tour guide while she snapped selfies with him without getting spat on.

Will miracles never cease?

Then her attention turned on me, and I lost focus on everything else. Those liquid brown stared up at me and paired with that soft pink mouth spread in a wide smile, everything around me sparkled like Christmas morning.

"I'm in town for a wedding.”

“Oh, I know the one.” Nisha nodded as though she knew the details of every wedding in NYC.

She probably does.

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