Page 26 of War on Christmas

“Ooh, me too,” Bethany jumps in, sitting back up with a jerk. “Tell me whether getting Abi through high school is going to literally kill me. Or maybe it will be the boys. It’s gonna be one of those little punks, just you watch.”

And that’s how we end up cross-legged on the floor, my favorite tarot deck between us. Hecate settles into my mom’s lap, leaving a layer of stray black hairs on her stonewashed mom jeans, and the wine bottle travels between us as I give a brief lesson on crafting tarot questions. By the time I’m shuffling the cards again, my head is swimming pleasantly and Mom and Bethany’s cheeks are stained pink. My mom, like me, opts for the oldHope & Starduststandby question, “What do I need to know right now?”

When I ask her to cut the deck, her eyes meet mine and her shoulders shrug toward her ears. She’s excited. I almost—almost—smile at her enthusiasm, but I manage to keep my face solemn as I turn over the top card and she leans forward to see it, her lip caught between her teeth.

It’s Justice, a robed, blindfolded woman standing over meticulously balanced scales.

“Hmm,” I mutter, and Hecate purrs in agreement. We all stare at the card, and I notice that Bethany is squinting to focus. She has definitely had more than her fair share of the wine. “The Justice card is like the karma card of tarot,” I explain. “The two sides of the scales are past and future. You receive the results that you set in motion with your past actions. So, if there’s a situation that’s bothering younow, look to your past actions for answers.”

Reading for other people always results in one of three reactions. One: They are utterly confused, and they look at you like you’re a crackpot. (This is usually accompanied by an “Oh my god, I get it now!” phone call a week later, when the pieces fall into place.) Or, two: They immediately make a connection and look at you like you’re a fucking wizard. That one’s fun. Or, three: They make the connection—you see the moment of illumination flash across their face—then they pretend that they haven’t. They go all cagey, like a dog that’s just eaten a plateful of Christmas cookies.

Number three is my absolute favorite. It means you hit on a secret.

It’s also the exact reaction my mom has.

“Oh! Oh.” She pats nervously at her blonde bob, schooling her features from surprise to a bland smile. “I’ll have to think on that one, honey.”

“Mmhmm.” I raise my eyebrows, and she clears her throat.

“Ok, my turn.” Bethany bounces and pats her knees in a drumroll. “For my question, I’m going with—with—” Her head tips to the side, her ponytail swaying, and her brow wrinkles into deep furrows as she stares over my shoulder. “What the fuck isthat?”

With a sinking sensation, I turn to follow Bethany’s gaze. On the windowsill outside, tiny figures of Frodo and Samwise Gamgee are trekking through the snow.

“And that,” I sigh, accepting that this new moon has gone off the rails, “would be Jeremy.”

Eighteen

JEREMY

IgrinasIhear the window sliding open, anticipating Freya’s stern, serious gaze. Instead, I’m stunned silent as Mrs. Nilsen’s blonde head pokes out and she looks down at me with wide blue eyes.

“Jeremy?”

I clutch Frodo and Sam to my chest with one hand, and the bottle of Jack Daniels I swiped from above the refrigerator with the other, staring back at her as my stomach bottoms out. Part of me always assumed that Thad and Freya’s parents knew about my late-night visits and looked the other way because they felt sorry for me. Judging from Mrs. Nilsen’s shocked expression, though, we’d been way stealthier than I thought.

I clear my throat, still crouched in the snow. “Hey, Mrs. Nilsen.”

Bethany, to my shock, sticks her head out next.

“Hey, Jeremy McHottie,” she says too loudly. “Ooh, and you brought booze.” Then she grabs me by the hoodie and pulls me through the window, where I land in a heap on Freya’s favorite pink carpet.

I’m still sprawled on my stomach—luckily Bethany relieved me of the glass bottle during my journey through the window—when I hear Freya’s bored voice next to me. “Hey, Jeremy McHottie.”

I scramble into a sitting position, trying to shake the sensation that I traveled through a portal into some bizarre alternate universe. Mrs. Nilsen plants her hands on her hips, leveling me with an expert-level mom look.

“How long have you been sneaking into my daughter’s room, Jeremy Kelly?”

My face heats, an almost painful contrast to the freezing cold of a few seconds ago, and next to me Freya chuckles darkly. I shoot her an annoyed look, which only makes her laugh harder, and I’m hit with simultaneous urges to shake her and kiss that sassy smirk off her red lips.

“Um, well…” I keep looking at Freya, hoping for some guidance, but she just shrugs. The little minx is enjoying this. I sigh and mentally add this to the list of things I’d like to bend her over my lap and spank her for. “I guess it started a little over twenty years ago now?”

“Oh. My.God.” Bethany says, her gaze swinging wildly between Freya and me. “You two were…” She pauses to make an obscene hand gesture, and I frantically turn to Mrs. Nilsen as Freya breaks into more laughter. Yesterday, I thought I’d do anything to hear that laugh again, but now I find myself hauling her to my side and clamping my hand over her mouth. She wiggles next to me, trying to break free, and I squeeze her tighter.

“No.” I shake my head at Mrs. Nilsen, who looks like her eyes are about to pop out of her head. Freya bites my thumb, and I grunt but keep my hand in place. “It wasn’t like that. I stayed in Thad’s room too. It was just when things—well, when things were bad with Gary. They’d let me camp out on the floor.”

“Oh.” Her face falls, and she instantly transforms from bad-ass disciplinarian to sad, hovering mother figure with her hands fluttering helplessly at her sides. “Oh, honey. And we didn’t know?”

“Wait.” Bethany flops onto the floor next to me, and I watch Freya for signs that she’ll bite me again as I gently ease my hand away from her mouth. But instead of teeth, this time she brushes the pad of my thumb with a quick dart of her tongue. The velvety stroke goes straight to my dick, and I know she sees the flash of panic in my eyes, because she gives me a flirty wink before turning back to the cards she’s shuffling. “So you were coming in her room a bunch of nights—while you were both teenagers—and you two never…” She makes the hand gesture again, as if we wouldn’t understand her meaning without it.

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