Iris clears her throat.
Oh. Yeah. This is her suite.
I drop onto the couch next to Hex and gather him into my arms. My chest unwinds, the feel of his weight pushing down on my anxiety.
“You stole him,” I accuse her.
She grabs a napkin from the tray of breakfast food and dabs at the tea spot on the carpet. “Yes. That has been my master plan all along.”
Hex sets his now empty cup of tea onto the coffee table and settles back against me, head twisted so he can look at me.
A smile glides across him. The same one echoes on me, and I bump my forehead to him, burying my hand under the edge of the hoodie, palm flush against his warm stomach.
But I do, this time, remember Iris, and I pull back. “Sorry. I’ll try to be less obnoxious. Maybe in a few days. Eh, months. Need to get it out of my system.”
Iris tosses the napkin onto the tray and grabs her coffee cup. She’s in her pajamas, purple, of course, flannel and cozy, which ismassivefor her. The only time I’ve ever seen her this improper is on Christmas morning.
“You guys are cute,” she says. “Don’t hold back because of me. I’ll get my shit figured out.”
I frown. “It’s shit now?”
Iris’s jaw works.
Her eyes go to her suite’s door as Kris enters.
He looks… a mess, honestly. His hair is clearly unbrushed and in a frizzy bun, pajama pants and T-shirt wrinkled, deep sleepless bruises under his eyes.
I lurch forward instantly. “Are you—”
The smile he gives is forced, exhausted, but he drops onto the couch next to me and slams a gift-wrapped box into my stomach.
I cough, and he goes, “For you to give to Hex.”
I hold his gaze. “Kris.”
He shakes his head, and a hundred things are in that shake.Drop it. For the love of god don’t ask me now.
Something happened. Something—
Iris won’t look at me, and ispointedlynot looking at Kris.
Oh, shit.
“Um.” I fiddle with the gift box.
Kris gives me a pleading stare, atalk about literally anything elsestare.
Weakly, I spin on Hex. “I… did not get you a Christmas gift.”
His eyebrows go up. “I did not get you one either.”
“No, you did. You came back. Slap a bow on your forehead, that’s all I need.”
He smiles. “Well, likewise.”
“We don’t get anyone gifts,” Kris adds. He rests his chin in his hand, eyes drifting out.
“Well… yeah. But that should change too, right?” I fiddle with the edge of the wrapping paper and say to Hex, “The whole thing became as poisoned and performative as every other aspect of Christmas. Like later today, we’ll open prearranged gifts the staff got for us to give to Dad and vice versa, and it’ll be fake, weird stuff that’ll lookgood for the cameras. But I should’ve thought ahead and planned to change that and… shit.”
