For a second, he shows me how not all right he is, but then a camera flashes, and he forces a smile.
“Shit.” I take a gulp of the eggnog. It’s not spiked. I can’t win tonight.
Kris and I rotate around the room, expertly ducking any attempts at small talk until we haul up at a high-top table that gives a perfect view of where Iris and Hex hold court with rotating members of the Christmas noble houses. Dad, Neo, and the Halloween King and Queen stay with them for a bit, eventually getting pulled into other groups and conversations, but it gives me a chance to study Hex’s parents. He definitely takes after his dad, a taller, older, and somehow paler and leaner version of Hex, with less adornments and asullen expression befitting someone who might’ve just levitated out of a coffin. His mom is a little taller than Hex is, with intense dark eyes that mirror his initial stifled anger. She’s got a wide necklace of small pearly skulls across her collarbone, and they catch the light in sharp flashes.
Kris grabs a handful of appetizers from a passing waiter and dumps them between us. Bacon-wrapped dates. Score.
I pop one into my mouth and definitely do not stare at the side of Hex’s face. The way his jaw is bundled in tension.
It’s not a big deal that he’s here. That he’sthatguy. It’s totally normal to know what your best friend’s fake new potential fiancé tastes like.
See? I’m fine.
“We’ll do this all one day,” I say. Desperately needing to talk about literally anything the fuck else.
“Do what?” Kris asks.
“This.” I wave at the room. “The parties. The food.Christmas.It’ll be ours.”
“Yours, you mean.”
“Like I’d leave you out in the cold.”
What I want to say is,Don’t let me do this alone, for fuck’s sake.
Kris seizes a stack of crackers. “Do you even want to be Santa?”
“What kind of question is that?”
There’s something on his face I’m not reading correctly. Something he hides behind a dismissive shrug.
“Exactly as it is,” he says. “What do you want to do?”
“What doyouwant to do?”
“International Relations. Obviously. Boyhood dream of mine, really.”
“Oh yeah, of course. But that’s not what youwantto do. You want to be a writer, right? God, not a journalist, I beg of you.”
His lips slant in amusement. “No. Not a journalist. But I asked you that question first.”
I prop my chin in my hands and bat my eyes at him and mimic intense listening.
He shakes his head, exasperated, but he’s grinning. “You’re such an ass.”
I hold. Listening. Very, very intent listening.
Kris sighs. “I don’t know. I try not to think about it. I have another year and a half left”—he winces, but recovers with a head shake—“and I’m the spare.”
My instinct is to slap anyone who calls my brother that, buthe’sthe one who said it. I punch his shoulder anyway. “No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am. Dad’s never had me involved in any kind of training. I expect he’ll slot me in somewhere once I’ve graduated to keep me in reserve.”
“Slot you in?Keep you in reserve? That shouldn’t be the attitude you have for not only what you’ll be doing with the rest of your life, but for something that’s supposed to bring joy to the world.”
His eyebrow cocks as he takes a sip of cocoa. “And your attitude is different how?”
“I—” Well, shit. “You have a choice.”
