Page 45 of The Night


Font Size:

I hesitated. There was so muchzing.Zingfor fuckingdays. But I couldn’t discount logic as easily as Everett seemed to. There had to be something I wasn’t thinkingof.

“Knew it!” he crowed, though I hadn’t said a word. “So maybe just take things as they come. Enjoy the sweet moments for as long as they last, and let yourself be happynow.” His smile went soft and a little sappy, sweeter than all the frosting inFanaille. “I’m, ah… I’m thankful every day that I did.”

“You know this wholetownis improbable,” I grumbled.

“Oh, yeah. Especially at Christmas. But don’t fight it, Liam.Let the Christmas magic flow through you,” he hissed, like that creepy dude from Star Wars.

I snorted. “You trying to turn me to the Dark Side, Everett?”

“Is it working?”

I smiled. “Actually… maybe it is.”

“Okay, then.” Everett dusted his hands on his pants and stood. “My work here is done. Ponder thezing, Liam. Ponder why it’s easier to accept that you don’tdeservea thing than to accept that deserving has nothing to do with it at all. Thenstopfucking pondering, because when the Universe hands you a Christmas cookie, you shouldn’t overthink it, you should justenjoy it.”

He strolled out with a wink and left me sitting on the floor thinking about Gideon… and about the possibility that I could maybe grab onto some happiness for myself, at least for a little while.

Chapter Nine

Gideon

As I drovehome through the total darkness that was early evening in late December, I couldn’t help but notice all the lights. Lights on every damn building in town, lights on all the trees going up my street, lights on the houses, lights on the fences. And for the first time in all the years I’d lived in O’Leary, I didn’t scoff or roll my eyes —much—because I had at least as much Christmas shit—yes, includinglights—thrown around my own house.

It had started a week ago with Hazel’s Santa drawing tacked to my fridge. Simple enough, right? But I’d warned Hazel Christmas decorations were a slippery slope, and I’d been right.

The next day, while we were at the bakery eating cinnamon rolls topped with a level of frosting that literally gave me heart palpitations, Hazel had mentioned wistfully how pretty the little electric candles looked in the windows of the house across the street.

Sure enough, that evening someone in a red Santa suit had rung the doorbell, and we’d found a box of brand-new window candles sitting on the porch—battery operated LED candles, no less, like someone was determined not to let me ruin her fun with talk of fire hazards and electric bills.

Psssht.Like I would have.

Okay, possibly I would.

That night, Hazel had proudly presented me with another Santa drawing for my fridge—this one kind of manic-looking and surrounded by twinkling lights that Liam agreed looked a lot like firecrackers… though he might have just been humoring me.

On Saturday, Sam had come over to watch Hazel while I worked a very long and (thankfully) quiet shift, and Liam did more photo shoots. I’d gotten home to find Hazel and Sam had decorated the trees in front of my house with ornaments made of pinecones, birdseed, and peanut butter—“Which is basically like frosting forbirds, when you think about it, Gideon!”—and my whole house smelled like Cal’s fresh-baked gingerbread cookies, since a “Santa” I was pretty sure was Parker had dropped off two dozen of them, along with a freakingtubof icing so Hazel could decorate them.

Liam had said, “Is it possible for a child to literallybecomesugar? This cannot be healthy,” and Hazel, with a cookie crammed in her mouth, had replied, “I totally disagree,” which might have been a more compelling denial if she hadn’t sprayed Liam with cookie crumbs as she spoke.

That night, another Santa drawing had gone up on the fridge, this one surrounded by beady-eyed birds and an army of staring, gaping zombies with endlessly grasping arms.

“Gideon, they’regingerbread men,” Liam had snickered, his laughing green eyes meeting mine over the kitchen island as we ate burgers. “Jesus, what’s wrong with you?”

Sunday, Mr. and Mrs. Claus—aka, Bill and Dhann Nickerson—had sent over a variety of decorative pillows and blankets from the Books and More, which had resulted in a bit of a skirmish at my front door, with me insisting I wasn’t opening amother-fa la la-inghome fordisplacedelves, and I didn’tneedany freakin’ red and green pillows or blankets in my home, and Bill telling me that Santa’s reindeer had more common sense than I did, and I should get it through my thick skull that Christmas was gonna happen whether I liked it or not, so I should take the chenille pillows before he smothered me with them. He’d launched the box over my shoulder into the front hall, sending textiles exploding around the room like shrapnel from a grenade, growled“We hope you have a Merry Christmas!”like it was the direst threat, and let his wife tow him back down the path to the driveway.

That night’s Santa had been sleeping on a red pillow, covered with a green blanket, and wearing the smuggest little smile. Since we were out of space on the fridge, he’d been taped to the cabinet, but since the piece had been captioned, “To: Gideon, Love: Bug” there was no way I was gonna protest.

Monday, I arrived home carrying boxes of pizza, only to find that an entire miniature porcelain village complete with fake snow had sprung up on my kitchen island while I was gone. Hazel was sitting on one of the kitchen stools singing Christmas carols, cuddling Fia, and moving a tiny doll through the streets of the town.

“Hey, Gideon! Look what a Santa brought!” she’d said, grinning up at me, bright red bows in her hair. “Are you okay? Why do you look so grumpy? Ooh!Pizza!”

In her quest for cheesy goodness, though, she’d loosened her grip on Fia, who’d darted out of her arms and onto the counter. Cue a scene fromA Godzilla Christmas.

“Fia!Noooo!You just crushed the school with all the children inside it! No, Fia! Don’t eat the church!” As if anyone needed further proof that Christmas was dangerous as fuck,amirite?

That night’s Santa was stretched out flat over a tiny village, like he was a float in a Thanksgiving parade, or possibly preparing to belly flop directly onto the pointy roofs. Or, as I pointed out to Liam later, like the specter of death hovering over an unsuspecting town.

Liam had shaken his head and shoved a leftover gingerbread cookie in my mouth, but he’d laughed while he’d done it.