Page 26 of Santa’s Lawyer

For a moment, she thought she saw panic in his eyes.

But Avery felt nothing other than pure bliss. And oh, that scent in the air. It smelled like her grandmother’s house.

Louis said something she couldn’t hear as she took a deep, grateful breath.

Avery woke up on the floor.

She gasped and giggled when she saw Louis unconscious on the carpet next to her.

“Louiiiis! Wake uuup!” Avery sang, shaking his shoulder.

She looked around. They were in a large room lined with shelves. The shelves were full of bottles and jars containing some kind of golden glitter. Was this the arts supply closet?

Louis slowly sat up and looked around the room, and at their jackets on the floor beside them.

“What in the South Pole—?” he asked, holding his head. “What are we doing in here?”

Avery consulted the various parts of herself that were in need of urgent attention. “I think we may have been, um," Avery raised her eyebrows in implication and nodded toward their discarded blazers.

Louis blushed. “I—but why—we hardly ever come to this room. I have the only key. How did we—”

He stopped in his tracks when Avery’s hand found his knee.

“Avery…” Louis admonished.

“Louis, I feel incredible right now. Better than I ever have. I feel like I swallowed lightning. And you just said you have the only key to this room.” She slid closer to him, hand still firmly on his leg. “So, no one can interrupt us, right?”

“That’s true,” Louis admitted. He began to lean toward her, then stopped. “Wait. What is the last thing you remember?”

Avery closed the distance between them and nuzzled Louis’ neck with her nose. “Who cares?” she asked, a devilish laugh tripping across her tongue.

Louis let out a quiet, controlled breath. “Something’s peculiar. I was—” he leaned into her breath on his neck. “I was waiting for you. I was worried,” he recalled softly, his focus and resolve slipping with each word.

“I’m here now,” she said, reaching up and turning his face toward her. “And you should kiss me.”

Louis obediently slid his hand up the back of her neck, fingertips weaving into her hair, skimming along her scalp.

He leaned down, grazing the tip of his nose across her jaw line, breathing in deeply.

“I wonder,” he whispered, as his lips reached her ear, “if you taste as good as you smell.” He gathered her hair in his hand and lightly tugged, tipping her head back, planting a warm, gentle kiss just behind her ear, pressing his lips to her pounding pulse.

Avery went feral.

Grabbing him by the collar, she kissed him, hard. She tore at the buttons on his shirt like he was a gift-wrapped box on Christmas morning. Placing a hand in the center of his chest, she pressed him down to the floor.

Then Avery halted. “Hold on,” she said, Louis’ hands pausing their eager ascent at the top of her ribcage. “I’m having the strangest sense of—”

She looked up. Around the room, the lids on the jars of shimmering golden dust were unscrewing of their own accord, the bottles uncorking themselves.

“Louis!” she exclaimed, scrambling off of him. “The jars. The powder. Did we breathe that in? Are we—?”

He darted for the nearest levitating cork, hastily stuffing it back in its bottle. The other floating lids and stoppers followed suit.

“This is—not ideal,” Louis observed. “It’s okay. This is okay. It will wear off. Nothing…happened, I’m sure,” he said, sitting up straight and dusting himself off. “Breathe. Think. What’s the last thing you remember?”

Avery sat up next to Louis, the two of them leaning against a shelf. Trying to hold on to a thought was like trying to walk uphill on an icy sidewalk. But it was all there, just around the edges. She’d met Santa. She’d received an impossible assignment. She’d decided to throw in the towel. She’d gone to find Louis. She'd learned—

Gasping, she clamped a hand over her mouth. “The NDA,” she whispered. “Oh, god, Louis, no, I can’t! What if—!”