Page 141 of End Game

“You’re smiling. You’re encouraging her.”

“That is not my fault.”

By then, Cami has already stepped over a box of ornaments and wrapped both arms around Griffin’s waist.

“I have never had two Christmas trees.”

Griffin stares down at her.

I watch the moment it happens.

I see the “fuck” cross his face.

There it is.

Not the pout. Not the arms around him. Not even the fact that she’s looking up at him like a second Christmas tree is the only thing standing between her and eternal happiness.

It’s the seven-word sentence.

His whole face changes, the argument draining out of him before he even opens his mouth.

Dex sees it too.

“Dude,” he begins quietly. “You’re fucked.”

Griffin sighs and wraps an arm around her and sighs. “I know.”

Two hours later, we have two Christmas Trees.

The second one is smaller, which was apparently Griffin’s compromise.

Cami calls it a victory.

Dex calls it a Dickmas Tree, because Griffin’s prohibition against inappropriate ornaments apparently only applied to the main tree, and Dex treats loopholes like divine intervention.

“Festive genitals are historically underrepresented,” he announces.

There is now a crocheted penis hanging prominently in the front window, and I’m pretty sure Griffin regrets every decision he has made since noon.

The rest of the house, though?

Standing near the bottom of the stairs with a strand of garland in my hands, I take in what they have managed to do to the place in just a couple of hours. Warm white lights run across the mantle. Greenery wraps around the railing.

Cami put little battery-operated candles in the windows, and Ronan somehow arranged the decorations on the bookshelves so they look intentional instead of like Christmas threw up on them.

The big tree fills one corner of the living room, and it’s not coordinated. Not even close.

Griffin’s ornaments are mostly old—things from his childhood, a few EMS ones, some his mom has apparently given him every year since he moved out.

Ronan’s are less traditional. Books. Dice. A tiny dragon curled around a candy cane. Things that look chosen one at a time over years instead of bought in a matching set.

Unsurprisingly, Dex has contributed chaos.

Obviously.

Cami bought ornaments last week because she didn’t have any.

That part sits wrong inside me.