Page 6 of Not Another Christmas Movie

“I’ll trade you a boozy seltzer for it,” Nick offered.

“If it’s the peppermint flavor, you can go right to hell,” Annie warned.

“Fair enough. Okay, what do you want then?” Nick asked.

“A bacon, egg, and cheese bagel sandwich with hot honey from the Coffee Spot. Oh, and a cold brew with chocolate cold foam. If I give you the rest of this cookie, would you drive over and pick it up tomorrow morning?” Annie smiled hopefully, batting her eyelashes at him.

“Fine. But only because I was planning on going there anyway,” Nick sighed. Annie grinned and took one last small bite of the cookie before handing the rest over to Nick. “Now let’s get inside and lock the doors.”

“Santa doesn’t use locks, Nick. Not when there’s an open fireplace …” Annie said in a spooky voice before giving in to a yawn and turning to the wooden chair. “You’re just going to leave this bloody thing out here for him then?”

“I’d rather enjoy this cookie,” Nick admitted.

“Not going to lie, it’s pretty weird I’m sharing my ‘goods’ with the kid next door. I feel like you’re going to go tattle on me to our moms,” Annie admitted, shaking her head.

“I think our parents will be too wasted this week to care what we’re doing here,” Nick said in a slightly defiant tone.

“Ha,” Annie huffed, “Yeah, I saw a blurry picture my dad sent of the four of them on a formal night. Looks like they’re taking full advantage of that drink package.”

“It was nice seeing you, Annie,” Nick said shyly. “Maybe we can catch up while we’re both housesitting.”

“Maybe,” Annie shrugged noncommittedly. “Or I’ll see you next week by the trash.”

“It’ll always be our spot,” Nick deadpanned.

“And thanks again for my breakfast tomorrow, feel free to leave it at my doorstep if I’m still sleeping,” Annie said with a wave, scurrying back to the warmth of her house.

“Night, Annie,” Nick said after a sigh. He finished the remaining cookie in one large bite.

After locking up (and checking it twice), Annie posted an Instagram story with a heavily filtered stoned Santa and wrote, “Christmas magic.” It wasn’t much more than a blur of the man’s red clothes, ringing a golden bell, and the bright green bong, but Annie had turned the live picture into a boomerang, bringing some of the absurdity they had witnessed to action. Right before she posted it, she added music so that Mariah’s “make my wish come true, all I want for Christmas is you,” timed along with the movement. Annie then made her way upstairs and found Arthur asleep on her teenage bed.

Her room was more like an old high school set, unaware of passing time. Which made her both nostalgic and slightly queasy, remembering the many nights she would spend crying into her keyboard over crushes who didn’t know she existed, only to grieve by leaving some kind of emo song lyric in an AIM away message. Or adding yet another angsty poem to a journal showcasing a cover collage full of inspirational images and words she meticulously cut out from her sister’s old Cosmo magazines.

Arthur woke suddenly, snapping Annie out of her daze, and hissed, claws at the ready. “Whoa, calm down, don’t be an asshole,” Annie said and turned her hand into a fist to allow Arthur to smell her and remember that she wasn’t his mortal enemy and in fact just the person who would be feeding and watering him for the next several days. “That’s better, you tiny demon,” Annie murmured when Arthur nudged his small orange head into her hand, nourishing himself with a solid stretch and dramatically yawning. Annie let out her own yawn and sprawled across the bed, taking in the scent of her worn-out, well-loved quilt. She stared up at her familiar ceiling, forever cluttered with those ridiculous glow-in-the-dark star stickers. Actually, if Annie were being honest, she still found them to be very cool and would happily cover her apartment with them if they weren’t so annoying to put up and remove. That and she didn’t need the threat of stars standing in the way of getting back her security deposit.

On the wooden bedside table, her mother had neatly piled copies of her school yearbooks, and Annie sighed, wondering why they had been moved back up here from the basement. She contemplated at what point during this next week she would feel emotionally ready and physically tipsy enough to revisit their pages willingly. Knowing full well it would lead to looking up her old classmates online and chronicling the paths taken since graduation.

Annie saw her phone light up with a notification. @boner4musack had liked her Instagram story. Whoa. Hold the phone. Literally. What did that mean? Likely absolutely nothing, but it still made Annie’s limbs buzz restlessly, desperate for some sort of reason why. Chris rarely watched her stories and hadn’t left any type of reaction to them since well before Halloween. Why this story? Why now?

Annie heard the sounds of Christmas music paired with conversation travel upstairs. It gave her a moment to pause her plan to overthink a stupid notification, as her pulse quickened, needing to investigate the noise. As she crept down the stairs, she quickly realized that the TV had turned back on and was playing another made-for-TV movie. Arthur was perched next to the screen, rubbing his head into the bottom corner.

“Did you turn the TV back on, you little weirdo?” Annie asked, relieved that it was only a dumb movie and not a serial killer. Annie turned the TV off again and returned upstairs, Arthur at her heels. Once she was back in bed, he walked up to Annie’s chest and threw his body across her heart, purring loudly before closing his eyes again. The effect was enchanting. The calming repetitive sound, the familiar warmth of her bed, and Arthur’s furry frame holding on to her like a tiny weighted blanket. Almost instantly, and before Annie could fight it, she was soothed into allowing her own eyes to close.

Of course, she didn’t plan to fall asleep like that, but that’s how these things happen. One must always heed warnings while resting alongside a tiny animal companion, after all. Annie swore she heard the sound of jingle bells right before she blinked her eyes back open to a warm, well-lit space.

Being so well-rested was immediately disorientating. She was most acquainted with waking up exhausted and blindly managing her morning in a cranky haze, desperately longing to go back to bed.

The room was suffused in a warm glow, and Arthur was now staring at her with a sparkly red collar around his neck that jingled with each small movement. It looked like he had been washed and fluffed, his orange fur catching a sunbeam and radiating brighter than before their catnap. Arthur was looking at her in such a sweet and serene way, his yellow eyes as big as a cartoon, and his expression just as broad. Annie gasped in surprise. Wait. Was this a different cat?

“Why are you looking at me like that? And where did you get that collar? Did you put it on yourself?” Annie asked him. He padded closer and purred into her face. “You’re creeping me out,” Annie said, sitting up. It took her a moment to realize she wasn’t in her bedroom. Or, technically, she was in her bedroom, but it had completely transformed. “What’s going on?” Annie asked the cat. He rubbed his loudly purring face against her arm.

The room looked like it had been staged for a furniture catalog photo shoot from another era—like, the late 1990s or early 2000s. The wonderfully worn blue quilt had been replaced with a red down comforter, and underneath her, the sheets had been changed to soft flannels with red and green snowflakes. There was a bright green garland covering the bed frame, and around her dresser white lights twinkled. A small tree decorated with colorful ornaments sat in the corner where the old popcorn tin had been growing dusty mere moments ago. Even the smell of the room seemed to have changed.

“Oh, wow, that’s nice,” Annie admitted out loud, taking in another deep breath. Her nose sparkled with cinnamon, orange, and pine. Annie looked down to see that she was wearing red silk pajamas. Like, fancy ones reserved for Instagram influencers or wealthy housewives, or even Nick’s mom, for that matter. And there was a big monogrammed “A” and “M” scripted in white thread across a pocket closest to her heart. Annie looked to the door and saw a beautiful leather suitcase with her initials stamped in a neat font in its corner. In a panicked moment of complete confusion, Annie leaped from the bed and opened the door.

“Mom? Dad? Are you home?” Annie asked, sticking her head out into the hallway. Was this some kind of joke? “Ellie?” Annie tried, wondering if maybe her sister Elise was to blame. But the house was still and quiet. Annie tiptoed down the hallway to see that it had also been decorated. Garlands had been laced across all available surfaces, wreaths placed on every door, and mistletoe hung above each frame. When she got back downstairs, she was greeted by another explosion of decorations, multiple trees and red ribbons, and white candles were burning in strategic spaces, creating an intimate glow.

“Who lit all these candles? Why are all the lights already on? And wow, there are multiple trees? This isn’t safe!” Annie walked into the kitchen and saw a huge canister of Folgers coffee on the counter, and a full but otherwise pristine coffee maker. “Who made this?” she asked out loud again. She was unable to remove the glass coffee pot for further evaluation, and the coffee itself appeared to be unmoving. “Well, I take my coffee iced anyway,” she muttered, squeezing her eyes shut. Okay, this has to be some sort of bizarre dream, Annie thought, moving about the space. That cookie from earlier must have been stronger than I realized. “Annie, wake up, I don’t like this!”