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The little typing bubbles appeared, followed shortly by her answer.

Check out the Christmas lights SM page!!

With a sinking sensation, I opened it up. And sure enough, there at the top of the feed with about one hundred likes and laughing emoji reactions, plus a load of comments, was a photo of my reindeer humping on my front lawn. Posted by Kerr.

I glared across at his house, hoping he saw me and turned to stone. Then I stomped inside, all inclination to go and apologize disappearing in a puff of smoke.

*

Deciding how to exact revenge was becoming more difficult. I certainly did not want to go too far again, and neither was I keen to set foot back on Kerr’s land in general. The copying of the decorations was also old hat now.

So, what to do?

The only way forward was to add even more of a display to my house and then repost my entry. And it needed to be extra bright and in-your-​face. And so, yet again, I headed out to the store while it was still open and bought myself three more boxes of lights. I would need to invest in shares in that bloody garden center.

Once I got home, I set to work placing them through the hedge spanning the front boundary of my garden, so that they would shine out across the street for all to see (and perhaps burn Kerr’s retinas out in the process). I had chosen bright white for this very purpose.

It was only once I fed the wiring through the living room window that I realized that all the plug points in my extension cord were already taken. Crap.

I glanced around the room, hoping that the solution would present itself. But there were no other sockets near enough. Then a light bulb lit in my head. I did have another extension cord in the utility room. So a short-​term solution would be to plug that into the other extension cord, and then my new plugs could go into the second one. Along with the plug that I’d have to remove from the first one to allow the plugging in of the second extension.

I grabbed the second extension cord and set to work getting it all set up, excited to see what the finished product looked like from outside. As I left the living room, a nagging thought at the back of my mind bothered me. Perhaps plugging one extension into another wasn’t a good idea? But I could always google that later. It wouldn’t do any harm for a short time, surely.

I rushed back outside, eager to see the finished product. And sure enough, once I got out onto the frosty pavement, the effect was dazzling. Bright white lights studded my hedges, presenting the first layer of Christmas joy. The second layer was the reindeer frolicking on the lawn to the right in front of the living room window, with the LED tree behind them. Then on the left lawn was my inflatable Santa, bobbing round cheerily in the breeze, and the small tree planted on my lawn behind him draped in rose gold lights. My red, blue, and green bulbous lights lined the frame of every window.

Gaudy, and amazing. Perfect.

With a satisfied hmm, I went inside to fetch Izzy her supper.

15

Kerr

FALLING ASLEEP IN front of the TV wasn’t usually my style. I was more of a consistent bedtime routine kind of guy. However, the exhilaration of sneaking over to Nisa’s house to cable-​tie her reindeer into a compromising position must have exhausted me, and I’d dropped off in the middle of my favorite show. A check of my watch confirmed that it was past my usual bedtime.

I stretched to loosen the kinks in my neck, then opted for a quick check of social media to see whether Nisa had left any reaction or comment on that photo I had posted of my dirty deed. I did feel slightly guilty about that part, but only a little. She had tried to kill my Santa, after all.

She’d taken ages to come home, so I’d given up spying on her to witness her reaction to the reindeer. And no sign of any interaction with my photo. Disappointing.

I stood, scrolling down the page on my phone, and was struck by the urge to have a peek across at Nisa’s before I went up to bed—​to see if she had shifted the reindeer back to their original positions or not. I flicked off the light switch and moved over to the window to raise the blind. Then a new photo on the feed caught my eye. At first I didn’t clock that it was Nisa’s because of her new addition. Not only were the reindeer back in place in the photo, but she’d also added more lights, to her hedgerow this time. They certainly were bright.

A smile tugged at my mouth despite myself. I liked that her feisty side refused to be kept down, even though she was clearly attempting to avoid any further trespass on my property. And the lights did look very festive.

There was no way I wasn’t going to have a look for myself now. So I tugged the cord to bring my blind up and took in the display in real life. Jesus, it was even brighter than I’d anticipated from the photo. I blinked a couple of times, feeling as if something was off. And as I focused on the house, behind the hedgerow lights, something appeared disconcerting. I hadn’t seen any new lights in her living room window in that photo she’d posted, but there was definitely an orangey-​yellow flickering behind the glass, just above the windowsill.

“Holy shit!” I shouted as the dots connected and I realized that there was a fire in Nisa’s living room. I sprinted for my front door, heart smacking against my rib cage, and ran out into the street in my slippers, T-shirt, and tartan comfy joggers, dashing across the road to hammer on Nisa’s front door.

“Nisa! Nisa! There’s a fire in your living room—”

The door was yanked open and Nisa’s wild eyes met mine. “Kerr! There’s a fire in my living room!”

“I know,” I said, grabbing her and hauling her out of the house onto her front lawn. She was breathing heavily, panic in her eyes. “Oh shit. Oh shit, oh shit, I’m so stupid!”

“Hey, it’s okay,” I said, unable to resist the need to pull her close to me. Her silky pink pajamas grazed my skin, but my brain hardly registered the sensation. “It looks small.” I spied her phone in her hand. Have you called the fire brigade?”

She nodded. “I’ve got a fire extinguisher in the kitchen though. Should I go in and use it?” She made to move for the front door and my arms immediately tightened around her.

“No way,” I said, never feeling so determined about anything in my entire life. “There is no way you’re going back in there.”