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That’s totally something Jude would’ve done.
“Are you seeing your parents this year?” He’s from…somewhere in the Midwest? I can’t recall off the top of my head.
He shakes his head. “We don’t do the holidays.”
“Never?”
“Busy time of year for them.”
“They still work?”
“They were born with holiday party planner hats on their heads, and they will die with their holiday party planner hats on their heads.Theystill have a mission in life.”
Hello, bitterness.
But at least I kinda get it now. I force myself to sit still and not launch myself at him to hug his pain away. “So what do you do on the big holidays?”
He shrugs again, the neighbor’s lights making him look like hunchbacked Grinch Trevor. “Just another day.”
I slouch deeper into the couch. “I guess it’s that for me too this year.”
He sighs.
I sigh.
And then I sit up. “What if we both do something different?”
He doesn’t sigh again, but I can see him holding it at the ready. Even his arms are twitching like he wants to scrub his hands over his face and wipe away this whole conversation.
“You hate Christmas. My family’s all busy this year, and no amount of trees or cookies or music will make up for missing them. So what if we do our own made-up holiday? Like…Dogmas. Or Game-ukah. Or Prankza.”
My computer screen times out and blinks off since I haven’t moved the mouse in too long, plunging the whole room into darkness.
I reach into my blanket and flick the switch to light it up, because yes, I have a light-up Christmas blanket.
I know.
I know.
Trevor’s cheek twitches. “Did you just sayGame-ukahlike Hannukah for games?”
“Yes.”
He gives in and scrubs a hand over his face.
Called it.
“Or we can pretend it’s summer. Camp out in here for a day at the beach while I read romance novels and you watchBaywatchand pretend you’re gawking at all the pretty ladies.”
He stares at me.
I don’t know if that’s a stare ofthis is even worse, or if it’s a stare ofshe wins, send her back to the kitchen to bake more.
“Um, we could have ourselves a grumpy little Christmas? I can pretend to be super grinchy, and we can sing pop songs but all in grunts, like Zeus’s brother did at the holiday party they had last weekend, and eat s’mores and pretend it’s the middle of summer, and trade birthday presents that are all awful, terrible presents that our aunts and uncles who don’t know us at all would’ve given us?”
“Lot of work when we could ignore it instead.”
“What’s your favorite thing to do?”
