“We could be the first tree in history to be decked out in balls and vaginas.” Jen threw her hands up in the air.
“You lost me with lady balls.” Peri shrugged. “But, please, carry on.”
“Okay, I think it’s bedtime.” Jacque scooped Thia up. “When Jen starts busting balls, and not Christmas ones, it’s time for the already corrupted children to hit the sack.”
“Minimize the damage?” Sally asked.
“Exactly. We need to save them before they are too far gone,” Jacque said.
“Mommy, can I stay up and hang up more Christmas balls? I promise I won’t hang any other kinds of balls, even if Aunt Jen tries to get me to,” Titus said. He put a silver ornament on the tree and then stood back and admired it.
“I think we may already be too late,” Sally said. “Jen, maybe you should get some rest, too. You’ve been working your butt off to make this place look great. It’s been a long day. Peri’s just dropped a truth bomb on you. You deserve some rest.”
“I second that motion,” Jacque said as she handed Thia to Decebel. “Take your corrupted child, who, I will add, is no longer blue, so no permanent damage, obviously. Take your even more corrupted wife who, I will also note, is looking a little homicidal, and put them to bed.”
Jen’s angry face twisted into a wicked smile. “Yes, B, put me to bed. Let’s get out those other kind of blue ba—”
“JINGLE BELLS, JINGLE BELLS,” Jacque started singing at the top of her lungs. Sally joined in, as did Thia, who once again yelled “hells” instead of bells.
Fane stood up and walked over to Jacque. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and murmured, “I’ll be back after I get him down. Then perhaps we need to talk to Peri about taking memories and when it’s not appropriate to give them back.”
She smiled up at him. “I’ll be here, trying not to worry that our child is going to turn into a delinquent who gets Thia knocked up at sixteen. Or permanently dyed green by a deranged she-wolf.”
Fane’s eyes widened in horror.
“Too much?” Jacque couldn’t help but laugh.
“Jacque, maybe you should lay off the eggnog, too,” Sally said. “I saw you drinking it from the carton earlier.”
“If you don’t stop throwing me under the bus, I’m going to have to run you over with said bus,” Jacque quipped. She walked over and lifted Titus so he could hang a few ornaments higher on the tree. The rest were bunched in one small area on the bottom , right where Slate could snatch them off.
Costin laughed and turned it into a cough when his mate glared at him. “This is going to be an interesting Christmas,” he said as he rubbed his mouth, no doubt trying to cover his grin.
“With this group, how could it possibly be anything else?” Jacque couldn’t help but smile. Christmaswasgoing to be interesting, and probably hilarious, and an absolute disaster. But she had a feeling that’s exactly the kind of Christmas they needed. They needed Thia’s ridiculous vocabulary. They needed Slate’s infectious laughter. They needed Titus’s brilliant summaries of stupid situations. They needed to see that the future was bright, that therewasa future for them. The recent past was just too dark, too painful. So, Jacque would accept her son’s first word was dammit. She would take jingle hells and three thousand balls, of any kind, on the tree. She would take the possibility that her best friend might get drunk on eggnog and actually dye her son green. She would take it all because it meant they were together. And they were safe, for now.
“Where’s that eggnog,” Peri asked. “I need a drink myself. Jen and Decebel were not remotely upset enough for my gratification.”
Sally laughed. “Oh, if you think she and Dec are doing anything else besides plotting all of our demise right now, you donotneed any eggnog because you are going to need all of your faculties in full working order.”
“She ain’t wrong,” Jacque said, pointing at Sally.
“Hmm,” Peri sighed. “Sooo, I probably shouldn’t have let the blue baby out of the bag, huh?”
“She’s claiming her child has PTBSD,” Sally said.
“You’re right. We’re screwed.”
The End
