“Do I wear red?” she asked.
“Yes,” said everyone.
“Do I bring presents?”
“Yes.”
“Am I Father Christmas?”
“Yes.”
She beamed, visibly taller for it.
Matilda, whose card said “penguin,” became deeply offended at the suggestion that penguins were not regular visitors to Balmoral. “They could be,” she argued. “Maybe they don’t have the right coats.”
Hyzenthlay approached the game like a thesis. Her card read “snowflake.” Her questions ran along the lines of: “Am I a naturally occurring phenomenon?” and “Would I be affected by a sudden rise in global temperatures?”
The adults exchanged looks.
“You might be,” Vic said carefully.
Erin, watching her goddaughter’s furrowed brows, thought—with a mix of amusement and awe—that the world would either be saved or conquered by this child one day.
Alex’s card—“reindeer”—took her longer than she would ever publicly admit. She was distracted by watching everyone else, by the way the light of the fire softened Vic’s face, by the way Julia’s hand never strayed far from her wife’s. By the steady warmth of Erin’s thigh pressed against hers.
When she finally guessed it, Vic cheered so loudly one of the dogs woke up and barked for a full thirty seconds.
“You did get actual reindeer,” Alex reminded her. “You deserve tonight’s win.”
“I do,” Vic said. “And tomorrow, I will win at Scrabble.”
“You will not,” Julia said.
“We shall see,” Vic replied, with the stubbornness of awoman who had, against all odds, coaxed three reindeer, four small children, and a full Christmas dinner into harmonious existence.
Erin’s card said “crown.”
Matilda thought this was deeply obvious and therefore unfair.
Erin did not.
“Am I alive?” she asked.
“Not technically,” Alex said, lips twitching.
“That’s a worrying answer,” Erin muttered.
She spent a good five minutes asking if she was a house, a tree, or a specific dog.
“You wear it,” Frank blurted out eventually, forgetting the rules entirely.
Erin blinked. “I—I what?”
“Frank,” Matilda hissed. “You’re not supposed to just tell her!”
Erin turned to Alex slowly. Their eyes met.
Alex’s smile was... something. Playful. Tender.
