Judy:That’s because everyone is at MurderCon, which is where we should be.
Dee:Judy, we’re too old for cons. They’ll think our medical bracelets are cosplay.
Impressed that Dee knew what cosplaying was, I typed out as succinct a summary of the angel-postman miracle as I possibly could, given that I was condensing from Sunny Palmer, who told stories with the verbal equivalent of parentheses and asterisks and footnotes. I added that we’d tried to talk to Ronald himself and failed, but that both his son and a town official agreed we had the story right.
Judy:And why are we researching a Vermont Christmas miracle again? Aren’t you in California?
I hesitated... and then decided I might as well throw them a bone.
Me:I relocated to Vermont to work. My new roommate, the one with the demon cat, is writing a screenplay about the miracle for the Hope Channel. I agreed tohelp her research the miracle, and in return, she’s helping me with some work things.
There. That was casual. Information without potentially laying myself open to relationship advice as well as cat advice.
There was a pause on the thread, and I could practically feel their side chat blowing up from here.
Finally, another text came.
Betty:We can’t wait to help!
Judy:You know it might go even smoother if you introduced her to us. That way we could get information directly from the source.
I bet.Information like whether or not Sunny wanted to be the Maria von Trapp to me and my collection of mostly empty Smythson notebooks.
“Good morning, Sad Boy,” said the devil herself as she stepped into the laundry room. She looked at me sitting on the built-in table and then at the rumbling washing machine. “Am I interrupting some kind of washing ritual?”
“No, I was trying to feed your horrible cat,” I said, setting down my phone and pointing to the dish of untouched food. “And then I didn’t have the energy to change rooms.”
“Changing rooms is hard,” agreed Sunny with the conviction of someone who personally knew this pain. “But Mr.Tumnus won’t accept a gift while you watch. He has too much pride. He’ll eat it after you leave, furtively and under the cover of darkness, and then deny it ever happened.”
“But it’s made of hand-caught lobster from Maine.Lobstah, Sunny.”
“I make no apologies for my son,” she said as she came all the way into the room and then stood in front of me. “He’s verymisunderstood. I just think he’s not being challenged enough, you know?”
She was wearing slouchy overalls today with a thin cropped hoodie, and I could see the goose bumps pebbling the plush curves and creases of her waist. She was too California to do winter in Vermont without freezing her ass off, but too stubborn to actually dress like someone who didn’t want their nipples to cut glass.
She caught my look. “You’re supposed to dress for the weather you want.”
“That’s definitely not true.”
“It is! Ask the Danes! They’re always in coats, and guess what, it’s always cold.”
“Well, I can’t argue with either of those two data points.”
She glanced down, and then fidgeted a moment with her sleeves, which were long enough to come down over her hands. “Isaac, about last night...”
Ah shit. Here it was. Couldn’t we just sort of mutually stay away from each other’s private parts? Why did we have to dothis, which felt so much like a breakup, like a loss, and I just didn’t know if I had it in me to lose anything else, even if it was only spontaneous photo booth fingerbangs.
“I like kissing your mouth,” Sunny blurted abruptly. “And I really, really like everything else about fooling around with you, because you make me come harder than seasoned professionals, and you’re super filthy and you always fuck like it’s the last time you’ll ever get to touch me... which I just now realized is probably because we both think it is.”
“Then what’s the problem?” I asked before she could say anything more. “We both like it. And sunshine, I meant what I said last night.” My voice got lower then, and from the flush on her cheeks, I knew we were both remembering my half-growled words in the photo booth.
I want to remember this feeling forever. I want to smell you on my fingers every morning and every night.
Her teeth were digging into her lip in the most aggressively sexy way. “I know you meant it,” she said a little breathlessly. “And I know we both like it. But we can’t fuck around after you find a muse, because I think muses are finicky about that stuff.”
I could’ve been a lawyer, I saw the willy-wetting loophole so fast. “We can’t fuck aroundafterI find a muse? So we can fuck arounduntilthen?”
I was already reaching for her and she took a dramatic step back.
