Page 66 of Phantom’s Mate

A trio of ghosts, carrying clanking ghost chains, trooped through the walls into the bedroom of Brandon and Kitty’s suite: one large, one medium-sized, and one adolescent-sized.

The music system blared to life, playing “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.”

“Weee are the ghoooosts of Christmas past, present and future,” the spirits intoned. “Weee demaaaand that you riiiiiise and ooopen presents!”

Brandon reached over to his night table, picked up his alarm clock, and threw it at them. It went right through Nick and bounced off the wall.

They continued on, passing through Brock’s room and then Damien and Lila’s suite—followed by the sounds of blasting Christmas music and more objects hitting the walls—before dramatically rising up through the floor of Jaeda and Remy’s suite and then moving on to Colt and Callie’s.

There was a flurry of motion and then, “Damn it, there went my orgasm!”

“Mine too,” Brandon yelled from below them.

Nick, Brittany and DB floated outside and down to ground level. “That was awesome,” Brittany said, helpless with laughter.

DB asked, “Should we do Titan and Mari now?”

“Too late.” They turned to see Titan coming down the path from his cabin, carrying Mari piggyback. She was wearing her Christmas pajamas, rubber duckie plush slippers, and a knitted hat in the shape of a rubber duckie wearing a Santa hat.

Mari had a thing about rubber duckies.

“Your hat is wearing a hat,” Britt observed.

Mari beamed at her. “It’s an existential meta-statement on hatness.” Titan smiled. She added, “How come I can hear you talking?”

DB said, “It’s a spell. I made it myself. It’s their Christmas present from me, so you can all hear them talking the whole day.”

Mari said, “Come here, you.” DB went over to her and she leaned down and kissed the top of his head. “You are the nicest Dragon Boy ever.”

DB’s face went red.

To cover his embarrassment, Nick said to the bears, “You’re not bringing any presents?”

Mari said to Titan, “He is so silly.”

Titan said, “I brought them down last night and put them around the tree. I have more important cargo this morning.”

They all trooped inside, Mari kissing the back of Titan’s neck. He started making coffee while she sat on the end of the kitchen island, swinging her duckie feet and talking to the ghosts.

The crew trailed down the stairs, two by two. Pretty soon breakfast was cooking, mimosas and spiked hot chocolate were being mixed, stockings were being opened, and Kitty was yelling at Colt and Remy to stop feeling up the presents under the tree before they filed sexual harassment charges.

It was total mayhem.

After everyone was fed, the real present-opening started. The place turned into a crazy mess of wrappings and piles of gifts. There were typical presents—jewelry and tools, electronics and clothes, liquor, sex toys and glitter in all forms—plus Mari’s full set of Christmas duckies from Titan, and Jaeda’s carton of color-coded organizational supplies from Remy. Colt got a Hot Leopard Construction t-shirt, for his semi-fictional construction company, and Callie got a shirt with the logo of her new bar that said, Because I’m the Boss, That’s Why.

After a while people started noticing that Colt and Remy were getting text alerts every few minutes. Finally Brandon said, “For fuck’s sake, what is going on with you two?”

They exchanged glances, and then Colt said in a disgusted voice, “Baby pictures.”

Remy added, “Fucking Jax is blowing up our phones.”

Colt held his up, and there was a picture of an adorable baby with a sign propped up between his hands that said, LEOPARDS ARE PUSSIES.

Remy had one in which someone off-camera was holding the baby’s fist so that only his tiny middle finger was raised.

Everybody cracked up and reached for the phones, passing them around and swiping through texts. “Look, he just barfed in this one!” “I think—is that baby poop?”

Brandon just shook his head. “I don’t know if I should call this harassment or an olive branch,” he said.