Page 37 of Merry Christmas, You Filthy Animal
I stick the iced tea back in the fridge and then head up to the small loft in my cottage just as my phone dings with a response.
Uncle Dwight:Did you take it?
Betty:I’m no fool. Of course I didn’t.
Uncle Dwight:I raised you right.
Betty:You’re five years older than me. You did no such thing.
Uncle Dwight:Just let me have this moment. I love relishing in Maxheimer’s rejection.
Betty:Fine. You raised me right.
Uncle Dwight:Thank you.
Max
“Do I even want to hear it?” Cole asks as I walk up to him with two cups of coffee I grabbed from the employee lounge. I wasn’t in the mood to head into town and see Tanya. Not after last night’s failure.
“No, you don’t.” I hand him a cup and take a seat on a wooden stool to watch my friend prepare the reindeers’ breakfast.
I tried helping him once, and he said that I was not helping, I was causing him irritation, and if he wanted help, he would ask for it.
Talk about ungrateful.
So now, I just sit and watch, sometimes loving the moment where he struggles, knowing my help would make life a little bit easier on him.
He leans against a barn pole and sips his coffee.
“Isn’t that the pole you tied Storee up against?” I ask.
“Yup,” he answers, leaving it at that.
“You know, I might take a picture of that pole, put it in a frame, and give it to you for Christmas along with a pineapple-flavored candy cane.”
“It would be the best present you’ve ever given me,” he answers with a smirk.
Did you see it? Did you see that little moment of levity? He drops the Grinch act only for mentions of the girls in his life. For me? Not so much.
“Consider it done.” I sip my coffee and lean my head against the barn wall. “Things are not?—”
“Atlas?” Kate’s voice sounds off in the barn as she peeks her head past the door.
“Hey, Kate, what’s up?”
Glancing behind her, she says, “She’s here again, but this time with a notebook.”
I spring from my chair. “No, the fuck she’s not,” I grind out in outrage.
“She is.”
I turn to Cole and point at him. “She’s trying to ruin my life.” Then I take off toward the barn entrance. “Where is she?”
“The tree shack. Mitch is watching the register for me so I could come tell you.”
“Thank you. I’m about to catch this mole and exterminate her.”
“Dude, lame,” Cole says.
