Bodhi: What? No! Don’t do that! It’s the week before Christmas!
Millie: Done! I cancelled Mr. and Mrs. Carter Ellis. They sound like hideous people anyway. I’m texting you the address now. Bring the Merry Kushmas with you, and I’ll include a free bottle of champagne and your own personal butler. I’m pretty sure I’m authorized to do that.
Millie: And don’t be scared by the West Virginia address. They actually do have indoor plumbing and electricity! I know. It shocked me too. You will have to bring your own wine sommelier, however.
CHAPTER 3
Bodhi
“Oh deer.”
“Do not ring that Santa bell again!”
“Get that out of your mouth! We do not eat Christmas ornaments.”
“No-no, don’t touch the animated Mrs. Claus! We look at the animated Mrs. Claus; we do not touch it.”
“Sure, I guess it does look like sparkly noodles, but that doesn’t mean tinsel is food.”
“Pine garland is not to be used as a jump rope. Put that down!”
“For fuck’s sake, Bodhi, you are the only other adult in this room with me. Stop encouraging them!”
I finally put the pine garland down when Tess uses her outside voice, and the toddler I was playing with immediately flops down on her butt and starts crying. And like a set of dominoes, once the first one goes down, all the rest tumble after. Ten kids ranging in ages from old enough to crawl to old enough to kick you in the junk all throw themselves to the floor, screaming and crying with big, fat tears falling down their cheeks.
“I’m in hell,” Tess whispers, staring around the foyer of the check-in area for The Redinger House as a motion-activated Santa sitting on the counter drops his red velvet pants and starts shaking his plastic butt cheeks back and forth while “Jingle Bells” plays from a speaker by his feet. At least it’s in perfect harmony with all the crying. “You brought me to hell.”
Walking across the room and gingerly stepping over crying kids to stand behind Tess next to the check-in counter, I rest my hands on her shoulders and start giving her a gentle massage, bolstered by the fact that she doesn’t immediately smack me away or ram her elbow into my crotch. With Tess, a massage can sometimes act as a stun gun, rendering her completely immobile and unable to inflict damage on those around her.
When we first pulled up to the white two-story colonial with black trim nestled in the mountains of West Virginia in a tiny town called Snowfall Mountain, it was modestly decorated with just pine garland and white lights on the porch railings and a festive wreath hanging on the door. Tess actually gave me a smile from the passenger seat before we trudged through the snow and came inside. I figured the nap she took almost the entire day of driving curled up against the passenger door in the car we rented was just what the doctor ordered. And then we walked through the front door of the bed and breakfast, and I’m honestly surprised nothing on my body is currently on fire.
Aside from the explosion of Christmas decorations in the entryway that take up every available surface from garland and lights lining every inch of the ceiling, doorways, and windows to at least fifteen animated Christmas dolls and three fully decorated trees, The Redinger House seems to have been taken over by kids, and we haven’t seen an adult since we got here fifteen minutes ago. I’ve been having a blast playing with everyone and trying to keep them alive until we figure out what’s going on, but my poor Tess looks like she might throw up any second now. That will not do when I specifically brought her here to get away from the Christmas chaos on Summersweet Island, relax, and become more agreeable about spending the rest of her life with me.
Staring at Tess’s profile, I continue with my soothing shoulder rub as her face gets paler and paler while she looks around the room in disgust. Probably for about the millionth time since I walked into the pro-shop at SIG six months ago and saw this feisty little thing with—at the time—bright red hair and a killer smile, I wonder how in the hell I got so lucky. One of the worst parts about my previous life was the monotony and the map of my life with only one set of directions I had to follow. Waking up every day knowing I’m going to do the same things as always and follow the same path. Wear the same clothes, associate with the same people, go to the same places, study the same things, and make all the same choices. Even though after I left I never saw myself staying in one place ever again, waking up every morning with Tess and not knowing if she’s going to want to suck my dick or slice it off like a Ginsu knife going through a tomato makes staying put worth it.
Life with Tess is fucking terrifying and exciting all at the same time. I never know what’s going to happen from one second to the next, and it’s the best goddamn adventure I’ve ever been on in my life. And I once convinced a Buddhist monk to go on a three-week bus ride through Germany with me after he did a line of coke off of a prostitute’s wrist in Amsterdam.
I love that she changes her hair color more often than I buy weed, although I am quite fond of the bright royal-blue she’s had for the last month. I love that her closet is filled with nothing but black clothes but she owns a pair of Converse in every color of the rainbow. I love that the map to Tess Powell is like Harry Potter’s Marauder’s Map, constantly disappearing and changing and making me guess. But usually with a lot more fire and people screaming while mischief is definitely not managed. I love how fiercely loyal and protective she is of the people she cares about. I love that even before she knew anything about my past or my struggles with anxiety, she never once made fun of me or judged me for my marijuana usage. And after she found out? Well, let’s just say I became one of the people in her life she’s fiercely loyal and protective of, and I have felt like the fucking king of the world ever since then.
Maybe not a king. That’s too much pressure. Something more along the Lord family. Lord Bodhi Armstrong of Tess Powell Manor has a nice ring to it.
But I’m scared to death she’s sick of my shit and the best high I’ve ever had in my life is going to throw me in the trash with all of the used and crumpled Christmas wrapping paper on December 26th.
“Oh, God, it’s on my foot. It’s on my foot!” Tess complains as I look over her shoulder to see an adorable baby boy wearing a red onesie with Rudolph heads on it, crawling over the top of one of Tess’s black Doc Martens. “Can I kick it off?”
With a laugh, I drop my hands from Tess’s shoulders, move around her, and scoop the little guy up before he gets to the tree next to the counter and tries to eat the low-hanging branches again.
My head whips to Tess as soon as I have him in my arms when a weird, moaning-choking sound comes out of her as she stares wide-eyed at me.
“You okay there, Firestarter?”
A part of me kind of hopes she’s looking at me holding this baby and is all “Put a baby in me right now, Bodhi!” But the chances of that happening are about as high as the chance that I am currently not high.
For anyone not paying attention, that would be zero, folks. I am high as fuck right now.
Before I can figure out if Tess is going to throw up or punch me, another adult finally joins us and swoops the baby right out of my arms as she walks by, talking a mile a minute. Or at least I think she’s talking a mile a minute. It could quite possibly be the weed.