Chapter Twelve

Dad makes Iris and Hex ride in his sleigh back to the palace. At dinner, another more relaxed event in the library, he never strays far from the two of them, surveying what they say and who they talk to. He eventually transfers Iris off to me, supposedly when he’s decided she’s had enough Hex time, and I bite back any retort at the look of exhaustion on her face and just go along with it.

It’s only after Iris excuses herself for the evening that I make my way over to Kris, who is fuming as openly as I am. He’s usually way better at capping himself— was he better, or did he spend more time worrying about how I’d react to what Dad does?

He isn’t concerned about it now, though, and it almost makes me relax. At least he’s put any notion of me abandoning him out of his head.

“So you think Halloween’s setup is better than ours?” he whispers.

We’d had a sleigh to ourselves on the way back, and he’d taken the news about the blackmail and other Holidays as well as I had.

We’re next to the fire, eyeing Dad, a few members of our court, and Hex, and every muscle in my body is aching with holding tense for so long. And from the skating. I’m going to need an ice bath at this rate.

“I don’t know. It seemed like it, the way he mentioned it. And they have to be pretty intrinsically tied, if Halloween is so worried about losing their support.”

“Dad worries about losing support too, though,” Kris says. “All his shit about keeping our image clean for the press—”

“That’s not about keeping allies appeased. It’s about keeping people believing certain things to feed the Christmas-wholesome image. Because honestly, I’ve never heard Dad worry about losing an ally. What we have are… joy-victims, mostly.”

“God, that’s harrowing.” Kris tugs at the collar of his shirt. Another festive sweater, this one bright red with white stripes that says Is That a Candy Cane or Are You Just Happy to See Me? across the chest.

The goofiness clashes so potently with his palpable rage that I can’t help but grin, and I could hug him for that break in the seriousness.

“Do you remember much about the stuff we studied when we were kids?” I whisper. “About Christmas’s history?”

“Some of it, yeah.” Kris shrugs, dismissive at first, but he softens. “The origin stuff. And I remember one thing about a gift tradition—people started giving books during the Victorian era, elaborate illuminated things. I wrote a letter asking Dad for one, like kids are supposed to, because I wanted to be all formal about it. And there it was at Christmas. I still have it. He had no business giving an antique to a nine-year-old.”

I smile. That happened after Mom left. So Dad was capable of not being cruel, even in the after.

We used to be happy, weren’t we? At points.

Kris’s eyes cut over my shoulder and he pushes off the fireplace. “Go time.”

I swing around to see Hex walking for the door, nodding his good night to a few people.

He gets to the door of the library. His eyes swivel to mine.

But he ducks out into the hall.

Kris is already over with Dad, angling so Dad has to put his back to the door to talk to him.

I bolt.

But I don’t want it to be creepy, so I hang around outside the library for a few minutes, beating my hands on my thighs.

He’s probably in his suite now, right? Gonna risk it.

I take off, heading through the palace, but cut up short when I hit the staircase that will angle me towards the wing with my suite. I veer left to a separate staircase, dipping through halls I rarely visit because they’re for guests who aren’t regulars like Iris.

It isn’t hard to figure out which suite the staff put him in—all the doors have wreaths on them, but only one has a wreath that’s set with glowing jack-o’-lanterns and arched black cats.

Up the hall, the way is empty; no staff or anyone wandering this late in the evening.

My heart ricochets against my ribs as I stop in front of that door. I tug at the hem of my blue button-up. Tug again. There’s a wrinkle. Crap. I can go change?

My phone buzzes.

KRIS

KRIS

Don’t chicken out.

how very dare you assume i would chicken out

KRIS

You’re considering leaving right now, aren’t you?

listen here you little shit

KRIS

Stop texting me and KNOCK ON HIS DOOR.

YOU TEXTED ME FIRST

I put my phone on mute and knock. Not because Kris told me to but because I am a fully grown adult capable of making my own choices.

And then I wince.

Because I know how this will look. Me, going to Hex’s room, alone. But I do need to talk to him, privately, and this was the best thing Kris and I could come up with.

I’d originally thought that the two of us combined would make one serviceable leader. Maybe that’s not necessarily the case.

After a few long seconds, the door opens.

Hex looks out at me. He hasn’t changed yet, still in the black on black of his pants, button-up, and vest, and his jack-o’-lantern-in-Santa-hats tie. That’s the only part of him that’s disheveled; he’d loosened the tie, and that minor imperfection in his usual pristine appearance makes my mind go staticky.

“Coal,” he says. He glances up the hallway. “Is something wrong?”

Yes. It has been forty-eight hours since I kissed you and that is way too damn long.

“No. I wanted to talk to you. In private.”

He frowns uncertainly. “Your father—”

“I can take care of myself too.” I give him a dashing smile.

But Hex doesn’t smile back. “I told you—do not risk your responsibilities for me.”

But you’re worth it. “I’m here because I want to talk to you about Halloween. How it’s set up. I have… suspicions. And I think you can help me work out some things.”

Hex hesitates for one more beat. He eyes the empty hall again.

Then he sighs and steps aside, ushering me into his suite.

It’s dim, one lamp on by the desk. His room is smaller than mine, with a canopied bed on one side and a small dividing wall creating a living room on the other. There’s a couch and chair set before a fireplace, but no fire lit, and a small Christmas tree in the corner. Even in the low light, I can see the tree is black, strung with orange ribbon and witches and other Halloween trimmings.

Hex waves me to sit on the couch.

I obey.

He takes the chair.

All the better, honestly. Distance. Space. Professionalism.

I lean back and fold one leg over my knee, foot bouncing, needing to expel this nervous energy somehow. “My father told me certain things about Christmas, and I… I knew we had problems. But I didn’t know, until two nights ago, how deep all this went with what we’re doing to other Holidays. To Halloween.”

Hex’s brows go up. “He told you the details?”

“That Halloween and Christmas were almost in negotiations at one point. That you guys backed out rather than suffer the ramifications of your other allies turning on you for throwing your lot in with us. And this whole marriage competition came about as a way for Dad to reassert his dominance over you for objecting to the Christmas-Easter alliance.” Anger heats my chest. “It wasn’t enough for him to remind you of that dirt he has over you, how damaging it could be to your allegiances. He set up this thing as a punishment .”

Hex studies me, his lips parted. Even in the dimness, I catch a flush to his cheeks, and it throws me into silence, long enough that he sits back in the chair and nods at me to continue.

Did I miss something?

My eyes go back to that stain on his cheeks.

“But,” I clear my throat, and he’s blushing stronger now, but his body language changes, blossoms and expands with my eyes on him. I smile, I can’t help it; then I clear my throat again. Just talk fast, goddamn it. “It turns out my dad isn’t doing the whole It’s not blackmail, it’s an understanding thing to only you; he’s doing it to a bunch of winter Holidays, and—I think the way Halloween is set up with your autumn Holidays is different. Better.”

Hex watches me for another silent moment, then his lips furl up. “Well, you’re right. Halloween is better than Christmas.”

“Okay,” I smirk, “maybe better was a strong—”

“Ah-ah, no arguing, Christmas Prince. You are the one who sought me out for Halloween’s undeniable better qualities. Do you want me to adopt you?”

“Oh yes, Daddyyy—” WHAT.

Oh my god, stop talking, stop talking—

I don’t.

“— yyyyyy, ” is what keeps coming out of my mouth, followed by a strangled, “ Noooo .”

And then, for no discernible reason, I make finger guns at him.

I fly to my feet and spin my back to him because I need to reset, like, immediately, and I refuse to see whatever reaction he’s having because I did not say that, it did not happen.

Did I make finger guns at him?

What the fuuuuuuuuck.

“I mean—Halloween is structured better. With the other autumn Holidays. You made it sound like it’s more collaborative. Less coercion. Like you guys support each other.”

There’s a long pause.

I turn around, hands bearing down into the back of the couch, and my eyes hit him as a grin is sliding off his face.

He shrugs. “It is more collaborative.”

God, elaborate, please elaborate, save me from myself.

“My family represents Halloween,” he continues, “but my mother is part of Día de Muertos, as I’ve said—and we come together with a dozen or so other autumn Holidays. We all work together throughout the year, and we all take equal shares of the joy we bring in. It is a collective, not a mere alliance.”

“You pool your joy?”

“Yes.”

“And you all get along? No one tries to usurp the others?”

“That would be counterproductive. We bring in joy from different sections of the world; taking over each other would risk that. We are stronger allowing ourselves to evolve as we are.” He hesitates. “Which is what my family realized, once we were informed of what a Christmas alliance would require, demanding a percentage of our joy with little in return. There are faint rumors that Christmas is rather underhanded in their partnership tactics, as has been proven. But at the time, we were… hopeful that these fears were misplaced. That Christmas would be open to collaboration. Many of the other autumn Holidays distrust Christmas—they fear that if one of us gets pulled into Christmas’s orbit, what would stop the rest from being dragged in as well?”

So Dad’s let our reputation among other Holidays be less than perfect; is it only our people he cares about manipulating? Or does he not have as much control as he believes?

“The other autumn Holidays would force you out of the collective if they found out you tried to negotiate with Christmas?”

“They may, depending on how your father phrases whatever he lets slip. Even now, the way that my presence here is being spun, it is keeping our allies mollified—they happily believed that Christmas bowed to our request to forego an Easter alliance, which was rather clever of your father, to be honest. It gave the autumn allies exactly what they wanted, seeing Christmas recoil. But the fact that I am here, even under the guise of linking with Easter, is being met with… strain. They are questioning our commitment to a fair distribution of magic rather than Christmas’s monopoly.” Hex’s lips tighten. “Which further solidifies that we are right to fear their reaction to any past Christmas-Halloween negotiations coming out.”

A shiver walks up my spine. Is that part of why Dad orchestrated this whole thing too? To remind Halloween how detrimental his blackmail could be? Fuck.

“And you think your allies will forgive and forget when it comes out that we screwed you over in this engagement sham?”

Hex gives a careful smile. “I told you I don’t need you to fix my Holiday. We have it under control.”

“I’m not trying to fix it.”

His look flattens.

“Fine, I’m not only trying to fix it. I want to understand as much as I can. I want to make sure I’m seeing everything for once in my fucking life so if—when, when I do something, I don’t screw it up.” Again.

I start pacing behind the couch, pivoting back and forth.

“And what are you trying to do?” Hex asks.

I stop, staring at the wall behind his head. “What if your autumn allies found out that the real reason you were in the North Pole is that you were helping the Christmas Prince put together his own collective?”

Hex pushes up from his chair. “What?”

A fire lights in me, a plan forming between each word. “A winter Holidays collective. It’d be easy to negotiate a pool like the one you mentioned with the Holidays Dad is taking advantage of so they’re not just something we leech off—and maybe that way, we’ll be able to focus on doing actual good, rather than worry so much about global reach. If all the Holidays Dad is bullying rally together, he’d have less leverage to screw them over.”

Hex isn’t picking up on my wonder. He looks worried, the same twist of hesitation that almost kept him from letting me into his suite. “Won’t your father be opposed to this?”

“He won’t have to know until I get something set up, see if the other Holidays are willing to discuss it. And if you’re part of it, then your collective can’t be upset with you for any association with Christmas, because you were really here to help me start this. Right? And we could spin that into the reason for Halloween’s original negotiations with Christmas, so it’d take all the leverage out of Dad revealing that.”

Plus, Iris couldn’t be faulted for not choosing either of us at the end if Hex and I were working on this all along. Yeah, it was a lie, but it was to cover up something good. We could finagle Easter into the collective too so they get benefits that would shut up any of the people gunning for weaknesses around Iris’s family—Easter isn’t a winter Holiday, but what is winter, really? Christmas also happens during the summer in half the world. It snows on Easter. Somewhere. Whatever, this collective doesn’t have to be bound by a season.

Could this be a solution Iris would approve of? Should I tell her about this? I don’t even know if there is a this, not yet; all the winter Holidays could laugh at any attempt of mine to fix what my dad has done. Even telling Hex this much—

I rock backwards. “Oh my god. I did this to you again.”

“Did what?”

“I put you in another awkward position.” Panic drains all the warmth from my face. “Because if you don’t want to be involved in this, then the prince of a rival Holiday now knows that I’m planning a small coup against the reigning Santa —oh my god. As if my dad needed more shit to blackmail you with. Holy fuck, why am I so toxic —”

I spin on my heels and am halfway to hurling myself out the door when Hex grabs my wrist.

I stop.

There’s no other response than to go pliant when he’s touching me.

“I’m glad you told me,” he whispers.

I throw a disbelieving stare at him. In the low glow from the lamp, I can see the way his eyes are waiting to snag mine, his face falling open in a rare look of complete, utter vulnerability.

“I was going to keep my head down and get through this charade,” he tells me. “Halloween wears a mask better than anyone, or so we like to believe. It was only a few weeks. I had all these plans. And then you storm upon me, and—and you’ve been nothing at all that I’ve expected. Not from the very start.”

“You were expecting a hot mess, and I’m really a supernova mess?”

His smile is dazed. “In an endearing way. You’ve been… honorable.”

“Honorable? Ha. Sure.”

“You are. Like some kind of red and green Captain America.”

That joke only lands because I am so obviously not anything remotely superhero worthy.

Breath returns to me. One sip, another, until a thought rattles free. “How are you glad I told you? I’ve put you in danger by letting you know this.”

God, I’m so fucking terrified of messing anything up, it’s a wonder I can walk a straight line.

“There’s that honor,” he says, taking in the change of my expression and so easily reading the thoughts that race through my head.

My brows go up in mixed surprise that I’m so transparent to him and panic about what else he might see. What unworthy, disastrous parts of me might creep across my face and make him withdraw instead of looking at me like he’s in awe? Which that look just—just isn’t possible to begin with. There’s nothing at all in me deserving of that look, especially from him.

“I’m glad you told me,” he continues, “because I do want to help you. However I can. I have prepared, Halloween has prepared, to endure backlash from your father already. I don’t know that I should announce my involvement with any plans of yours to the world quite yet, but I’ll be fine. You don’t need to protect me.”

“I can’t help myself.” Then, since I have no shame left, “There’s a lot I can’t help myself with around you.”

It’s another instance where something’s changed in his posture but I can’t figure out what, all I know is the energy plummets to an aching severity.

And he’s still holding on to my arm.

“What else can you not help yourself with around me?” he asks.

I’m half certain it’s a hallucination. No way in any reality would someone like him let me be here; fumbling, unsteady, desperate me next to confident, controlled, assured him.

“I can’t help,” I hardly hear myself, “this insufferable need to find out what it’s like to witness every shade of joy on your face.”

Right now, his face shows only shock. Breathless, disoriented shock identical to the emotion batting around in my head, and it’s bewitching, because I feel like this is an expression he shows less willingly than awe.

“What about—” He stops himself. Bites his lips together and winces in self-deprecation.

“What?”

“I have no right to ask this of you. But I… I think I have to. You said neither of you wants your engagement, but I’ve come to like Iris, and I don’t wish to hurt her with any of—” He stops again. His hand pulses on my wrist, filling in the unspoken words.

A smile sweeps across me. “You were jealous.”

His wide eyes hold on mine, jaw bunching in refusal to show embarrassment, and he doesn’t pick up on any of my teasing.

“Honestly,” I whisper, smile dimming. “I was too. Watching you give her flowers. Every time my dad forces you two together. And Iris is fully aware that I feel this way—that I’m jealous of her, not of you. I’m jealous that she gets to be the object of your attention. This whole thing I have with her is unbearable, for both her and me, and it’s something I’m still figuring out how to undo. But god no, there’s nothing real between us. She relentlessly mocks me for the way I trip over myself around you.”

Hex exhales, but something remains in his eyes, shifting back and forth as he studies me. “Perhaps it is a bit mockable. The allure is merely because I am still that mystery guy who threw himself at you in an alley.”

“It started that way.” I shift, closing a meager extra inch of space to chase off that look of doubt. “But it wouldn’t be this consuming if that was all it still was. If you weren’t also the guy who went to that bar in the first place, knowing you’d get exactly what you wanted. If you weren’t also brave and caring and so fucking quick-witted you give me a run for my money. You’re challenging and entrancing and yeah, you’ve got some issues, but god, don’t we all. The fantasy of you was pretty great—but everything I’ve gotten to know about the real you is so much better.”

I stop talking, because I can’t breathe, hearing what I said—that was a lot, like all the crap rattling around in my head that I was trying really hard to keep to myself. But here it all is now, churning in the air between us, to whatever end, and my pulse is hammering in my wrists so hard that my arm twitches in Hex’s grip.

He’s barely moved. His eyes are fixed on me, and he whispers something I don’t catch over the roaring of blood in my ears.

“What did you say?” It comes out as a rumble. Weird, feral anger that isn’t anger but is because he’s up against my body and not close enough.

We’re alone in his room. Nothing I’ve ever done has felt as carnal as being this close to him with walls between us and anyone else.

He works the fingers of his other hand through the edge of my button-up, hooking his grip in and fisting it against my chest. “Kiss me,” he tells me.

Yes, yes, god yes.

His eyes shut, his lips part, gasping, gasping, and I drink that breath, lap up this energy he lets me have, until I rest my lips on the corner of his mouth.

He smells like sweet citrus and spice again, and I chase that scent, tugging aside the collar of his shirt and his loosened tie to drop my mouth to his neck. I don’t think he was expecting me to go straight for his neck and he croons, a syrupy warble of a moan that rockets up the list of my favorite noises. My knees go fully liquid, body assaulted on one side from that moan and another from the scent of him, this is the origin of that burnt-sugar cinnamon orange aphrodisiac, resting right over the rapid-fire beat of his pulse.

Fingers under his chin, I tilt his head, giving my lips more access. His reaction is far more controlled now, a discreet catch of breath that feels like a challenge. I work my lips up the side of his throat, slow open-mouthed kisses, and he shudders but stays quiet, and oh fuck no.

I know what he sounds like now. These discreet little breath-sips just won’t do.

My lips climb higher, and I pull his hair out of its knot so it’s messy and I can twine my fingers in it.

“How much?” I dip my tongue against the shell of his ear. Fuck, his taste will ruin me.

“How—how much what?” His throat bobs. I hear the rasp of his swallow.

“How much do you want me to kiss you?”

“Rather—” He stutters. “Rather badly, it would seem.”

I smile, pressing that smile to the side of his face. “No, sweetheart—I mean how much, how far, because I’m hanging by a thread here and I need you to tell me where the finish line is before I shove us both out into the race.”

“Race.”

“Mm.”

“Planning to throw me off a sleigh again?”

A low, predatory growl throbs in my chest, but I’m grinning, and I walk us backwards. Just one step. Almost to the wall, to something I can push him up against.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I—I don’t know,” he admits. “I don’t know. I haven’t… done this… much. In a while. I have done this. Not excessively. I—” He looks up at the ceiling. “I am done speaking now.”

I pull back. “You not talking doesn’t work for me. I need to know what you’re thinking, and I’ll ask, but the moment, the moment, it borders on uncomfortable for you, you tell me .”

He nods. Nods again.

“What I want is you wanting this,” I say, low, I can’t seem to speak any higher, not with the heat welling in my chest—if I talk too loud, we’ll both combust. “That’s my finish line. You.”

“All right.” His voice is hoarse. He nods again, more desperately.

“Where should I start?” I ask into his cheek.

He whimpers and grabs my lips with his. I cup his head in my hands and open his mouth with my tongue and goose bumps prickle up my arms, down across my back, thighs shaking, eyelids heavy with fervor.

Everything in my life is spinning out around me, but the most irreversible part of it all is what he’s doing to me.

“Start here,” he says into my mouth.

His back collides with the wall and I box my body around him.

“And then?”

He touches my neck. “Here.”

“And then?”

His fingers walk to the edge of my shoulder. He hesitates.

“And then,” he echoes, a quake in the hollow of his throat.

His hand slides down my arm, over my elbow, and he wraps his fingers around my forearm and holds on in a suddenly relentless grip, like he’s bracing himself. My forehead touches his and we gasp into the concave space we create and I almost tell him, again, that he’s in control of this, but those words well up and it wouldn’t be him that I’m reassuring—it’s me. Me and my anxiety and the fissure of desire cracking apart my body, this brief pause letting me feel that we’re here, oh god I’m here, and I can’t get a full breath.

Then Hex angles up and kisses me again and oh god I’m here becomes a long, drawn-out whimper against the feel of his rough tongue running along the seam of my lips. I open my mouth and kiss him with all the last fleeting remnants of disbelief and anxiety, hands bearing down on his hips, his fingers iron-gripped around my forearms.

The map he’d drawn, of his body by touching mine, replays through my head—lips, neck, shoulder, arms; lips, neck, shoulder—

I move, mouth working across his jaw, needing the taste of his neck again, that warm skin, the spiced citrus sweetness of him, and the moment my tongue collides with that space, I groan.

“Fuck, Hex, the way you taste.” I suck on his skin and earn a shiver in response. “Even your shivers taste good.”

“Coal,” my name pops out of his mouth, a startled burst so swollen with need that my whole body whittles to the singular point of his desperation.

I nuzzle into his neck, thumbs dragging circles on his hips. “I want to make you feel good.” Do I sound begging? God, I am, I am begging.

He whines. Writhes, his body arching up into mine, and he’s biting my neck, the spot below my ear. The sensation of his teeth on me is transcendent, and I think I must black out, coming to when we’re nothing but panting and the pop of lips on skin.

The top buttons of his shirt come apart under my fingers and I loop a hand around his neck, making a feast of his collarbone, teeth pushing lightly on skin, scraping. Finally, finally, he makes that noise again, that syrupy moan and his legs part so my thigh drags between his. He rocks, and I can feel him against me, a hard grind on my hip that sets off hemorrhagic fireworks in my veins.

I say it again. A prayer tumbling out of me into the hot, hot air as I push back against his movement. “I want to make you feel good, Hex.”

“You are,” he tells me, each word a little desperate huff. “All of this—feels—very, very good.” A pause, a sudden tension, his eyes are shut but the skin tightens there. “Do—is this—for you, I mean—”

He’s babbling. All his proprieties, all his rigid formality—I broke it down, brought him to single syllables and incomplete questions.

That’s the remaining thread. I can feel it strung taut, one more shift of his hips against my leg and it’d snap, radiance and ether.

I kiss his cheekbone, that tension next to his eye, but I make it reverent, dragging a brake on the riot.

His eyes are shut still, lips parted, and I close around him, bracing one arm on the wall next to his head, my other hand molded to the curve of his hip, his fingers holding me there, viselike, and if I looked I know his knuckles would be white. But I can’t look anywhere other than his face.

“God yes, it’s good for me,” I say, jaw thrust forward. “But I’m going to go back to my room.”

His thumb hooks into my belt, and the way those eyes flare open and look up at me screams confusion.

“I’m going to go back to my room,” I say again, “because I want to take my time with you. Because you deserve that.”

I really don’t mean it to come out all gritty. But I feel the reverberating tremor that shudders up through Hex’s body in response.

And all he says is a strained, needy, “All right.”

I am leaving. I am leaving.

Hands off the wall.

Feet taking a full step back.

One more, just to be safe.

The air is cold without his body up against mine. But he’s there on the wall still, wilted and hands flat on either side of his hips as if he’s staying upright only by that contact. The low light of his room throws him into shadows, and he is every bit a Halloween prince, an interplay of joy hidden in darkness, sparks in the night.

His hair is mussed, collar spread open and a spot on his shoulder is red.

He sees me looking at it. And reaches up, lays fingers on that spot.

His eyelashes flutter.

Oh fuck.

I dive back in, half rabid, half ecstatic, and he meets me there, driving up against me with his mouth open already and my lips meet his and I need to leave right now or else—

I lurch back, fingers splayed, and do not look at him. Cannot. I’m staring at the floor. The very, very interesting pattern of his rug.

Our hard breaths grate in the ensuing silence.

“I’m leaving now,” I say. My lips feel bruised.

Why the fuck am I leaving now?

Because I’m a goddamn gentleman. I am. Leaving. And a gentleman.

“All right,” he says again. He’s ragged.

I walk. Determined, intensified steps. And it isn’t until I get to the door that I trust myself enough to turn and look, but at the space by his feet.

“Good night,” I say, stupidly, because what else do you say to someone who let you take the first layers off, see the flush and the pebbled skin?

At the edge of my vision, I note Hex’s hand on his mouth, the barest touch of his fingertips to his lips.

“Good night,” he echoes.

Peep, Mini Candy Cane, and the Best Claus

KRIS

Iris, Coal isn’t answering his texts again. Have you seen him?

Coal?? The fuck dude, you said you’d let me know how it went last night.

IRIS

how what went?

KRIS

He went to talk to Hex about some things.

IRIS

..…. you sent coal to talk to hex alone

KRIS

Yeah, that was the general plan.

IRIS

kristopher.

KRIS

Oh shit.

Coal.

COAL, DID YOU FUCK THE HALLOWEEN PRINCE

We were going to be PROFESSIONAL, seriously.

IRIS

KRIS!! you can’t put that in a text thread!

omg delete it you idiot

i did not fuck him

[the longest pause in the history of group chats]

IRIS

coal. i say this with the greatest amount of love for you.

bring me breakfast, i’m sore from skating

okay that pause took 10 years off my life and that’s the only thing you have to say

IRIS

why would that pause have taken years off your life? huh? HUHHH??

if you didn’t do anything

KRIS

Yeah, Coal, I think you should bring me breakfast too.

Considering I have been beside myself with worry over my only brother’s fate.

While you’ve been boning.

Coal

Your silence is incriminating.

IRIS

yeah he definitely fucked my fake suitor

KRIS

You’re allowed to text that but I can’t??

IRIS

this whole thread is a PR disaster, i’m deleting everything