1
Millie and Spike
5th December
“Stop what you’re doing! I have a Christmas emergency!”
Millie stormed into Ink and Betsy’s warehouse home. Mr. Fluffy slowly walked behind her on his leash. He hated the leash. Probably because it usually meant he was going for a walk. Mr. Fluffy detested walking. And don’t even get him started on running.
Not that Millie was a fan of running, either. The jiggling, the sweating, the bouncing boobs.
It wasn’t natural.
Betsy’s puppy, Bandit, was playing in the living room with Hatter, Sunny’s pup. Millie bent down and let Mr. Fluffy off the leash. He promptly walked over to the couch, slumped down on his tummy next to it and fell asleep.
She shook her head. He’d probably worn himself out throwing up in Spike’s boot earlier.
Over in the kitchen, Sunny turned towards her while Betsy set cookies out on trays. Jewel was sitting on a stool, holding a beer. She just quirked an eyebrow at Millie’s outburst.
Millie didn’t know Jewel well but she thought she looked tired. Worn.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Sunny asked her.
“Are you okay?” Betsy asked. “What kind of emergency?”
“Should we call Spike?” Sunny asked. “We should call Spike.”
“No! Don’t call Spike! He just dropped me off. Besides, this is about him. I just discovered something disturbing.” She moved closer, peering over at the cookies. They were in the shape of Christmas trees and ornaments.
Cute.
Sunny was laying out tubes of icing and sprinkles to decorate the cookies. Ooh, that looked like fun.
“Millie? Millie!”
She glanced up to find everyone watching her. “Sorry, I got distracted by the pretty cookies.”
“What did you discover that was disturbing?” Jewel asked with interest. “Have all your lacy underthings gone missing? Is it Spike? Does he like to wear women’s underwear?”
Everyone stared at her. She swallowed a sip of beer. “What? It’s always the quiet ones you have to watch.”
Millie burst into laughter. She giggled until tears filled her eyes. “Uhh, no. No, he doesn’t wear my panties.”
Jewel gave her a faint smile. “Shame. That would make great blackmail material.”
“Wouldn’t it?” She grinned as she put her handbag down. Spike had made her remove half the stuff she usually carried around in her one-of-a-kind handbag so that it wasn’t so heavy for her to carry around.
She sat on one of the stools at the counter.
“So what is it then?” Jewel asked, picking up one of the cookies to decorate.
“He has no Christmas decorations.” She paused for dramatic effect as Sunny sat next to her. Betsy stood on the other side, setting out some edible glitter.
Ooh. Glitter.
“Like, none at all. I think he might be a grinch.”
Jewel snorted.
“Duke was the same.” Sunny patted her hand gently. “He didn’t have a single decoration. He never even had a tree.”
Oh. The horror.
“Same with Ink,” Betsy told her.
“But . . .” Millie looked around at the expertly decorated room in confusion. The living room looked like it could feature in the middle spread of a magazine. It was so beautiful with twinkling lights, garlands hung across the mantel, and a magnificent tree.
“The boys and I had to go shopping for everything,” Betsy told her as she chose a Christmas tree cookie and started to decorate it carefully. Millie looked over to see Sunny liberally sprinkling glitter everywhere, while Jewel was staring down at her cookie like she’d never seen one in her life.
“I can’t believe it.” Millie shook her head as she tried to squeeze icing out of the tube. Red icing went everywhere. Ahh, well, the more icing the better, right? “I thought he’d at least have something. A stocking. A fake tree. A Christmas angel.”
Jewel grinned. “Spike doesn’t strike me as the Christmas angel type.”
“Well, he’s gonna have to be. I only have two days to get everything organized before we leave for Nowhere. If I wait until we get back there will be nothing left in the shops.” Millie grabbed some green edible glitter and shook it out. The lid came off and the glitter went everywhere.
She winced. “Oops. Sorry.”
Betsy waved her hand, uncaring. Millie noted she had three beautifully decorated cookies ready to go. She sighed. Her cookies would never look like that.
They all tasted the same, right?
“In Nowhere, everyone got into the Christmas spirit. We even set up a Christmas grotto in the town hall. People from all over would come to see it and bring their children to sit on Santa’s lap.”
“Guess you had plenty of choices for who would play Santa,” Sunny said.
“Everyone used to fight over who got to be Santa. We had to set up a random draw, that is until Mr. Spain won the draw.” She winced at the memory. “He refused to wear his hearing aids. He ended up telling this little boy that he would be certain to bring him a box of dildos for Christmas.”
Betsy’s mouth dropped open and Sunny started giggling. Jewel just grinned.
“Poor kid had asked for a box of Legos.” Millie shook her head. “I had to refund the family their entrance fee. Of course, that wasn’t as bad as the year Mrs. Larsen decided to play Mrs. Claus.”
She grabbed another cookie to decorate. This time she was going to try to get more glitter on the cookie than on the counter.
“What happened?” Betsy asked.
“She bought an outfit online. But she’s not very good with technology and she ended up with this sexy Mrs. Claus outfit that was really just a bra and a short skirt with thigh-high black stockings. It was . . . interesting. I thought for sure that after two disastrous years people were going to stop coming to our grotto, but it seemed like we got more popular. It’s weird.”
All three women grinned.
“What?” Millie asked.
“Umm, maybe people started coming for the entertainment,” Sunny suggested gently.
“They wanted to see what crazy things were going to happen next,” Jewel told her.
“Oh. You think? Huh. They must have been disappointed at last year’s as I don’t think anything interesting happened. At least Mrs. Larsen’s sexy Christmas outfit didn’t go to waste, Andry wore it to our annual Halloween bash. I was worried he might fall over in the stilettos, but he walked on those things like a pro.”
“You must be looking forward to going home to see them all,” Betsy said.
“I am.” She sighed. “I’m not looking forward to clearing out Grandma’s place to get it ready for the new renters though. There’s a lot of memories tied to the house. But at least I’m not selling it.”
“That would be hard,” Sunny sympathized. “When do you leave?”
“On the eighth. We’ll spend a few days travelling there and spend about a week in Nowhere, then spend another few days travelling back and should get home around the twentieth. Which is why I need to get the decorations up now, before we go.”
Sunny and Betsy both nodded.