Page 108 of Lovers Like Us

Beckett threads a needle. “It’s calledhotSanta.”

Jane nods. “The hottest Santa shouldwin.”

“Alright.” Sulli jots a note in a margin, and she goes to sip her eggnog. Pausing, she looks to me. “Alcohol is in mine,right?”

“Yeah.” I can’t be a moral authority on whether she should be sober or not. She hated her first beer, but she wants to try spiked eggnog. So I made her a glass. Oscar’s and mine are the only non-alcoholicdrinks.

“Are there categories?” Sulli asks after a tiny sip of eggnog. “Do we rate from one-to-ten? Are theredeductions?”

“Valid questions,” Jane says. “Let’s make two categories: runway and how they respond to a short Q&A.”

Oscar cranes his neck to peek at us. “If I don’t win, there’s a conspiracy at play and you’ve all given preferential treatment to yourbodyguards.”

“He’s right,” Jane says, “we should try to beunbiased.”

Everyone is looking atme.I make a face. “If I rate Farrow high, it has nothingto do with the fact that we’retogether.”

Jane smiles into a sip of eggnog. “I suppose we’ll just have to take your word forit.”

Beckett finishes attaching her antlers and lifts her hood. She kisses his cheeks with amerci, and then she sits beside him, anklescrossed.

“We should tell them about the scoring,” Sulli says and then shouts, “Kits!”

The door down the hall cracks open. “Yeah?!” Akara calls, and she explains the scoringsystem.

Donnelly sticks his head out, a smirk cresting his mouth. “You should just rate us one-to-ten on who’s the mostbangable.”

He’s yanked back into the second lounge. “Paul,” Thatcherchides.

“Damn,” Quinn says out of sight, “he got aPaul.”

The doorshuts.

Jane gasps, and I focus on my best friend. She cups her phone in one hand. “Eliot sent me a video of all the cats.” She presses play and angles the screen for us to watchtoo.

Kittens and cats race around the townhouse. Darting beneath the Victorian loveseat and hopping on the rocking chair. The camera zooms in on a gray cat that prances around thefireplace.

Eliot’s voice booms through the speaker. “Licorice, now do the cat walk. Do the cat walk!” He layered on technomusic.

We all laugh, and Jane wipes the corners of her eyes. We watch the camera flip and faceEliot.

Squared jaw, a pretty-boy haircut, and the second tallest Cobalt, he could play Superman in a summer blockbuster, but a devilish grin always inches up his lips. Mischief glimmering behind blueeyes.

You know Eliot Alice Cobalt as theking of drama. Literally, he’s starred in local plays from William Shakespeare to Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams, and he’s already signed to a theatre company for the next two years. He often films himself and posts humorous soliloquies about a lamp or toothbrush, and he’s not afraid to be uninhabited andwild.

I know him as my passionate eighteen-year-old cousin who thrives in chaos. Who, 9 times out of 10, will light a napkin on fire if I’m at dinner with him. Who loves stories but struggles with reading. Can’t make sense of street signs or restaurant menus. Can barely pick apart a single sentence. Who used to ask Jane, his brothers, and me to read books out loud. Hardbacks pile high in his bedroom, and for fun, he writes plays using a voice-app. He’s dyslexic, and a fucking brilliant, soulful actor who can make an audience cry with a fewwords.

Fair Warning: even with all the mayhem he brings, I love this guy, and I’ll drive a sword straight in your gut if you fuck withhim.

“By the time you receive this,” Eliot says in the video, “I’m at the lake house. It’s Christmas Eve, and you’ve all left me, which means I’m terrifyingly the oldest here. Moffy, if you’re watching, I don’t like this responsibility. Come back,save me,” he says dramatically. “I hate you all, but I love you all. Oh the tragedy.” He grins and lifts a calico kitten to the camera and waves the paw ingoodbye. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” The video goesblack.

Quiet lingers, all of us missing family. Sulli stares off, more downcast and homesick, and Jane and I exchange adamage controllook.

Janie tucks her phone away and stands. “No more videos of home. Let’s enjoytonight.”

I hug Sulli around her broad shoulders. “Remember, we’re on anadventure.”

Beckett raises his mug to his lips. “That includes half-naked bodyguards. What you’ve always wanted to see,Sulli.”