While You Were Creeping - Poppy Rhys Page 0,2

munching on peppermint bark and sipping my uncle’s fizzy cranberry punch made me grumble like an old man.

“Honey, you sound like a dog.”

I jumped at the sound of my great aunt Dot’s piercing voice.

“I—”

“Dotty? Did you say there’s a dog?” My other great aunt, Helen, peeked around the corner of the large foyer, her kitten heels clicking against the glistening wood floors.

“No, you old bat, I was talking to Holly. She’s growling about something.”

“Who’re you calling old? I just had a treatment!” Aunt Helen gingerly touched her cheeks. She was the vain one of my late grandmother’s sisters. Aunt Dot was the rough-around-the-edges sibling.

Aunt Dot made a rude sound at that. She didn’t have to say anything. We all knew she didn’t believe Aunt Helen’s treatments were worth the money.

“Ya can’t be eighty havin’ a youngling’s hind end for a face and sagging titties,” she’d often say.

For the record, Aunt Helen was always quick to insist her boobs didn’t sag. It was a real room-clearing topic for the men in our family. They’d suddenly disappear when the state of Aunt Helen’s tits entered the conversation.

Well, except her husband, Uncle Giuseppe, who quietly snickered.

It was all fun and games until the handful of younglings in the house started asking what ‘sagging titties’ meant.

“Holly, you missed the decorating,” Aunt Helen fussed at me.

Thank the five trade planets.

“Yes, I see that.”

She stood there, staring down her straight nose at me as if waiting for an excuse.

“It’s... pretty?”

“Thank you dear, but why weren’t you here?”

“C’mon, Helen, you know she was talking to that head shrinker.”

Aunt Helen frowned and turned on her sister. “Why are you so rude?”

I used that as my opening out of this conversation and slipped into the kitchen. A couple of my uncles were huddled over a moco holo-board in the middle of a game while two of my cousins, Wendy and Willow—twins—were prepping another batch of gingerbread.

So they were the ones making the house smell like Christmas.

“Hey Holly-bough,” Uncle Giuseppe fondly greeted, not lifting an eye from the moco game for fear of Uncle Jer cheating somehow (even if it were impossible).

I patted Giuseppe on the back and revealed a five-point move that had Jer clamping his lips together and scowling.

“This is why she’s my favorite niece,” Giuseppe declared, rubbing his hands together. “Take that, you old goat.”

“Hey!” Wendy and Willow cried. “We’re the ones slaving away over here.”

“Uh huh...” Giuseppe was gone. Too distracted by the game to give much attention to the twins.

I felt their daggers. The twins loved being the center of attention and hated it when they felt anyone tried to take it away.

The limelight was all theirs. Trust me, I didn’t want it. I was content to sequester myself in my part of the house and let them be the all-stars of the family.

They could keep that trophy, and their damned gingerbread.

“You’re home!” My mother swept through the purposefully rustic kitchen, her red velvet housecoat cinched around her trim middle and her auburn hair piled high atop her head.

For some reason, my mother always looked straight out of a digital housekeeping publication while my father could be mistaken for a hobo. Sweats and flannels were his thing, and the only day mom could talk him into trimming his dark beard and donning clean, traditional robes was during the Christmas party.

“You missed the decorating,” she echoed Helen. “Have you tasted the gingerbread?”

“I’ve got a lot of assignments to grade.” That wasn’t a lie, I really should’ve been working on those by now. “The house looks... nice.”

I nearly choked on that word.

Mom’s lips flattened. “Your father and cousins worked very hard on it—”

“I believe y—”

“—and I’m sure they’d love to help you decorate your apartment.”

“N—”

Dr. Molina’s words hit me like a brick.

‘What if you said yes this week?’

“Darling?” Mom blinked owlishly at me, clearly expecting to be immediately rebuffed.

Ugh. I can’t do it!

“I...” The kitchen grew quiet. Even my uncles were staring at me like I’d grown a second head.

Everyone knew I’d turned into a Scrooge. A Grinch. A real sourpuss this time of year. I hadn’t decorated in three years.

My insides felt like they were boiling.

“I can decorate my apartment myself.” Mom gasped and I cringed. “But thanks for the offer.”

“O-o-okay...” she stammered, her shock plastered to her face as I skirted around her.

“Night guys.”

Silence followed me all the way through the dimly lit halls until I got to the other side of the house and unlocked my door.

I didn’t wanna do it. I didn’t want