All I Want For Christmas Is You - Vi Keeland Page 0,3

to shave the first section when everything went black. The lights in the bathroom had gone out.

“What the fuck?”

I was pretty sure I’d shaved over something I hadn’t intended to. I turned off the razor and exited the bathroom, only to find that the lights in the entire rest of the house were out, too.

I looked out the window. The other houses on the street were also dark. Then it hit me: Josie. Today was the first evening of her lights display. It had nearly blinded me on my way back from having a drink with some friends. This was the first night of her holiday shenanigans, and suddenly all the power went out? There was no way those two things had nothing to do with each other.

I couldn’t see shit, but I made my way to my closet and grabbed what felt like a pair of jeans. I huffed and pulled them on before finding a shirt to throw over my head.

I carefully ventured downstairs and grabbed a flashlight from under the kitchen sink. Then I walked across the street to Josie’s. There didn’t seem to be anyone home at the other neighbors’ houses. They now had decorations out, but I hadn’t noticed their lights on earlier tonight. Clearly Josie had blown the entire street.

She was already standing in front of her house when I got there, as if she’d been expecting me.

Her hands were on her hips. “So…your wish came true,” she said. “Now not only are my lights out, but the whole street’s gone dark. Happy?”

She’s got to be kidding. She’s putting this on me? I shook my head. “Yeah. I’m thrilled. I love writing in the dark when I’m on deadline. I especially love when my laptop isn’t charged, and I have no way of even getting to my manuscript.” I shook my head. “Is this a common occurrence when you drain the neighborhood of power?”

“Don’t put this on me. It’s not my fault the lights went out. I blame your bad juju more than me using a little extra power.”

I scoffed. “A little extra power? That’s like saying the Kardashians are a little overexposed.” The woman had a full ice rink set up in her driveway with a half-dozen life-size skaters milling around to damn Christmas music—and that wasn’t a fraction of the shit she had going on.

“Maybe it was you who blew the power,” she countered. “I see you messing with saws and stuff in the garage sometimes. What power tool were you tinkering with today when the power blew?”

That almost made me laugh. I’d been messing with a power tool alright… I cleared my throat. “How long does this usually last?”

“I don’t know.” She huffed. “The power has never gone out before.”

Great. Just freaking great. “Well, did you at least call?”

“No…did you?”

I sighed and raked a hand through my hair. “Do you have some candles? I’m not exactly prepared for a blackout.”

Josie nodded. “I do. But can you come in the house with that flashlight so I can dig them out? I had to use the batteries from my flashlight for something on my display.”

I mumbled, “Of course you did.”

The inside of Josie’s house smelled like a bakery. I shined the light into the kitchen. “Were you making cookies or something?”

“Chocolate chip and pumpkin oatmeal raisin. You want one?”

Considering I was salivating at the smell, and my plans had been to use electricity to microwave a frozen dinner later, it didn’t seem wise to pass up the offer. “Sure.”

“Can you point that flashlight at the table, please? It’s to your right.”

I moved the light that direction, and my eyes went wide. “How many freaking cookies did you make?” There had to be at least a dozen trays lined up on her table, each one with a heaping mound of cookies wrapped in cellophane.

She peeled back the wrapping on one of the trays and slipped out two cookies. Passing them to me, she said, “I made eighteen dozen. Last year I made fifteen on the first night, and I ran out an hour before the end of the evening.”

“Jesus, I figured you got traffic, but not those kind of numbers. I didn’t think there were a hundred-and-eighty people left in this part of Westhampton Beach.”

She smiled. “I teach third grade in East Hampton. A lot of my students come—some are in college now and still come back every year.”

I bit into one of the cookies. “Damn. These are good. I guess if I had