Present Tense (Out of the Fire #3) - Candace Blevins Page 0,75

watch you mix up what we have and make it work.”

24

The year Fabio and Collosa had decided to decorate, Eunice had made fun of them when they left to go shopping.

But then they’d spent most of two days working, and Eunice understood why they were frustrated. They used all of the same shit he saw in the pictures they pulled up, but what they did looked like — as Fabio pointed out — a whole host of elves had gotten sick and puked all over the place.

They’d had a designer come in to buy furniture and curtains and shit originally, so Collosa had called Dana back and set up an appointment for her to come back and help.

She’d been surprised the three wanted to learn, but it was a matter of figuring out where they’d gone wrong. If they’d never tried to do it in the first place, it would’ve been fine to hire her to do it without knowing why it looked right when she did it.

So he listened to his housemates quiz Kelsey on why she took that bow off of what it came on and put it on the hearth, and another similar one above it, and listened to her explain about focal points and tying things together, and planning where someone’s eyes would land first. And she pointed out the bow was red with gold, so it helped tie their color theme together.

In a way, it was a bit like security — look here, not there. You see this, not that.

Fabio had a Christmas playlist, and it was on in the background. He’d also made cookies. Eunice had made a pineapple upside down cake and drenched it in rum.

And Collosa had stopped by the deli and bought a half-dozen apple pies and two gallons of ice cream.

Four hours after they started, the living room and grand staircase were finished. Also, the dining room, which they always did in the same theme as the living room. It only needed some decoration around the windows and on the chandelier — the same greenery with different decorations. Kelsey had put together a centerpiece for the table though, and had told them this meant they had to put less on the chandelier. She’d even slapped Collosa’s hand when he tried to add to it, took the tiny gold presents from him, and put them on her centerpiece. “You can’t have two pieces battling for the focal point. This year, the centerpiece is the focal point.”

And Collosa had rubbed his hand and let her get away with it — a giant of a man beside a vampire a third his size.

Eunice wasn’t that much taller than Kelsey — just a few inches. He was probably only about fifty pounds heavier, too. He looked small next to Collosa, but not as small as Kelsey did.

Later, when they’d moved to the den, he saw her hand coming down to slap his away, and he grabbed her wrist. “Not a good idea. Why can’t this go here.”

She ran her other hand down her ponytail, but didn’t try to yank her wrist out of his grasp. “It’s the wrong color of blue. Most of what you have in here is a deep blue. Some of it has silver accents, so when you look at the big picture, it doesn’t come off as deep, but it is. This is the wrong shade. There’s some ribbon in this shade, too. It’s possible we can use this box of decorations with the ribbon on the other side of the room, by itself, but it’d be best to just not use this in here at all.”

He hadn’t seen it until she pointed it out, but now he did. He took his box, walked to the unused boxes, grabbed the ribbon he was certain she’d been talking about, a two-foot tall tree, and walked to the table in the hallway just outside the den.

She didn’t tell him not to set it all up out there, so he went to work.

“There has to be a story here,” she said, standing in the middle of the room with her hands on her adorable hips.

“What kind of story?” Collosa asked.

“I assumed I’d have to ask nicely to be allowed to decorate, and then it would be me doing it on my own. Ya’ll go all out with it.”

“I’m a bear,” said Collosa. “I come from a large family unit. Christmas was a big part of my life. Family from all over the globe