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“Hey!”
Louise’s hand shot out to catch the elevator doors before they fully closed. The sensor registered her and opened back up to let her in, and she breathed a sigh of relief until she noticed the other worse-for-wear occupant.
Logan immediately glared at whoever disrupted the flow of the machine but softened slightly when he realized it was her. Instead of completely letting his eyebrows or shoulders relax, he merely turned his tightly wound figure away to avoid her.
Her neighbor always seemed a little grouchier this late in December, especially if he recently met with his family, and usually required a day or two to recover after a conversation about his wasted potential or whatever. Last year, after Victor warned her about Logan’s tendencies, she sought him out just to make fun of him for being a whining baby, but she didn’t really feel like doing the same this time around.
She refused to unpack that.
As the elevator doors closed with her inside, Louise cleared her throat. It worked to regain his attention, so when their eyes met she pointed her chin at him, looked him up and down, then raised an eyebrow.
Hey. You look like shit. What’s going on?
Logan sniffed, looking down his nose then away from her while shaking his head. He gave a one-armed shrug.
Thanks, jackass. I don’t want to talk about it. I’ll be fine.
She pursed her lips, checked the descending numbers on the elevator, and realized she only had a few seconds. Letting out a long sigh, she took a step closer to him, put a hand on his shoulder, and left it even when he faced her again. She squeezed slightly.
Fine. Be difficult. But, you know, if you need anything...
He blinked at her, then stared at the floor. After slight deliberation, his shoulders sagged and he patted her hand, holding it for a beat longer.
Oh... I apparently needed that. Thank you.
They let their hands fall as the elevator dinged their arrival to the first floor.
From her point of view, Louise saw Christmas fully hit their apartment complex, twinkling lights galore and smells of peppermint mocha in the air. If she craned her ears, she could make out a slightly scratched holiday vinyl playing on the antique record player they dragged out every other season.
Preparing to go their separate ways, neither expected the saccharine voice that called out to the two of them when they made it to the hall’s exit archway right before the lobby.
“Uh oh!” Annie teased, and the apartment manager’s acrylic nails blocked her mouth in faux shock. “Looks like we got two silly billies stuck under the mistletooee!”
All of the tension Logan previously held returned in spades. Louise felt the energy shift more than she saw it, but sure enough when she glanced his way she noted that he was one light breeze away from a hurricane.
Though the other lobby occupants all backed away, sensing the crackling of a brewing storm, Annie stayed put. Louise shook her head, drawing a line across her neck and miming to cut it out, but the warning fell on deaf ears—eyes?
“Don’t be a Little Bummer Boy,” Annie said with a playful lilt. “We’ll have to put you in the doghouse if you can’t follow tradition.”
An Annie scheme proved his tipping point, and Logan struck. He reached up, grazing the ceiling as he ripped off the foliage hanging above them.
Annie twitched.
Logan, not blinking, threw the mistletoe down the hall.
“Fetch,” he said simply, voice an icy rage.
Hearing a pin drop was nothing compared to hearing everyone’s blood freeze. In the waking shock, no one moved.
Almost no one.
Victor tried to switch off the record player but managed instead to only turn it down to half speed. He frantically hit at the different buttons and knobs, finally shutting it off but not before Louise realized a slowed Here Comes Santa Claus would be haunting her nightmares.
Since meeting Annie, Louise had only ever seen one expression pass over the middle-aged woman’s face: a sterile smile of perfectly straight teeth and eyes that betrayed nothing.
It was a great surprise that the earth didn’t break away underneath them as Annie’s permanent smile fell.
Unbidden, images of a barking dog suddenly silenced popped into Louise’s head.
It was a rumor, just a rumor, that Annie had… “taken care of” a dog that interrupted the complex’s movie nights in the lobby. If asked, she would say that she merely re-homed the poor lost thing to a better place. She would offer to get the address of the farm then leave to the back room and never return.
Louise knew they had to give the woman something to keep Logan from an imaginary farm off Westchase. He didn’t deserve her wrath for one bad day. But the only way to deal with Annie was to play her game.
With one last spiteful glare at the discarded parasite of a plant, Louise grabbed Logan’s stupid blond head and pulled him down without allotting herself the time to plan ahead or think.
Smashing him against her lips in a rough kiss, she pushed several things from her mind.
First, she ignored that they were in public. People might assume they’re allowed to see her kiss someone. And they weren’t. That was her business, and she ground her teeth to forget the onlookers.
Second, she ignored how he fit against her so well even as she dug her nails into him. It shouldn’t make sense, their height difference should make this uncomfortable, but they snapped together so snug.
Third, she ignored how soft his hair felt in her hands, completely juxtaposed to the harsh way she commanded him to move where she wanted.
And if anyone asked her if she noticed how his arms moved towards her right as she broke away, she would firmly deny it. That didn't stop the absence of his touch from leaving its own kind of sting.
When they separated, Louise cleared her throat and avoided eye contact, eyebrows furrowed in a glare.
Her fingers twitched to slap him, unused to any public display of affection and itching to remind people they were not together. But Logan's face was red enough already, a blush dusting his cheeks. She ignored that too.
“Logan said he’s sorry for being an ass,” she directed at Annie, then shot a warning look at him. “And that he’ll put the mistletoe back up.”
Mouth agape, he nodded once wordlessly.
She returned his nod then swung around for the exit, her original destination, before her own face could grow hot. "Don't expect that to work a second time, Annie. It's one and done. You try to pull a stunt like this again, and it's over for you," she called over her shoulder.
“Louise.”
It was her turn to adopt tension in her shoulders, as heavy as Logan's in the elevator, but she glanced back at him anyway, never one to run from a challenge.
He spoke to her again in their language without words, but this look wasn’t something she could translate.