holiday sweaters
Your story must take place on Christmas Eve/December 24.
Your story must include a character who has an accident of some kind.
Your story must include the words AGAINST, TOOTH and ORANGE
(Longer variations, e.g. “oranges” or “toothcomb” are acceptable, as long as original spelling is retained – so no “teeth”!)
Holly blew out a sharp breath. Sweat had settled on every inch of her skin. She could feel the moisture pooling along the back of her legs; they were beginning to stick to the wooden floorboards. The ice they had scavenged to try and cool down had already melted.
“This is not the kind of Christmas I signed up for,” Nicholas muttered beside her.
Holly swivelled her head to look at him. He still looked so handsome, even with slick hair falling across his face and his body bathed in the orange glow from the afternoon sun.
They had been friends since childhood. He’d been there for every one of her highs and lows. Her first job, her first love, her first heartbreak. Helping her ferry boxes to her first apartment and picking her up from the airport after her first trip overseas.
Holding her steady during the first Christmas without her father.
And then, after years of steady friendship, something had clicked. It was a total accident; Holly couldn’t pinpoint when it happened or how. But one day, Nicholas was no longer just her best friend. He was everything to her, and she wouldn’t lose him by revealing the truth. That her tiny, little crush had morphed into a full-blown infatuation. She couldn’t even look at him anymore without a flush spreading across her cheeks.
Holly shifted her gaze to the ceiling before he caught her staring again. The fan above them whirred pathetically, even though it was on its highest setting.
“I know,” she groaned. “I want the kind of Christmas you see in the movies.” She could picture the scene perfectly: a flurry of snow, twinkling lights strung in a cosy cabin, a fireplace lit in the corner. A fake tree decorated in cheap Kmart decorations in her sauna of an apartment didn’t quite match the vibe.
“Instead, we get a forty-degree summer,” Nicholas lamented. “Should we go out? I still need to get a couple of things before lunch tomorrow.”
Holly hummed but made zero attempt to move. It was far too hot to even think about getting up.
“I think I might stay like this until the heat takes me,” she said, dramatically stretching her fingers across the floor. “Go on without me. Save yourself.”
For a moment, all she could hear was the soft hum of the fan. And then suddenly, his palm was sweaty and warm against her own. She expected him to pull away sharply, but when she glanced back, he gave her a broad smile, the kind of toothy grin that made her skin tingle all over.
“Are you kidding?” he said, squeezing her hand. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
