Chapter 5
They hadn’t talked.
It wasn’t for lack of trying. Or maybe it was, just a little bit: Agatha was not all too interested in continuing to have a discussion about remarrying to save her own life. It wasn't fair of her, but she'd never played fair. Rio had once again offered her a life raft, and she was still holding the knife in her hand and considering stabbing it.
Rio hadn’t tried either. Occasionally, it looked like she was about to, when she was dropping Nicky off or picking him up, and then Nicky would burst into the room or run through the hallway or call to them from another room, and the moment would be broken. Neither of them wanted to bring up getting remarried in front of the son they didn't want to know about it.
July was filled with other things. Being out of school meant nowhere for him to go while she and Rio were at work; neither of them had family members they were willing to tell he even existed. Rio’s were dead, and Agatha’s - it would be a cold day in hell before she let Evanora Harkness know she had a grandson. (It would be a cold day in hell before she thought of Nicky as her mother’s grandson, before she ever allowed the two of them in a room together, or the same state.)
Some days, he went to work with Agatha. Her team loved him. They’d made him his own badge years ago, right around the time he got sick, when neither she nor Rio were willing to leave him alone with a babysitter for even a moment, and desperately needed to keep their jobs so the medical bills didn’t eat them out of house and home. He'd only been three then, toddling around the office wearing a badge that said Junior Jingle Writer. They’d let him test out whatever products they were crafting advertisements for, and he’d write his own little songs for them, or draw cartoons.
(A couple of years back, a few lines he’d written about a bar of chocolate had made it into a commercial. They had that one recorded, the poster printed out, and Nicky had taken the money they’d given him and bought himself a truly ridiculous set of Legos it had taken the combined genius of the three of them to figure out.)
August reared its ugly humid head before she knew it. Every year seemed to be hotter than the last, and she’d gone from a woman that enjoyed the warmth of the summer to someone who’d started to dread the end of July. This year was no different - tank tops stuck to her skin as her new home’s AC struggled to keep up. Days not at work were often spent down at the shore with Nicky, where the air was just a little cooler, and they ate Mr. Softee on the beach under umbrellas, or inside, where she came up with elaborate imaginative games to keep him from being bored. They were witches hiding from the law, or two castaways surviving on a deserted island, or Nicky a chef and Agatha the very haughty food critic.
(She overcompensated for the years spent in and out of doctor’s offices, for the illness they couldn’t change, for the check ups and check ins they still had to attend. Overcompensated for the desperate way she felt, as if she could change even a second of it if she did enough. Every little minute she could manage was spent with him, for him. If she never stopped for a second, he’d continue to be alright.
So far, this had not been proven wrong.)
It wasn’t that she hadn’t been thinking about it. Thinking about it had been near constant.
How could it not be?
She’d gone from divorced by her own hand to being a mythical being by them. A mythical being who had to get married, otherwise she’d die.
Maybe she should have gone on Hinge and found someone. Led with I’m Santa and went from there. She could have done it. It would have been easy enough. Explain the perks - becoming Mrs. Claus, presumed immortality (she should have asked - could she craft a letter to the North Pole? Would it get there if she did?), trips to the Santa's Workshop once a year. Maybe the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. She’d have to ask. Was that the real Mr. and Mrs. Claus on that float?
If she’d started in July, she could have managed it, she was sure.
But now?
September rolled around in the blink of an eye, bringing with it the barest reduction of heat and still no real conversation between Rio and herself.
Westview Elementary was nothing like the schools Agatha had gone to as a child, for the short amount of time she’d been allowed before Evanora had pulled her for homeschooling, to weed out evil and improper ideas. Nicky’s school was everything her own schooling hadn’t been - the hallways were warm despite the fluorescents, filled to the brim with colorful construction paper bulletin board displays - Fall Reads, My Dream Job, Teacher of the Week, My Hero, Our Goals for 2025 - and kid’s smiling faces, overfilled backpacks on their shoulders. His school had special events like field trips to zoos and museums, and parent student dances, pancake breakfasts and book fairs.
(The pancake breakfast had been for grandparents and their grandchildren - something Nicky didn’t have and never would. The night before, Nicky had confided he was sad that he wouldn’t have one there. Rio had shown up dressed in a shirt that said World’s Best Grandpa and had donned a gray wig, worn trousers over her chest and suspenders over her shoulders. She’d spent the morning saying things like young whippersnapper and what a fine school you have here. They’d received a memo regarding ‘offensive stereotypes about age’, but it had been worth it for the picture of Grandpa Rio and Nicky that hung on the wall, and for the way Nicky had laughed all morning.)
It was still school, of course. Nicholas still had days where he threw a tantrum instead of willingly getting up and getting dressed. He still pretended he had no homework when he wanted to watch television or play on the Switch.
But he was learning, too. He would came home and showed them lowercase letters, held up the books he was reading so they’d take pictures of him with each and every one of them. He would sit at the kitchen table with his addition and subtraction problems while waiting for dinner, shouting out his answers so Agatha would come and check his work. Last week he’d come home rattling off facts about the U.S. presidents and hardly stopped to sleep, and everything he did was all she could do to think you’re watching him grow. You got him here. He’s alive.
Everything was a miracle since the day he had rung that bell and finished treatment, halfway through kindergarten.
Agatha had a large sticker attached to the front of her striped blouse, and the boots that rose to mid calf clinked on the floor tiles. (She would give up skinny jeans when they were ripped off of her cold dead body.) The sticker designated her as a visitor as she headed towards her son’s second grade classroom, trying not to let her stomach fill with dread.
The classroom number she’d been given was half full with parents, none of the students back yet from their lunch break. Adults were scattered in child sized seats around the edges of the room. She eyed Michael’s mother, glaring, and imagined shaving the woman’s head and leaving her bald. For the fact that her child was a spawn of Satan alone she deserved it, and for every time she tried to peddle a pyramid scheme of essential oils to her and her sick son. The blonde gave her an infuriating smile back.
And there, in the back of the room, knees folded into a child-sized desk:
Rio wore black trousers that flared at the ankle, showing off the pointed toe of her black leather boots. A black blazer was folded over her thighs, leaving her in a white button up with the sleeves unbuttoned and rolled up to her elbows, exposing her forearms. Her hair was pulled up in a bun above her head, loose wisps curling around her ears. Agatha caught the very moment Rio saw her in the room, warm eyes catching her, the corners of her mouth turning up a fraction as she wiggled her fingers, then pointed to the empty chair beside her.
There were other empty seats, but Nicky wanted to be able to look at the both of them. It was one of the things he’d anxiously voiced when they’d first told him about the divorce - who would he look at now, during choir concerts and school events, if they weren’t sitting together?
Agatha didn’t mind it. Not really. Even if it felt like her skin was coming alive whenever they sat too close, and she held herself at an angle to not brush against her, breathed shallowly. It was for Nicky. She would tear her chest open for Nicky.
She knew other parents stared, knew they talked. Oh, she hated it, even if she couldn’t voice it. So she let them. Fed into the rumors about her, to control them. Better than the alternative. Always better than the loss of control.
And better the rumors were about her than Rio.
She followed Rio’s wordless command and sat beside her.
“Nervous?”
One brow quirked upwards. “To tell a bunch of second graders about marketing? No.”
“You look nervous.”
“Please,” she scoffed, and ignored the twisting in her stomach. She’d hardly eaten that morning, though she wasn't lying: she had no nerves attached to telling students about her career. “Are you nervous to stand up there and talk about being a lawyer?”
“No,” Rio said, definitively. “Agatha.”
It wasn’t a question, but the end of her name turned up like one. Rio twisted the blazer in her hands, eyes on her lap instead of Agatha. She turned minutely in the seat towards her, watching the look on Rio’s face that meant she was working something over before she said it.
“I’d like to meet after. You and me.”
“I have-”
“I know you. You used this two hour event to take the rest of the day off work.”
Agatha’s shoulders dropped a notch. She still knew her, of course - nothing much got by Rio, not when it came to things about her. Agatha used to joke that Rio must have a book of everything she’d ever done, every piece of information she’d ever picked out about her. There was nothing she forgot - not a favorite brand of cereal or an episode of tv, not a hated song or irrational fear of wasps, not a word or a phrase or experience that caused her to get lost in her head. It was as if she were a scholar, and Agatha was her area of study. It had made for a good marriage, until she’d started to want to hide, when things were bad with Nicky’s health and the depression got bad enough that she didn’t want to be seen anymore.
(She’d always thought their son’s renewed health would snap her out of it, but it turned out life didn’t work that way - that her brain and the worry over Nicky were two separate things.)
“Fine,” she said. “Yes. I have the day off. I’m sure they’re dying without me.”
“Great!” Rio’s face returned to brightness, all hints of that previous anxiety gone. “Then we’ll go after.”
“You’re paying,” she grumbled.
Rio’s shoulder knocked into her’s. “Does that make this a date?”
“Hey-”
But Agatha’s protests were cut short by the opening of the classroom door. Fifteen eight year olds walked single file into the room, amongst them Nicky. As soon as he caught sight of the two of them, his face erupted into a grin, both hands waving like he was waving separately for each of them. Both of them waved back, and the nervous ball that had been sitting in her chest unfurled itself as their son took his seat at his desk, turning around every couple of seconds to wave at his mothers again.
“Welcome, parents and guardians of our second grade class!” Nicky’s teacher stepped into the room. Mrs. Davis was a short-statured woman with a blonde bob and a collection of floral outfits that could rival a department store, and an amount of straw hats that she took off as soon as she came into a room. Nicky had explained the hats, the solely floral outfits, on his first week of school in early September. Agatha had never seen a more stereotypical elementary school teacher, though certainly she wouldn’t have looked out of place on the cover of Homes and Gardens either. “Thank you to all of you for joining us in our annual career day, where our adults share their career experiences with our young ones.”
A light smattering of applause greeted her.
“We’ll go in alphabetical order, and have our children introduce their parents and guardians. There’ll be time for questions, of course! And we look forward to all of your interesting careers.” Mrs. Davis’ hands were clasped in front of her with genuine delight. “Why don’t we get started?”
–
It wasn’t that Agatha had a lack of interest in everyone else’s careers, it was that she simply didn’t care.
Okay.
So it was a lack of interest.
But she’d had to listen to five whole minutes of Michael Abbott’s mother explain her essential oil pyramid scheme and how much it could heal, and deal with the look she’d kept giving Agatha and Rio, all pity as if to say if only you’d use it! Rio’s hand on her knee had stopped the bouncing leg, and she would claim to herself and whatever forces watched her that she didn’t shake it off because she hadn’t wanted to cause a disturbance.
While Michael’s mother had to be the crux of the evils, listening to the rest of the parents drone on about their dull lives wasn’t much fun either. She spent most of it staring at the back of Nicky’s head and judging life choices. She’d always been a judger. Life was just better that way.
Agatha nearly fell asleep listening to a father talk about his career in IT, saved only by her own wondering how a British man had ended up in New Jersey of all places, raising twins. The man, whose bizarre name she hadn’t caught, finished his speech and moved to the back of the room to his wife.
“Thank you, Vision. Up next, we have Nicholas Vidal-Harkness, with one of his Moms, Agatha Harkness.”
The hand on her knee slipped off, and she jolted to life.
Fifteen sets of wide eyes stared up at her as she took her place at the front of the class, joined by Nicky, and left her feeling remotely like a giant. One set of eyes stayed on her from the back of the room, less wonder filled than careful and watching, and she avoided them. It was easy enough to find an excuse to, with Nicky standing right by her side.
“I’m Nicky, and this is my Mama.”
Damn straight she was. Agatha raised her hand in a little wave, and the class responded in kind, waving back at her, fidgeting and shifting in their seats after hearing so many parents explain their careers to the class. They’d been most fascinated with the NASA engineer, but who wasn’t?
“All my life, my Mama has helped make people buy stuff! She makes commercials and posters and sells stuff using her brain. Sometimes I get to help, and one time I made three hundred dollars!”
That woke the room up. There were several audible gasps. She chanced a quick look at Rio, who was grinning at the memory. She quickly looked away, willing her cheeks not to burn.
“It’s true,” she said, smiling at the rows of gasping children. One of them - a tiny boy sitting in the front row with dark curly hair that fell into his eyes - had his mouth hanging open, and he was staring dead at her like she might personally give him three hundred dollars from her pocket. “But unless you’re a Junior Jingle Writer, I don’t have three hundred for you today.”
One of the kids said aw, man, and the boy in the front row slumped a little in his seat before he perked back up. She caught him writing down the words junior jingle writer - 300 dollars? - in the notebook on his desk. She bit down on the laugh that threatened to spill past her teeth, and almost felt bad that it wasn’t a real position. That was a job that existed for no one but Nicky.
“Advertising is about finding a way to get what you’re selling into the hands of your customers. People who knew they wanted what you’re selling, and people -”
“But Mama’s job as an advertising lady-”
“Executive,” she muttered under her breath, giving Nicky the we have talked about interrupting look.
“-isn’t what I want to talk about today!”
There was a jump in her heart rate, the beat of it pressing hard against her collarbone. Surely, he wasn’t about to do what she thought he was about to do. Surely, Nicky had more common sense than that. Surely -
“Because she’s really good at her old job, but she’s even better at her new job. And that’s being Santa Claus!”
The screech of a chair being pushed abruptly back broke the momentary silence of the room, seconds before it erupted into chaos. A mixture of kids laughing and questions falling from mouths hit her like a brick wall. Which of the kids were laughing? Her eyes danced from face to face until she found them, the little traitors. Naughty list, each and every one of them. She knew it instinctually. She knew it like her own name.
“She’s not an old man! Santa is an old man!”
“He’s not even real. I told you he’s not real. Last year.” That one was Michael. One of the laughing kids. She narrowed her eyes at him, mouthed the words I’ll get you and watched him sit back in the seat. That would show the pretentious little eight year old. At least he kept his mouth shut.
That didn’t stop the rest of the class.
“Santa is ancient, and your mom is like … sixty.”
She spread her hands in a shrug. “I’m forty five.”
“Nah. You only get white hair when you’re sixty. Like my grandma.”
“Or when you’re Santa!” Nicky’s voice rose. “Her hair is white ‘cause she’s Santa. She told me over the summer. It happened with magic.”
“How does she fit in the chimneys?”
“Are there really elves?”
“How does she go to all the houses?”
“How do the reindeer fly?”
“Are you lying ‘cause you’re boring?”
Nicky’s dramatic sigh filled the air, audible over the cacophony of the rest of the second graders. Before she could think to stop him, he walked to the teacher’s desk and climbed on top of it, then turned to face the class with his hands on his hips.
“Okay!” He said, loudly. “Listen up!”
“Nicky!” Agatha shouted.
“Nicholas!” Rio yelled.
“Please get off my desk,” said Mrs. Davis.
All three of them had turned to face Nicky atop the desk, where he stood with his chin raised. Agatha was only a little bit ashamed to say she could recognize herself very easily in him - in the way he stood and fixed his shirt like he was forty years old instead of nearly eight, in the way he commanded the room and pointed to his classmates one by one to answer their questions.
She was frozen with it, watching him. Her son, who had grown from a young boy spending most of his time in hospital beds to one who was likely about to get the elementary school version of detention.
“There’s elves!” He said. “Most of them are the same height as us, they just age slower! So if they look like they’re in third grade, they’re probably one hundred years old. And if they look like my Mama, they’re probably one thousand!”
The desperate look she sent Rio was purely by instinct, but she found the other woman standing, chair pushed back, with a hand slapped over her mouth, eyes already on Agatha, and the corners crinkled as though she were trying not to laugh.
The flash of memory hit like a line of trucks running her down, one after the other. How many times had Nicky done something awful but ultimately funny? There was the time he’d brought an injured squirrel inside and set it loose, or when he’d eaten every single popsicle and left the freezer open, or when he was two and learned how to put his plate in the sink, so he’d started throwing away everyone’s dinners when he was done with his own. How many times had they had to avoid eye contact solely not to laugh in front of him, only to lose their minds once he was out of earshot?
She broke eye contact.
“She hasn’t always been Santa, so I’m not sure. This is the first time, ‘cause Santa fell off our roof. I think time sort of slows down,” Nicky was saying, demonstrating with his hands, his face set in a little pout. “For the time zones? It’s sort of like magic, but it’s also science. I think the reindeers have something to do with it, and - Mama!”
Agatha had come to her senses and grabbed Nicky off the desk.
“Put me back! I’ve got things to say!” He kicked his feet back and forth like he was running in midair, and she briefly considered holding him there like someone might do with a biting puppy. She put him down anyway, and he crossed his arms and pouted up at her. “Now how are they going to learn?”
“Right.” Nicky’s teacher was making her way to the front of the room - looked more than a little frazzled. “That was a … lovely presentation, Nicholas. Ms. Harkness, Ms. Vidal, I’ll speak to you both after class? Nicholas, that’s a five minute recess reduction for climbing onto the desk.”
“It was the best vantage point!”
“Please don’t make me make it ten.” The woman’s voice was resigned, and the pout on Nicky’s face was such a mirror of Rio’s that Agatha’s DNA might as well not have played a part at all. “I’ll see you two in my office.”
–
She dropped herself into the seat with a grunt, watching as Rio slid into the one opposite, hanging the blazer onto the back of the chair and sliding into the seat in one fell swoop. Agatha pressed her elbows into the slightly sticky wood of the cafe table, dragging her hands over her face as she groaned, and only lifting her elbows when a waitress came by with menus and utensils and a promise she’d be back.
“That was …” The proper words had either left her or did not exist.
“Embarrassing?” Rio offered a solution, voice light as air as Agatha lifted her hand from her face to glare at the delighted one across from her. “Hilarious? Show-stopping? Absolutely unforgettable?”
“My mom is a lawyer,” Agatha said, in a small voice meant to emulate their son’s. “She helps people live their lives happily! And my Mama also helps people. By being Santa Claus! This Christmas Santa disappeared from our roof!” She put her head down atop her arms, the tacky plastic of the menu adhering. God, she despised laminated menus. “We got pulled into the teacher’s office. Like we were fourteen. Is everything alright at home, dears? Oh, my god. Lilia is going to kill me. Not letting people know was literally in the rules I was given.” Her eyes shot up. “Are you laughing, you little shit?”
“No,” said Rio, who was laughing. “Oh, come on! Agatha. None of his classmates believed that. They’re right at the age where they stop.”
“A few of them definitely believed it.”
“And probably at least one of the parents. Maybe the NASA engineer. If anyone would have a tracker on that sleigh -”
Agatha groaned again.
“I don’t think you’ll get your Santa suit wearing ass handed to you or anything,” Rio said. “If you’re worried.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one wearing it.”
“Doesn’t Mrs. Claus have a suit?”
Agatha shrugged. The information she’d been given about Mrs. Claus was limited to non-existent. All she’d been told is that she had to have one, or risk the consequences.
“This whole thing is sort of fucked up.” Agatha opened her mouth, but Rio put her hands up before she could speak. “I’m still in. Don’t get your pretty head in a twist. I’m only saying. This nameless Mrs. Claus. It’s fucked for both parties. But it’s fine. It’s not like I-” She shrugged.
“What?” Her face had heated at the phrase pretty girl, and she breathed out, lifting her chin.
“Agatha.”
“No, I mean it.” Agatha leaned forward, brow furrowed. Rio’s fingers splayed on the menu that she kept looking down at, as though she were feigning renewed interest in the menu of a cafe they’d both been to a hundred times before.
“It’s not like I have any interest in dating someone else.”
The words were so honest that Agatha’s stomach swooped. “Rio. Anyone would be lucky-”
“And I don’t want to.” Rio’s lips were a straight line. Her own mouth was dry. Their waitress hadn’t come back, and her fingers closed around an empty glass. Just her luck. “It doesn’t interest me,” Rio continued. “I have what I need. And I have Nicky, every other week.”
The dip in her voice didn’t go unnoticed. They’d agreed on fifty fifty - easiest for them, easiest for Nicky. If he wanted one of them during the other’s week, they were there. No questions asked. Why would they? From the moment he’d been born, near everything they did was for Nicky.
“I had what I wanted,” she said, and the revised words struck Agatha in the center of her chest. She’d had what she’d wanted. Past tense. Her jaw clenched hard enough her teeth ached, heart skyrocketing. It was a mistake to start this in the first place. She could have found someone. Instead, she was dooming her. Dooming herself, too - to this lifetime of trying not to hurt, to this forced villainy. How long was she meant to live now, anyway? Forever? Until someone knocked her off a roof? Until some trigger happy parent saw her as an intruder? How many Santas did they go through in a decade?
“I can see you thinking,” Rio said, tapping her fingers on the table in front of her. Agatha’s eyes snapped up to her face. “We’re fine, Agatha.”
“How?” The word, traitorous, came out her mouth without her permission, stole the breath in her lungs for a moment after she said it. “After what I did? After what I’m doing?”
Rio was silent, but her eyes never left Agatha’s face. Her head was tilted so slightly, and those eyes seemed not to see through her, but into her. She could feel the look settling in her chest, knowing her, seeing her.
She’d tried to make herself forget this - the knowing. The warmth, how good it could feel, along with how terrifying. There was no hiding when someone could see you like that - not from them, not from yourself. It was easier to hide. Better. It kept her safe. It kept her surviving.
(And those ten years where she’d forgotten all of it? When she’d chosen to be happy, instead? When she’d let the comfort of living seep into everything? When she’d cooked in the morning with arms wrapped around her waist, before the fear and the pain and the start of breakdowns and isolation? Before it all, when she’d proven she could be happy if she wanted it enough?
Best not to think about that.)
“Come on,” Rio said. “Let’s save my dignity and not do this. I’m giving you a gift. Accept it and move on.”
“Remarrying me is a gift?”
If Rio was still in love with her - as in love with her as Agatha still was - they shouldn’t do this. They shouldn’t. It was sensible, not to. She had always been good at protecting herself.
“Fine. I’m politely saving your ass. Is that what you want to hear? You’d be miserable dating.” She rolled her eyes. “Don’t give me that look, you practically said so yourself. I’m giving you an out. I’m saving us both.”
She was being thrown a life raft once again.
“It’s not going to be -”
“I know what it is and isn’t going to be,” Rio snapped. “You’re not the only smart person in the room. You’re not the only one who gets it. You forget I understand you. I’m not mad. Do you think I want – the mother of my son to … what was it, melt from existence?”
“That was the implication, yes.”
“Why would I want that? Even without any,” and she paused here, seemingly rolling the words over on her tongue, “feelings I might have.” She held up a hand to stop the words Agatha was ready to say. “I don’t want that. I can survive it.”
The guilt was suffocating. It always had been. But right now, looking at her ex-wife’s honest face in front of her, it hurt worse. A knife through the chest, but she’d put one through her back.
And Rio had just … let her.
“Stop questioning it and trust that I’m an adult. We’re both adults here.”
She pulled her lips between her teeth. “Fine. If you want to doom yourself to this -”
“I do.”
She was insane, then, but she’d always been. It was why she’d fallen for her in the first place. The waitress came back, then, filling their waters as she took their orders. A burger for Rio, extra onions, and a turkey club for Agatha, add avocado. They handed the menus over, silent for a few moments before Agatha broke the silence.
“You have to admit climbing on the desk was … a move.”
“It was very you,” Rio said, wearing an easy grin, a switch from moments before. It was a grin that reminded Agatha of early days, of feet in her lap on the couch, of looking up and finding Rio watching her while she flipped through a book. “Little rule breaker.”
“I want to break him out of that recess-less prison.”
“I believe that defeats the purpose of the punishment, Agatha. We break him out now, he’ll turn into a habitual desk stander.”
“Oh, god forbid. Whatever will we do if Nicky doesn’t follow society’s rules to the letter?”
“Another you out there? Society might collapse.”
It was easy. It was still so easy. Warmth spread traitorously from her chest to her face. It shouldn’t be this easy. She shouldn’t be able to fall back into it like she was coming home, like watching the genuine light in Rio’s eyes as they laughed together didn’t hurt. It was familiar, a well-worn sweater that she knew how to feel safe in.
A feeling she knew how to tear apart until that look on Rio’s face was gone. One she’d torn apart, over and over again, when she was nursing her own wounds.
This was better; she had to remember that. Better to hurt her this way, when she knew exactly how she was doing it. When it wasn’t involuntary.
“We should go over the rules.”
“The rules,” Rio repeated. “Agatha Harkness wants to go over rules.”
“Is that a shock?”
“You didn’t even want rules for potty training. You thought we should just wing it.”
“Okay,” she shrugged out her hands. “And it worked, didn’t it?”
Two plates appeared in front of them. It had worked, looking back, Agatha was certain anything they’d done would have worked. Nicky was an easy child. He was perfect. He still was. And, if perhaps they were wearing rose colored glasses about their own child, fine. She didn’t care. It was still the truth.
“Fine,” Rio said. “I love rules. Let’s see your rules.”
“I don’t have them written down or anything.”
“But I’m sure you’ve come up with them, so let’s hear them.”
She hummed a little, folding her hands on the table in front of the untouched turkey sandwich.
“This isn’t … romantic,” she said. “You’re only bound to me from the moment we step into the North Pole until the moment we leave, so no falling for … elves. Otherwise, you can do what you'd like.”
Rio plucked a fry off her plate and popped it into her mouth. “I’m not going to fall for an elf.”
“You haven’t seen them. They’re not … cartoon cookie Keebler elves. Some of them look like supermodels.”
“Okay,” Rio said, eyes widening like she didn’t believe her. “I won’t fall for supermodel elves.”
“You’ll see. When you see them.” She picked at one of the fries on her own plate. A couple of years ago, she would have pulled them from Rio’s, and Rio would have taken them from hers. She would have stolen the onions off of her burger, and her heart twisted when she realized she’d still ordered extras. “We need to fool them. All that letter said was that we had to be married.” She raised her hands in a shrug. “Unsure what they’ll check for beyond that.”
“Wild implications.”
“Hush. I have no idea how closely they’ll be watching us.” Her nose scrunched. “We’ll be in the same room, but the bed is huge. And I can take the floor.”
“Adults, Agatha, remember?”
“I’m aware of our age. I’m giving you options. I assume we’ll do a courthouse wedding?”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I have all the papers. We could go today.”
There was a metallic taste in the back of her mouth. Today. Married today.
“I have off Thursday next week,” she countered, breathless. “We could go then. And Nicky has that field trip to the aquarium, so we won’t need to pick him up until five.”
“Sure, Agatha. We can do Thursday.”
Agatha stared through her, pretending not to notice the fallen expression on Rio’s face. What was Thursday compared to today, anyway? It was barely a week. She wasn’t avoiding it - even if Rio thought she was.
“Nicky, though,” Agatha said, barging past the last topic. She watched Rio settle back in her seat.
“He’s a smart kid, Agatha. He’s going to figure out something’s up.”
“We can tell him you’re vacationing with us,” she said. “Or we’ll make it like a game. We could tell him we have to pretend to be married because of … mystical lore. And not that I’d die without. I think he’ll just be thrilled you’re coming with us. I mean, without you, I’d have to break the news that he’d have to stay back most of the time with you.”
“Oh, a horrible fate.”
“Please. You try telling a kid he can’t spend a month in the North Pole.”
“Glad I could help, then.”
“Oh, you are.” The teasing tone dropped. “You are. Really. I don’t -”
“It’s fine. I’m doing this for a trip to the North Pole, anyway. I want to see the hot elves.”