She screamed in frustration, wondering whether it could get any worse. It did. The phone rang.
She had no idea who would be ringing this early on Christmas Day.
“What?” she practically yelled down the connection.
 “Carol?” a voice asked.
“Who’s this?”
“Travis. We met last night over a turkey. Is everything all right?”
“No, it’s fucking not,” she growled.
“You want I should come over? You know, to chat.”
She was being an asshole. Travis was a nice man. “What do you want, Travis?”
 “Maybe this is not a good time.”
“There ain’t gonna be a better time over this whole lousy holiday, Travis, so spit it out now.”
“Well, I was just wondering if you’d given any more thought to what I asked yesterday.”
No, she hadn’t. She’d given him her definite, final, not-gonna-change answer. How many times did she have to tell him? She regretted giving him her number now. She had nightmare visions of him ringing every couple of hours to see if she’d reconsidered. She had to put a stop to that. It would ruin her peace. He’d think she was a bitch but what the hell.
“Travis, there’s only one way I’ll consent to what you want.”
“Name it. We’ll do anything.”
She giggled in her head and upped the ante. “Okay. Here’s the deal. I’ll come over and play the perfect girlfriend. In exchange, you let me watch you and Nico doing the dirty tonight after his parents leave.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “Just so there’s no misunderstanding, you want to watch me and Nico fucking?”