I'm Dreaming of an Undead Christmas Read Online Free PDF Page A

Iris what could only be described as the most awkward smile in the world. I could not tell Iris about my foundering relationship with Ben. Iris adored Ben, which was only natural when you considered that Ben had saved both of us from the clutches of a megalomaniacal vampire who resembled Colonel Sanders, not to mention said vampire’s evil gropey henchman, whom I’d dated. It was all very complicated.
    I couldn’t tell Iris that I’d fallen out of love with the world’s most perfect boyfriend. I couldn’t tell her I was bored and didn’t feel challenged by Ben’s happy-go-luckiness. That sounded so selfish and silly. So instead, I focused on something Iris would fall on like a starving lion with a zebra carcass. My grades.
    “Five As and a C-plus.”
    “A C?”
    “C- plus .”
    “What are you making the C in?”
    “Logical thinking skills.”
    She burst out laughing and clapped her hand over her mouth. Because that would offend me less, I supposed. “You made a C in logic ?”
    “The class was not what I thought it would be. Our final project was creating a board game using olives as play pieces.”
    “Please tell me this was an elective,” she said.
    “It was. But I don’t think I should take any crap from someone who took a bowling class for a PE credit.”
    “Fair enough. What about your roommate? Is she still meeting boys for ‘coffee’ at three A.M. ?”
    “Complete with flat-ironing her hair,” I said. “She is fooling no one.”
    “Well, maybe she won’t come back next semester,” Iris suggested. “That’s what happened with at least two of your roommates.”
    “You make it sound like I’m the problem here,” I grumbled. “I’m a dream roommate. I’m just misunderstood.”
    “All I’m saying is, you’ve been in school five semesters, and you’ve had six roommates.”
    “A kleptomaniac, a control freak who woke me screaming in the wee hours if I left the remote controls out of alignment, two religious zealots, a hoarder, and, most recently, a nympho,” I muttered.
    Iris covered her face with her hands, but she laughed. “I remember those simpler days when you were just a young, naive girl who didn’t use the term ‘nympho.’ ”
    “Please, I’m the one who taught you the term ‘UNF.’ ” I giggled, sitting up and propping myself against my pillow.
    “I blocked that out.”
    “Really? You blocked out your baby sister teaching you the phrase ‘universal noises of fu—’ ”
    “No!” she cried, covering her ears. “You are an innocent flower! A sweet girl whom I in no way ruined with my poor parenting skills!”
    I cackled, tossing a pillow at her. Instead of taking it to the face, she deftly caught it a few inches from her nose and slung it back.
    “Oof!” I huffed, tossing the pillow aside. “You didn’t ruin me with your parenting skills. I probably would have turned out this way no matter what you did.”
    “You’re probably right,” she admitted, raking her hands through her hair.
    “You do realize that you don’t have to do the full Martha Stewart Christmas extravaganza, right?”
    “I know I don’t. Part of me wants to make up for the fact that I couldn’t see you for months. And the other part just really misses the way Christmases used to be around the house when Mom and Dad were still with us.”
    I leaned over far enough that I could pat her hand, ignoring the way she flinched at my unexpected contact.
    The truth was, I could remember way more Christmases with Iris than I could with our parents. But telling Iris that sort of thing usually made her feel weird and guilty, like she had somehow selfishly sucked up all of the quality time with our parents by virtue of being born first.
    “Iris, every year, you do everything the way Mom and Dad did, from making the weird soda-cracker candy Mom used to make to taking Dad’s ‘one bite’ out of the cookies left out for Santa. I’m almost twenty years old, and you’re still leaving cookies out