Cursed (The Brookehaven Vampires #4) (25 page)

I was actually surprised Levi was being so calm. I mean, he was mated to Nikki, it had to be killing him to know she had promised herself to this other guy.

However, on a selfish note, I hoped he didn’t cause any issues until after dinner. I was starving and the food smelled
so
good. After dinner, he could do as he pleased. Just as long as there was no killing… I didn’t want to be a part of that.

Returning to my task of gather
ing eating utensils, I went to the other room and set the table. Oliver and I then helped Nikki get the food onto the table. Not one other person offered to help, and I wondered who would’ve been helping Nikki if we hadn’t. It also made me wonder if anyone would have helped her at all, or if she would’ve done everything on her on.

Oliver had told me that her fiancé was kind of a jerk. I hadn’t seen it, but I also had not seen him help her, either. And those other people who weren’t lifting a finger to help Nikki
were all his relatives, not hers.

As soon as the food was in place, everyone gathered around the table. Most of the men, including Nikki’s fiancé, made a heaping plate of food and headed back to the TV without even a “thanks.” However, this left Jace’s chair at the head of the table open. Levi was quick to take it. It also placed him right next to Nikki. Levi seemed very proud of himself. Nikki, on the other hand, not so much.

Nikki and Levi had a quiet but heated argument as the rest of the table heaped food onto their plates.

“Would you just shut up?
” Nikki quietly snapped as she stood and slapped a heaping scoop of mashed potatoes onto Levi’s plate.

“
Isn’t that what Americans do? Don’t you say grace before a meal?” he questioned, his eyes were level with hers.

“Not in my house,” she snapped again. “And if we did, there is no way in hell I’d let you say it.” Nikki looked really flustered. Her eyes darted away from Levi, searching the room to see if anyone was watching as she continued to slam food onto Levi’s plate.

I quickly looked away, scooting my chair closer to the table.

I was seated on the side of the table that faced the front door. I was two spots down from Nikki. I had Oliver on my left side, and there was a little girl on my right sitting between Nikki and me.

Oliver and I loaded our plates, and Oliver played like he was eating. No one seemed to notice that he wasn’t, probably because the people at the table were some of the rudest, most obnoxious people I had ever encountered.

An older couple at the far end of the table did nothing but bicker at each other, and not quietly. There were a few other people, five or six of them, all older adults, and mostly women, planted at
the end of the table near the bickering couple. They all seemed to have nothing but negative things to say about the food, but they kept eating.

The woman who had been holding the baby in the kitchen was sitting across from me.
While cradling her screaming infant son in one arm, she tried to get her other two young sons to eat and stay in their seats.

Oliver and I exchanged a glance. I was so ready to get out of there. I was fairly certain he was too. However, we stayed put. And the food was actually really good, but the company made it hard to enjoy.

Nikki and Levi were quietly arguing at the head of the table again, and if these people hadn’t been so self-involved, they might have picked up on something going on between the two.

Then, to my surprise, the little girl sitting between Nikki and me spoke up just loud enough for Nikki to hear her. “Momma, will you help me with this?” she sweetly asked.

Holy shit… She has a daughter!

I know my eyes were huge, but I’m sure they were nothing compared to Levi’s expression.

Nikki noticed the sudden silence and stillness of Levi, and after helping her little girl butter her roll, Nikki excused herself from the table. I watched her as she headed for the kitchen. Her little girl grinned up at me as she chewed a bite of her buttered roll.

“We’ll be right back,” Oliver told me. Then he left his seat and grasped Levi’s arm. Pulling the stunned Levi from his chair, Oliver took him down the hallway that was off the entryway.

As if there wasn’t enough happening, the front door swung open, hitting the wall with a bang and shaking the picture frames. A guy walked in, announcing that he had arrived in a very flamboyant way. No one seemed to care about this guy’s arrival, except for the little girl sitting next to me. She hurried out of her seat, tossing her roll on the table as she did so. She ran across the room and threw her arms around the man who kneeled when he saw her coming.

“Momma Nikki’s in the kitchen,” the little girl said, then she skipped back to her seat, hopped onto it, and grabbed her roll, taking another bite and swinging her feet.

After closing the front door with much less flourish than he had opened it, the guy eyed me suspiciously as he passed by to the kitchen.

As I sat there in silence, my fork tightly grasped in one hand, the little girl started talking to me while the rest of the table was still in complete chaos.

The older people bitched, the baby screamed, and the mom of the young boys was beginning to turn red in frustration with her kids who thought throwing food at each other was hilarious. From the TV room, the men yelled hoots and hollers.

Holy…crap…
No wonder Nikki had strayed. What I couldn’t figure out was why the hell she had returned.

The little girl tugged at my top when she realized I
wasn’t listening to her. I turned my attention to her, and she then proceeded to tell me that she was, six, six-and-a-half to be exact, and that her name was Grace. She told me what grade she was in and that her favorite color was purple.

She chatted on and on until Oliver and Levi finally returned. Then she quieted and went about eating what was
left on her plate.

When Oliver took his seat, he whispered in my ear that
Levi had not known about Grace.

I
’d figured that one out for myself.

Levi had this stunned look in his eyes as he sat, motionless, at the head of the table. He
didn’t eat, just sat there, in a daze, glancing at Grace from time to time.

I had lost all desire to eat too. The noise level was rising. Oliver knew I was ready to go,
but Levi was not, which meant we were staying put.

Nikki never returned to the table.

Oliver and I began cleaning off the table as the others began to scatter. Not a single person picked up his or her own plate. Again, why the hell was she staying? These people were horrible! And if Oliver was right about her fiancé… It had to be the little girl. But was she even Jace’s? Why would they just now be engaged? The kid was pushing seven… If she wasn’t Jace’s, Nikki needed to take that kid and run.

On my first trip to the kitchen, with an armload of plates and silverware, I found Nikki and the guy who
came in late. They were huddled at the sink together. They were washing dishes, or at least that’s what they looked like they were doing.

As I set my load of dishes on the counter, they both turned to me. Nikki looked guilty. Which she should, I imagined. However, this was a house full of assholes, and I was beginning not to blame her for straying.

“Laney, this is my cousin, Ricky,” Nikki said, her flustered tone still evident.

“Nice to meet you,” Ricky said, a wide smile spreading across his face. He was the only one who had been polite, other than Nikki’s daughter.

I smiled back, and replied, “You, too.” Then I looked back to Nikki and said, “Your daughter is really sweet.”

“Oh, thanks,” she said. “But she’s actually not mine. She’s my step-daughter. Well, step-daughter-to-be.” She looked down at her ringless finger.

“Oh,” I said in surprise.

I was still standing there, staring at Nikki, a little stunned, when Oliver brought in more dishes.

Nikki thanked the both of us for helping, then she reached for a bottle of wine that was sitting on the counter behind Ricky. She glanced past us before tipping the bottle to her lips. After taking several large swallows, she wiped her mouth with her sleeve and held the bottle out. “Anyone else?” she asked.

Oliver and I both declined, of course, but Ricky helped himself.

“I fucking hate these people,” Nikki said in a very low tone as she stared past us at the back of her fiancé’s head.

Ricky put his arm around Nikki
’s shoulders and agreed with her while Oliver pulled me to the other room to clear more dishes. I tried to question him, but he told me it wasn’t the time, or the place.

The rude people returned to the table once their places had been cleared. Levi
was included in a game of cards with the grouchy older people at the far end of the table. Levi appeared chipper once more. I wondered if it was merely for show.

Ricky came in to join the game. The older people did not seem to like Ricky, at all, but Levi took to him, and together they seemed to team up against the others playing.

With more dishes loaded in my arms, I followed Oliver back to the kitchen where we found Nikki slicing pumpkin and apple pies.

With Oliver avoiding the pumpkin pie, the three of us delivered slices to ungrateful people, or asshats, as Carter would
call them. Your choice. The only ones who told us thank you were Levi and Ricky.

Levi watched Nikki with longing as she set a slice of pie in front of one of her ungrateful, soon-to-be in-laws. I saw her blush when she caught him doing so. She was quick to leave the room.

“What the hell is she doing with these people?” I whispered to Oliver as we headed back to the kitchen.

He shrugged and shook his head.

Back in the kitchen, Oliver and I helped Nikki with the dishes. As we were loading them into the dishwasher for her, I noticed that Nikki was standing in front of the stove—facing it with her hand on the knobs.

I watched her check the stove knobs to see if they were on or off. Repeatedly. My eyes widened and Oliver noticed, probably because
I’d stopped helping him.

He glanced behind himself, at Nikki, then his eyes shifted back to mine. He dried his hands
on the dishtowel then slung it over his shoulder.

“She
’s worse when she’s stressed,” he said.

Worse?
Was this something she always did? I mean, she’d checked each knob probably five times since I’d started watching her. Did she have OCD or something?

Oliver turned and went to her, gently pulling her hand away from the stove. “Just lock it, Nikki.” He held his finger to one of the buttons displayed across the back. The oven beeped and the word “Locked” appeared across the display.

With her back to him, she kind of just collapsed against him for a moment. He held onto her, and very quietly, I heard her say, “What am I going to do?”

Nikki’s fiancé and the others erupted in cheers. Nikki was quick to straighten and stand on her own.

Oliver shrugged at her as she turned to face him. “You’ve got to make that choice, Nikki.” He returned to the sink, and we finished what was left of the dishes.

Nikki disappeared.

Once the dishes were done, Oliver and I headed back to the front room. Levi was getting loud, as if the loudness of the house was contagious. Oliver joined their game in the hopes of keeping Levi levelheaded, and maybe quieting him. I sat beside Oliver, but declined when one of the grumpies tried to deal me in.

I watched them play for a while. The older, grouchy people really seemed to have something against Ricky. One of them called him a freak, in which he responded, “All the best people are.” He smiled big as he ran a hand over his dark, curly hair. He didn’t seem bothered by their snide comments. In fact, their comments seemed to fuel him. I was beginning to like Ricky.

The card players argued a lot. I found it exhausting. Actually, I was finding the whole day exhausting. Plus, the house was warm and stuffy.

I turned my attention to the kids playing on the floor in the front room of the house. Nikki’s soon-to-be step-daughter was building something with her Legos while the two wild boys taunted her, acting like they were going to kick over her masterpiece.

In the hopes of offering Grace some defense, I left the table to go sit on the floor with her. She welcomed my company, and she even gave me some pieces to build with. Unfortunately, my presence did not deter the boys. I’m not really sure what happened next or how it happened, but it was almost like those boys were little Tasmanian Devils, and suddenly the Legos were everywhere.

Grace ran out of the room, crying for Nikki. Both of the boys were crying and screaming about whose fault it was, pointing at each other, blaming the other one. The mom rushed in from the TV room
with her third son bundled in her arms. He too was screaming, again. I was seriously reconsidering wanting kids at all.

I watched the agitated mother try to wrangle her boys with little luck. Then she looked at me still sitting on the floor. “Would you mind taking him for a minute?” she asked as she passed her screaming infant into my arms without waiting for my response. Then she chased after the other two as they hauled ass out of the room.