Cursed (The Brookehaven Vampires #4) (46 page)

Also, the way he was kissing me was different, and he was being super clumsy with his fangs.

Then, all of a sudden, Carter was shouting my name and pounding on our bedroom door.

Oliver paused.
While he was looking down at me, I noticed something was off in his expression.

Then Carter busted our door off of its hinges.

I scrambled for the sheet and pulled it around us while screaming at Carter to get out of our room.

Sitting with the girls at the diner after they’d gone to that wedding expo Kiera hadn’t stopped talking about for weeks, I was relieved she’d found a wedding dress.

She seemed less stressed
now, but I knew otherwise. We were both on edge, just waiting, counting down to when she was due to start her monthly lady thing.

Just a few more days…

We would figure it out when the time came, just as Kiera had said, but I couldn’t help worrying about it. I just couldn’t imagine I could support a family, yet. That was, if we even chose that route… Ugh!

I wanted to tell Laney the other night, mostly because I
could’ve used the support. But after what I said about Kiera, about me maybe making a mistake, she probably would’ve lost it on me. So I kept my mouth shut.

After
my break was over, and the girls headed off for the mall, the rest of my shift went by pretty fast.

While I finished washing the dishes, I thought about my soon-to-be wife and our possible mess that I couldn’t get out of my head.

The wedding stuff was a great distraction for Kiera. I think she would’ve been screaming and yelling at me more often if she didn’t have something to take her mind off the fact I might’ve knocked her up. Unfortunately, I didn’t have such a distraction. Other than the continuous movies I’d been watching with Laney and Oliver. I also had school and work, but other than that, any free time was spent trying not to worry about possible fatherhood.

Oh, and let’s not forget the constant threat of Ashton and his dad and their possible minion army. Yeah, envying Tate even more.

Maybe I’d look into leaving, getting Kiera and me out of town, transfer us to a different school away from this place.
That is, once we find out if we’re…expecting.
I felt sick. Constantly.

If she was, if we kept it, we’d have to stay. There was no way we could raise a kid without our families, especially if we wanted to finish school.

UGH!
I wanted this out of my head!

After my shift, I found Oliver waiting for me outside the diner.

“What are you doing here?” I asked as I lugged the chicken costume along with me.

“Felix had something to take care of. He asked me to come get you,” he said as he popped the trunk to his car.

Whatever. This was just another reminder that I couldn’t even support myself, let alone Kiera and a kid.

I shoved the chicken suit into the trunk of Oliver’s awesome Dodge Challenger—a car I could only ever dream of driving, let alone owning. Once the chicken suit was safely inside, I ever so gently closed the trunk. Oliver looked at me funny as he watched me do this. I grinned uncomfortably, and he shook his head as he walked to the driver’s side and got in the car.

I slid into the passenger seat and admired the view of the interior, as usual. I’d never sat in the front, so I had an even better view.

I loved Oliver’s car. It was freakin’ awesome! I always imagined it transforming into a kickass Autobot, but that was something I wouldn’t be sharing with anyone.

When he started the engine, I felt myself grin uncontrollably. It sounded so badass! The way it rumbled and vibrated under you… Uh, yeah, like I said,
awe
-some!

My smile widened as Oliver pulled out onto the street. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to drive such a car.

Having worked a double shift, I was starving. And I was seriously over burgers and fries. “Hey, dude. Would you mind running me through the Taco Bell drive thru?”

“No problem, but you are not eating in my car,” he said without even a glance
in my direction.

“I wouldn’t think of it.” Hell, I wouldn’t even eat in it if it was mine!

We didn’t talk much, which was fine. Oliver and I didn’t have a lot in common, other than Laney, and Felix. Oh, and Isaac. And we did both hated Ashton, so there was that. And I’m sure Oliver would’ve agreed with me about how nasty Avery was. So, maybe we did have things in common. But other than people we liked and disliked, I didn’t think there was anything else.

At Taco Bell, he placed my order for me and I handed him a few dollars to pay. Then, after leaving the drive thru, Oliver started telling me about this movie he’d been watching before he’d left the apartment to pick me up from work. He said he’d found it recorded in the suggestions of the TiVo and that it was terrible.

“It’s like some sort of bad accident and I just can’t look away,” he said, laughing after he said this.

I laughed in return, mostly because I was pretty sure I knew what movie he was talking about
, and I was nervous and half afraid this was some sort of test. But that was just a ridiculous thought. Maybe. But if it was the movie I thought it was, this was just more proof that we didn’t have shit in common.

Oliver pulled the Challenger into his spot at the apartments. He popped the trunk so I could grab the stupid chicken costume.

I took one last sniff of that new car/clean/leathery smell—unfortunately now tainted with Taco Bell stench—then I hopped out of the car.

I gathered the chicken costume under one arm while my Taco Bell bag dangled off the other.

“You dropped something,” Oliver said, nodding toward the trunk while he checked his phone.

I bent over; eyeing what had
supposedly fallen off the chicken costume and into the trunk. I picked up some sort of small bag. I’d never seen it before. I figured it got stuck to the chicken in the trunk. I looked it over, thinking it was an air freshener at first. It was no bigger than my palm, and it was made out of a burlap sack or something. It was tied at the top with twine and it smelled. Bad. Definitely not an air freshener.

“This yours?” I asked. I held the little bag out for Oliver to see, my Taco Bell, which was bound to be getting cold, dangling from my arm.

He shoved his phone in his pocket and looked at my hand. “Nope, never seen it before.”

“Weird,” I said. I looked at the mysterious bag again. “It looks like one of those bags my mom puts in her closet, for smellys, you know?” I looked back to him.

“Smellys?” he questioned, a look of amusement on his face.

“Yeah,” I said, “you know, so her closet will smell nice. Like lavender or roses or something.”

Oliver kinda laughed at me as he shook his head.

“But this one stinks,” I said as I pulled it away from my face. “Here, smell it.” I shoved it under his nose.

He smacked the bag out of my hand. “What the hell is wrong with you? That thing smells awful!”

“I know! That’s why I wanted you to smell it.”

He stared at me for a second, and then he said, “I can’t argue with that logic.” I’m pretty sure he was being sarcastic.

He closed the trunk and headed upstairs. I followed, leaving the weird bag on the ground where it had landed.

When we got inside the apartment, Oliver played the movie he’d been badmouthing.

Sure enough, I
was right. It was the one I thought it might be. I knew it was in the suggestions, I’d been waiting to watch it. So I could savor it.

I sat on the couch, began eating my grub, and said, “You’re right, this is a terrible movie.” I was lying. It was
Starship Troopers
. It was one of my favorites. We’re talking one of the top five favorite movies of all times!

But Oliver and I were getting along, and I didn’t want to jinx it. The two of us getting along would make Laney happy. I liked when Laney was happy, and
she’d looked far from it when I’d seen her earlier at Shakes. So I was trying.

Taking a seat on the other end of the couch, Oliver sat back. He looked over at me and grinned crookedly, his unnaturally green eyes making me uneasy. “You know I can tell you’re lying, right?”

Shit.
“Yeah, I forgot about that,” I said, a half-assed smile in place.

“So,” he said, and I could hear the
mockery coming, “is it the girls? The giant alien bugs?”

I shrugged and laughed, slightly uncomfortably. “It’s just a kickass movie.”

He laughed again, but he actually finished watching the entire movie while we sat there, not speaking.

But even when it was over, he still claimed it was terrible.

I’m sure there were plenty of things Oliver thought were awesome that were probably stupid… I just had no proof of that. Yet.

Laney got home soon after the movie was over. She and Oliver were quick to head off to bed.

I always turned up the TV volume when their door was closed. I really didn’t want to hear anything. I hadn’t yet, and I wanted to keep it that way.

I watched TV for a while, but it wasn’t long before I crashed right there on the couch.

I felt groggy and disoriented when I woke.

Kiera was standing beside the couch looking down at me.

I blinked several times
, trying to focus on her. She was complaining about something… About how I had slept in my clothes? That didn’t make any sense. For one, when I’d gone to bed, I was wearing my pajama bottoms. Secondly, why the hell would Kiera care what I wore to bed?

I sat up, realizing I was on the couch in the apartment, and that I was wearing a seriously worn pair of jeans.

Wait, I don’t own any worn jeans.
Not this worn…

“Did you hear me?” Kiera snapped.

I looked up to see her golden-flecked blue eyes glaring down at me. “What? No, no I didn’t.”

Wait…
My voice doesn’t sound right, and why can’t I feel what Kiera is feeling?

I stared up at her. She looked angry, but I was getting…nothing.

She huffed and put her hand on her hip before launching into a long rant about us having plans to go to some church, and something about school and how I was going to be late for my classes.

I was dreaming. That was the only explanation. I was having a weird-ass, really stupid dream about Carter’s life.

She asked me again if I’d heard her and if we were having lunch together.

I nodded because I just wanted to be done with this stupid dream
, but I couldn’t figure out how to wake myself.

I felt confused, but that was it. I
only
felt confused. My
own
confusion. I had one set of emotions. One. And they were mine. This was seriously…odd…

Kiera announced she was leaving, so
I stood and walked her to the door, hoping that by saying goodbye to her this dumb dream might end.

My body felt strange
…

She kissed me on the lips. It was weird to kiss my girlfriend’s friend, even if it was just a dream. It still felt like cheating.

Although it was just a dream, when she told me she loved me before hurrying off, I didn’t respond. She didn’t seem to care or notice.

I watched her go
, waiting for the dream to end. And I waited.

What the hell? Why is
n’t this dream ending?

I was stuck, with nothing happening.

I closed the front door and just stood there for a few minutes, staring at the back of it. Still, I didn’t wake.

I turned and scanned the apartment. Nothing was out of place, and there was nothing weird like a dinosaur cooking breakfast or lava on the floor… It was a very realistic dream.

The tree Laney and I had picked out together was right where it should be, you know, in real life. The ornament I’d given her was right where she hung it before thanking me in all sorts of good ways.

I smiled at the thought of her, at the memory of that moment, and then I looked to our bedroom door. It was closed. The faint sound of
…the bed creaking grabbed my attention.

What the…?

Many things ran through my mind at that very moment. The world in which we lived was a cruel one, this I knew all too well. That being said, I came to a quick and terrifying conclusion.

No. No, this wasn’t happening.

I rushed to the bedroom door. I hesitated with my hand on the knob. If this was a dream, I had nothing to fear, but if it wasn’t…

Beating my fist against the door, I shouted Laney’s name. I
didn’t feel like myself. I didn’t feel as strong as usual, I also did not feel weak, but I sure as hell didn’t feel like myself.

I pounded on the door again
and noticed that my hand did not look like my own.