Cursed (The Brookehaven Vampires #4) (53 page)

He’d seemed pretty pissed at first, when he ripped his own naked body off of me… Maybe he was hiding his anger with food. By the way he’d been eating the last twenty-four hours, it wouldn’t surprise me if the latter were true.

Oliver was on his second Brookehaven Ale when our food arrived.
Carter wasn’t drinking. He’d received a very serious warning in the car about how Oliver’s body didn’t tolerate more than one beer very well. And, considering he had to return to work, it was unwise for him to drink at all. So he had a salad, and he quietly grumbled about eating rabbit food.

Oliver, on the other hand, ordered a burger with the works. His burger came with fries, and he also ordered a side of mozzarella sticks and eagerly requested ranch and ketchup
to go with them.

“Oh, my…” Oliver said as he chewed. “I forgot how good cheese
is. Especially battered and deep fried.” He grinned at me with his lips together and his cheeks puffed out with food.

I shook my head at him and picked at my own food. It amazed me how carefree he appeared.

“Dude,” Carter hissed over the table at his own body. “You’re gonna make me sick. I mean
you
sick. Ugh! Us sick!”

Carter groaned while Oliver stuffed another ketchup-laden fry into his mouth. He smiled big, a mixture of French fry and ketchup in his teeth. “But it’s sooo good,” he said, the scar over Carter’s eye
crinkling.

Carter glared at Oliver, and then Carter (who was actually inside Oliver’s body) sat back in the booth and stretched his arm out behind me, resting his hand on my shoulder and pulling me closer to him.

Oliver’s smile fell.

Carter was grinning.

“Not cool,” Oliver grumbled.

“Then stop trying to kill me with food,” Carter
hissed quietly.

Oliver tossed the fry he was about to shove into his mouth back onto his plate and glared at Carter.

I pulled out of “Oliver’s” grip and put my elbows onto the table with a loud thump. I dropped my head into my hands. This was ridiculous.

With my head still in my hands, I reached out to Felix with my mind. “Please tell me this is going to be over soon.”

A moment later, Felix’s voice boomed in my head. “I am doing all that I can, Delaney. Please be patient. We are all struggling with this situation.”

I lifted my head and looked at him
, eyeing him curiously.

“I too am affected, more than you can imagine.” I raised an eyebrow at him and he chuckled deeply. He said nothing more.

Once we were finished with lunch, Felix dropped us back at the college. Carter and Felix headed back to work while Oliver hurried off to finish Carter’s classes for the day. I went to my car and headed home. This whole thing was exhausting, and I was so over it. But thoughts of Oliver as Carter making an ass of himself with the French fries and ketchup were pretty amusing.

Later that afternoon, Kiera called me when her classes were over. She wanted me to meet her at Zoey’s so we could get some wedding stuff done before our paranormal class
later in the night.

As much as I despised Kiera’s wedding tasks, it would be a welcomed distraction.

I headed over to Zoey’s, passing my boyfriend (in Carter’s body and sporting Carter’s Super Mario backpack) walking back to the apartments. We waved at each other as I passed by, and I had a text asking me where I was going by the time I got to Zoey’s.

When I responded and told him what I was doing, I had to stop myself from telling him I loved him. Technically, to anyone else’s eyes, I was chatting with Carter, not my boyfriend. And with my recent luck, Kiera would
see it, somehow.

After responding to the text from “Carter,” I called Zoey to let her know I was downstairs.

I got out of my car and waited by the door near the antique shop that led up to Zoey’s apartment. As I waited for Zoey to come downstairs to let me in, I hugged myself for warmth against the chill in the air while admiring the beautiful fall color of the trees.

Then Ashton drove by, eliciting a whole different type of chill.

He kept his eyes straight forward, but I was sure he’d seen me. I was suddenly anxious about being out in the open, and I was seriously grateful Zoey didn’t leave me standing out on the sidewalk much longer.

Zoey gave me a funny look when I rushed through the open door and hurried to get it closed behind me.

“You okay?” she asked as we walked up the stairs to the front door of her and her grandmother’s apartment.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Why?” I plastered a smile on my face, hoping to give off the impression all was good and right in the world.

She didn’t buy it. Her brow furrowed at me, and her pale jade eyes narrowed, but she said nothing else as we joined Kiera at the kitchen table.

“Okay,” Kiera began. She stood as Zoey and I took seats across the table from each other.

Kiera shoved a notebook in front of me. It contained several notes that she had compiled. A few of them were circled.

“These are the things I want to do for the wedding and the reception. Oh, and I added a couple of ideas for my shower.” She flashed me a smile, as a reminder. A reminder that I needed to get on the whole bridal-shower-planning thing. It was about a month away, and I had yet to do anything for it. Not like I
was busy or anything… Plus, at this point, Kiera would be marrying my boyfriend in her boyfriend’s body. I was
not
okay with that. Not at all.

Kiera carried on about the shower
a while longer, and I got the feeling the bridal shower was the real reason for this particular party-planning-get-together.

I cast Zoey a glance. She
gave me a quick nod. I knew she would help me with whatever I needed to do to get Kiera’s shower together. Right then, I needed Kiera’s guest list and some invites. Lucky for me, Kiera had already picked those out. I was informed that there was a small bag sitting near the door which contained both the list and the invites.

I took a second to glance toward the door. Sure enough, there the bag sat. A small, pale pink gift bag that contained my next wedding task was
sitting right beside everyone’s shoes that had been removed upon entry into Zoey’s apartment.

Returning my attention to the notebook Kiera had shoved in front of me, she pointed out that the circled items on the list were the ones Carter had chosen. I wondered if it
was actually Carter or if Oliver had circled them. Then I wondered if Oliver ever thought about us getting married and whether or not he would be okay with my low-key ideas.

As Kiera returned to her seat
at the head of the table between Zoey and me, she set out a blank piece of white poster board. She added several small pieces of red construction paper that were cut into circles, one red rectangle, and a few squares cut from pink paper.

“This is for the reception hall,” she said as she displayed the pieces of paper out before us.

The large blank page was meant to be the hall where the reception was being held. The other shapes were the tables and such.

I scratched at the back of my hand while we spent a lot of time moving red paper tables around the “hall” to figure out how Kiera wanted everything placed. The discomfort in my hand had flared when I
got to Zoey’s. It seemed to act up when I was stressed…or not… It hadn’t been any more annoying than usual since our nightmare began…

Thinking about it, I realized there was no rhyme or reason to when it would act up. What I did know was that I wanted it gone. There was only one way to make that happen…

When we finally settled with the reception table (the long red rectangle) centered at the head of the room, directly across from the entryway doors, we then placed the round tables on either side of the room, leaving the center open as the dance floor. The cake table was placed at an angle and to the right of the reception table, and the DJ’s area was designated on the other side.

Then of course, there was the gift table that seemed to spark a little light behind Kiera’s eyes. The gift table would be near the doors so people could
leave their gifts as they entered.

There was also a small bar that was centered on one of the walls in the room, between the doors and where the cake table would be.

“It won’t be an open bar though,” Kiera said as she gazed down at her paper reception hall. “My parents said they’ll only pay for unlimited soda and bottled water.” Once the reception hall map was set, and the pieces were glued down in their places, Kiera dished out more assignments.

One of my tasks was wrapping a
box and cutting a slit in it so people could place their cards inside—so the cards wouldn’t get lost amongst the rest of the gifts on the gift table. Kiera already had the paper and the box, which already had a line drawn on it in black marker as a guideline for the hole. She set the box, a roll of heart-covered wrapping paper, and a roll of tape next to my bridal shower bag by the door.

I
didn’t understand why she was giving me these tasks. She already had the stuff, and she was a total control freak. She should’ve just done it herself. I’d probably put the box together wrong in her eyes, and she’d just redo it anyway.

But I would give it a try, and I guess we would just have to wait and see if I fail her, yet again.

On her fingers, Kiera ticked off a few other things Zoey and I were to do. She also rattled off a list of supplies that she would be purchasing for later tasks.

As the time grew closer to when we should be heading for class, I said, “I should probably be going. I need to run home and pick up Carter.”

I stood, and before I could tell them that I would see them in class, Kiera had something to say.

“He
’s
my
fiancé, Laney. I’ll go get him.” She kind of smirked at me, but it was more of an annoyed or irritated expression.

She gathered her items, slipped on her shoes, and then left.

It was fine, you know, that she was going to
my
apartment to pick up
my
boyfriend, even though he was in her fiancé’s body…

I tried not to think about it as I split the invites and the bridal shower list with Zoey. Zoey could tell something was bothering me, but she
didn’t question me. She only fixed a smile on her face and helped me to my car.

I felt like she was
silently judging me, but I didn’t understand why.

Did she think I sucked as a maid of honor
too? Did she want the title?

I’d be happy to hand it over, especially since I
didn’t want to be paired with Tate. I’d much rather be on the arm of Isaac. There was no doubt there.

After tossing the box and the bag into the backseat of my car, we headed for our paranormal class. Zoey rode with me because her grandma had taken her car for the evening.

“You okay, Laney?” Zoey asked.

I nodded and faked another happy smile.

“You sure don’t seem like it,” she said.

I felt my smile twitch as I strained to keep it in place.

“There’s something going on with you,” she stated, but she didn’t pry, and I was thankful.

I was already in my seat in the classroom when Oliver and Kiera arrived. They’d taken longer than they should have… This made me nervous. What if she had tried to— I cut off my own morbid thought process. He
wouldn’t let that happen.

Kiera pecked who she thought was Carter on the lips before taking her seat.

Oliver took his seat in front of Kiera, which was just to my left and behind Zoey. He glanced over, giving me a faint smile. I returned it very quickly and then returned my attention forward, waiting for Amber to join the class. Amber was in the main classroom waiting for the last few students to trickle down the hall and into the windowless, gray room.

I kept my eyes forward, but I could feel his on me. He needed to knock it off before Kiera threw another hissy fit.

Once Professor Amber arrived, we were given our weekly quiz to see what we had retained from the previous week. My knowledge of mermaids was seriously lacking then, and I was pretty sure it hadn’t improved, especially with my mind being preoccupied by our current problem.

Plus, I had been fairly distracted the previous Thursday because of the activities from earlier that day
. It seemed so long ago, but it wasn’t. It had only been a handful of days since Oliver and I had our moment on the chaise at Julz’s. My body gave a little shudder as I recalled that afternoon.

I fiddled with my star necklace and sighed while I tried to focus on the quiz
on my desk.

With no luck,
my thoughts moved on to our Christmas tree. I was avoiding looking at it and the special ornament Oliver had given me. My heart ached as those memories replayed. What if they were the last memories we would have of being us? This was supposed to be our beginning. Our first Christmas. Now, Oliver being stuck in Carter would likely taint those memories.