Cursed (The Brookehaven Vampires #4) (63 page)

Kiera requested Carter (Oliver) ride downtown to the bar with her, Rudy, and Zoey. That left just Carter and me in the Challenger. It was too weird.

Carter and I had been close, almost inseparable at times, but putting him in Oliver’s body had put a huge rift in our friendship. I missed him. But it was just too weird. I’m sure the fact
he’d seen me fully naked, been inside of me…

My stomach turned, something it was doing a lot lately.

I sighed and put my head back, glancing over at the Carter in my Oliver’s body.

I was pretty sure he had
lost his enthusiasm for driving Oliver’s car. His concentration had shifted to his own body, the one that Oliver was currently possessing.

“He downed three beers,” Carter said as we headed downtown.

“Yeah, I noticed,” I responded.

I was having my own concerns. I
couldn’t stand seeing Kiera hanging all over him, even if she didn’t know it was my boyfriend inside hers. I still knew. And the fact he was kissing her back… Ugh! That was killing me! I know he had to play like everything was normal, but he definitely didn’t have to agree to us going out, that only made things more difficult.

As I quietly rode along in the front passenger seat, gazing out the window at the elaborate Christmas décor that lined the streets of downtown “Treeville,” Carter reached over and put his hand on my arm.

Before he could speak, I said, “If you tell me one more time that everything will be fine, I think I’ll break your fingers.”

He jerked his hand away and we rode the rest of the way in silence.

Carter parked Oliver’s car in the side lot next to the Lunatic Stallion. He killed the engine and stayed quiet while we waited for the others to arrive.

After a few minutes, he spoke. “Laney, I know this sucks, and I know you’re tired and hurting, but we still have to play like everything
’s normal.”

I laughed. Just a quick, sharp laugh. “Yeah, because that’s working so well for us. You acting normal almost got one of you killed,” I said, turning to face him.

A very familiar green-eyed stare gazed back at me, but I knew it wasn’t the right person looking at me though those eyes.

“I can’t do this, Carter. It’s killing me to watch him
pretending to be you.” I took a breath, looked away, and rather quietly, I said, “Watching Kiera with her hands all over him.”

“You think it’s not bugging me too?”

I shrugged.

“Laney,” Carter said in a voice that
didn’t belong to him.

I returned my attention to him, tears fighting their way to the surface.

“Let’s just make it through tonight, and after that, we go into hiding. I’ll have Oliver tell Kiera he has to go somewhere with Felix, and then the three of us can just hide out until Amber and Felix figure this out.”

I smiled a little at his attempt to make me feel better. “Where will we go?”

One shoulder lifted and then dropped. “I don’t know. Maybe Felix will let us stay at his place.”

“Where’s that?” I questioned. I hadn’t really thought of Felix actually having a home of his own. I wondered many things, but especially what it looked like
, and if the furniture was huge.

“He lives over by Isaac and Julz.”

“But won’t they know we’re there?”

“Not if we don’t tell them.” He smiled at me. I felt a little better. “Laney,” he said, rubbing my arm, “don’t break my fingers, but it will be okay. We’ll figure this out.”

I laughed, just a little, and I smiled back at him. Then there was a hard tap at my window. I turned to find Carter’s face looking in at us. “Let’s go,” he shouted. He looked and sounded annoyed.

“Let’s do this,” Carter said, and we got out of the car to join our friends (and significant others).

“Everything okay with you guys?” Zoey asked. Her eyes shifted to what she thought was my boyfriend walking just ahead of me.

I faked a smile and nodded
while reaching forward and taking “Oliver’s” hand to prove we were fine. He slowed and his fingers squeezed mine.

Ahead of us, Kiera and “Carter” were also holding hands. At that moment, a part of me thought maybe getting drunk would make the evening easier. A sudden memory of the aftermath of my one and only drunken experience prevented me from suggesting this idea to my pretend boyfriend.

We waited in line out front, and then “Oliver” paid the cover charge for both of us, and the bouncer slapped an “over twenty-one” band around Oliver’s wrist.

Still holding
hands, we followed the rest of our group up the stairs to the heavily decorated bar. It appeared the Lunatic Stallion had spared no expense with their holiday decorations—it was Christmas from top to bottom. There were trees and garland everywhere. Christmas lights were strung from one end of the bar to the other, and the mechanical bull was even decorated to look like Rudolf. Sort of. The bartenders were even wearing holiday hats. Some were Santa hats, and others looking like elf hats.

We followed the others to an empty section near the
back door. “Oliver” and I took a seat on the bench, while “Carter” and the girls sat in chairs on the other side of the table and Rudy sat at the end of the table between Zoey and “Oliver.”

The bar was loud and crowded.

I was irritable and really didn’t want to be there.

Carter had one beer while we were at the bar
, only one. He knew Oliver’s body didn’t tolerate more than that very well. Oliver, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be keeping track of his liquor intake. This concerned us.

When I said something to Oliver about the amount he was consuming, trying to keep it playful, but also trying to get my point across, Kiera about jumped down my throat
. She informed me that he was her boyfriend, and if anyone was going to tell him to slow down, it would be her.

Carter’s blue eyes stared at me for a long moment after that, and then he ordered another beer.

Now, for Carter’s body, a six-pack of beer wouldn’t do too much, make him tipsy and slur his words, maybe. But Oliver, while in Carter’s body, wasn’t just drinking beer. He’d done at least two shots of tequila upon our arrival, so there was more than just tipsy going on.

Carter and I were pissed. Oliver knew it, but he was already too far gone to care.

I was tempted to go home and just leave his ass there. I don’t think I was alone in this thought.

Several drinks into the night, Carter went to the bar for a few minutes while Oliver and the others were out on the dance floor. I refused to watch what was going on out there, so I kept my eyes on Carter (in Oliver’s body) while he had a quick conversation with the bartender.

As he headed back to our table, I noticed that he wasn’t walking like my Oliver. There was just this difference in the way his body moved. I wondered if anyone else had noticed, or was it something only I saw because of my relationship with him?

Carter returned and slid in next to me on the bench. He rested his arm across the back of the seat, just behind me. He leaned close, placing his other hand on the table in front of me. I don’t think he noticed his movements like I did. I wondered
…if I closed my eyes, if he would kiss me, and if, just for a minute, I could pretend it was really my boyfriend in there.

But I didn’t try
.

Instead,
I stayed where I was as he leaned close and said, “I told the bartender to cut him off.”

“They’ll do that?” I questioned, raising my voice loud enough to be heard over the music
, and then remembering Carter now had Oliver’s superior hearing. Raising my voice was unnecessary.

He nodded in response. “But be prepared, it might piss him off.” He nodded in the direction of the dance floor.

Reluctantly, I turned to see my boyfriend, in my friend’s body, dancing with Kiera. He was turning her and dipping her, spinning her and holding her close. And I noticed, as I’m sure others had, “Carter’s” movements were a little more graceful than usual.

I quickly turned back to “Oliver.”

“We need to get him out of here,” I said.

He nodded, his body still very close to mine. However, neither of us could come up with a good way to get “Carter” out of the bar without being obvious. So we watched, and we waited, tortured by the actions of my drunk boyfriend.

A
long
while later, the others finally left the dance floor. Kiera and Zoey headed off to the bathroom, while Rudy and “Carter” joined “Oliver” and me at the table. Rudy returned to his seat, but “Carter” stood beside the table, looking down at me.

“May I speak to you for a moment?” he asked, in a very Oliver way.

He held his hand out and, without even looking at the man next to me who, in everyone else’s eyes, was my boyfriend, I took “Carter’s” hand and let him lead me to the back door of the bar.

As we made our way to the
back door, he stumbled, seemingly over his own feet. He was quick to catch himself and straighten before taking us both down.

Once at
the door, he pushed it open, and the cool of the night hit me, making me shiver.

We stepped outside and the door closed behind us. Voices filled the night. There were others nearby. A deck, for those who were over twenty-one, was just beside the back exit. You could only access the deck from inside the bar. There were quite a few people out there, but nobody could see us because of the way it was partially closed in. There was also no one at the bottom of the stairs. We were kind of alone.

He turned around as soon as the door locked behind me. My breath caught when I saw the look in his eyes.

I grabbed the door handle, but it didn’t turn.
Without going all the way around to the front, or calling Carter so he could let us back in, we were locked out.

“Carter” was standing right in front of me, very close, I might add. His fingers were still intertwined with mine.

“What are you doing?” I asked, nervously, as he moved even closer.

“Give me just one kiss,” he said, quietly and slightly slurred. I could smell the alcohol on his
warm breath.

Even though t
he words came from Carter’s lips, in the back of my mind a little voice reminded me Carter wasn’t who had spoken them.

“No,” I said. The word didn’t even sound convincing to me.

He stepped closer, and I stepped back, pressing my back against the outer wall, right next to the door.

He came
even closer. I held my breath.

He released my hand and cupped my face just like he did when he was in his own body, but Carter’s hands were warmer.

Blue, heavy-lidded eyes fell on mine, and it just felt wrong.

“Just one, please,” he whispered.

Very lightly, I shook my head. But even as I did so, he was getting closer, and I wasn’t doing anything to stop him. The only thing I did do was close my eyes.

Warm, unfamiliar lips touched mine. They didn’t feel right and it was hard for me to respond as I normally would.

But suddenly, that one kiss turned into more, and the technique was all too familiar.

We lost ourselves there in that moment. He pulled my body against his. It just didn’t feel the same, but I knew it wasn’t Carter kissing me.

Minus the warmth, the wrong lips, the wrong tongue, everything about the kiss was Oliver. I had missed it, and his touch, too much.

My hands found their way to the back of the wrong man’s hair, but I didn’t care anymore.
I pressed myself to him, and his arms moved from my face, slipping around my waist, and pulling me even closer.

It was so wrong, and so right.

The door suddenly flew open, startling us. Oliver lost control of Carter’s drunken body and somehow we fell inside the bar.

Kiera was standing over us. Her fiancé’s body was on mine, and it was obvious what we had been doing.

“I knew it!” she screeched, and then she spun around and took off through the bar.

“Wait!” I called after her, scrambling to my feet.

I pushed through the bodies standing around and chased her, through the bar and down the narrow stairway to the street below.

I caught her by the arm once we were on the sidewalk out front. “It’s not what it looks like,” I shouted.

She jerked her arm away from me. “Just take him, Laney.” Her golden-flecked blue eyes were welling with tears. “He can’t seem to keep his hands and eyes off of you anyway!” She turned and started walking away.

“No, Kiera, that’s not it.”

She spun around and stormed toward me. “Then what is it, Laney? Oliver’s not enough for you? You have to steal my boyfriend, too. Again!”

“I never stole your boyfriend,” I replied, maybe a little too defensively.

“Fine!” she snapped. “My
fiancé
!”

“Damn it, Kiera! Nothing happened! Why can’t you understand that? Why can’t you believe that?”