Darkness (30 page)

Wow, that man was hot. They both were…

Chapter 40 - Moving On

Felix arrived soon after Oliver had left and he updated me on the situation with Justin’s girlfriend and the baby.

“Her name is Felicia. Both she and the baby appear to be doing alright so far but only time will tell. She’s eleven weeks along which doesn’t seem like long but vampire infants gestate in twenty weeks. That’s half the time of human offspring. She knew he was a vampire and comes from a line herself. It’s not strong, but we’ll see if it helps her survive the birth of this child. She’ll be cared for and watched over until the time comes for the infant to arrive and if she does not make it we have several couples on the waiting list to adopt the young.”

A part of me wanted to meet her and to thank her and tell her how sorry I was.

Felix cut into my thought process. “Don’t even think about it. She doesn’t need to know the circumstances in which he died. I know it seems like she should, but vengeance is something that hangs on and rears its ugly head in the strangest places. You don’t want to take that chance.”

“Stay out of my head.”

“That one was too easy. It was almost like you handed it to me. You can glare at me all you want, sometimes I just pick things up.”

I made spaghetti, salad, and bread for dinner while Felix was picking Carter up from work. It felt a little strange, but I came to the realization that this was my family now. We were close, a bit broken but we truly cared about each other. Like most families.

They trudged through the door soon after dinner was ready and Carter hauled his chicken costume into his room. I heard him heavily slide the closet door shut. Out of sight, out of mind was what he was going for I assumed. With that taken care of, he was in better spirits as he came into the kitchen.

“Smells good Laney. Thanks!” He gave me a bright smile and filled his plate. His stomach hadn’t been giving him much trouble the past few days and he seemed to be making up for his lost time with food. The approaching full moon would reveal what was going to happen though. And although we didn’t speak of it, it was on all of our minds.

“Yes, thank you Laney. I’m starving.” Felix heaped his plate full and I was thankful I’d made two packages of noodles or it would’ve been cereal for me again.

They both settled on either end of the couch and Carter flipped on the TV. I squeezed myself between them and sat cross-legged with my plate in my lap. We ate, joked around, laughed and watched mind-numbing TV until the wee hours of the night.

I woke up the next morning with the sun peeking through the blinds into my eyes. I was sprawled across the couch, my head resting on Felix’s thigh and my feet up across Carter’s chest. Carter was out, slouched down with his head on his arm leaning on the armrest. He was drooling slightly.
Kinda nasty
.

Felix was awake, as always, with his laptop on the arm of the couch. He smiled down at me as I rubbed my eyes and stretched. “Good morning sunshine,” his deep voice boomed in my ears. I smiled back, not ready to talk so early in the morning. I sat up and hugged my knees to my chest. My body ached a little from sleeping in such a strange position but I felt rested.

I only had two classes that day. Oliver had been skipping everything due to his running Professor Amber’s brother all over the place. On this particular day, Professor Amber was not her bright and cheery self. She had an air of darkness to her. She glowered at the class from behind her desk and gave us a pop quiz. Once the last quiz was handed in the class was dismissed. She wouldn’t make eye contact with me and I found that extremely odd. I sent Oliver a message about it and he responded telling me that it was nothing I needed to worry about and that he’d tell me about it when he got back.

I went to the diner and had something to eat while I waited for Carter’s shift to end. He’d picked up an extra busboy shift that day. So no pointing and laughing at the chicken on the corner this time. I mean I could. But I didn’t know that guy.

“Man, I could use a break already,” Carter said. He let his head drop back against the headrest and closed his eyes as I drove us home. “My brain needs a vacation.” He was quiet for a couple minutes then his head popped up and he said, “It’s Thursday isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” I was pretty sure I knew where this was going. There had been reports of too much underage drinking at the eighteen-and-over-nights on Fridays, so all bars had come to an agreement with the city to change to a Thursday eighteen-and-over night in the hopes of curbing this problem. From what I understood, if the underage drinking continued, the eighteen-and-over nights would be banned completely.

“We should go to eighteen-and-over night.” He beamed at me.

I sighed. I knew he was going to push the topic. “I don’t think so, Carter. Oliver’s not here and that would just be, well, weird.”

He was quiet the rest of the ride back to the apartment. He didn’t say anything to me until we were in the parking lot of the complex. He leaned on my car, looking over the top at me. “She won’t return my calls you know.”

Oh. “Um, no I didn’t know that. I didn’t know you’d tried to call her.”

“I’ve tried twice. Left a message once. Probably sounded like an idiot. I’ve texted her a couple times too and she won’t respond. She hates me doesn’t she?”

He ran a hand through his messy hair as we reached the top step. “I don’t know. I guess. Yeah. I’m just, I guess I’m just scared of what’s going to happen. You know?”

We’d reached the top step and before I could answer, my apartment door swung open and out walked a very dressed up Kiera. Tight pants and a fitting top that revealed a lot of cleavage. She stopped in her tracks when she saw us. I watched as her cheeks turned pink and her eyes panicked.

“Well, I um…I need to get going,” she said and started walking towards the steps. Towards us. I moved to let her by, but Carter didn’t. He caught her hand as she tried to pass.

Her speckled blue eyes narrowed on him and part of me was proud of her for mastering a dirty look and another part of me was afraid of what was coming.

“You’ve given me no reason to call you back! Leaving a ‘hey it’s me’ message isn’t asking me to call you. All you did was tell me who you were! And yes, I am going out! I have a date!” She stomped down the steps and he stared after her.

Oh crap.

When he finally moved, he said nothing and slowly walked to his apartment. I followed silently. I had no idea how to approach this. I wanted to call Kiera and find out who she was going out with. Better yet, I knew who to call. Once we were inside and he’d shut himself in his room, I closed myself in Oliver’s room, pulled out my phone and called Zoey.

As usual, she had the scoop. Kiera was going on a date with one of Ashton’s frat brothers. A very sarcastic “Perfect,” escaped my lips as we spoke. It was someone we didn’t know. Which I guessed was probably better. Well, I didn’t know him. I had no idea if Carter did or not…I wasn’t about to tell him but I wanted a heads up.

Zoey said, “There’s no doubt she’d doing this to upset him. She’s been crying everyday over their break-up.”

I agreed with her. I knew what she was up to and I was afraid it would do more damage than good on both sides. If Ashton’s frat brothers acted anything like him, her self-defense skills were going to come in handy.

I waited on the couch for quite a while before he finally left his room. He plopped down beside me and rested his elbow on the armrest and his head in his hand.

“You okay?” I said.

He shook his head. Of course he wasn’t. “You’re right. I screwed up.” What could I say to that? He let his head fall back and stared up at the ceiling.

That was something Oliver would never do. And even though every fiber of my being was screaming no, I gave him my hand and we left the apartment.

Chapter 41 - Baseball

It was early evening. The sun hadn’t set too long ago. We walked the tree-lined streets, autumn leaves crunching under our feet, with my hand in his. Not in a boyfriend-girlfriend sort of way. Like a friend or a relative sort of way. Like the way Lilly had held my hand. I sighed.
Lilly.
Finally, a good memory popped into my head before the last one appeared. For weeks all I had been able to see when I thought of her was that last moment. That horrible vision of her lifeless body lying in our entryway.
Well, so much for the good memory.
The crappy one was back.

Eventually, our walk didn’t seem like just a ‘blow off steam’ kind of walk. It seemed Carter was on a mission to get somewhere specific. He picked up the pace as a ball field came into view. The tall stadium lights shone down onto a children’s baseball game. Kids were placed strategically around the field wearing grey baseball uniforms with blue lettering and blue baseball caps. There were two kids dressed in dark blue uniforms with red lettering and red hats that were on the field too. One was on a base and the other was up to bat.

“What are we doing here?” I asked as we settled beside a large oak tree at the edge of the field.

“You see that little guy over there?” He pointed in the direction. “The one on first base in the grey. That’s my little brother. He’s playing fall ball this year and I’ve never missed one of his games.” He looked me straight in the eyes and said very seriously, “I’m not gonna start now just cuz my jack ass of a dad doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore.”

“Okay,” I said rather quietly. I understood a little better then. Carter had lost more than I had, but his loss was still tangible. He was just forbidden from touching it. I actually wasn’t sure what was worse.

He pointed to a man standing at the fence barking orders. “See that guy? That’s my dad. And he can’t see me here.”

I nodded. I’d only met Carter’s dad one time and it had been at our high school graduation for a brief moment. His mom had always been the one to come to all of his events. She was very a kind and loving woman. She made great peanut butter cookies too.

A little while later we snuck through the trees, around the back side of the bleachers and up to the side of his brother’s dugout. We waited behind a tree, all sneaky like, until his dad left the dugout. Carter quickly trotted over and I followed.

He stuck his head in, “Psst, Harrison.”

A young boy sitting on the bench with his teammates slowly turned his head towards the sound of his name. As recognition sank in, his face lit up. Before he could make a sound Carter raised a finger to his lips for him to stay quiet. The boy looked around and then hurried over to his brother. His body hit Carter’s with such force Carter had to take a step back to steady himself.

“I’ve missed you so much,” Harrison admitted with a twinkle of tears in his eyes. “Dad said you weren’t coming tonight.” He looked up at his brother from his tight-gripped hug and his smile faded. “What happened to your face?”