“This is the worst idea you’ve ever had, Zoe,” Rafael said. “We’re out of place here.”
“They didn’t even bother carding us,” Aric added. “If you’re trying to make me feel old, well, good job.”
“This place has great wings, and you love wings,” I reminded him. “Rafael can pretend to drink a beer … er, wait, can you actually drink beer? Does it turn your blood to acid or something?”
“Oh, good, here come the vampire questions,” Rafael muttered. “I’ve got twenty bucks that says she asks me if I sleep in a coffin after two beers.”
“I’ve got thirty that says she doesn’t last that long,” Aric shot back, smirking at my dour expression. “I do like the wings here. Thank you for suggesting a fun outing for the three of us.”
“Ugh. You’re unbelievably whipped,” Rafael said. “What is going on here? It’s a Tuesday. Shouldn’t these … children … be home in bed?”
“Well, at least I’m not the grumpiest old man in the bar,” Aric said, signaling the waitress. After placing our orders, Aric turned his attention to this evening’s discovery. “The more I think about it, the more worried I am about Brittany’s presence at the party. What is she doing here?”
“Perhaps she works here,” Rafael suggested.
“Brittany’s biggest concern when we were in college was getting married,” I said. “That’s all she cared about. Any guy who showed her even an inkling of interest was going to be her beloved forever. She went after Aric, too.”
“She didn’t technically go after me,” Aric clarified. “She flirted with me because she knew it bothered you. There’s a difference.”
“She went after Will.” That definitely bothered me, although I couldn’t figure out why. Will was long gone, yet his memory loomed large.
“Will was a loser. I don’t know why you ever dated him,” Aric said.
“He wasn’t that bad when I was in high school,” I replied. “He didn’t change until he came to this place … and joined your fraternity.”
“He was still a tool,” Aric said. “You should’ve remained celibate until you met me. That would’ve been the proper thing to do.”
I snorted. “What about you? Should you have remained celibate until you met me?”
“No, baby. I needed the practice to make sure I could wow you.” His eyes twinkled as he squeezed my knee under the table.
“Do any of these kids look older to you?” I asked, glancing around the bar. It wasn’t packed like it would be on the weekend, but it still hummed with activity. “We’re looking for teaching assistants who might have dirt on Mark.”
“Zoe, not one of these kids looks old enough to drink,” Aric replied. “That kid over there?” He pointed at a tiny boy with thin arms and wire-rimmed glasses. “He has actual Xs on his hands. Do you know what that means?”
“He’s not old enough to drink,” I supplied.
“That’s right. We’re in a bar and there are people here not old enough to drink. It’s … freaky.”
“You need to let this go,” I said. “You’re not old. You’re in your prime. Sometimes I ask you to walk around with your shirt off because you’re just that good looking. You should be proud.”
Aric’s expression softened. “Thank you. That was very sweet.”
“If I could vomit, I would do it now,” Rafael said. “Is your house a mutual adoration society every day of the week?”
“Just on naked days,” Aric replied, not missing a beat. “If you’re keeping track, those would be Sundays, Wednesdays, Mondays, Saturdays and our newly instituted Thursdays. I’m really looking forward to it.”
“Lovely,” Rafael said, forcing his gaze to the assembled college students. “Someone should spray these people down with a hose. Those two over there are about to rut on top of the table. They’re even more disgusting than you two.”
“What is it with you guys?” I asked, my temper flaring and causing a straw to fly across the aisle and land on a nearby table.
Aric held up a warning finger. “Don’t you dare!”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t expect to do that.”
“Now that I find interesting,” Rafael said. “How long have you been able to do that?”
“Not long,” I answered. “I’m getting better at it, though. I managed to cause three papers at a time to fly around Mark’s classroom through a closed door today. It was hilarious because he knew I was doing it, yet there was no way he could prove it.”
“Your sense of humor is just as juvenile as it was five years ago,” Rafael said. “What else can you do now that you absorbed the book?”
“I can blow up buildings.”
“You could do that before,” Aric reminded me. “You’ve gotten better about controlling it, but the biggest thing that book has given you – besides a power boost for the things you could already do – is added control. I was worried at first, but now I’m happy you absorbed it.”
He’d never admitted it before, but I was relieved to hear it. “Really? You looked like you were worried I was going to torch you when I lost it there for a few minutes at the compound that day.”
Aric brushed my hair from my face. “I know you’d never hurt me. Stop worrying about that. You saved the day and came back to me. Everything turned out okay.”
“And now you can mask your scent,” Rafael said. “I find that massively interesting.”
“Can you smell me now?” I asked.
Rafael nodded. “Once you saw Brittany, whatever control you had regarding your scent slipped,” he said. “The void lifted.”
“I didn’t notice that,” Aric said, rubbing the back of his neck. “This is a really interesting new power. This could come in really handy down the road. You need to practice.”
“You said I shouldn’t practice because I always know what to do when the time is right,” I protested.
“This isn’t a power that can detonate things, though,” Aric pointed out. “This could protect us. If you learn to do it right, it could turn out like that dome you built to hide us while camping. In fact, I think this is an extension of that. If you figure out how you’re doing it, you could mask all three of us if it came time to fight with other paranormals.”
“Huh.” I had never considered that. “That could come in handy.”
“Yes, it could,” Aric agreed, leaning back and fixing the waitress with a flirty smile as she delivered our drinks and snack. “Thank you.”
“No problem,” the waitress said, looking Aric up and down. “Do you need anything else?”
I made a face and grabbed Aric’s arm. “Mine,” I said, causing Aric to bark out a hoarse laugh and Rafael to roll his eyes.
“Oh, honey, I wasn’t flirting with him for a date,” the waitress said. “I was flirting with him for a better tip.”
“Oh, well, carry on,” I said, grabbing a wing. “Hey, before you go, do all the teaching assistants still hang out here? They did about five years ago. I need to talk to one.”
“They switch bars every year,” the waitress replied. “This is the place for freshman and virgins now. You might want to try the Blackstone Bar on Main Street next time. You have to be twenty-one to get in there. That’s where most of the older kids hang out.”
“I told you,” Aric said, picking up a wing. “Still, I did miss these.”
I watched as he bit into the wing and smiled. “Aren’t you angry that I told that waitress you were mine?”
“No. I am yours.”
“But … it’s proprietary and antiquated,” I said.
“I don’t care,” Aric said. “I like it when you get proprietary. I expect you to get proprietary when we get home tonight.”
“And on that note … I’m officially done here,” Rafael said. “I can’t take one more moment of you two fawning all over each other. I will take my leave and walk home.”
“That’s probably good,” Aric said, not missing a beat. “Once I finish eating I’m going to get ha
ndsy. You won’t want to see that either.”
“Definitely not.”
17
Seventeen
“You have got to be kidding me.”
After a frisky night of wings, baths and ninja games, Aric and I met Paris and Kelsey in the hotel restaurant for breakfast. When we relayed the events of the previous evening – minus our private time – they were dumbfounded.
“It’s true,” I said, dipping my toast into the yolk of my egg. “Brittany was at Mark’s party and she looked like she was having a really good time. I wanted to punch her all over again just for smiling.”
“But … I don’t understand,” Paris pressed. “How did they end up hanging out with one another?”
“I have no idea.”
Paris turned to Aric, her face conflicted. “This can’t be good, right?”
“We have no idea what it is right now,” Aric said, flopping his eggs on top of his corned beef hash and mashing everything together.
“How can you eat that?” Kelsey asked. “It looks like dog food.”
Aric mock barked. He was in a good mood.
“You two did dirty things last night,” Paris said. “I can tell. You’re both happy and glowing when you should be the opposite.”
“Speaking of that, how long should your spell have lasted?” I asked. “Could Brittany remember what really happened?”
“I don’t know,” Paris replied, exhaling heavily. “I guess anything is possible. That’s the only memory spell I’ve ever cast. My mother seemed to know what she was doing. I can call and ask.”
“Do that,” Aric said. “We need to know what we’re up against.”
“Forget that,” Kelsey said. “How did she look? Did she get fat? She always had wide hips.”
“She looked pretty much the same,” I said. “That’s how I recognized her the first time she walked through the room without stopping. She has a particular walk.”
“Yeah. She walks like she has something shoved up her you know what,” Kelsey said.
Aric chuckled. “I kind of forgot how much you guys dislike Brittany,” he said. “After we made her forget everything, it was kind of sad to hate her. I see that’s over with.”
“I still hated her,” I volunteered. “I did it quietly and in my head because I didn’t want to seem petty.”
“No one would ever think you’re petty,” Aric said, blowing me an air kiss.
“I’m going to throw water on you two if you don’t stop that,” Paris snapped. “This is serious.”
“We know it’s serious,” I said. “Why do you think we came here at the crack of dawn to tell you instead of spending the morning in bed like we wanted to do?”
“I think you were genuinely torn between the gossip and the sex,” Paris shot back. “Since you know you can get the sex whenever you want it, you chose gossip.”
She knew me too well. “I knew that you would want to hear the very important thing we discovered last night,” I said. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”
“What happens now?” Kelsey asked.
“Now we’re waiting for my father to come through with a file on Brittany,” Aric replied. “A courier is supposed to deliver what they have at the front desk first thing this morning. After breakfast, we’ll take the file up to your room and go through it.”
“And then what?”
Aric shrugged. “Then we’ve got to make a plan,” he said. “We’re not dealing only with Mark now. I guess that would’ve been too easy. Now we have to figure Brittany into this mess, and I’m afraid that’s where things are going to get really messy.”
“We don’t know that she had anything to do with the bombing,” I cautioned. “I don’t want to go after her unless she’s involved.”
“Since when?” Paris challenged. “You’ve always hated her.”
“If she doesn’t remember, and was only at Mark’s party by chance, then I want to leave her to her life,” I clarified. “I’m mean … but even I’m not that mean.”
“We’ll see,” Paris said. “Something tells me that Brittany is going to be back on your enemies list before this is all said and done. I’m even betting she gets a prime spot.”
Sadly, I had a feeling Paris was right.
“WHAT does it say?” Paris asked an hour later, pacing a small stretch of carpet in front of her hotel bed. She was more antsy than me, which was disconcerting.
“I just opened the file,” Aric said, rolling his eyes as he reclined at the small table on the far side of the room. “Okay, let’s see. Um … it says here that Brittany moved back to Novi after graduation.”
“That’s it? That’s all the file says? Your father needs to get a new aide,” Paris spat.
I’d never seen Paris this unraveled. “Why are you so worked up? If Brittany is involved she’s not really a threat. I’ll pull her hair and smack her around a little bit, and then I’ll laugh when she’s crying. We’ll survive.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Paris argued. “You wiped your hands of her after freshman year. I lived with her another year and … I know you don’t like to hear it … but there were times I actually liked her.”
“You’re right. I don’t want to hear that.”
“She wasn’t all bad,” Paris pressed. “You two were like oil and vinegar, and you were mean to her all of the time.”
“She earned it.”
“Did you ever consider that she went after Will because she wanted to beat you?” Paris asked. “She saw you getting everything – including two hunky guys fighting over you – and she wanted something of her own.”
“Hunky? I’m really concerned you’re using that word,” I said. “The problem with your entire argument is that she didn’t go after something of her own. She went after my ex-boyfriend. That’s not allowed.”
“Why isn’t it allowed?” Aric asked. “You were done with him. You should’ve been done with him the moment you saw me, but we’ll let that slide because I’m in too good of a mood to let Will – or his putrid memory – ruin it.”
“It’s part of the girl code,” Kelsey explained. “You can’t date your friend’s brother, father, ex-boyfriend, current boyfriend or crush.”
“Father?” Aric was disgusted. “I’m guessing that’s a rule for Paris.”
“You, too?” Paris narrowed her eyes. “I’d beat you up if you were smaller.”
“Listen, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for Brittany,” Aric said, changing course. “She went after Will to annoy Zoe. Even after we told her he was evil and had to be stopped, she stayed with him because she got some sort of charge out of it. It seemed as if she was desperate for attention – even negative attention – and that was her way of getting it. Now she’s hanging around with Mark. As much as I want that to be a coincidence, I’m not sure I believe that it is.”
“I’m not saying she makes smart decisions,” Paris hedged, her face conflicted. “I’m just saying … I don’t know what I’m saying. I can’t wrap my head around this.”
“Well, let’s see what’s in this file before we freak out,” Aric said. “For all we know, Mark and Brittany ran into each other at their five-year reunion and decided to play nice now that they’re adults.”
“That’s a possibility,” I said. “Maybe Mark is trying to use Brittany as a weapon against us. He probably figured out that she doesn’t remember anything, and decided that he could use her to manipulate us if it came down to it.”
“How?” Aric challenged. “We’re not going to go out of our way to save Brittany from anything. We agreed to send her on her way after graduation. It’s not like she’s in our world.”
“I know. What else does that file say?”
“Not a lot,” Aric said. “She worked as a finance manager at a Novi bank for a year. Then she got a job at an investment company in the Renaissance Center and lived in that area for another year. Then … .” Aric broke off as he flipped the page, his face draining when he got to Brittany’s next job.
I knew his reaction well enough to read the emotion behind it. “I’m going to hate this, aren’t I?”
“Yes and no,” Aric said. “Guess where Brittany works now?”
“Starbucks?”
Aric made a face. “Rafael was right about your humor last night,” he said. “For the record, no, she doesn’t work at Starbucks. She works here. She’s a numbers cruncher in the registrar’s office.”
“That seems like a step down from a finance company,” Kelsey said. “I wonder why she took a job here.”
“So she could change Mark’s graduation records,” I said, things clicking into place. “She has to be the one who did it. She’s the only one who makes sense.”
“Good girl,” Aric said, handing me one of the hotel’s wrapped mints from a bowl at the center of the table. “Mark was conveniently hired as a professor less than six months after Brittany got the job here.”
“Well, that answers that question,” I said. “They have to be working together. Now we have to figure out whether Mark is using Brittany or if she’s willingly helping him.”
“I don’t have an answer to that question, but I do have an answer to another one,” Aric said, his eyebrows lifting. “Brittany filed paperwork two weeks ago to drop her college insurance. Does anyone want to guess why?”
I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. “She’s marrying Mark, isn’t she?”
“No way!” Paris’ mouth dropped open.
“Now she broke the girl code with you,” Kelsey interjected. “How does it feel? Do you want to rip her hair out, like Zoe?”
“But they have nothing in common,” Paris argued. “They don’t even like each other.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I cautioned. “I’m the first one to jump on the ‘I hate Brittany’ bandwagon – heck, I’m the president of the ‘I hate Brittany’ Fan Club – but we don’t know for sure that she’s marrying Mark because she’s working against us. He could be manipulating her and taking advantage of the holes in her memory to use her as a weapon. She might not know what’s going on.”
Dark Covenant (Living Covenant Trilogy Book 2) Page 13
