Chapter Nine

“Tell me again about your success rate,” Davey said. I looked over at him. He had his hands in his pockets, and he strolled beside me comfortably.

“Well, it only really works when the client is ready for love,” I explained.

“How does your power work?”

“I see threads. They connect everyone to each other. No matter their current relationship—stranger, friend, whomever. Depending upon the potential or the type of relationship, the thread is a different color.”

“How many people have you set up?”

“Hundreds,” I replied, shrugging. “I’m not always successful, and I do refund if I can’t help. I could force things, easily. But that would be immoral. And the forced ones never last.”

“So, you could…”

“Don’t even think about it.”

“Okay, okay.”

“It’s from experience. I helped a friend in high school with a love spell. It was super messy.” He looked at me, his eyebrow raised.

“You don’t want to know.” We reached the ferris wheel, where we had left our phones. Upon retrieving them, we ran into the waiter from the restaurant.

“It’s you!” he exclaimed. “Thank you!” The girl from the restaurant walked up beside him. He turned to her.

“This is her. This is the lady who told me to talk to you.”

“Oh my god,” the girl said.

“I would never have gotten up the guts to ask her if you hadn’t said anything,” he said.

“Thank you,” the girl gushed. “We are so happy.”

“You’re welcome,” I replied, flushing red. “It’s good to see you both. We should get going.”

“I’m so glad to see you with someone, too,” the waiter said, then stopped when he beheld Davey. “Aren’t you that actor from Days of our Lives?”

“Nah, dude. I just look like him,” Davey replied, taking my arm. We smiled at each other as we went back to where we had left Marcus and Cynthia. They were leaned up against the side of the corrugated metal wall of the ring toss, kissing passionately.

“Another success story,” Davey said incredulously.

~*~

“I’m an idiot,” I said, placing my hand on my forehead. Davey was guffawing. Now that I could see Cynthia and Marcus clearly, I could see the pink threads that bound them together. Davey was making things cloudy.

“I had a hunch that there was something between those two,” he said. “But I’m no witch.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. I figured I’d go with your judgment.”

“Maybe I should give you your money back, if you’re such a good…what are you, anyway?”

“A werewolf.” That made sense. He definitely had the werewolf vibes.

“Of course,” I said. “Don’t werewolves typically have a Pack to choose mates from?”

“Mine was killed. The whole Pack, except for my great aunt and myself.” He looked at me, placing his hands on my shoulders. “It was an honest mistake. I mean, maybe my one true love is already dead.”

“I don’t…I don’t know,” I said. “It’s like you’re in a fog.”

“So then, what makes you think that there’s a possibility?”

“I’ve seen threads with possible matches for you,” I said. “Nothing one hundred percent, but possibilities.”

“You know, I have faith in you,” he said, looking me in the eye. I looked back at him. His hands were still firmly on my shoulders, holding me together. “Let’s go to some more parties this weekend.”

“I can’t,” I replied. “My sister is getting married.” I felt the tingle of my grandmother’s fate spell working on me. I knew what was going to come out of my mouth before I said it.

“You want to be my Plus One?”

“Sure,” he said. He looked away, trying to play it cool, but he was excited. I could tell. It made me nervous—did Davey Allred have feelings for me?

“There will be a ton of single, respectable women there,” I promised him. He smiled, leaning forward and kissing me on the cheek. It was the most attractive thing a man had ever done. I could feel myself wanting him. I knew that I was falling for him, which, for him, meant the effects of my spell. Nobody got around my spell, even a playboy actor who was evasive when it came to his intentions for getting married.

~*~

I stood behind my sister, dressed in a horrible Bo-Peep looking yellow dress. I held her bouquet of primroses and baby’s breath for her as she said her vows. I felt sad. Everyone else could find love, but not me. When I was twelve, I had thought that by performing that spell, I would be saving myself from heartache. Instead, it had merely brought it on, even prolonging it.

I looked over at Davey, who looked heart stoppingly good looking in a charcoal suit. He was looking right back at me. I figured that he was looking at the other bridesmaids.

While the threads blurred around him, I could tell which bridesmaids were definitely interested in dating Davey. I looked back, and gave him a smile. He smiled back, making my stomach lurch. I genuinely liked him, I realized.

~*~

I watched Davey at the reception, out of the corner of my peripheral vision, but all of my attention was on him. He stood for photos, joked with my stepfather and my new brother-in-law, and did silly dances with the kids. One of my sister’s friends, dressed in the same awful dress as I was, sidled over to me.

“Hey Misty,” I said.

“Hey,” she replied. “So, is there anything going on between you and Davey Allred?”

“No,” I replied. “He’s a client and a friend.”

“Okay, because I don’t want to interfere—”

“Go for it,” I replied.

“Probably safer for him,” she said, and I forced a laugh. She smiled at me, and walked confidently over to Davey. Misty was a part-time clothing model. She was tall and thin with an elegant bone structure. She had dark auburn hair and creamy pale skin that made the awful yellow bridesmaid gown look pretty.

I watched her as she stood next to Davey; they looked amazing together. I watched as she said something that made him laugh, and then felt a wave of jealousy as they walked onto the dance floor, and he pulled her close.

I couldn’t see any threads, which was strange. But I felt like the writing was on the wall, either way. There was something there. Maybe, I had finally been successful with matching Davey Allred.

~*~

Misty looked me in the eye. She was pretty. She looked like several women that I had been with in the past. I wondered if I had been with her in the past. The song that we were dancing to was some horrible 90’s era slow song. It made me feel a little sickish.

“You wanna get out of here?” Misty asked me. I thought about that for a moment, finding myself uninterested. I looked over at Penny, who stood alone beside the cake, arms wrapped around her midsection. She seemed to be lost in thought, her gaze upon the ground. She looked sad, and the part of me that was slightly puppy-like wanted to make her smile.

Misty leaned forward, cutting into my thoughts.

“You’re not feeling this at all, are you?”

“What—I mean, you’re gorgeous—no—”

“You like Penny.”

“I hired her to—”

“Yes, that’s what she said. Thing is, if you’re going to be with Penny, you have to be made of tough stuff. I don’t know if you’ve heard about the others.” She raised her eyebrows significantly.

“Looks like they were all ass-hats.” Misty laughed bitterly.

“That’s the right attitude. Penny thinks it’s her fault, but none of them were right for her. If you want to be with her, you’ve got to step up though. She’s scared of putting another person she cares about in intensive care. Or having the dude get caught by a flash mob of YMCA singers while butt naked banging a girl in an abandoned subway.” I laughed.

“I saw that on YouTube.”

“It was epic. I don’t know what it is with Penny. Her luck with men is also epic. And by that I mean terrible.” The song ended. Misty stepped away from me. “You better go ask her to dance before it’s too late.” I smiled at her and nodded.

~*~

He was walking toward me. I downed my glass of pinot grigio. He smiled at me, and I raised my eyebrows at him, expecting to hear him start to sing Misty’s praises. Instead, he held out a hand to me.

“Dance with me?”

“Okay,” I said. The music was fast-paced, safe. The first few songs maintained the high-energy dancing. He had some weird dance moves that he pulled out, and I found myself laughing hysterically as he did a dance-off with some of my young cousins. The next song; however, was a slow one. He pulled me close to him. We were both sweaty, but he still smelled good. I melted easily into his arms, letting him rock me back and forth.

The wine that I had had gave me a buzz, and that combined with the haze that being near Davey induced, I was irrevocably intoxicated, although still in control of my faculties. He placed two fingers beneath my chin, forcing me gently to look him in the eye.

He kissed me, and it was everything. I responded, thinking, I want this, I want this. He pulled away suddenly, looking at me, trying to gage my reaction. I smiled hesitantly.

“Do you—”

“Let’s leave.”

With that, we were rushing out of the reception, hand in hand. I thought that I saw a flash as we left the Country Club, but I thought nothing of it. I was entirely focused on getting Davey to my apartment.

~*~

We entered my apartment, the door slamming shut behind us. I was already pulling at the buttons of his oxford. He unzipped the awful bridesmaid dress.

“This dress—”

“It’s horrible, I know.”

“Oh, no. It’s totally sexy. I just want it off of you.” I paused. He was joking with me. He smiled at me devilishly as he let go of the dress. It fell to the floor at my feet. He picked me up, carrying me over to the couch. Placing me down, he removed his shirt, and then his pants. He knelt down, and I sat up, kissing him. He was pulling at my panties, running his hands over my naked skin. The spell—I could feel it tingling across the surface of my skin, but I wasn’t going to regret this, not at this moment.

A gorgeous, well-toned werewolf was making love to me, the heat from his body making me sweat. He was inside of me, making me feel filled up, erotic. He looked me in the eye, and I took his face in both of my hands, bringing him to me, kissing him deeply as he pumped. Our breathing was rushed, heavy. I could feel myself building—it had been too long, and I felt like I was going to explode. He stopped, pulling out of me.

“Quick—barricade yourself in your room.”

“What?”

“It’s the full moon,” he was facing away from me. His skin was moving in strange ways. “I’m shifting. Get yourself to safety.” I got up, running naked into my room. I pushed my heavy mahogany bureau in front of the door.

~*~

“Have you checked the Twitter?” My mother had left me a voicemail. Frowning, I brought it up on my phone. A picture of Davey and I leaving the reception, my hand in his. I did a Google search, finding that the tabloids had already attacked.

“Davey Allred hires and seduces Matchmaker.”

“Allred Braves the Bad Luck Penny.”

I groaned, covering my face with my hands. I put on pajamas, and pushed the bureau away from my door. I opened it, and inhaled in shock. My apartment had been destroyed. Davey lay curled at the epicenter of all of the damage. He was still naked. I knelt down beside him and placed a hand on his shoulder. He flinched. Opening his eyes, he sat up, looking around.

“God. I’m sorry,” he said. “I meant to leave before I—”

“You meant to leave?”

“It’s not like that,” he reached out to me. I held out my phone to him, showing him the Bad Penny headline. He exhaled, raising his eyebrows.

“It’s my curse,” I said. “I set a spell on myself when I was twelve. I can only marry my One True Love. All of the others are injured, or obviously, dragged through the mud via the tabloids.”

“We can get through this,” Davey said. “This is nothing.”

“Nothing?” I fumed. “This is the end of my business. My curse has struck again. I need to stop seeing you before it does something worse. The faster that you get away from me, the better for you.”

“Please reconsider.”

“No. Absolutely not,” I said. “I won’t have you hurt on my account.”