“I think you both owe it to yourselves to be happy,” Granny adds as her hands fly with the huge, scarily sharp knife. One wrong move and she’d have one less finger.
“We accidentally mingled blood into it,” Elodie blurts. I wince while Granny stops chopping. She looks up, her face totally impassive, which I think might be the scariest thing of all. Seeing Granny looking placid, that is. My grandmother is a very well, alive person. She doesn’t do passive.
“Oh. Well then.” Granny puts down the knife, grabs a handful of vegetables, and throws them into the frying pan. “In that case, you’re both fucked. And also irrevocably cursed.”
Then, she cackles loudly in case we didn’t catch that. I seriously want to melt into this cowhide bar stool and hide under the island. Why did I think coming to Granny’s would be helpful? Granny turns and notices my sheer distress and probably Elodie’s horror, although I can’t bring myself to check her face right now despite the fact that I can practically feel the discomfort rolling off her.
“I’m kidding,” Granny laughs. She grabs the pack of bacon, the whole pack, and starts chopping again. She doesn’t look up until she’s finished. “Or am I?”
“Jesus.” I have to start with the hair raking because I can’t not rake my hair right now.
“Would it be the worst thing in the world?” Elodie asks in a tiny little mouse voice. “Us?”
“Absolutely,” I respond on instinct.
Elodie turns away, probably so my Granny can’t see her face, but then I notice Granny looking at me and shaking her head, and I realize I’m the one Elodie is avoiding.
“Thanks,” Elodie whispers, but the dryness bleeds into her tone. That one word is pretty much the equivalent of having a door slammed in my face.
“Have you ever tried?” Granny asks, with more softness and tact than she usually uses.
“Ummm, unwritten friendship rules here!” Why do I feel the need to state my case? I thought Elodie was on board with breaking the curse.
Granny throws in the rest of the ingredients and energetically stirs the steaming pile in the pan. “All in the hips,” she says, which is what she always says. She starts shaking her booty, and I die a little inside. Normally, Elodie would think it’s funny, but she has her head bent, and she’s not watching or laughing. Not even at Granny.
Fuck. This is not good.
“You’re a nincomboob,” Granny hisses at me as she slides the frying pan away from the flame and switches off the burner. “That’s like nincompoop but with boobs. Because everything’s better with boobs.”
“Grannnnnnnny!” I groan. “Why? Just why?”
But Elodie is turning, and she’s lifting her head. There’s now a hint of a smile on her lips, and honestly, maybe I’ll let my grandmother embarrass and disgust me for the rest of my life just so I can see the shine in Elodie’s eyes and the tiny smile tugging at her mouth.
The thing is, I don’t know if that’s the curse acting on me or not. I can want Elodie to be happy without blaming it on the curse, can’t I? Yes. Yes, I can. The dang curse has nothing to do with it.
I can always blame the soul contract.
CHAPTER 9
Elodie
After making his granny promise to say she didn’t see us since we’re not supposed to be back in town—if my parents found out we’re back, they’d be on Taylen’s doorstep in the next breath—he stopped at a gas station, and then we went straight to his house.
Taylen has a nice place. It’s tall and narrow, four stories up with a basement, but maybe that makes it five? He has a tenant in the basement, though why, I’m not sure, because he has lots of money from both his family and investments. His brothers often make fun of him, saying he doesn’t do any work, but they don’t see the meticulous research he does on everything before he invests. It’s true he has so much money now, he just rides his current investments and lets them make more money, but that wasn’t always the case.
Taylen’s house isn’t historical. It’s a new build, ultra-modern from the top down. It’s a very minimalistic style, with dark brown cedar trim and black stucco on the outside and tons of chrome and white on the interior. Taylen is a good cousin, and he supported Ash by buying quite a few pieces of his artwork. The furniture is minimal, and since Tay has a thing for mid-century, he chose most of the furniture in that style. I can see why he likes it.
I walk through the house, admiring the teak buffet, the walnut table, the sleek chairs, the chrome pole lamps, and the streamlined couches all over again.
Jeffers parks himself on the blue couch, and Taylen makes a noise about that, but he doesn’t tell him to get off.