Page 19 of Marked By the Pack
“I don’t know if you can use it as a verb, but yes. I’m going to meet cute the crap out of him.” I smiled. “Yeah, I like that. Let’s verb it.”
Emma glanced out the window and then back at me. “What exactly are you planning?”
“You said you wanted to go on double dates with me and my future boyfriend.”
“Yeah, I did say that. But that isn’t exactly a plan, Zoey.”
I laughed. “Of course it is. I’m going to check out real quick.” I grabbed a bunch of bananas. “And in exactly five minutes, Otto is going to walk by on his way back from picking up lunch. I’m going to walk out of the shop exactly when he’s walking by. And he’s going to accidentally bump into me. I’ll drop all my produce. He’ll immediately be aroused by me manhandling a bunch of bananas back into my bag. And then I’ll invite him to dinner tonight with you and Callum. Low key of course so it’s not too forward. Men are easily spooked.”
“He’s not a horse.”
“Yeah, he’s all man.”
“Mhm.” Emma pressed her lips together.
“What?”
“Zoey, Otto is…” she started choking. She coughed into her arm and then sighed. “What I’m trying to say is, I told you to stay away from the guys that work at the bank. This is literally the exact opposite of that.”
I waved my hand through the air as I walked toward the checkout. She had warned me about that. But I was pretty sure she was just trying to reverse psychology me. She couldn’t tell me that everyone that worked at the bank was a bad, dangerous boy and expect me to stay away.
Besides, I couldn’t get King’s warning out of my head. And I was beginning to think that maybe having a man around my house might be a good thing. A necessary thing. There was no better man to protect me than Otto. After all, he was bad and dangerous.
“You’re right, Emma. I think I want to try out the whole sleeping with one guy at once thing. Rumor has it, it does wonders for your skin.” I’d actually done some research last night. Emma had either lied to me about being a vampire and that’s why her skin looked amazing. Or happiness just made you glow. I was hoping on the latter, because I really didn’t want her to murder me in my sleep.
The checkout guy smiled at me as he waved my perfect produce under the scanner.
“Are you sure you don’t want any meat?” I asked Emma. It almost seemed like she was purposely avoiding the butcher in the back. And I wanted to trust her. I did. But…she really did look different.
“Why do you keep asking me that?”
“I just want to make sure you’re okay when I make a vegetarian meal for you and Callum tonight.”
“Zoey, I really don’t think Callum will want to go on a double date with you and Otto.”
“But you just said you wanted to go on double dates…”
“With anyone but Otto.”
I just stared at her. “First I can’t date the twins. And now you don’t want me to date Otto either? That’s three out of five of the bank hotties.”
“Just date someone else.”
“I’d date Bennett but that would be super weird because you two were just together. And I think Titan hates me. Besides, I really like Otto. He’s so funny. And sexy. He’s the whole package.”And he’ll protect me from your boyfriend.
Emma sighed. “I’m talking about dating someone who’s not an employee at that bank.”
“We’ll put a pin in it for now. Just please bring Callum to dinner tonight. Maybe Otto and him can work out whatever beef they have.”
“Callum’s not going to say yes to this.”
“Because of the vegetarian meal?” I finished checking out. It was almost time. “I have some ground beef I can add. Either way, tell Callum to drink some blood before coming over. He’ll want to at least pretend to eat dinner though, or else Otto may get suspicious of his secret.” I laughed. “Wait, I forgot that Otto already knows that Callum is a vampire. This is perfect. I’m so happy to have someone else to talk to about this.”
“This is a reaaally bad idea, Zoey.”
“Nope. It’s flawless. Just like your skin.”
“How do you even know when Otto is going to walk by?”
