Page 28 of A Moth to the Flame (Utopia #1)
Chapter
Nineteen
CORDELIA
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Duke asks again, for the millionth time in only fifteen minutes.
His care and concern grates on my last nerve. I’m literally down to the last one. I don’t know what will happen when I finally run out. Probably some hellscape where I’m forced to be Duke’s baby mama for eternity.
What in the seven hells have I done to deserve this? Shouldn’t I get a pass for wishing that he didn’t exist? Doesn’t his lifetime of bad karma outweigh the two nights that I repaid him in kind?
Egging his truck shouldn’t even count. That was child’s play compared to some of the things he did to me.
“Calm down,” he murmurs beside me. “You’re hyperventilating.”
“You don’t hyperventilate,” I snap.
He slowly turns his gaze to me. “How do you know that?”
“You seemed cool as a cucumber when you fucked with my life for years, no matter how hard you had to work for it.”
“Cordie… ”
“I swear to God, if you apologize, I will scream, right here in the middle of town,” I promise.
I don’t want his meaningless apologies. I don’t want to know why he did what he did. I don’t want these visions. A family of my own is all I’ve ever wanted. That snapshot of one with him feels more like a curse than being stuck in his body.
“I’m fine,” I insist.
Duke glances up at me like he doesn’t believe me in the slightest.
Shit. He never asked me anything that time.
“Stop making that worried face,” I grumble. “You’re freaking me out.”
“Your own face freaks you out?”
I frown. Deeply. “What about me wearing your face doesn’t freak you out?”
“Try to at least look like you’re not being led to the gallows,” he suggests.
“Why not?” I fire back. “That’s the face you historically make when you’re near me.”
Duke sighs.
I seethe, because this was all his stupid idea.
He wants people to see us together. He’s curious about how they’ll react.
I swallow an unpleasant thought. What if they assume I’m his next pity project? The single, lonely thirty-year-old who’s desperate enough for an orgasm to turn to her longtime bully for relief.
“Nope.” I plant his feet in the gravel. “Changed my mind. I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can,” he insists. “There could be something or someone here who can help us.”
Damn it. He’s not wrong.
Utopia goes all out for its holiday festivals.
Every year, without fail, there are six—the Sweetheart’s Dance for Valentine’s Day at the town hall, the Easter Egg Roll at the church in spring.
We have a pathetically tiny parade for Memorial Day to herald the beginning of summer, Fourth of July to enjoy the height of summer, and Labor Day to kiss summer goodbye.
Those are all outdoors on Main Street. The entire town and its outskirts go all out for Halloween to greet fall.
Even the farms in the mountains host hayrides, cornstalk mazes, and pumpkin patch festivities.
Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s round out the happy breaks from the doldrums of daily life.
Since Fourth of July is this week, we’re in the midst of Utopia’s annual food festival.
On either side of Main Street, food trucks, craft vendors, and local businesses have set up shop.
Some are in tents, some outside their permanent shops with tables.
Rickety-looking rides dot the town square around the wishing well.
One year when I was in high school, there was even a tarot card reader set up in front of The Flame.
Granny hadn’t wanted me anywhere near that witchcraft—ironic, in hindsight—but I snuck over anyway.
That lovely woman was the one who had foretold that I would break free from these mountains.
If she had also predicted that I would return under such horrible circumstances, I would have snatched my dollar back and called her worse names than a charlatan.
“Duke!” someone shouts.
It’s the owner of the local grocer and Utopia’s mayor, Mr. Slacum. He strides right up to me, looks directly into Duke’s eyes, and smiles. “Damn fine day for a festival. I managed to get three new attractions this year.”
The smile I paste on Duke’s face has to look as awkward as I feel. “Congratulations?”
Beside me, in my body, Duke chokes down a laugh. He wheezes, “You’re the finest mayor this town’s ever seen.”
Mr. Slacum never even glances that way. His smile widens as he addresses me like I’m the one attempting to stroke his ego. “Thank you kindly. Make sure and give your daddy my regards.”
The mayor strides away with as much bravado as before.
I half expect Duke to throw a hissy fit about being treated the way I always am. Instead, he chews on my lip and squints. “Next time someone talks to me, don’t respond at all. Let’s see what happens,” he finally says.
It doesn’t take long. We wash, rinse, repeat several times. Each time, Duke asks me to make a little adjustment. Talk. Stay mute. Wrap an arm around my body’s shoulders.
When he suggests that I introduce him to the next person who engages him in small talk, I lose it.
“Just what are you trying to prove here? That everyone hates me?” I shout. “That’s not a newsflash!”
He glances around to all the stares my outburst has attracted.
Folding my hands around his arm, he tugs me a little closer and murmurs, “This is proof that the body matters more than the mind. Otherwise, they’d be ignoring you and itching to talk to me.
Whatever’s going on, it’s not about us as people. ”
I open his mouth then snap it shut when Missy Mae Bowers approaches with that same hunger in her eyes as I noticed yesterday.
She places a steady hand on Duke’s other bicep. “Duke, no one has ever hated you. How could you say such a thing?”
Duke squeezes me. The expression on my face says, See what I’m talking about?
Fine. Point, Duke.
“Missy, you remember Cordelia, don’t you?” I wrap Duke’s arm around my shoulders.
She blinks and stares at the body tucked under Duke’s arm like she’s never seen my shocking red hair before. The smile on her face turns hesitant, and she laughs. “Oh, Duke. You almost got me there for a minute. Still such a prankster.”
With another uncomfortable-sounding laugh and a little shake of her head, she walks away.
I release my body, but Duke snakes one of my arms around his waist and whispers, “That wasn’t hate, Cordie. That was something else entirely.”
His heart tap dances inside his heaving chest. Tears prick at his eyes. “Why are you doing this to me? Why do you keep rubbing my nose in how different our lives are? It’s not bad enough that we’re trapped in each other’s bodies?”
He stands directly in front of me, staring up at his face with mine. “I am trying to open your eyes to what you’ve never noticed, because you’ve spent your whole life this way. The town doesn’t hate you. They don’t ignore you. It’s like they can’t even see you, and it’s not normal.”
“Then how could you?” I rasp through a tightening throat as memories of my childhood assault me. “Why did you get to be the only one?”
He wraps my other arm around his waist and pulls me closer until he’s resting my chin against his body. “I don’t know.”
“It’s not fair,” I whisper as the first hiccupped sob escapes the confines of his broad chest.
“I can’t change the past,” he croaks. “No matter how many pennies I throw into that damn well.”
Is he implying what I think he is?
“Did you actually—" I snap my mouth shut when Neveah bounds over to us, mischief lighting up her amber eyes.
“Well, well, well.” She tuts with clear disgust. “If it isn’t the anti-Christ and heaven’s newest fallen angel.”
“Why am I heaven’s newest fallen angel?” I blurt.
She fixes me with a scathing glare. “You’ve never been an angel, Duke. You’re obviously the anti-Christ in this little equation.”
Duke grinds my jaw in a way that looks wholly unlike me. His grip tightens around his waist as he pulls our bodies impossibly closer. He grits out, “Why am I heaven’s newest fallen angel?”
Neveah rolls her eyes. “Because you’re obviously hellbent on hanging out with the anti-Christ,” she addresses Duke in my body.
This absolute asshole. He was so close to screwing with my head yet again. Dyslexic or no, the man’s diabolical machinations are truly elegant.
Thank God Neveah pries him off me, then drags him away to a safe distance. She’s a good friend to keep my body from being murdered in broad daylight.
She hisses a bunch of words at Duke that I can’t quite hear over the din of the festival around us. It’s obvious from their antagonistic body language that the conversation isn’t a pleasant one. So obvious, in fact, that their not-so-private aside is attracting a fair level of attention.
Which is just more proof that Duke is wrong.
People are really going to have a field day if Neveah keeps delivering what looks like a spectacular tongue lashing to me.
She’s the mayor’s daughter, after all. I can’t afford any more scrutiny than I’m usually under.
Of all the times that it would be beneficial for the town to actually ignore my existence, now is one of them.
I stride over to Neveah and my body, mimicking the self-assuredness I’ve seen from Duke in the past. “Ladies, this is neither the time nor the place for a catfight. The vigilant eyes and ears of Utopia are always paying attention.”
Neveah stops her tirade midsentence, straightens, then blinks at me like I’ve just cursed her. “Since when do you care about every gaze in town being trained on you? More importantly, why do you suddenly give a shit if the whole town judges us?” She gestures between her and who she thinks is me.
Ah, shit. That wasn’t a very Duke-like thing for me to say.
I shrug and stuff his hands into the pockets of his jeans, channeling all my most casual Duke-ish behaviors. “I care about losing my latest paycheck.”
Duke had mentioned a cover story to me, since he was too stupid to realize that people would see my body going in and out of his garage. Now seems like a good time to use more of his lies.