A Slave to Broken Hearts (A Slave to Love Sequel)

Chapter 76: Charity Case

"How did you put up with this?" she asked, still aggravated, turning round to Blade.

...who was bobbing his head, singing along under his breath absentmindedly as he continued doing the dishes.

"He doesn't put up with it, he's just as bad," I explained smugly.

He glanced up, looking between us both. "Sorry. Are you talking to me?"

"Ugh, go back to your singing," Mom said. "You two have weird taste in music."

"I think you mean exceptional," I replied.

"Uh-huh. This is why I didn't let you be in charge of the music for the wedding."

"If you want a boring wedding, that's fine with me."

"You can't dance to something like this!"

"I have plenty of other songs you can dance to, not all my music is so angsty and loud."

"She does have a lot of dance music," Blade added, "Trust me. She's danced all over the house, outside, on the street, in stores--"

"Okay, okay, stop helping," I said, banging my hip against his.

"Don't worry about the music. Peter and I have spent the last few months curating the perfect playlist, but maybe if you stop giving me attitude I'll let you request something."

"She didn't let me help much either," Peter whispered to me.

"Whose side are you on?" My mom cried, chasing after him with a wooden spoon.

On it went. After several hours of squabbling, joking, taking turns irritating each other with different types of music, and sampling more raw batter than any one person should that left me with a mildly upset stomach, we were finally done. The cupcakes were cooled and frosted and ready to be packaged and eaten.

Our fridge was jampacked full of food and too many cupcakes however, so Mom sent Peter and Blade as her messengers across to Susan's house to bring some extra food that didn't fit to put in her fridge. It was incredibly cruel of her, so clearly she wasn't quite done being mean to Blade, or Peter for that matter, for his earlier lack of solidarity.

After almost twenty minutes with no sign from either of them, we began to lose hope they'd ever return, and prayed for a quick merciless end for them both.

Peter ended up coming back first, shaking his head with sympathy, then laughing a bit because thank God he wasn't Blade, and when we went to poke our heads out the front door, Blade was still trapped on her front porch, her hand around his bicep effectively keeping him in place while she talked and he looked like he was debating just how much he really needed that arm if it meant he could escape.

Every time he tried to interject, Susan swept right over him, and my mom tried to convince me to go over there and save him, but I decided he was an adult who was fully capable of finding an escape route. He was a big scary vampire who could rip people apart with his bare hands, so even if social interactions weren't his thing, Susan wasn't the worst thing he'd had to contend with.

Though his usual route of being rude and telling her to fuck off or just straight up leaving wouldn't fly here, this required more finesse than he was used too or liked to extend, which meant he was a bit out of his element. All the more fun for me.

My mom eventually went to save him, waiting until the pizza we ordered had arrived some twenty minutes later as the perfect excuse to call him back and Susan was left with no choice but to let him go.

He hightailed it back over here, sweeping right passed the delivery boy to the safety of the house, breathing an audible sigh of relief.

"Shall we start planning your wedding?" I teased.