My Blood Approves

Chapter 3

The television channel TNT, in its infinite wisdom, had a John Hughes marathon running on all day. Milo, who never had particularly understood the appeal of Molly Ringwald, had grudgingly sat on the couch and watched them with me. He tried to convince me to watch something else, but I was stronger than him and manhandled the remote. We had just started onto our second viewing of Pretty in Pink when my cell phone started to jingle. It was going on midnight and I assumed it was Jane calling for some kind of sober cab service (even though I did not possess a car), but I picked up my phone off the coffee table anyway. I’d probably been too hard on her earlier. Much to my surprise, I found a text message from Jack.

So. You haven’t texted me.

You’re very observant. I responded. My plan was to try and be indifferent.

I didn’t appreciate the idea that I had probably fallen victim to some kind of spell or hormonal manipulation. Sure, I liked him, but I couldn’t tell if I actually did or if my brain had found some chemicals that told me I liked him.

Does that mean you don’t want to be friends? He actually typed that, like a note I’d get in the first grade. Something about that completely endeared him to me, and since I couldn’t smell or see him, I decided that must mean that I actually liked him.

No. I do. Definitely.

“Who is that?” Milo asked with an edge to his voice. He was sitting at the other end of the couch from me, and he leaned over so he could look at my phone, but I turned it away from him. “It’s that Jack guy, right?”

“You do realize it’s perfectly legal for me to text members of the opposite sex.” I gave Milo a hard look and he just shook his head.

“Whatever,” Milo grunted and turned his attention back to the movie, even though I knew he hated it. My phone jingled again, and Milo made a humph sound.

Excellent. Wanna do something? Jack messaged.

What did you have in mind? I asked, knowing full well I would say yes to anything.

Anything. Everything. The city is our oyster! Jack texted back.

That sounds pretty ambitious. I replied, but it did sound exciting. He was awfully enticing.

It is. So can you be ready in like fifteen minutes? Jack inquired.

Sure. Meet you outside.

I flipped my phone shut and got up. Milo shot me his infamous disapproving glare but didn’t say anything. In a flash, I touched up my make up and slid on shoes. Before rushing out the door, I promised Milo that I wouldn’t be home too late and that I had my phone if he needed me. He grunted at me, and then I dashed out to meet Jack.

He was already waiting outside, this time in a bright red sports car that looked like it cost more than a house. Naturally, he was grinning wildly when I opened the car door, which slid upwards instead of opening out like a normal door, and jumped inside.

“So, this is nice,” I said, referring to his overly flashy car.

“Its more than nice. It’s a Lamborghini Gallardo,” Jack explained with that foolish grin plastered on his face. “There’s only six thousand of these in existence.”

“Is it new?”

“Nah, it’s my brother’s.” Before I could say anything more, he put the car in gear and it thrust itself headily into the street. I had thought we had gone fast in the Jetta, but it had nothing on this.

“Your brother must be loaded.” The car gracefully slid around a corner and weaved in between cars. Quickly, he turned it onto I-35, presumably so we could get the full effect of it going top speed on the open road.

“He kind of is,” Jack shrugged. It was the casual way someone talked when they never had to struggle for anything, and I wondered if Jack was wealthy and where he came from. “I don’t really worry about money, I guess.”

“It must be nice,” I muttered. We were pretty poor, but not quite so poor that I felt like I had to get a job and bring in my own money. Just enough where I felt it.

“There’s plenty of other things to worry about,” Jack replied seriously.

“Believe me.”

“Like what?” I looked over at him, instead of the blur of the scenery flying past us. He smirked at me and shook his head. So that was another thing he wouldn’t talk to me about. “So you have a brother?”

“Two, actually,” Jack nodded. “And a sister. Well, she’s actually my sister-inlaw, but she feels like a sister.”

“So is she married to your brother, or are you married?” I asked tentatively.

“No, I’m not married,” Jack laughed. “She’s my brother’s wife.”

“What are there names?” There was an endless amount of things I wanted to know about him, but I was stuck asking safe questions, like his family members’ name.

“Peter, and then Ezra is married to Mae. Ezra is the oldest.”

“What about your parents?” I had turned towards him and rested my head against the seat. The rush of the world around us had made me a little dizzy.

“Dead.” His voice was emotionless, but his eyes got hard, which didn’t look right at all.

“Sorry,” I offered lamely.

“Nah, it was like fifteen years ago.” He shook his head, trying to brush me off, and then he turned to me, his face brightening again. “What about you? You have family?”

“My mom, and a younger brother,” I answered. “But he’s more like an older brother sometimes.” Jack laughed loudly at that, his wonderful laughter echoing throughout the car and sending waves of warmth over me.

“Yeah, I can completely relate,” he grinned.

“Really?” I had always thought of Milo as an oddity, but it was nice to know that there was someone out there like him.

“Yeah, but Peter’s something else,” Jack said. “Really. I doubt you’ll ever meet anyone like him.”

“Well, I’d have to meet him first,” I pointed out.

“Maybe someday.” He sounded weirdly far off, almost apprehensive.

“You’re not married, but does that mean you’re single?” I didn’t know why I was asking.

“Uh, yeah.” Then, before I could ask him more about that, he turned the tables on me. “What about you? Are you seeing anyone?”

“Hardly,” I snorted. Other than a few drunken make out sessions at a couple parties, I had nothing to show for a love life.

“Why not?” Jack pressed.

“You saw my friend Jane,” I explained dully. “She has this way of completely stealing all the light in the room.”

“Oh, she does not.”

“What do you actually think of her?” I wondered aloud. It was completely unheard of that a guy would prefer my company over Jane’s.

“I don’t,” Jack replied.

“No, really,” I persisted. Jane was the kind of girl that everyone thought about, whether they liked it or not. Until I had met Jack, she was the most attention grabbing person I’d ever known.

“I’m serious,” Jack shrugged. “After she left you to die in that parking garage, I paid very little attention to her.”

“I wasn’t going to die,” I said unconvincingly, and quickly decided to change the subject. “Why don’t you have a girlfriend? The ladies obviously like you.”

“That’s actually part of the reason why. Everyone likes me without ever knowing me. It makes it hard to have a real relationship with somebody.”

“So… what’s the other part?” I asked, and he didn’t answer. “You’re not going to tell me.”

“I think there’s a midnight show of Rocky Horror Picture Show in Lakeville,” Jack announced randomly. “Are you up for it?”

“Sure.” The dashboard clock claimed it was 11:59 and we were much further than a minute away from Lakeville, but there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that we would make it in time. With Jack, somehow everything became possible.

I glanced out the window, watching the car glide through traffic. “So, why didn’t you drive your car tonight?”

“That’s not really my car, either.” He didn’t really answer my question, but I was starting to get used to that. “It’s my sister Mae’s.” I noticed that he called her his sister, not his sister-in-law, and I wondered if that was simply an oversight. His insistence on being so mysterious was making me overanalyze everything.

“Do you even own a car?”

“Yeah, a jeep. I just haven’t felt like driving it lately.” Then he flashed a sly smile and looked over at me. “Besides, this is so much faster.”

“That doesn’t seem fair at all,” I grumbled after riding in silence for a minute. My mind had gone been to trying to figure out all the things he wouldn’t tell me. “You won’t tell me anything about yourself.”

“Hey, I’ll tell you almost anything about me.” He kept his tone light, but he looked a little wounded. For the first time, I realized that he really not telling me was bothering him just as much as it was me. “My favorite color is chartreuse. I love the Ramones and the Cure. My bedroom walls are painted dark blue. I had my first kiss when I was fourteen while listening to ‘Rock Lobster’ cause she really, really liked B-52’s. I should’ve taken that as warning sign that it would never work, but I was awfully young and stupid.”

“Chartreuse?” I questioned, skipping over the remainder of his confession.

“I don’t even know what it is.”

“It’s sorta like a bright olive,” Jack explained. “It’s the color most visible to the human eye because of where it sits in the light spectrum.”

“You’re incredibly random.” We turned into the parking lot of the multiplex, and I realized he had managed to avoid really telling me anything.

When he pulled into park, I looked at him seriously. “So why can’t you tell me things?”

“Why do you think?” Jack asked, not unkindly.

“Witness protection.” It was an idea I had actually considered but quickly crossed off because it didn’t really explain anything. Besides, if he was under cover, then they were doing a very, very bad job since everyone always seemed to be looking at him. And just as I suspected, Jack laughed.

“Okay, that’s not it.” Still smiling and shaking his head, he hopped out of the car, and I quickly followed him.

“Hey, does that mean you’ll actually tell me if I guess right?” The movie had probably already started, so Jack was walking rather fast towards the theater, and I chased after him as swiftly as my short legs would carry me.

“I don’t see why not,” Jack said, and that perplexed me even further.

“If I can guess it then why can’t you just come right out and tell me?” I asked skeptically.

“It’s just the way it is.” He opened the big glass doors of the theater for me, and I walked inside, furrowing my brow.

When he went up to the cashier to buy tickets, I started rummaging in my pockets for my own money, but he just waved me off and paid for my ticket. If I hadn’t been so preoccupied by this new development, I probably would’ve protested further.

“So, are you Rumpelstiltskin?” I asked him, leaning up against the counter as he claimed our tickets.

He laughed loudly, and the cashier blushed at the sound. He was completely oblivious to it, and I hoped that I would hurry up and feel the same way. I hadn’t really staked a claim on him, but it was still irritating to constantly notice girls drooling all over him, especially when I was visibly with him.

“That’s awesome!” He handed me my ticket, and while I did feel overly happy about his very minor compliment, I only let the frustration show on my face. He just chuckled some more and walked to the theater, this time slowing enough so I could keep up with him. “Rumpelstiltskin. That’s really awesome.

I’m gonna tell Ezra that.”

“Why? Are you guys like a family of goblins or something?”

Jack laughed, shaking his head, and then pushed open the door to the movie before I could question him about what exactly was so awesome.

The movie had already started playing but just the very beginning. Lots of people were dressed up in costumes from the movie and throwing popcorn at the screen, so for once nobody noticed us sneaking into the back row.

Rocky Horror Picture Show was a pretty good movie and I did rather enjoy it, but I was starting to think that either Jack had ADD or he had being evasive down to an art form. Deciding to make the best of the situation, I followed suit and watched the movie. Jack was a borderline fanatic. He hadn’t dressed up in a black corset or anything like that, but he stared at the screen intently and shouted right along with all the lines. When “The Time Warp” came on, I thought he might get up and dance, and he probably would’ve had there been enough room in the aisle.

Towards then end of the movie, I had settled back in my seat, and even his enthusiasm had faded a bit. My arm casually brushed against his, and I felt struck by his odd skin temperature again. His skin was soft and warm, but it felt more like touching fabric than it did like touching a person. It was such an odd sensation that I felt like I had to get more of it. I pushed my arm over on the shared arm rest, very deliberately pressing my bare skin against his. The back of his hand felt impossibly soft. He hadn’t pulled his arm away, but I felt his gaze so I looked up at him, finding a very perplexed expression on his face.

“Are you trying to hold my hand?” Jack asked, as if the idea were completely alien.

I was not trying to hold his hand, but I didn’t appreciate the way it seemed so offensive to him. What would be wrong with that? After all, this essentially was a date, whether he called it that or not. So why would it be so unthinkable that we’d hold hands?

“What if I am?” I stuck out my chin, ready to hold my ground and find out what would be so bad about hitting on me. Without hesitation, Jack called my bluff and took my hand in his. It definitely felt like I was holding hands with doll or something other than another person, but then it started to warm up, his skin heating up unnaturally, and I pulled my hand from his. “Okay. That’s just weird.”

In response, he just shrugged, apparently deciding against explaining his abrupt temperature change.

We watched the rest of the movie in silence (or at least I did — he continued shouting lines and singing). By the time it ended, I had started yawning, and I knew that I’d have to call it a night pretty soon. Not that I wanted to. Bizarre handholding and classified information aside, I really enjoyed spending time with Jack and I didn’t want it to stop. Not ever.

The car ride home was mostly filled with Jack’s excited chatter about the movie. He explained all the reasons it was such a masterpiece, and had an endless stream of compliments about Tim Curry. I added things now and again, but it was mostly one-sided. There was something very thrilling about seeing Jack so excited. He became very animated and his eyes almost seemed to glow.

“I hope you had fun tonight,” Jack said when he pulled up in front of my place.

“I did,” I nodded. Only he could make frustration so much fun. “So… we’ll hang out again?”

“Of course,” he smiled, then held out his hand towards me. “Let me see your phone.”

“Why?” I asked, but I was already pulling it out of my pocket and handing it to him.

“One second.” Taking my phone, he started scrolling through it and doing things that I couldn’t see from my angle. A minute later, he handed my phone back to me, looking rather mischievous.

“What’d you do?” I flipped it open and started looking through it, trying to see what he could’ve done.

“You’ll see,” he smiled.

“Oh, you are trouble.” Shaking my head, I shoved my phone back in my pocket, and he laughed.

“You have no idea.”

When I got out of the car, he was still laughing. I watched him speed off, moving impossibly fast, and then dashed upstairs to my house. Being with him was strangely exhilarating, but it also ended up a little tiring. Even when he wasn’t moving, he had so much energy about him, and it seemed to take so much energy just being around him. Not that I didn’t enjoy every minute of it, but it really made me look forward to curling up in my bed.

I’d barely made it inside the apartment when I saw Milo looking sheepishly at me, and I knew there was trouble afoot. It was way past his bedtime, and he was leaning against the kitchen counter all decked out in his pajamas. I was about to ask what was going on when I heard the rather shrill voice of my mother, and looked over to see her sitting in the tattered easy chair in the living room.

“Glad to see you finally made it home,” Mom said icily. Her graying hair looked like a frayed mess spreading out from her bun and her eyes were unusually large, a feature that both Milo and I had inherited, making us all look much younger than we were. Her voice, which could be rather soothing when she wanted it to be, sounded like she had been chain-smoking for forty years, which wasn’t that far from the truth. As it was, she was lighting another cigarette as she cast a cold glance at me.

“Why aren’t you at work?” I asked dumbly.

“They had a bomb threat to the building so they shut it down for the night,” Mom explained harshly. “They’re diverting all the calls to Edina’s station.”

“Oh.” I stood awkwardly in between the kitchen and the living room, waiting for someone to tell me what was going on.

“What were you doing out so late?” Her voice lilted at the end, like she was taunting me.

“I don’t have school, and I don’t have a curfew,” I answered cautiously.

In theory, I might’ve had a curfew, but we’d never even talked about it and she always worked nights. On weeknights, I usually tried to be in by midnight, but that was mostly because Milo would freak out on me and I’d be too tired to get up for school. The only thing Mom really kept track of was whether or not we went to school and were passing all our classes. As long as I did that, everything else seemed fine with her.

“So, you weren’t out with a guy?” Mom asked pointedly, and I saw Milo looking incredibly ashamed out of the corner of my eye.

“Well, yeah, I was.” I drew my shoulders back a little bit, telling myself that I hadn’t done anything. There was nothing for me to get in trouble for, no matter what my mother’s angry glare was saying. “Is that a problem?”

“Who is he?” She flicked an ash off the arm of the chair, looking down instead of at me.

“His name is Jack.” I shifted uneasily, and stole a glance at Milo. Suddenly, I felt very sorry for him. I had no idea how long he had been forced to stand here with my mother, and I couldn’t imagine the kind of interrogation she had put him through.

Let me be clear: she wasn’t a bad mother. She was just a tired, lonely woman that worked seventy hours a week and hardly ever saw her kids. There was very little left for her except to try and convince us not to make the same mistakes she did, and the only way she knew how to do that was to be rather vicious.

“I see.” Abruptly, my mother put her cigarette out and exhaled deeply.

When she spoke again, her voice was sweet, much too sweet, and my skin wanted to crawl. “I think I should meet this boy.”

“How? When? You work all the time.”

“Well, he seems to be a night owl, much like yourself.” She looked up at me, batting her eyes exaggeratedly. “I’m sure that you could find a time within the next two days.”

A million different arguments ran through my head. The most obvious being that I wasn’t having sex or even dating Jack, but somehow, I thought that would make things worse. Trying to explain why someone in his situation would want to be friends with me sounded even harder than explaining why he would want to date me. Besides, I actually didn’t want to set her off further. I just nodded instead.

“Okay. I’ll figure it out.”

“You better.” She sounded a little surprised that I had complied so easily, and I wondered if I spent a lot of my time arguing with her just for the sake of arguing with her. I was probably a very bad daughter. Maybe even a very bad person. “And if I decide that I don’t want you to see this boy anymore, then that’s it. Do you understand?”

“Completely,” I nodded again. Of course I would see him anyway, but that wasn’t something I would tell her.

“Good.” Mom got up, grabbing her purse off of the table. She was apparently satisfied with the conversation, and she hadn’t even really screamed at me. It was actually a pretty good talk, as far as our talks go. “I’m going to go the casino now. I’ll see you sometime tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I replied lamely.

Mom brushed past me on her way to the door, smelling thickly of cigarettes and cheap brandy, but she paused at the door, turning slightly towards me. “I am glad that you’re home safe.”

“Thanks,” I said, unsure of how else to respond. Then she nodded once and walked out the door.

Milo apologized as soon as she left, but I assured him he had nothing to apologize for. He was always looking out for my best interest, and I knew that.

Besides, I was too tired to really worry about anything else. I didn’t even bother changing out of my clothes before flopping back in my bed.

I decided to just bite the bullet and text Jack to ask if he could meet my mother. When he messaged me back a few seconds later, I realized what exactly he’d done with my phone. He had ordered the song “Time Warp” and put it as his ringtone, so when I got a text message or phone call from him, that’s the song I would hear. Thankfully, he agreed to come over for supper the next night at 8 pm sharp, and I tried not to think about how terrifying that prospect was.

First thing when I got up, I briefed Milo on Jack’s arrival, but Mom was still asleep. For some reason, Milo had been gifted with everything domestic, meaning he was the cook in the family. I let him make supper, but scurried about trying to help him and straighten up the apartment. We actually had a really nice apartment; it was just very small. It was important to me that we impressed Jack with where we lived, and I didn’t know why. I didn’t know why I felt anything I did about him, but I pushed that out of my mind. That wasn’t tonight’s problem.

Then the unthinkable happened. Jack arrived early.

“Jack,” I said breathlessly when I opened the door. He had found my apartment without me telling him the number, but I couldn’t mention that in front of Milo. He’d already think Jack was creepy enough without adding anything.

“Hi,” Jack beamed at me. He wore a simple tee shirt with Dickies, but it was the first time I’d seen him in pants. I suspected that this was his attempt at dressing up, and it made me smile.

“You’re early,” I told him. I held the door open, but I hadn’t let him inside yet, so he stood in the hallway, giving me an odd look. Milo had been behind me in the kitchen, noisily preparing something, but he hadn’t made a sound since we’d heard the knock at the door.

“Is that a bad thing?” Jack asked.

“No, not really,” I admitted, and finally took a step back so he could come inside. He smiled at my brother and his eyes quickly scanned the apartment.

“My mom’s just not awake yet.”

“Oh.” He glanced at the clock on the wall, noting that it was after seven.

“When does she get up?”

“I’ll go get her now,” Milo offered, wiping his hands on his jeans and stepping away from a pan.

“Oh, sorry,” I fumbled, realizing that I hadn’t introduced them. “Jack, this is my brother Milo. Milo, this my friend Jack.”

“Nice to meet you.” Milo did a little half wave/half nod combo, then darted off to get my mom.

“I think I make him nervous,” Jack told me quietly.

“Everyone makes him nervous,” I reassured him.

“Hmm.” We were standing rather awkwardly in the kitchen, although I did feel slightly better now that he was around. He had a kind of calming effect on me, but I didn’t know if that was good or bad. My mother was squawking things rather loudly at Milo, so I decided to make conversation to drown at the sound of her.

“So, are you hungry?” I gestured to the pans of some kind of Italian creation Milo had been making on the stove. “Milo’s making something delicious. He’s a really good cook.”

“Actually, I just ate.” Jack smiled sheepishly and put his hand on his stomach. “Sorry. I figured that since we were meeting so late, you’d probably already have eaten. And Mae insisted on feeding me.”

“Oh, that’s okay.” But suddenly I felt more nervous. In truth, I wasn’t that hungry and I could really care less if he ate or not. It was just that without the distraction of eating, a conversation with my mother would be much less pleasant. Then a tantalizing idea occurred to me. Maybe we could just turn this into more of a meet-and-greet kind of thing, where Jack could say hello to my mother and then just sweep me away. “So… do you wanna go someplace or something?”

“I thought I was meeting your mother.” Jack looked confused and pointed to my mother’s closed bedroom door, where Milo was still trying to convince her to put on some pants and a housecoat to see Jack. My heart went out to him, and he had more than made up for telling Mom about Jack.

“I mean, after that,” I explained. “Since you’re not eating. It would be silly to sit around here and watch them eat.”

“Aren’t you hungry?”

“I’ll live.” There were like ten million places to eat in the Cities, and this was the only one that included strained dinner conversation with my mother.

I’m sure that I could find someplace if I really had to.

“Alright,” he shrugged and leaned back against the kitchen counter.

“What did you have in mind?”

“Pretty much anything, as long as it’s not here.”

“I get it,” he nodded knowingly.

“I’m up!” Mom shouted, and a few seconds later, Milo rushed out of her room, looking rather frazzled.

“She’ll be right out,” Milo muttered. He went back over to the stove and stirred something simmering in a pan, looking relieved to be back cooking instead of with Mom.

“Do you need help with anything?” I offered.

There were freshly washed vegetables sitting in the sink, and he had two pans on the stove boiling with food, not to mention the oven was preheating for something. I started feeling guilty about him making this massive feast on my behalf, and I wasn’t even going to eat it. Well, later on tonight, I’d dig into the cold leftovers and watch cartoons, but that wasn’t the same as sitting down to his meticulously crafted meal.

“You can slice some of the vegetables if you want,” Milo glanced back at me.

“What are they for?” I pulled out the cutting board and a knife, setting them on the counter next to where Jack was leaning. Grabbing a tomato and green pepper from the sink, I repeated the question to Milo, who’d become distracted by seasoning a red sauce bubbling in a frying pan. “What am I cutting the vegetables for?”

“The salad.” He tasted the sauce, which must’ve satisfied him, because he flipped off the stove, and pulled out a cake pan. I think he was making some kind of special lasagna with all types of homemade everything, but I couldn’t be sure because when he explained things to me, he always used culinary terms that I didn’t understand. “I made a special vinaigrette.”

“Everything smells fantastic,” Jack complimented him. Milo had his back to us, but I could see his cheeks reddening a little as he laid out noodles in the pan. Maybe Milo wasn’t completely immune to Jack’s allure either.

“I have bad news though.” I lowered my voice, afraid my mother might hear me. She had yet to emerge from her bedroom, but I decided that was a good thing. Carefully slicing a tomato, I saw Milo’s shoulders tense up and he looked hesitatingly at me. “We’re not actually gonna eat here.” His face fell, but he quickly looked away, trying to hide it.

“It’s my fault really,” Jack said apologetically. As he talked, I could tell his voice was working its magic on Milo, and he relaxed a little. “I didn’t realize I was supposed to eat here, so I went ahead and ate at home. And then I made plans for us in a little bit. I’m really sorry, though. I can tell I’m missing a fantastic meal.”

“It’s fine,” Milo said, and he sounded almost like he meant it. He had finished putting his ingredients together in the pan, so he put it in the oven.

He’d already set the table, so he went over to start clearing the extra two places for Jack and me.

“Milo-” I started to turn and apologize to him further. He had this way of looking like a little boy when he was sad, and it just broke my heart.

Unfortunately, I decided to try and keep cutting the green pepper as I turned, and that wasn’t the smartest move ever. The knife sliced sharply into the index finger of my left hand, and I yelped painfully. “Damn it!”

“What?” Milo instantly stopped what he was doing and rushed over to me.

He’d spent enough time with me in the kitchen to know that I usually ended with cuts or burns after doing even the simplest tasks. “What’d you cut?”

“I just got my finger,” I winced, squeezing my fingers around it to stop the bleeding. Milo, being the smart one, grabbed a washcloth to put on it.

“Maybe you should run that under water,” Jack interjected, his voice sounding oddly stiff. Milo turned on the water, yanking my hand under it, but I looked over at Jack. He had taken a few steps away from me, and he’d gone pale. I guess the sight of blood didn’t agree with him.

“It’s not that bad.” Milo examined my finger under the water, but I kept my eyes fixed on Jack. He had looked away from me and taken another step back. The sight of the blood, even the small amount that it was, had really effected him, so I hurried to clean it up. “I’ll get you a Band-Aid.”

Milo darted off to the bathroom to retrieve a Boba Fett Band-Aid from the medicine cabinet. I left my finger running under the water, even though I think it had stopped bleeding. With my other hand, I used the washcloth to wipe off the cutting bored, pushing bloodied slices of green pepper into the sink and down the drain.

“What’s going on?” Mom always had the best timing and chose just then to come out of the bedroom. Her hair was its usually frizzy mess, but she’d managed to put on worn out jeans and an over sized sweatshirt with paint splattered all over it.

“I just cut my finger,” I explained, holding up my injured appendage. Milo came out of the bathroom and jogged over to me. As if I were a complete invalid, he started drying my finger with a paper towel before putting on the Band-Aid.

“Milo, you know better than to let her help you in the kitchen,” Mom scolded. She went over to the coffee table to grab an ash tray, then lit a cigarette as she walked back into the kitchen. Her eyes scanned over Jack quickly, but she didn’t say anything to him. Instead, she just set the ashtray on the kitchen table and sat down.

“Sorry,” Jack mumbled once my finger was sufficiently bandaged.

Whatever had gotten to him seemed to be dissipating and the color in his cheeks returned.

“I’m the one that cut my finger. There’s no reason for you to be sorry.” I looked over at him, and he smiled at me, but it wasn’t his usual cheerful grin. It looked a little forced, but he was determined to shake it off and move on.

“We don’t really need a salad anyway,” Milo decided. He pushed past me, collecting the vegetables that I had cut and tossing them in the garbage. They all hadn’t been tainted with my blood, but there were enough of them where it didn’t seem worth it. “The vinaigrette will hold for another day.”

“So…” Mom blew out a smoke ring and gazed intently at Jack. Her features still had that same rigid, worn look they always did, but there was something extra in her voice. “You must be Jack.”

When she accented his name, that’s when I realized what it was. She wasn’t as overt as Jane had been, but the look in her eyes and the tone to her voice… it was definitely seductive. Not that I really should’ve been surprised that she’d react to him the same way everyone else seemed to, particularly women, but I couldn’t help but feel my stomach twist nauseously.

“And you must be Alice’s mom,” Jack grinned at her, authentically this time. He had leaned back against the counter again and crossed one foot over his ankle, bouncing the toe of his blue Converse on the tile.

“Anna.” This time, my mother actually did a “casual” lick of her lips when she looked at him. I rolled my eyes, then looked to Milo to see if he noticed her being so ridiculous, but he was no help. He just stood in the middle of the kitchen with his arms crossed over his chest, staring at Jack. I realized then that I could continue cursing Jack’s unusual ability to be attractive to everyone, or I could use it to my advantage. If Mom liked Jack, then she wouldn’t object to him.

“Anna.” Jack repeated, and my mother looked down, flicking her cigarette in the ashtray.

“So tell me about yourself.” Her eyes went back up to him, and they had never looked so young before.

In actuality, my mother was only thirty-four, but she usually looked much older than that. But when she looked at Jack, there was this girliness underneath that came through. Suddenly, I could see how beautiful and radiant she must’ve been when she was young, before she had me. Feeling an odd protective jealousy, I hoped that Jack didn’t notice it.

“What do you want to know?” Jack tilted his head at her.

“Everything.” She was being coy, and that should’ve (and actually did) creep me out a bit, but her answer excited me. Given the situation, she would be able to ask him questions, and he would answer. Not vague little sidesteps like he did with me, but real, legitimate answers. Because she was my mom, and that’s what people did when they were interrogated by parents.

“Well, that’s an awful lot to tell. Where would you like me to start?”

“What do you with yourself?” Her eyes had gone sultry, and I had to fight the urge to vomit or take Jack’s hand or something. Milo pulled up a chair next to Mom, but he didn’t look even slightly disturbed by her behavior. He too had become too enamored by Jack and just listened for his answer.

“Not a lot really,” Jack admitted.

“You don’t work?” Mom pressed, and this fact that should’ve sent her into a glowering tirade of disapproval, just seemed to make complete sense to her.

Of course Jack didn’t work. Why would he, when he was just that fabulous?

“Nope.” He shrugged, and this time I felt irritated that he didn’t have to work and didn’t think anything of it. Mom should’ve felt the same way, but she didn’t. “I mean, I’ve done a lot of odd jobs over the years. Like I tried some bartending for awhile and once I was tour guide for Niagara caves out in Harmony for awhile, but that was too far away so I quit that. I don’t know.

Nothing’s just really stuck, I guess.”

“How do you support yourself?” It was a logical question, so it kind of surprised me that Mom had even bothered asking it. She looked like the only two questions that mattered to her was what he was going to be doing in ten minutes, and if he wanted to be doing it with her.

“Well…” Jack laughed a little, and both her and Milo closed their eyes, as if the sound was just too pleasurable for them to handle. “I guess I don’t really. I live with my family, and… they kind of take care of me. I guess.”

“But you’re twenty-four,” I interjected.

Really, if his family was loaded and wanted to take care of him, then I’d say, more power to you. But if Mom wasn’t going to ask the tough questions, then I was going to have to. After all, I didn’t really understand him at all, and the more information I could gain about why he did what he did, the better it would be for me.

“I know.” Jack didn’t look ashamed at all, though, like I probably would if somebody called me out on being in my mid-twenties, unemployed, and living at home. “It just makes sense for us. I don’t know a better way of explaining it.”

“So you live with your parents?” Mom took a drag on her cigarette, keeping her eyes locked on him.

“No, they’re dead.” He said it with the same flat tone that he had before, and I couldn’t explain it, but there was something off with that. “I live with my brothers and, uh, my sister-in-law.”

“Oh?” Mom raised an eyebrow, and she was probably excited of the prospect of their being even more guys like him. “How old are they?”

“Ezra’s twenty… six, and Mae is like twenty-eight or something, and Peter is nineteen.” Jack answered thoughtfully.

“Hmm,” Mom purred, and oh my god, she really was thinking about his brothers! This was so gross and so disturbing, and I was so glad that I had never seen my mom date anyone ever. “So, um, what about school?”

“I went for awhile, but I dropped out.” Jack shrugged again. “It just wasn’t my thing.”

“What is your thing exactly?” I asked.

As far as I could tell, working, school, having a relationship, doing anything that required any amount of responsibility just wasn’t his thing. What was my attraction to him? Then he laughed, looking over at me with an expression that was almost proud, and I remembered exactly what it was.

“I’m still figuring it out.”

“You’re still young,” Mom added quickly, trying to pull his attention back to her. “You have plenty of time to figure things out.”

“That’s what I think,” Jack agreed, and when he looked back at her, she let out a moan of some kind, and that was it for me. I’d let her stare at him enough.

“Well, we really should get going,” I announced abruptly.

“What?” Mom looked sharply at me, her face getting this stricken expression. “Aren’t you staying for dinner?”

“I misunderstood what Alice meant,” Jack explained, his voice getting overly soothing, but I decided that whatever would get us out of here without a fight was fine by me. “I already ate, and then I made plans for us. We really do have to be going.”

My mother tried to think of things to keep him trapped in the apartment with her, but I stuck to my guns. I escaped into the hall while they finished saying their good-byes, but I could still hear the unusually sweet tone to my mother’s voice as she cooed all sorts of things to him. Once Jack finally made it out to the hall and shut the door behind him, I shivered visibly, trying to shake off what I had just witnessed.

“What?” Jack laughed, looking at me as I pushed the button for the elevator.

“Oh my god, that was so disgusting!” I exclaimed.

“I thought that went very well, actually,” Jack smirked. “You mom seemed to like me.”

“Ugh, she wanted to jump your bones,” I groaned. The elevator doors dinged open and we stepped in. Leaning back against the wall, I groaned and shook my head. “It was so disturbing.”

“Its not my fault everybody wants me.” Jack laughed again and pushed the button for the lobby, and I knew he was only half-teasing. For some reason, everybody did want him, and I wish he would just tell me why.

“I don’t want you,” I grumbled, crossing my arms over my chest.

“Yeah, I know.” Jack got quiet and thoughtful for the rest of the elevator ride, but I wasn’t sure if was because he was disappointed that I didn’t want him or he just didn’t understand it. Then, in an attempt to fix my mood, he tried to change the subject as the elevator doors opened into the lobby. “So, your brother’s gay?”

“He is not gay.” I bristled, then stepped out of the elevator. It wouldn’t really bother me if Milo was gay, but he wasn’t. I mean, I would know if he was.

“Oh, so he hasn’t told you yet.” Jack shoved his hands in his pockets, following me as I hurried outside into the cold night air. Once we got outside, I realized that I didn’t know where he’d parked or even what car he’d driven, so I stopped outside the door and waited for him.

“There’s nothing to tell,” I insisted. He turned to the left, walking a little ways down the block, when I saw his Jetta, sitting in an amazingly good parking spot. He always got good parking spots, like luck was constantly on his side.

“Oh, come on,” Jack scoffed. “You had to have noticed the way he looked at me.”

“Everyone looks at you that way.” I tried to think back at everyone gaping at him and I couldn’t remember if the guys had been doing it too. Everyone reacted to him in a very friendly fashion, like the way the crowds parted for him at the concert, but I was pretty sure that guys hadn’t given him that particular look, not the ones like my mom or Jane.

“No, everyone does not.” Jack played with something in his pocket, and the Jetta beeped loudly, announcing the fact that it was unlocked.

“So how does that work?” I asked, opening the car door. “Your pheromones only react to people that would be sexually attracted to you anyway? How can they possibly know that?” Jack stood outside until I could finish my question, then he just got in the car, and I knew that was his official answer to that.

“You probably shouldn’t say anything to you brother,” Jack said once I’d gotten in the car. He started it, revving the engine for a second, then pulled away from the curb. “If he hasn’t told you yet, then he’s probably not ready for you to know.”

“He isn’t gay,” I repeated firmly. “He’s only fourteen.”

“Oh, right, cause when you were fourteen you didn’t know you were straight.” Jack rolled his eyes.

“How do you know I’m straight?” I countered. I mean, I am straight, completely 100 %, but he didn’t know that. “That would explain why I’m not attracted to you.”

“You are attracted to me.” He kept his eyes straight ahead, and adjusted the stereo, so She Wants Revenge would start playing softly out of the speakers.

“Otherwise you wouldn’t be in the car with me. It’s just not the same as it is with them.”

“Whatever,” I grumbled and crossed my arms again. Then I softened a little as I thought about Milo, and all the weird little things he did that I had always just chocked up to him being younger than me and more responsible.

“So… you really think Milo’s gay?”

“Yeah, he’s gay,” Jack replied definitively. “And before you ask, yeah, it’s something I know. I can’t explain it, but I just know. Like the way a lion always knows the weakest zebra in the pack.”

“Are you comparing being gay to being weak?” So, I was just coming to terms with the probability of my brother’s homosexuality, but already I felt defensive about it. Milo was my little brother and probably the only person in the whole world that really cared about me. No matter what, I’d always love and protect him.

“No, I’m comparing my uncanny ability to detect things to that of a lion,” Jack clarified. I was still kind of sulking, reeling from the fact that both my mother and my newly discovered gay brother wanted to do bad, bad things to Jack, but he wouldn’t hear of it. “Hey, you know what would cheer you up?”

“I can only imagine,” I said dryly.

“Playing Dance Dance Revolution at the arcade.” Without warning, he flipped the car into a u-turn across three lanes of traffic.

“That doesn’t sound that great.” It didn’t really, but Jack thought it was the greatest idea ever, and that managed to convince me somehow. I was starting to realize that my feelings seemed to be mimicking his, and that should alarm me, but he wasn’t alarmed, so I was kind of incapable of being alarmed.