I did really miss him, but I had spent the last few days being completely bored out of my mind and spending every waking moment imagining the worst case scenarios of my life. (Hint: They all ended with me alone knitting afghans and dying alone, where my corpse was eating by my hundreds of pet cats.) I like to jump to conclusions. I can’t help it, or even if I can, I like doing it too much to stop.
When I finally did rush outside, Jack was sitting in the Jetta, grinning broadly. Pat Benetar, of all things, was blasted loudly at me when I opened the door. He turned it down when I hopped in, but I barely even cared.
Nobody else was in the car. We were alone together for the first time in what felt like forever.
There was nobody to growl at me or to chastise us for being too close. I could just talk to him and be with him and not worry about anything.
“Hey,” Jack smiled.
“I don’t wanna go to your house,” I announced quickly.
“Why not?” He cocked an eyebrow, but he looked intrigued and amused.
“Because.” I pulled my knee up to my chest and just looked at him, refusing to elaborate on my answer.
I expected him to drive away or press me further, but he just looked at me for a moment and nodded.
“Okay,” he smirked. “Where do you wanna go?”
“I don’t care where. Just drive.”
“You got it.” His eyes glinted mischievously and he sped away form my apartment.
The buildings were a blur of lights beside us, and he had this weird ability to hit every green light and weave through openings in traffic that weren’t even there. Jack had this insane driver’s intuition, and I didn’t understand how he ever managed to roll the Jeep before. He must’ve been really distracted by me, and I wondered dully if I still had the same effect on him.
“So… how’s life with Milo?” I asked cautiously. I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to know, but I definitely needed to know. Partially because I wanted to make sure that Milo was doing okay, but also because I wanted to hear how Jack felt about everything.
“Good,” Jack shrugged noncommittally. “I like your brother. I like having him around.”
“Mmm,” I murmured. He hadn’t really given away anything, so neither was I.
“He’s already much better. Pretty soon you’ll be able to be around all the time. And I’m sure it will be all the time. He really misses you too.” Jack looked over to see if I believed him, and I wasn’t sure that I did. “He talks about you a lot. He just isn’t always thrilled when I talk about you.”
“Really?” I raised an eyebrow curiously. “You guys talk about me? What do you say?”
“I don’t know,” Jack laughed. As soon as the sound filled the car, I realized how long it had been since I heard that sound. My heart flipped happily, and I settled deeper into the seat. “Nothing bad, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“I just wonder what you say about me when I’m not around,” I teased.
“What do you say about me when I’m not around?” Jack countered, grinning happily.
“Hasn’t Milo told you?” I was only half-joking. I figured that by now, Milo had spilled everything, and I wanted to get a read on what effect that had on Jack.
“Yeah, he has, because apparently, you’ve only said like three things about me. All you ever tell him is that you’re not interested in me.” He tried to play it off with a smile, but I saw the hurt behind his eyes. “So yeah. I got all the juicy details.”
“That’s not all I say.” But that really was about all I said to Milo. A lot of times I felt like my feelings were too obvious, and my best way of dealing with that was just to say the exact opposite of what I felt.
“So then what do you say?” Jack pressed, looking at me from the corner of his eyes.
“That you’re the most dashing, handsome stranger I’ve ever met,” I said with a dramatic Southern drawl and batted my eyes at him. He laughed again, and I smiled at him. “No, I don’t know. I try not say anything about you.”
“Why not?” Jack asked.
“Cause.” I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s hard to talk about you.”
“How is it hard?” Jack furrowed his brow when he turned to me.
“Well… what am I supposed to say about you?” I squirmed uncomfortably.
“You’re supposed to say whatever you want,” he pointed out reasonably.
“Things are a little too complicated for me to say what I want,” I explained finally.
Truthfully, I didn’t know exactly what I felt for Jack because I wouldn’t let myself think about it. To quantify it as something, that would put expectations and shatter things. I liked being around him and I missed him when he wasn’t there, and that was as far as I was willing to admit.
“Fair enough.” Jack sighed and ran a hand through his sandy hair.
He turned to me, looking like he might say more, but then his phone began to ring in his pocket.
Cursing softly under his breath, he reluctantly pulled it from his pocket and flipped it open.
“Hello?” Jack answered. “Yeah. Yeah…. I’m with her now…. Yeah… Yes… Okay… Yes…. I get it… I got it…. No. I’m fine….Yep… Okay…. Okay… Bye.” He sighed heavily and then shoved his phone in his pocket.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“We’re going to my house,” Jack replied simply.
“What? Why? Who was that?” Reflexively, I had tensed up at the thought of going to his house. It suddenly felt like so much drama.
“Milo.” He pursed his lips, debating on telling me more. “He wants to see you.”
“Does he really? Or is he just against he idea of us being alone together in a car?”
“Both, probably,” Jack replied honestly.
“You know, I’m a little offended actually,” I said, watching out the window as the scenery changed as Jack switched directions towards his house. “Peter never got this jealous over the time we spent together.”
“Yeah, well, Peter’s a total idiot,” Jack grumbled dryly.
“Have you heard from him lately?” I asked offhandedly.
“Why are you asking him?” Jack had very little tolerance for even the mentioning of Peter’s name anymore, but I wanted to know anyway.
“I was just wondering if anybody had heard from him,” I shrugged vaguely. “That’s all. I can be curious, can’t I?”
“I’d prefer it if you weren’t,” Jack admitted wearily. I didn’t really have a comeback for that, so I just kept looking at the window. When I didn’t say anything for a little bit, Jack continued, “You took the book.”
“Ezra said I could,” I justified, but I knew that permission wasn’t really the issue.
“Is everything to your satisfaction?” he asked icily.
“It’s a book, Jack!” He was so infuriating sometimes, and I didn’t even want to dignify it with a response. “What do you think is going to happen? I’m going to run off with a piece of literature and leave you alone in the love triangle with my brother? It wouldn’t even be a triangle anymore.
It would just be an angle.”
“An oblique angle,” Jack interjected, and his bout of jealousy was quickly replaced with glee. “Ha!
I told you I would work that in!”
“What are you talking about?” I didn’t understand what he was getting at, but he was grinning foolishly and laughing, so I couldn’t help but be swept in it.
“Remember? That time I took you to the concert after we first met?” His eyes danced at me, like he had won the lottery. “And you asked what my angle was, and I said isosceles, but really I should’ve said oblique. And I said that I’d remember it for next time, and I did!!”
“Wow,” I laughed. “You showed me.”
“I totally did!”
At least we arrived at his house on a happy note. I figured that as soon as we walked inside, there would be fresh tension. I wasn’t that far off base. Matilda ran to greet us, and Milo
followed right after her. Seeing him was still a hard adjustment, and I wondered how long it would take me to get used to the new, mature him. His still had the graceful, clumsy walk, like he was about to trip over his own feet, but then would elegantly catch himself. He was like Bambi learning to walk
- it was all stumbles and then a graceful bound.
“Hey,” Milo sounded out of breath and his smile was too bright.
He brushed his hair from his forehead, and I realized he was even styling it different now. It had always been kind of just standard guy cut, but he was going for side-bangs and a more popular cut. I wondered if he did that all on his own, like vampires just had naturally cool genes, or if Mae had done it for him.
“How are you?” Milo asked me, doing this weird fidgety thing with his sleeve. He had a weird head bob, too, and he reminded me vaguely of Mike Meyers when he was in Wayne’s World.
Was this Milo’s interpretation of cool?
“Good,” I answered unsurely. “You’re looking really… good. I like your hair.”
“Thanks.” He touched it self-concisely and blushed bashfully. There was a glimpse of cute Milo that made me miss him again, but then he went back to the awkward head bob. “Mae did it.”
“She loves hair,” I said.
“Yeah.,” Milo greed absently.
Then he looked over to Jack and rubbed the back of his head, and that’s when it finally dawned on me.
He was nervous and trying desperately to impress Jack. He suddenly lacked the ability to mask his crush, so he knew that everyone knew about it, and he had no clue what to do himself. Newly gay, newly vampire, and not even old enough to drive.
I suddenly felt like the biggest bitch in the world for being irritated with him. Sure, he was messing up my non-relationship with Jack, but he was just a scared, confused kid. He was going through a whole huge thing that I couldn’t help him with at all, and I should be happy that he had someone like Jack to show him around, instead of getting all bitter and jealous.
“You guys have a nice drive?” Milo looked at Jack, and his eyes were hoping that we didn’t have too nice of a drive. This had to be an incredibly hard thing for him, too, and I had to remember that.
“It was good,” Jack nodded. He chewed the inside of his cheek, growing increasingly uncomfortable with the way Milo looked at him, but I think that was only for my benefit. Ordinarily, I’m sure he would brush of Milo’s adoring gaze, but with me there, it felt… well, everything just felt really, really awkward.
“So, um, while you were gone I totally found that thing and I got to the next level,” Milo announced randomly, and it took me a second to realize he was talking about some kind of video game.
“Oh, yeah, really?” Jack said, looking genuinely impressed, which was probably a little bit too much for Milo.
“Yeah!” Milo beamed. “Here, I’ll show you!” With that, he reached out and took Jack’s hand in his and started dragging him off to the living room. The gesture was probably meant to be flirtatious in someway, but it only succeeded in making him look even more like a little boy.
“I’m going go check out the level,” Jack explained, shooting me an apologetic smile as Milo pulled himaway.
“That’s okay,” I smiled back at him.
Once they were gone, I took a deep breath. This is my life, and it’s not the end of the world.
Things are weird, but Milo’s still Milo, Jack’s still Jack, and pretty soon we’ll have this all sorted out. Soon. That’s what I’ve gotta believe.
“Why are you hiding in here?” Mae wondered, walking into the entryway to claim me. “I saw the boys go in the living room with those stupid games, and I couldn’t believe they’d just left you stranded here.”
“I wasn’t really stranded.” But she was already looping her arm through mine, and much like Milo had pulled Jack, she was leading me on through the house.
“You know, Jack and Milo aren’t the only ones that miss seeing you.” She’d apparently forgotten our girls’ night only the evening before. “It’s just so strange not having you around all the time.”
“At least you don’t have to make so much food,” I suggested helpfully, and she laughed loudly.
“I know I’m a horrible cook, but I still love baking!” Mae insisted happily.
I expected her to take me into the living room, where she would harass the boys until they quit playing video games and socialized with us. That was her usual tactic in situations like this, but instead, she took me past the living room and down the hallway, to Ezra’s den at the far end of the house. I’d seen it before, when she gave me her rapid tour the first time I’d come over, but I’d never actually been inside before.
It was mostly what I’d expected of a rich vampire’s den. The walls were lined with bookcases covered in books and antiquities. The furniture was brown, distressed leather. There was a massive mahogany desk in the center of the room with high end computer equipment on it. On one wall, there was a reproduction of Rembrandt’s The Mill hanging above the sofa. Behind his desk, there was a massive window, revealing the blackened lake behind the house.
Ezra was seated at the desk, staring intently at the flat screen computer monitor. If Mae hadn’t been dragging me in, I never would’ve entered his den. He looked deep in concentration, and I didn’t want to break that. Mae, on the other hand, thought nothing of it.
“Hello, love!” Mae chirped, and Ezra looked up from the screen to smile at us. “And what, pray tell, has your attention so tightly?”
“Nothing of any real importance.” He leaned back in his chair, giving the screen one last wary look, before turning his attention fully to us. “Just a stock tip someone told me to check into. I don’t think its going to be fruitful but…” He shook his head.
“The truth is that Ezra doesn’t care what he’s looking up on the computer as long he’s looking it up,” Mae revealed to me with a bemused smile. “The other day I caught him watching a video of an elephant painting with his trunk.”
“It was an elephant painting!” Ezra insisted, but that only succeeded in making Mae giggle. “Oh.
And I suppose you’ve seen an elephant paint?”
“No, but it’s just a weird thing for you to be interested in,” Mae explained, and I concurred with her entirely.
“Well, its just technology that fascinates me,” Ezra allowed, then rested his eyes on me. “I mean, I can watch an elephant paint live on the internet. That sounds like nothing to you, but when I was a younger man, it would’ve taken months for someone just to tell me the story of it. By the time I’d get around to hear it, it would’ve mutated a hundred times, and the poor animal would’ve been dead for twenty years. I don’t know what you think about me, but this right here - this is magic.”
“You’ll never cease to amaze me, darling.” Mae looked at him with completely adoration. It made me feel uncomfortable just witnessing it, like I was spying on some private moment.
“I should hope not,” Ezra smiled back at her. She left my side and walked over to him, giving him a small but passionate kiss on the lips.
“I never will,” she promised, then turned and started heading out of the room. “Well, I’m sure you two have a lot to talk about.” Before shutting the door behind her, she waggled her fingers at us and then disappeared.
“Mae’s never been one for subtlety,” Ezra sighed, staring back the closed door. I stood awkwardly in front of the desk, waiting for him to tell me what we had to talk about. My heart was racing, certain it was going to be some terrible news. Every time Ezra talked to me, it was bad news. “Go ahead. Have a seat.”
“Okay?” I looked at him questioningly and carefully sat down on the sofa behind me. “There’s something you have to tell me.”
“It’s not something I need to tell you so much as a conversation we need to have.” Ezra moved his chair over slightly, so he wasn’t hiding behind the computer anymore. He leaned back and tried to look relaxed, but he was hesitant to
meet my eyes.
“I think you’re splitting hairs.” For some reason, I had been very tempted to follow that up with
“with all due respect, sir.” Something about the den made him seem even more imposing and patriarchal.
“You’re right.” He exhaled deeply, smiling grimly at me. “Your brother’s turning was quite unexpected.”
“For both of us,” I agreed. “For everyone, really.”
“In the end, I don’t think it’s a bad decision.” He was looking at a spot on the Oriental rug on the floor, thinking of something. “Once everything is sorted out, I think he’ll be a very good fit for the family. And I think it’ll be a wonderful opportunity for you, so you don’t have to split from him. I know how important he is to you.”
“Yes, he is,” I swallowed hard. The ball was going to drop any minute. I could feel it.
“As you’re finding out, new vampires require a lot of time and energy,” Ezra went on. “All of us have spent hours with him, helping him transition as easily as possible. Jack, in particular, has been teaching him, since Milo feels so heavily bonded to him. But the bond itself is nothing to concern yourself with. It will ease with time. It’s just something that’s required in the beginning, much like a baby is bonded with a mother. He couldn’t survive on his own, so he feels compelled to be around Jack.”
“Oh.” That was all I could think to say to that. It made sense, but it wasn’t really new information to me.
“We had a plan for you to turn when you felt that Milo was ready.” He licked his lips, and my heart thudded painfully. “With all that’s been happening, I’m sure you think that Milo will be ready much sooner than you expected. But his turning has changed your plan.”
“What do you mean?” Some part of me was hoping he meant that they had bumped up my plan.
This was how he was going to invite me to turn. But the rest of me knew better.
“Milo needs too much right now, and you’d need just as much if you were to turn,” Ezra explained, his eyes finally looking sadly on mine. “It would be impractical and unfair to both of you to have two very young, very new vampires in the house. On top of that, Jack isn’t that old himself and really wouldn’t be up for the responsibility of siring you both into this. It’s unwise to have so many young vampires in one house.”
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