Flutter mba-3

by Аманда Хокинг

  I was having a dream about this incredible warmth growing inside me. It wasn’t a burning, like a fire, but something different and more wonderful. Like a bright white light spreading out over me, until it became so much I couldn’t stand it, and I opened my eyes. When I woke up, my breath was ragged, but the feeling from the dream hadn’t entirely dissipated. I sat up, and I nearly screamed because someone was standing at the end of my bed, but when I realized who it was, I couldn’t even speak.

  “I didn’t mean to wake you,” Jack said quietly.

  Chapter 22

  I couldn’t breathe. My body was delighted, but it was always thrilled whenever Jack was in my proximity, no matter what else was happening. By the expression on his face, this was not a happy reunion.

  He was pensive and his lips were pressed tightly together. The more alert I became, the more his emotions washed over me, and they were nothing pleasant either. Mostly, he felt nervous and hurt, and I didn’t blame him. After apologizing for waking me, Jack just stood there, arms crossed over his chest and stared at me. I sat up farther in bed and tried to think of something to say, but my mouth refused to work. The past few days I had only been thinking about what I would say to him if he came back, and here he was, and I was speechless.

  “I have to admit, I was a little surprised I didn’t find you in Peter’s room,” Jack said finally.

  His words were cutting, and all the more so because they were from him. He never said things to hurt people, but he wanted to hurt me now. I deserved it, so I couldn’t even muster any ounce of anger. I just wanted to cry and beg forgiveness.

  “I was never with him.” My mouth worked numbly, and my heart hammered in my chest.

  “What happened was a stupid mistake. It didn’t mean anything.”

  “What exactly did happen?” Jack’s normally soft blue eyes were like ice, and they pierced straight through me. He had never looked at me like that, but he had never been so angry with me before.

  “I don’t know.” All the rehearsed speeches I had explaining the kiss completely vanished. I had nothing except a blank expression.

  “You don’t know what happened?” Jack gritted his teeth and took a deep breath. “How do you not know what exactly happened when you kissed Peter? Kissing really isn’t that hard! I know you know how to do it, and you’re really actually good at it! If you’re stuck, I can help you out. I’m sure it started with you putting your lips on his-”

  “No, I know what happened!” I held up my hand. Rubbing my forehead, I exhaled shakily.

  “I just don’t really know why it happened.”

  “Well, maybe if you start telling what exactly happened, I can help with the why,” Jack suggested coldly.

  “We kissed!” I shouted, feeling exasperated already. Getting frustrated with him probably wasn’t helping the situation, but I couldn’t help it. I just wanted to get to the part where I sobbed and apologized, and eventually, he forgave me.

  “Who kissed whom?”

  “I-I don’t know,” I stammered and looked down. I pulled my knees up my chest, and I really just wanted to bury my head in my hands.

  “Really? You have no idea? Just one minute you’re standing there and then next you’re making out with him? That seems pretty spontaneous,” Jack said sarcastically.

  “Nobody was making out.” I couldn’t even look at him. This was much harder than I thought it would be.

  “So… who kissed whom?” Jack repeated, and when I still didn’t answer, he got louder.

  “Alice?”

  “I think… I-I might’ve,” I mumbled and swallowed hard. I could’ve lied but I knew he’d see it on me, and that would just make things worse. I rested my hand on my forehead and leaned on my knees. He had to take a few moments to process what I’d told him, and his hurt was even rawer now. I felt bad enough without having to feel everything that he felt, but I knew I deserved, so I bit my lip and took it.

  “Are you in love with him?” His voice was so low I could barely hear it.

  “God, no!” I shouted fiercely and looked at him. “No! I love you, Jack! And that’s all!” A wayward tear slid down my cheek. I wanted to crawl over to him and kiss him, but I knew he’d push me away. I just didn’t know how else to convey how much I loved him.

  “So why would you kiss him? After everything we’ve been through!” Jack was almost pleading with me now, and it was making me cry.

  “I don’t know! Honestly, Jack! I wish I did!” I wiped at my cheeks. “I was really thirsty, and I was trying to hold off on eating so I could get more self-control. And I just went into his room to talk, to distract myself, and then… I don’t know. We were talking, and then I just… I just kissed him. It was only for a second, and then I stopped it and I said that I couldn’t do it. And I am so sorry, Jack! I am so sorry! If I could take it back I would! I never wanted to do anything to hurt you!”

  “I’ve just been thinking about it over and over in my head.” He rubbed his temples and looked at the ground. His eyes were moist, but he wasn’t crying. “I kept thinking, if you kissed him, could I forgive you?

  And if you slept with him, could I forgive you?”

  “I never slept with him!” I insisted and sat up on my knees.

  “No, I’m just telling you what I was thinking.” He shook his head. “And you know what I realized?

  I’d forgive you of anything!” What he was saying sounded good, but he didn’t feel good. He was completely agonized, and I had done this to him. “I’m not giving you permission, but you could do anything, and I would just forgive you. I couldn’t not.” Jack stared off at nothing, thinking. “I don’t know if you know what that’s like. Even if what you do kills me, I would…” With bated breath, I watched him.

  “You could kill me, Alice,” Jack looked at me seriously. “That’s how much you mean to me.

  As foolish and masochistic as that makes me, you are so much to me that even if it destroys me to be with you, I’ll be with you! And I don’t care why you kissed him or what you did. I don’t even really wanna know. But I am begging you to please never do anything like this again. Because I love you so much, and I am trusting you with far too much, but I don’t know how to be any different! You just… you can’t do this to me anymore, okay? Please?”

  “I promise! I’ll never do anything!” I got up off the bed and ran over to him, unable to contain myself anymore. Putting my hands on his cheeks, I looked into his wounded blue eyes. “I am so sorry. I can never tell you how much it hurts me to know that I did this to you. I never wanted this, and I’ll never, ever do it again. I promise you. I love so much, Jack.”

  “You better,” he whispered.

  Finally, after three long days, he kissed me. I had thought that I had truly lost him, and there was this panicked insistence to the kiss. I wrapped my arms around his neck and held him to me. His mouth was warm and wonderful, and I knew nothing in the world tasted better than he did. My thirst peaked at that, and my heart pounded hungrily in my chest, but I denied it. I just wanted to be with him, physical and present, in the moment. I kissed him so long, my lungs screamed for oxygen, but I ignored them and kissed him some more.

  “Run away with me,” Jack murmured breathlessly. He rested his forehead against mine and knotted his fingers in the thickness of my hair.

  “What?” I asked, thinking I’d misheard him.

  “Run away with me,” he repeated and moved back a little so he could look me in the eyes. “I don’t wanna stay here anymore. Everyone lied to me. Peter is still going after you, and Mae tried to kill me. There’s no reason for me to stay anymore. Let’s run away together.”

  “What about Milo?” My mind scrambled. There was something exciting about the idea of just running off with him, but I couldn’t just pick up and leave like that. Milo hadn’t done anything wrong, and he still needed me. Kind of. Maybe. Not really. But I wasn’t ready to leave him, and on top of that, Jane was here, and she definitely still needed help. “And Jane?”<
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  “Jane?” His brow furrowed. “What about Jane?”

  “She’s here, in Peter’s room.” I had forgotten that Jack hadn’t been around to find out what was going on. “Milo saw her on Halloween, and she was doing really terrible. So we’re helping her out, I guess.”

  “Peter’s room?” Jack looked appalled.

  “Yeah, he’s sleeping in the den. Everyone is playing musical beds,” I waved it away.

  “This is house is too small for this many people,” Jack pointed out. “There are four bedrooms, and currently eight people. And that’s just another reason why we should move out.”

  “Maybe…” I mulled the idea over.

  Running away might be too extravagant for me. I didn’t have a job, and Jack worked with Ezra and

  2Peter. I didn’t want to leave Milo, but I didn’t think that Jack couldn’t support the four of us, since I’d probably have to include Bobby in the equation. Maybe he could, but if we were running away from Peter and Ezra, I wasn’t sure if that meant he’d quit his job too. And since Mae and Ezra were probably about to get divorced, I didn’t feel right about leaving them either. Not mention I was still having issues with bloodlust, ones that could prove potentially fatal to everyone.

  “What are you thinking?” Jack pushed a strand of hair off my forehead. He managed to keep the fear out of his voice, but he couldn’t hide it from me.

  “I don’t care if we leave Peter, but I don’t think I’m ready to leave everyone else,” I admitted.

  “I can’t live with Peter anymore, and I don’t think you should either,” Jack said honestly.

  “And I don’t really want to be around Mae.” I chewed my lip and looked up at him. He’d just come back, and I really didn’t want to lose him again, but I wasn’t ready to sacrifice everything else just to be with him.

  “Okay. How about this? I keep working with Ezra, and we start looking for a place of our own in the Twin Cities area, with room enough for Milo and Bobby to stay with us as often as they want. That way, we’ll still be close to everybody, and Milo can back and forth between the two houses if he wants, but me and you will finally have some privacy.”

  “Okay,” I nodded, even though the idea of it made me nervous. After seeing what Milo did to Bobby and Jonathan did to Jane, I wasn’t so keen on the idea of privacy with Jack. Yes, I really, really, really wanted to do things with him, but I loved him too much to kill him.

  “I have barely slept in three days,” Jack yawned. “And it’s not even noon yet. What do you say we get some sleep?”

  “Sounds good,” I smiled and gave him a quick kiss on the lips.

  He pulled off his tee shirt and shorts, opting to sleep in his boxers, which was fine by me.

  Few people in the world looked as amazing in just their underwear as Jack did. I crawled into bed, and he climbed into after me. He lay on his back so I could curl up in his arms, resting my head on his chest, which was just the way I liked it.

  “I missed you so much,” he said, running his fingers through my hair.

  “Me too.” I squeezed him tightly, then thought of something. “Where did you sleep for the past three days?”

  “Hotel,” Jack chuckled a little. “I just got a room at the Millennium Hotel downtown, and I didn’t leave until like an hour ago. I couldn’t take being away from you anymore, so I came home.”

  “You should’ve came home the first day,” I snuggled up closer to him.

  “I know, but I had some thinking to do,” Jack sighed. “And it worked out okay. I mean, I’m here with you now, aren’t I?”

  “That you are.” I kissed his chest, then lay my head back down.

  Jack must not have been kidding about not getting any sleep, because within seconds, he was sound asleep. I stayed awake longer than him, thinking about all the things he said, and trying to come up with a solution. I had just promised him that I would never hurt him again, but living with Peter might be too great a temptation for me. I couldn’t explain the temptation, but that made it all the more dangerous. If Jack thought it was best to leave, it might actually be. And even if it wasn’t, it was what he wanted, and after everything I’ve put him through, didn’t I owe him that much?

  For some reason, when we got up, nobody seemed that surprised to see Jack. Unlike me, they had all known he was coming back. Jane greeted Jack with a surprising amount of indifference, but that was much the same way he talked to Mae. She tried to rush over to him to apologize, and he did all but push her back.

  Her face crumbled afterwards, but I couldn’t really encourage him to forgive. I knew he would; he just had to do it in his own time.

  Peter, thankfully, had stepped out for the evening, but nobody really knew where. I suspect that he had known Jack was around and decided to disappear before things got ugly. Jack almost immediately took Ezra back to the den so they could “discuss” things in a very mysterious fashion. It was probably just business talk and things about moving out, but apparently, Jack didn’t want everybody else to know of his intentions just yet.

  Mae quickly got over being snubbed by Jack because she had Jane to distract her. In the dining room, she had thrown down a giant towel on the floor and set up some kind of impromptu hair salon. She was the one who cut everyone’s hair generally, but when she does Jack’s hair, he had just sat on the toilet in the bathroom and she trimmed it up. His hair grows so fast, he needs it trimmed about every other week.

  In the kitchen salon, Jane sat in a chair while foil and dye setting in her hair, and she languidly flipped through an issue of Cosmo. Mae must’ve hit the store today and picked up some supplies for her. While waiting on her, Mae was busy cutting Milo’s hair. Jane talked amicably with Mae, and for the first time in weeks, Mae seemed to brighten up. Somehow, a discussion about lip-gloss had done what the rest of us couldn’t.

  “Would you like a haircut too, love?” Mae smiled up at me over the top of Milo’s head. Her own hair was clean and pulled back neatly. Jane made some comment about shoes, and Mae laughed, her eyes sparkling. “What do you say, Alice?”

  “Um… no, I’m good,” I said.

  “Girls’ shoes are so much better than boys’ shoes,” Milo lamented. He lifted his head to steal a glance at Jane’s magazine, but Mae gently pushed his head back down so she could trim his hair.

  “At least you don’t have to wear heals,” Jane scoffed. “I mean, they may look fantastic, but they kill to walk in. They’re like little feet torture chambers.” Mae laughed again, the second time in like two minutes.

  Taking in the scene in front of me, it finally occurred to me what was happening. Mae did love taking care of people more than anything else, but she had a daughter, and a granddaughter, and a sick greatgranddaughter, but all she ever took care of were boys. Peter and Ezra needed nothing from her at all, and Jack wasn’t exactly a tough guy or a man’s man, but he was still a boy. When I came around, she had been so thrilled because she thought she’d finally have a girl to pal around, but I spent most days lounging around in jeans. Jack was back, so I was trying to look extra pretty today, and I had still gone for jeans with a low-cut fancy green top. Maybe that was why Mae had bonded so much more with Milo than she did with me. He was probably more feminine, and in a weird way, needier than me, even though he was also far more selfsufficient.

  Enter Jane, the walking Barbie doll. All clothes, boys, fashion, and a constant need for attention, that was probably the exact thing Mae needed. I’m not sure if this solved Mae’s crisis over what to do about her terminal great-granddaughter, but it lifted her spirits for a while. For her part, Mae seemed to be making a massive improvement on Jane as well. She had already put on some weight, not enough for Jane to complain, but enough where she could almost pass for someone that wasn’t anorexic. Her color had greatly improved, and in no time, she’d have that golden tan she paid a fortune for. The wound on her neck had healed, but there was still a mangled scar. Vampire bites usually don’t leave scars or marks of any kind, but
if the tissue is damaged often, it’s going to scar. Needles don’t usually leave scars either, but on junkies, the areas around their arteries tend to be scarred up and pretty destroyed. Eventually, her father would probably have to pay for some cosmetic surgery to fix that, but for now, even she wasn’t whining about it.

  I felt a little left out watching the three of them laugh and titter about boys and clothes, but I also felt too weirded out to join in. Mae and Jane getting along I could understand, but I had never imagined that Milo and Jane could really enjoy each other. It was like the lion lying down with the lamb. Also, one of the positive side effects from Jane spending so much time in the company of vampires was that she had grown more immune to the charms of our pheromones. She wasn’t tripping over herself to be with Milo or Jack or Ezra the way she would’ve been before, although she did seem to be nursing a pretty big crush on Peter.

  I moved onto the living room to wait out Jack’s discussion with Ezra. After being away from him for the past few days, I could hardly stand being down the hall from him. Bobby sat crosslegged in the middle of the living room with a sketch pad on his lap staring at up the television intently. This would be the first time I had actually seen anyone watching the brand new flat screen, other than the dog. Instead of watching some action packed blockbuster that got the most out of the HD, Bobby had the TV on CNN. I assumed he was trying to seem smarter in someway since he had on thick black glasses that I had never seen him wear before.

  On close inspection, I realized that he had a fairly nasty black eye from the fight the other day, and he was trying to mask it with fashion glasses and side bangs. There was another smaller bruise on his chin, but the worst of them were probably hidden under his shirt on his chest and abdomen.

  “What are you watching?” I flopped back on the couch. The news wasn’t my favorite thing, but it had to be better than watching the re-imagining of Steel Magnolias going on in the dining room.