My Blood Approves (4 page)

“
This doesn’t make any
sense,” I said, but I was already relenting. “Why can’t you just
tell me things?”

“
I can’t tell you why I
can’t tell!” He said it like it meant something, like I would go,
oh yeah, I get it now.

“
This is gonna frustrate me
to no end.” I was sulking, but that only made him smile.

“
I know.” He was still
smiling, but he sounded regretful. “I’ll drop you off and then you
can take some time to think about things and decide if hanging out
with me seems worth it. And then, if you still wanna hang out, you
can text me. Okay?”

“
Okay.” I tried to sound as
dejected and pouty as possible, hoping that would change his mind
somehow and he would divulge all his classified information to
me.

He only laughed again, and I got out of his
car and went into my apartment.

After a brief interrogation from Milo, I
laid awake in my bed for hours, running a million different
theories about Jack. Weird government experiment? CIA? Werewolf?
Nothing really seemed to fit.

My most promising one was
that he was a celebrity of some kind pulling some ridiculous
Hannah Montana
lifestyle. That would explain why everyone noticed him. And
if he was going for some kind of secret hidden identity, then he
couldn’t tell me.

That still didn’t explain why everyone else
would recognize him but me, or why he’d want to live incognito. But
at least it was a theory.

Since I had been up until the wee hours of
the morning trying to figure Jack out, and I didn’t have school, I
fully intended to spend the entire day sleeping, curled up in the
soft comfort of my down blankets.

Unfortunately, my Jane embargo fell through.
Or rather, burst through my bedroom door, destroying any chance of
sleep.

“
What the hell is going
on?” Jane hissed after she’d thrown open my bedroom door so hard
that the knob left a mark in the plaster.

I jumped up, tangled up in a mass of
blankets and sleep induced confusion. I could barely focus my eyes
on the blurry vision of Jane, standing in my doorway, with her
hands on her hips glaring down at me.

Milo cowered behind her, muttering things
about how she needed to keep it down or Mom would completely freak
out. Whenever Jane was around, he acted like a puppy about to pee
on the floor, and it drove me nuts.

“
What are you talking
about?” I asked groggily. I flopped back down in bed, trying to
remember the dream Jane had ripped me from.

“
You know what.” Her lips
curled back into some kind of sneer and she stepped her Jimmy Choos
over my dirty clothes strewn about my room.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the
alarm clock telling me it was 11:13 am, and I grimaced. It wasn’t
even noon yet, and Jane was in heels and red lipstick.

“
I really don’t,” I yawned
and pulled the covers up over me more.

“
Why haven’t you answered
my zillions of text messages or phone calls?” Jane yanked my covers
off me, forcing me to talk to her.

“
Because there were
zillions of them,” I said and grudgingly sat up.

“
Ugh,” Jane groaned. She
sat down next to me in a terrific huff. “There wouldn’t have been
so many if you just answered me.”

“
Sorry.”

“
Well?” Jane looked at
me.

Her expression had softened, so she’d
apparently forgiven me, which was pretty amazing. Jane’s one
Cardinal Sin was ignoring her, and I had managed to for almost two
days.

“
What?” I didn’t really
know what she was trying to get at. Was I supposed to thank her or
something?

“
Have you
talked to
him
?”
she asked, and I rolled my eyes.

“
Him who?” Milo visibly
puffed up at the mention of a guy, preparing himself to defend my
honor.

Milo was the kid at school that got shoved
into lockers, and he was younger than me. I don’t know who exactly
he could protect me from, but it would be a pretty sorry excuse for
a guy.

“
Jack!” Jane answered him
like it should be completely obvious. When she realized that Milo
had no idea who she was talking about, her mouth fell open. “Oh my
god, Alice! You didn’t tell him about Jack?”

“
I have not, no,” I shook
my head. In fact, I hadn’t planned to tell Milo about Jack until I
had things sorted out better, but thanks to Jane, that would no
longer be an option.

“
How could you not tell
him?” This fact just flabbergasted her. She couldn’t grasp a world
where one didn’t incessantly talk about Jack.

“
I don’t know, Jane,” I
sighed. “It just didn’t come up.”

To be honest, her instant obsession with
Jack was the first thing about him that truly made me nervous. If
he had this affect on her, what was he doing to other people? And
why wasn’t I the same way?

“
Wait,” Milo said as it
dawned on him, and I would’ve cut off my leg to keep him from
completing his thought. “Is Jack the guy you went out with last
night?”

“
You went out with him?”
Jane gasped.

“
We just went to a concert.
It was no big deal.” I kept my tone casual and nonchalant, but I
heard her sharp intake of breath.

“
Who is this guy?” Milo
demanded. Jane’s reaction made him nervous, and he did his best to
look as threatening as he could.

“
Jack is just like the most
amazing guy ever,” Jane said eloquently.

“
He’s just a guy,” I
continued with my ultra-casual voice, and even added a shoulder
shrug for good measure.

“
How can you even say
that?” Jane asked. In her mind, he’d been stacked up with the gods
and should only be gushed about in revered tones normally reserved
for shoes and hand bags.

“
You know what, I just
don’t get it.” I turned to her. “What is it about him that you like
so much?”

“
You’ve got to be
kidding.”

“
I’m not.”

“
But you’ve met him!” Jane
insisted.

“
I know that. I still don’t
get it. You’re crazy about him. You’ve got to be able to articulate
what it is that you’re attracted to.”

“
He’s just…” Jane fumbled
for words. He’d been the only thing on her mind, so why couldn’t
she explain him? “It’s like… There’s just something about him. It’s
completely indescribable. I just want him. More than I’ve ever
wanted anything.”

“
Huh.” That was all I could
think to say.

“
You’re telling me that you
don’t want him?” Jane asked me in total disbelief.

“
No, I don’t,” I said
honestly.

I liked Jack in a really weird way, but not
like Jane. It was much simpler and less carnal. Or at least that’s
what I gathered from the way she talked and acted.

“
Did he say anything about
me?” Jane returned to the only topic that truly mattered to her –
herself.

“
Nope.” I stood up and
started going through my dresser drawers for clothes. The whole
conversation had run its course with me, and I was moving on to
take a shower and start my day.

“
Not a thing?” Her voice
sounded so small and sad, but I ignored it.

“
Nope,” I repeated. “But,
look, I’m gonna hop in the shower. And you’ve probably got better
things to do than wait around for me.”

“
I guess,” Jane
mumbled.

She looked totally dejected, but I figured
that in a few short hours, she’d probably be drunk and dancing
topless on some poor guy’s table. It was kinda hard to feel sorry
for her.

After she finally pulled herself together
and left, Milo questioned me about Jack. It took a little while,
but I managed to convince him that everything was okay.
Reluctantly, he dropped the subject and allowed me to take a
shower.

The hot water felt good on my skin, and I
let my thoughts wander to where I had left off last night.
Something Jane said, about how in love she was with Jack even
though she couldn’t think of a single reason why, stuck in my
head.

That’s when it hit me. Jack, the way I saw
Jack – attractive with a boyish charm – that’s who he really was.
What everyone else saw, like Jane and the waitress at the diner,
they were just responding to something that wasn’t real. The
pheromones or whatever created some kind of illusion.

But maybe I wasn’t immune. Maybe there was
nothing spectacular about Jack at all, but I was just responding to
it on a smaller scale. Maybe I was falling for the same trap Jane
was.

- 4 -

The television channel TNT, in its infinite
wisdom, had a John Hughes marathon running on all day. Milo, who
had never understood the appeal of Molly Ringwald, watched them
with me. He tried to convince me to watch something else, but I was
stronger than him and manhandled the remote.

We 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.

Instead, I found a text message from
Jack.

So. You haven’t texted me.

You’re very
observant.
I responded.

My plan was to try to be indifferent. I
didn’t appreciate the idea that I had probably fallen victim to
some kind of spell or hormonal manipulation.

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 said and
turned his attention back to the movie. My phone rang again, and
Milo made a humph sound.

Excellent. Wanna do
something
? Jack messaged.

What did you have in mind?

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

That sounds pretty
ambitious.
I replied, but it did sound
exciting.

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

Sure. Meet you outside.

In a flash, I touched up my makeup 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.
He grinned wildly when I opened the car door and jumped inside.

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

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

“
Is it new?”

“
Nah, it’s my brother’s,”
Jack said.

Before I could say anything more, he put the
car in gear and it thrust itself 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. “I don’t really worry about money, I guess.” 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.

“
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 are 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 said.
“And a sister. Well, she’s actually my sister-in-law, 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 their names?”
With the endless amount of things I wanted to know about him, I was
stuck asking safe questions.

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