“You’ll get the hang of it. It just takes time,” Jack assured me. His concern made me feel even guiltier, so I walked back away from him and sat on the bed. The distance helped some.
“How come Milo got the hang of it so quickly?” I asked.
“It just depends on the person, I guess,” Jack shrugged and turned back to the mirror. “It took me way, way longer than it took him, but I’m a slower learner, apparently.”
Jack kept practicing his knots, and while he eventually managed something that looked semiprofessional, he never got it down the way he would’ve liked. I sat on the bed, watching Shark Week and chatting with him, but the night seemed to end too quickly. I was not ready for him to go when he started yawning, but he’d insist he’d seem very soon, when we went to the zoo.
Even though I’d just eaten, I made sure to eat again before I went to bed. If I was going to spend the afternoon people, I wanted to be prepared. I was randomly really excited about going to the zoo, so I woke up early and got ready. Jack got up around the same time as I did, so he got ready in the downstairs bathroom.
He came up to check on me just as I was pulling on my shoes.
“Ready?” Jack grinned at me.
“Always. Are you sure you are?” I eyed up his outfit, which was his standard uniform.
Shorts, twotoned neon Converse, and a Boba Fett tee shirt.
“What’s wrong with this?” Jack glanced down at his clothes.
“Nothing, except it’s the end of October, and it’s like fifty degrees and we’re going to be outside. Plus, the sun is out,” I explained. I had chosen jeans, a long sleeve shirt, and a fashionable scarf that I had looked around my neck. Even though we enjoyed the cold, people didn’t, and we were supposed to look like people.
“I’ll be fine, and it’s not that cold,” Jack shrugged. “Come on. Let’s go. I wanna see the otters before it gets too dark.”
The sun wouldn’t be out for much longer, but I couldn’t stand being in it for that long anyhow. But if we were going to the zoo, there were a few animals that Jack wanted to see while we had the chance. He was telling me about how he refused to compromise on the prairie dogs as we descended the stairs, but then I saw Peter and completely tuned out. My heart probably completely stopped beating, so Jack stopped talking and looked at me.
It might seem pretty weird that I lived in the same house as Peter, directly across the hall, but I had managed to avoid seeing him since we kissed. The reason for that is that I hadn’t left Jack’s room. I had been purposely avoiding Peter, and that was part of my reasoning behind the zoo trip too.
Unfortunately, when we descended the steps into the living room, Peter happened to be standing right there. He wasn’t looking at us, but my initial reaction was to panic anyway.
“Something wrong?” Jack asked, touching my arm.
“No, I’m fine,” I shook my head and hurriedly pushed my feelings away.
Ezra was hanging a new giant flat screen TV on the wall, and Peter and Bobby were supervising in some way. I’m not sure what was wrong with the old flatscreen, although I would lean towards nothing. Peter stood a few feet back from where Ezra was holding the TV up, and Bobby was sprawled out on the couch, popping some of the bubble-wrap that had come with the new television. The cardboard box was on the floor by his feet, along with the “old” TV.
“What’s going on?” I asked, even though I didn’t really want to say anything. I wanted to rush out of the room before Peter had a chance to look at me or Jack, but that would be abnormal behavior for me.
Damn me and my irritating need to know everything all the time.
“Ezra bought a new TV,” Bobby answered, watching as Ezra handled a TV that would be too big and too heavy for any one man to deal with alone.
“Is it straight?” Ezra was still holding onto the bottom of it, but he took a bit of a step back to look at it. “It better be since I have all the wires hooked up already.”
“Yeah, it’s straight,” Peter said, and just hearing his voice my pulse change.
“What was wrong with the old TV?” I asked, trying to distract myself.
“Nothing.” Ezra stepped back further into the room so he could admire his handy work.
“Jack and I just went to Best Buy this morning, and this TV has way better technology than the last one.”
“You went to Best Buy?” I cocked an eyebrow at Jack. “How early did you get up?”
“Early enough,” Jack shrugged. “Ezra was going to the store and asked if I wanted to come with, and like I would pass up a trip to buy new electronics?”
“I don’t see how this TV is any different than the one we had before,” Peter said, echoing my thoughts exactly. “It isn’t even bigger, is it?”
“It’s not about being bigger!” Jack exclaimed and walked away from me, closer to the TV so he could explain all the merits of it. His lingo instantly got technical, which was silly since Peter probably knew less about technology than I did. Ezra and Jack were the ones that were obsessed with all things new and electric.
“It just looks like a television to me,” Peter replied dismally when Jack got done explaining how awesome said television was. Jack scoffed loudly, and this time, even Ezra started to defend his purchase. At that point, they were mostly talking to themselves, and Peter looked back at me. Just briefly, and I looked away almost instantly, but his eyes still caught me. It shouldn’t even be possible for eyes to be that green, and I shouldn’t be thinking about how stunningly attractive they were.
At least he was playing it cool far better than I was. If Jack and Ezra weren’t so damn excited about their new gadget, I’m sure they would’ve noticed how frazzled I was acting. When I looked away from Peter, he went over to them to pretend to be interested in it. Bobby was still sitting in the chair, swinging his feet off the edge, and he looked far more entertained by the bubble wrap than he did the TV. That’s when I realized that Milo was missing, which was strange, because he loved this kind of thing. He should be in here gushing all over this thing like everyone else.
“Where’s Milo?” I asked Bobby, since nobody else would listen to me unless I used the words “HD” or “plasma.”
“Helping Mae with the laundry,” Bobby answered absently and popped another bubble.
I was a little tempted to steal the bubble wrap from him, but I had my chance to escape, so I took it.
Jack wouldn’t be ready to go for at least another ten or fifteen minutes, and I’d rather spend that time waiting somewhere Peter wasn’t. It was going to be impossible for me to not be awkward around him, and it sure didn’t help things that Jack was trying to buddy up to him again. At least Jack was too distracted talking to him to notice me slipping away.
Down the hall, between the den and the main bathroom, there was a laundry room. They had two sets of super powered washers and dryers. They had just bought the second set about the time I moved in. There were seven people living in the house now, and that amounted to a lot of laundry. Mae almost always did all the laundry. I tried to do mine and Jack’s, or at the very least my own, but she somehow always got to it before I did. She was magic that way. The laundry room had several racks with hangers.
Most of Jack’s overflow clothes ended up down here so I took over his closet. His suits were hanging in plastic bags, all neatly pressed and dry cleaned by Mae, and they stayed down here to keep them from getting smooshed and wrinkled in our closet. The room was filled with clean scent of clothes, but I could still smell us on them, especially Jack. No matter how times they were washed, clothes managed to maintain some of their owner’s smell, and I tried to ignore how much his clothes made me miss him.
In one wall were the machines themselves, one set dark blue, and the other a weird orange.
Apparently, the days of ordinary white machines were gone. Milo was sitting on one of the washing machines, watching as Mae pulled out towels of the dryer and folded them. I’m sure he had offered to help, but she would absolutely refuse. She thought it was her duty to do everything for us that she possibly could. Milo was dressed and looked good, except he’d started painting his toenails apparently, and I blamed Bobby for that entirely. Mae, on the other hand, was still in her pajamas, and I didn’t think I’d seen in her in real clothes in days. Her hair up, but it was more of a rat’s nest than a bun, and I’m not exactly sure when she showered last.
When I walked in the room, Milo gave me a wary look, and Mae barely glanced back at me.
She was pale with dark circles under eyes, and her face looked puffy.
“How’s it going?” I asked, trying for casual instead of concerned.
“I’m going to have to buy new towels,” Mae said. The usual warmth of her British accent sounded stogy and commandeering today. I guess that was better than tired and sobbing, so I counted it as a plus.
“You all leave the towels in your room for so long they smell of mildew, and I just can’t get it out.”
“Sorry. I’m working on it,” I said. It was probably entirely mine and Jack’s fault. We were the messiest ones in the house, unless Bobby turned out to be inordinately messy.
“I didn’t say it was your fault,” Mae was nearly snapping at me, and she was folding towels in an angry huff. This is gonna sound weird and pathological, but I’m pretty sure that Mae actually loves doing laundry.
She claims she does, and I’ve seen her folding and washing things. It’s like meditation for her. I think it’s because it’s something simple and immediate, and it’s a way that she can care for her family.
That’s all she’s ever wanted to do, and it’s about the only area she can take care of us since she can’t cook for us or tuck us in or anything. At any rate, this was not how she normally did laundry.