“Oh.” It was strange how one sentence could exhilarate and devastate me.
“Are you in love with Jack?” Ezra’s voice was barely above a whisper, as if he was afraid of someone hearing.
“I don’t know,” I admitted honestly. Tears welled in my eyes and I bit my lip.
“Alice, listen to me very carefully. If you care anything for Jack, you mustn’t act on it.” His deep brown eyes settled on me, conveying the severity of his words. “I’m not trying to frighten you, but… it’s just the way things are, and I am very sorry.”
“It’s alright.” I wiped my palms across my eyes, trying to smear away the tears.
“Are you okay to go in?” Ezra asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I insisted. He waited for me to open the car door and start getting out before he got out. “So, does Mae like me so much cause of the whole blood thing and her being yours and all that?”
“No. Mae loves you because she’s Mae, and that’s what she does.” Ezra smiled brightly me, relieved to talking about a subject he was quite fond of.
Putting his hand on the small of my back, we walked into the house. “Honestly, are we what you envisioned when you thought of vampires?”
“Hardly,” I scoffed, and he laughed heartily.
“You’re home!” Mae exclaimed suddenly, running into the entrance and throwing her arms around me. For the first time ever, Matilda didn’t run and greet us, but then I realized that’s because Jack wasn’t with me. “I was a little afraid we’d scared you off last night.”
“You can never scare me off,” I said into her shoulder. She finally released me and cupped my face in her hands, staring at me as if to make sure I was real.
“Oh you look so tired! Did you sleep at all?” Her eyes had a pained look, so I nodded and forced a smile. “You know what you need, love? A nice warm Jacuzzi. We have a fabulous Jacuzzi tub in our master suite, and I’ll just get some bubbles going and you’ll be as right as rain.”
“How right is rain really?” Jack wondered dryly, and I pulled my head away from hers to look over at him. He was leaning casually against the doorway and smiling crookedly at me. My heart felt elated just at the sight of him. Last night, I had become so positive that he would be dead or gone forever, and I couldn’t contain myself. I rushed over to him and threw my arms tightly around his waist. “Hey, I’m okay, I’m okay.” He gently pushed me off, holding his hands on my shoulder until I was half a foot away from him. “Okay? I’m okay.”
“I was just worried.” I wanted to cry, and I didn’t know why. I blinked rapidly and swallowed hard.
“Yeah, you look like it,” Jack said quietly, his expression softening.
“She just needs a nice warm bubble bath!” Mae exclaimed, wrapping an arm tightly around my waist so she could pull me away from Jack, and it did require some effort on her part. “We have some wonderful lilac bath salts that just melt the tension away.” Mae continued telling me all the amazing features of her tub as she led me away, but I glanced back over my shoulder at Jack.
“You’ve really got to be more careful,” Ezra warned him.
“I didn’t even do anything!” Jack protested, and I wondered dully how this all could possibly work out in the end.
The hot Jacuzzi wasn’t quite as magic as Mae had professed it would be, but it really did help relax me at least. It probably helped that I had the added comfort of knowing that Jack hadn’t done anything ridiculous to himself and that Peter hadn’t fallen off the face of the earth. All of this seemed so bizarre. In a time not so long ago, I hadn’t even known these people, and now it would be impossible to imagine the rest of my life without them, however long that life might end up being.
When I finally pulled myself out of the relaxing waters of the tub, I wrapped myself in one of their insanely soft, gigantic plush towels. To help ease my worries, Mae had filled her bedroom with lilac scented candles, and it was all aglow with candle light. I owned very few candles myself, because I believed that I would most likely end up burning down the entire apartment building, but here, with them, I knew that I was perfectly safe.
Laid out on the white satin bedspread, Mae had left some clothes of hers that I could wear. She had decided on flowered silk pajama pants and a thin blue cotton shirt. Since their house generally ran cold, I put my hoodie on over it, but it almost felt like sacrilege to put on something so ordinary with her extravagance. They lived on a whole other plane from me, in every way possible.
“I’m just saying that you rolled the Jeep.” Ezra’s words wafted warmly down the hall towards me when I opened their bedroom door. “It’s not asking that much that you pay for it.”
“You just want me out of the house more,” Jack grumbled.
“That wouldn’t hurt you either,” Ezra replied gently.
I had made my way down the hall, and they all instantly stopped talking when they saw me. Mae was standing in the kitchen amongst a mass of dishes and food splayed out all over the counter tops. She had white powder on her cheeks and some kind of red sauce dripped all over an elegant white apron. Jack had a stool pulled up to the counter, and I’m sure he fancied himself helping, but I’d imagine that he spent more time playing with the ingredients than helping. As it was, he was juggling a tomato and a lemon when I walked in. Ezra had his back pressed against the wall, leaning gracefully back, like a king surveying his kingdom.
“Oh, you look so much better!” Mae beamed at me. Jack dropped the tomato on the counter and very deliberately looked away from me. “Wasn’t that bath fabulous?”
“Yeah, it was pretty great.” I ran my fingers through my tangles of wet hair, and I could almost see Mae longing to play with it. Walking over to the mess Mae was making, I was careful to keep a distance from Jack. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to make you some kind of comfort food,” Mae smiled grimly at me. “I used to be an amazing cook, I swear! Everyone in my neighborhood loved my cooking!” Jack snorted skeptically, and she reached across the counter to slap him on the arm. “I was! You would’ve been thrilled to eat anything I made!”
“Whatever you say.” Jack leaned back in the stool, moving farther out of arm’s length, in case Mae decided to swat him again.
“It’s just been so long since I’ve cooked anything.” Mae looked sourly at the mess around her, which consisted of everything from cucumbers to pears to pie crusts, and I couldn’t even begin to fathom what she had in mind. “I’ve just forgotten what everything tastes like.”
“I bet you could make a mean blood pudding,” Jack offered, waggling his eyebrows at her.
“I know you’re just being an ass, but I really could.” Her voice took on one of pride and she puffed out her chest again. “I am from England, you know. We invented blood pudding.”
“Really?” I asked, looking up at her, and she, in turn, looked to Ezra for help.
“Maybe. It’s European, definitely, but it has a very Scottish flare to it. That could be just because I’m thinking of haggis, though.” Ezra shrugged.
“Well, you’re no help,” Mae pouted. There was a spoon in a bowl of something red, and she gave it one superficial swirl, then looked apologetically at me. “I don’t think that I’ve made anything that you can actually eat.”
“What about this tomato?” Jack held up the tomato towards me, but I just shook my head.
“I’m okay. I’m not even hungry.”
“Oh!” Mae exclaimed, her eyes glittering. “Your brother is a cook, isn’t he?”
“Not professionally, but yeah, he’s really good,” I told her hesitatingly. I liked Milo and all, but there was too much going on over here, and I didn’t really want him to come over. At least not tonight.
“Oh fantastic! And I’m sure he knows all of your favorite recipes!” She was overflowing her own genius, and I didn’t really want to burst her bubble. “Here.
Why don’t you just give me his phone number and I’ll give him a call. Oh, what time is it? It’s not too late is it?” She glanced around for a clock, and it was only a quarter to nine. “He’s still awake, isn’t he?”
“He should be.” There was no real way of knowing with him, though, especially on a school night.
Mae whipped her phone out of her pocket, and I gave her his number.
When she dialed the number, I had never seen anyone look quite so excited for someone to answer the phone.
“Oh, Milo!” Mae was smiling so wide, it looked almost painful. “I’m so glad you answered! Oh, I didn’t wake you, did I? I’m sorry, love. I don’t want to disturb you.” He must’ve answered with something positive, because she laughed lightly, and continued on about making me the perfect meal to make me feel better.
“I’m really not very hungry.” I had lowered my voice considerably, just in case Mae might hear, but she was talking very animatedly to Milo and swooping around the kitchen, gathering pots and pans and whatever she thought she’d needed. “Why do you guys have pots and pans anyway?”
“It makes us look more normal.” Jack rolled his shoulders, like he didn’t think it really mattered that much. “I mean, we don’t really need kitchens, and in a household of four people, we have seven bathrooms.”
“Bathrooms add resale value!” From Ezra’s tone, I gathered that this wasn’t the first time they’d had this argument. “We’re not going to live here for that long, so its best if we get our money’s worth.”