My Blood Approves (11 page)

This room had been styled much closer to the
rest of the house, with wood floors, and a four-poster bed made
with white linens. There was a large white rug in the center of the
room, and the French doors leading out to the balcony were open,
letting the cool breeze ruffle the thick curtains.

Books lined the walls, and someone sat in
the white chair in the corner. An aged copy of a German book
covered his face from me, but just the sound of his voice had
already mesmerized me. He wore faded jeans and a close fitting
sweater.

His slender fingers were deeply tanned, but
they seemed to be gripping the book unnaturally tight. I wondered
if I was irritating him in some way, so I took a step back, trying
to sneak out of his room, but I bumped right into Mae.

“
Alice, this is Peter.
Peter, this is Alice,” Mae introduced us. Maybe it was just my
imagination, but her voice seemed to have filled with a sense of
self-satisfaction. He grunted something but didn’t lower the book.
“Jack told you that she’d be coming over tonight.”

“
I remember.” Peter
definitely sounded annoyed, so I tried to edge my way out of the
room, but Mae, who either chose to ignore or didn’t notice his
growing irritation, blocked my path.

“
You could at least say hi
to our guest.” Mae reprimanded him, but her tone was playful. “It’s
the polite thing to do.”

“
Hello,” Peter sighed and
finally lowered his book.

At first, I could only see his eyes. They
were an intoxicating shade of green and captivated me. His thick,
chestnut hair landed just above his shoulders, and he tucked it
behind his ears. His jaw had tightened, strong on his features.

He breathed in sharply, and his lips parted.
It wasn’t his intention, but there was something so seductive about
that. He was stunningly perfect in a way that made him almost
painful to look at.

“
Aha!” Mae exclaimed
quietly behind me, but I was too preoccupied with Peter to figure
out what she meant.

“
Shouldn’t you continue
your little tour?” Peter asked icily, and his eyes dropped from
mine.

I suddenly remembered to breathe and tried
not to gulp down air the way my lungs requested. My heart pounded
wildly, and I felt the blood burning my cheeks.

“
I think we’ve seen all the
main points,” Mae looped her arm through mine, and the combination
of her soft voice and reassuring touch calmed me down. “Would you
care to join us, Peter?”

“
I’ve seen the house.” He
lifted the book again, hiding his exquisite features from
me.

“
Peter’s always a grump,”
Mae explained, but she sounded a tad disappointed when she started
leading me away from Peter’s room. “Come on, love. There’s still
more for us to see.”

“
Well?” Jack appeared at
the bottom stairs, looking up expectantly at us. There was
something anxious and almost protective about him. Mae and I walked
slowly down towards him, and I couldn’t meet his gaze, afraid he
would see what a fool I had myself of over his brother.

“
Well what?” I asked,
feeling dazed.

“
What do you think?” He
waited until I was at the bottom of the stairs, then I felt him
inspecting me. The dog came over and licked my hand, and I absently
started petting her.

“
The house is amazing.” I
tried to force a smile to prove how spectacular I thought
everything was, and I hated that that sudden random confrontation
with his brother had distracted me from all my other pleasant
feelings about the house and Mae.

“
Peter’s upstairs being a
crab,” Mae told Jack dramatically.

“
Oh,” Jack replied
knowingly and exchanged a look with Mae that I couldn’t read. She
just bit her lip and shrugged, then hugged me a little tighter.
“Peter is such a jackass.”

“
Oh, he is not.” Mae had
taken to stroking my hair gently, and that alleviated some of my
tension and shame.

“
Peter!” Jack shouted up at
the stairs at him.

“
I am reading a book!”
Peter growled down.

“
Peter!” Jack shouted
again, growing more irritated.

“
I am reading, Jack!” Peter
responded, and I winced at the anger in his words.

“
Jack.” Mae shot him a
look. “Let him be.”

“
Whatever.” He relented,
but he didn’t look happy about it. Then he turned his attention to
me and smiled. “So, Alice, wanna have some fun?”

“
Sure?” I replied
hesitantly. His eyes had a mischievous glint, and I hadn’t decided
whether or not I should trust it.

“
Hot tub!”

“
I don’t have a suit.” This
was true, but I was sure they would have a solution for it. I had a
feeling that Mae and Jack would have a solution for nearly
everything.

“
Oh, I have the perfect one
for you!” Mae smiled, her earlier excitement returning.

She ushered me down the hall towards her
room. We went into Mae’s room, where Jack proceeded to flop back on
the overstuffed bed. She opened the doors to her closet, and it was
larger than my entire bedroom. She started searching through her
multitudes of bathing suits, making me nervous.

Once she found one she liked (a pale blue
two piece with a ruffled skirt around the bottoms), she insisted
that I go into their adjoining bathroom to try it on. It fit, and
it was more flattering then I had expected it to be, but it also
felt incredibly revealing.

When I came out, she gushed over how amazing
I looked. I might’ve believed her if she hadn’t already changed
into her own bikini in the closest, and I looked like nothing
compared to her. Jack didn’t say anything, but the approving way he
looked at me made me blush.

Jack was a typical guy and decided that
wearing just his black boxers would suffice. I took a moment to
admire the perfection of Jack shirtless, but I did it as discreetly
as possible.

We went outside through the French doors,
and the cold stung. Mae and Jack didn’t appear to notice it, but
that didn’t surprise me.

I climbed into the hot tub. The way it
instantly warmed my entire body reminded me of the way that I had
felt when I looked at Peter. Then I remembered the ice in his voice
and tried to push thoughts of him out of my mind.

We spent quite a bit of time in the hot tub,
and when I finally let myself relax and enjoy it, I did. Matilda
lay sprawled on the patio next to us, and Jack tried to splash her
until Mae made him stop.

I just sunk in the water, trying to forget
all the stuff about Jack that didn’t make sense, and the fact that
my brother hated me, and Peter’s piercing green eyes.

“
It’s getting late,” Mae
announced and looked sadly at me. “I really enjoyed having you
over, and I do hope you come again. But you probably should get
home before it’s too late.”

“
It’s never too late,” Jack
grumbled, dipping his head back under the water as if that could
block out the truth in her statement.

“
No, she’s right.” Using
most of my strength, I pushed myself from the warm, comfort of the
tub and felt the frigid air on my skin. “Oh my gosh, it’s
freezing!”

“
I brought out towels,” Mae
gestured to a pile of plush white towels lying on a nearby chair,
and I rushed over to them.

When I picked up a towel, I happened to
glance up, and I saw Peter standing inside the kitchen, staring
through the French doors at me. The towel had unrolled in front of
me, but I just stood there, holding it, unable to actually start
drying myself. The cold was painful, but Peter had captivated
me.

One of his arms folded across his chest,
while his hand rested on his chin. His brilliant green eyes were
giving me a look that could kill, and my heart felt eager to
please, so it completely stopped beating. It might have stopped
forever if Mae hadn’t interrupted and pulled me from the trance
he’d put me in.

“
Peter! Would you care to
join us?” Mae called at him. Still glaring at me, he shook his
head, then turned on his heels and stalked off. “Don’t mind him,
Alice. He’s really not so bad.”

“
It’s okay,” I lied, then
suddenly started feeling the cold again and wrapped the towel
around myself.

“
You make him nervous,”
Jack whispered, suddenly standing directly behind me.

“
Why?” I asked
numbly.

It didn’t make any sense that I could make
someone as composed and perfect as Peter nervous. I was
inconsequential in every way. Naturally, Jack didn’t answer me. He
just shrugged and walked into the house.

“
Hurry up before you freeze
to death!” Jack yelled, and I rushed in after him.

By the time I had gotten dressed, Jack was
waiting by the door for me. He twirled the car keys on his hands
and whistled a song that sounded suspiciously like “Walking on
Sunshine.”

At the door, Mae hugged me tightly and
reminded me that I had to come visit her soon. Looking rather
pained, she apologized for Peter’s behavior, and I wondered what he
had done that had offended them so much.

“
Which car are we taking?”
I had followed Jack out into the garage, but he looked like he was
walking all the way down to the other end, so I already knew what
it was.

“
The Lamborghini, of
course.”

“
How do you decide which
car you’re going to take?” Now, with a million other questions
burning in my mind, this was the only question I wasn’t afraid to
ask.

“
I only take this when
Ezra’s gone,” he explained sheepishly as he hopped in the driver’s
seat. When I got on, he started it and adjusted the stereo. “He
thinks it’s too flashy. And my Jeep is fun but it’s not as fast, so
I usually just take Mae’s Jetta. The Lexus is Ezra’s ‘every day’
car and the Audi is Peter’s.”

“
If you like the car so
much, why didn’t you just get one?” I asked as Jack backed out of
the garage.

“
Ezra says we don’t need to
stand out that much.”

“
Well, then why did he even
bother buying this car? And you live in a house shaped like a
castle and he drives a Lexus. How is any of that inconspicuous?” I
looked at him skeptically, and he grinned at me.

“
Exactly!” He pulled out of
the driveway and sped down the road. I leaned back in the seat and
closed my eyes, trying to take in everything that had happened.
When Jack spoke again, his tone had gotten somber. “So, what did
you think of my family?”

“
I liked them. Mae is very
nice, and your house is stunning.” I kept my eyes closed and
listened to the Joy Division cover playing on the radio. It
reminded me of Gary Jules, but I knew that wasn’t it. “Who is
this?”

“
Honeyroot doing ‘Love Will
Tear Us Apart,’” Jack answered, and without missing a beat,
returned to the topic. “So you had a good time then?”

“
I did.” Mostly. Except for
the parts when Peter sucked all the air my from lungs and I wanted
to die.

“
You’re awfully quiet. I’d
been expecting a million questions from you.”

“
Oh, I have them,” I
reassured him. “Is Mae from England?” Jack laughed, and I turned to
look at him. “What? Was I way off?”

“
No, it’s just… that’s the
question you ask?” He shook his head, smiling. “That’s like the
most normal thing you could possibly ask. I just wasn’t expecting
it.”

“
What were you expecting me
to ask?” I raised an eyebrow, trying to figure out what part of the
night he thought I’d find the most odd.

“
Yeah, she’s from England.”
He once again hedged my question.

“
They’re like you, aren’t
they?” I asked, watching him carefully.

“
Nobody’s like me,” Jack
replied flippantly. “I’m a one in a million, baby!”

“
Jack, you know what I
mean.”

“
I do,” he sighed. His
expression got pained, and he was almost pleading with me. “You
liked them and you had a good time. Can’t we just leave it at
that?”

“
Why did you want me to
meet them?”

Meeting them had made him more vulnerable
and more susceptible to my questions. I don’t know how it benefited
him. Mae had wanted to meet me, I’m sure, but he could’ve put that
off.

“
That is way too
complicated for me to answer right now,” Jack said
simply.

“
When will things stop
being so complicated?” I had started whining a little, but I’d had
a long day, so I thought I had earned the right to whine just a
bit.

“
That’s probably the best
question you’ve ever asked me.” Jack sounded very far away and
rather sad, so I knew the answer wouldn’t be anything I’d want to
hear anyway. For once, I was grateful for his silence. After a very
pregnant pause, he exhaled deeply. “I feel drawn to
you.”

“
That’s why things are
complicated?” I sat up straighter in my seat, eager to hear what
sounded like a legitimate answer.

“
No. Well, kinda, but
that’s not what I meant.” He glanced over at me, and then returned
his gaze to the road. “That’s why I wanted you to meet my
family.”

“
So was that like me
meeting your parents?” I crinkled my nose. “Like we’re
dating?”