My Blood Approves (2 page)

Outside in the bright glow of the
streetlights, I looked him over again. He had on pair of Dickies
shorts, skater socks, and light blue Converse, along with the pink
tee shirt. He more closely resembled cotton candy than he did a
love interest for Jane.

“
Oh crap,” I said after I’d
gotten out of the car, and looked down at my dirty, bare feet.
Blisters and oil covered them, and I couldn’t imagine cramming my
swollen feet back into Jane’s shoes.

“
What?” Jack asked, and
then followed my gaze down. “Oh. Just don’t wear shoes.”

“
I can’t not wear shoes.” I
didn’t see much of another option, but I couldn’t go into a
restaurant without shoes.

“
You can wait in the car,”
Jane offered up with a smug smile and leaned in closer to Jack, so
he pulled his arm free from her and took a step away. She looked a
little defeated, but I knew she wouldn’t give up that
easy.

“
No, you’ll be fine,” Jack
insisted. “If they hassle you, I’ll take care of them.”

“
What does that even mean?”
I asked, but he’d already convinced me. After all, I’d seen the way
he chased a gang of unruly guys. The graveyard shift at a Denny’s
rip-off wouldn’t stand a chance.

As predicted, nobody noticed my lack of
footwear. In fact, nobody noticed me, or even Jane. The waitress
kept her eyes completely focused on Jack.

He sat down first, and Jane squished up next
to him, so he kept moving over until he was plastered up against
the window. I sat down across from them, and Jack rested his arms
on the table, leaning towards me.

“
What can I get you?” the
waitress asked.

“
Just coffee,” Jack
answered. “Or did you guys want something else?”

“
Coffee’s fine,” I said. I
was a little hungry, but I felt uncomfortable eating in front of
him and Jane.

“
Are you sure you’re not
hungry?” Jane asked, running her fingers on his arm, but this time,
he actually recoiled from her touch.

“
Nope,” Jack sighed, then
muttered under his breath, “but I wish I was.”

“
What?” the waitress asked,
leaning in closer to hear him.

“
Nothing.” Jack smiled at
her. “Just the coffee.”

“
Thanks,” I told the
waitress when she lingered at our table, and she left to get our
order.

“
Thanks again for saving
us.” Jane pressed herself against him. “If there’s anything I can
do to repay you, just let me know.” There was definitely something
strange going on, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

His skin was beach bum tanned, unnatural for
people in Minnesota in March. His eyes were a weird blue-gray
color, and there was something tremendously boyish about them,
about him really, but otherwise, nothing seemed to stand out as
overly attractive.

“
Are you famous or
something?” I blurted out, and Jane looked embarrassed enough for
both of us so I didn’t bother blushing.

“
What do you mean?” He
sounded confused.

“
Everyone’s staring at us.
At you,” I corrected myself.

Jack just shrugged and looked down at the
table but didn’t bother checking to see if I was right.

“
I’m not famous,” Jack
said. He looked like he wanted to explain things more, but then the
waitress appeared with three mugs and a pitcher of
coffee.

“
Is there anything else I
can get you?” the waitress asked.

“
We’re fine, thanks,” Jane
snapped, putting her hand possessively on Jack’s thigh until the
waitress left.

“
Come on. What’s going on?”
I rested my arms on the table and leaned in closer to him because
I’d lowered my voice.

“
I don’t have an answer for
it.” Jack picked up the pitcher of coffee and poured a cup for
himself and me, and then filled Jane’s too. “Do you take cream or
sugar in yours?”

“
Both.”

I was perfectly capable of doing it myself,
but I think he wanted to occupy himself so I would be less likely
to notice him hedging the question. He dumped a creamer and two
packets of sugar in my coffee, and stirred a creamer in his, then
settled back in the booth.

“
I take cream and sugar
too,” Jane added, and Jack pushed the bowl of creamers and sugar
towards her.

“
So you’re not famous?” I
refused to let it go without a direct answer.

“
I can assure you that I’m
not famous,” Jack smiled. This one thing I would say about him; he
had to have one of the greatest smiles of all time.

“
You just look so familiar
to me,” I said.

“
I know, right?” He gave me
a perplexed look that mirrored my own.

“
So do I know you from
somewhere?” As soon as I said that, I knew that wasn’t exactly it
either. I could almost guarantee that I’d never seen him before,
but there was something undeniably familiar about him.

“
That’s not possible,” he
shook his head.

“
How is it not possible?” I
asked. “Did you just move here or something?”

“
It’s complicated.” He
touched his coffee cup and made like he was going to drink it, but
he never even lifted it off the table.

Jane resigned herself to drinking her coffee
and watching us talk. She finished one cup and poured herself
another.

“
How is it
complicated?”

“
It just is.” Jack flashed
me another one of his amazing smiles.

Somehow, he managed to look very young, like
he was fifteen, while simultaneously looking older than me. It was
something about his eyes. They were very young and very old, at the
same time.

“
How old are you?” I asked
pointedly.

To my surprise, Jack
laughed, and I found something even more incredible than his smile.
Easily, he had the greatest laugh in the universe. It sounded so
clear and perfect.

“
How old are you?” Jack
countered, grinning at me.

“
I asked you first.” I
leaned back in my seat, crossing my arms over my chest, and that
made him laugh again.

“
Why does that even
matter?” Jack asked. “You want to know more.”

“
I’m seventeen,” I
sighed.

“
Twenty-four,” Jack said
with a wry smirk.

“
Don’t you feel a little
odd running around with two seventeen year old girls?” I
asked.

In some part of my mind, it did logically
seem wrong for a twenty-four-year-old to be picking up two random
teenage girls. But sitting here, in the booth with him, nothing
felt more natural or safe.

“
I’m mature for my age,”
Jane interjected.

“
As I recall, if I hadn’t
been around, you would’ve gotten yourself killed.” He rested his
arms on the table, leaning more towards me. “What were you doing
anyway?”

“
We were trying to get into
a club, but my feet were killing me and I just wanted to get home,”
I said. He looked at me for a minute, the serious expression
looking out of place on him, and then shook his head and refilled
my cup of coffee.

“
What club were you trying
to get into?” Jack asked, and added cream and sugar to my drink. He
had yet to touch his own cup, but I decided not to say
anything.

“
I don’t know,” I shrugged.
I just let Jane drag me wherever she wanted to go and hoped that by
the end of the night, I managed to make it home in one piece. “What
were you doing downtown? Clubbing it up?”

“
Hardly,” Jack said. “I
was… getting something to eat.”

“
At midnight?” I raised an
eyebrow at him.

“
I’m kind of a night owl.”
Time must’ve just occurred to him, because he glanced over at a
clock hanging on the wall. “It’s getting really late. I should
probably get you home.”

“
I’m wide awake,” Jane
chirped, but unlucky for her, I didn’t feel the same
way.

Even with the coffee and the adrenaline rush
from earlier, I felt very tired. I wanted to continue hanging out
with Jack, but my whole body had started to ache, especially my
legs and ankles.

“
I’m starting to drag.” To
punctuate the statement, I yawned loudly.

Jack paid for the check, even though I tried
to make a play for it. It was only a couple bucks, and I was tired,
so I didn’t fight that hard.

When I stood up, my legs
fought to give out underneath me, but I managed to stay up on my
feet. For a second, though, I thought Jack was going to pick me up
and carry me out to the car. Jane must’ve gotten the same idea,
because she inserted herself between us.

Almost the instant I sat
in his car, I fell asleep. I remember a brief discussion about who
he would take home first. I woke up just as Jack pulled up in front
of my apartment building. Jane was already gone, so I guess he’d
dropped her off. I’m not sure how he knew where I lived, but it
didn’t seem important then.

I left Jack outside my brownstone and went
up to my apartment. Fortunately, my mom wouldn’t be home from her
shift until after seven a.m., and my younger brother Milo was
already asleep in his room.

Painfully, I stripped off the ridiculous get
up that Jane had dressed me in and pulled on an oversized tee
shirt. I grabbed my cell phone with the full intention of plugging
it in, but I collapsed onto my bed with my phone in my hand before
I had the chance.

Just as I started passing out, I felt the
phone vibrate in my hand, startling me awake.

Sweet dreams :) – Jack

The text message was from Jack, and I felt
my heart beat faster. Somehow, when I had been sleeping, Jack had
gotten my phone number from my cell and programmed his number into
mine.

Under other circumstances, that might have
been a little creepy, but in this case, it just made me feel happy
and relieved. Clicking off my phone, I set it on my bedside table
and promptly fell asleep.

- 3 -

When I woke up, the first
thing I noticed, after the painful damage to my feet, were the ten
million text messages from Jane. All of them were about Jack, and I
felt no urge to reply.

I pulled on sweats, and then stumbled into
the bathroom to overdose on painkillers and cover my feet in
Neosporin and Band-Aids.

Miraculously, I’d woken up before two
o’clock in the afternoon, and that meant that my mom was still
asleep. She did a graveyard shift as a dispatcher in St. Paul, so
she usually made it home at an ungodly hour and then slept all
day.

My brother Milo was a studious little
bastard though, and he’d probably been in bed before midnight and
up before nine.

When I made it out to the living room, I
found him sitting at the computer, probably researching a paper for
school even though we were on Spring Break. He was a sophomore in
high school and had the social life of a toddler.

It was a sad, sad thing that I was the cool
one in the family.

“
What’s wrong with you?”
Milo asked, glancing up at me.

“
What’s wrong with you?” I
countered, utilizing my quick wit.

I had gone into the small adjoined kitchen
and poured myself a bowl of Fruity Pebbles. (Scientists haven’t
tested this, but I’ve come to find that a Gatorade, a bowl of
Fruity Pebbles, and an Excedrin will cure any hangover.)

“
Hung over?” Milo noticed
me creating my antidote, and I definitely felt that way.

“
Something like that,” I
said.

With my bowl of cereal and
lemon-lime sports drink in hand, I flopped on the couch, determined
to find either Looney Tunes or a trashy
Lifetime
movie (the second part of
my hang over cure-all).

“
What time did you get in
last night?” Milo asked with a hint of disapproval in his
voice.

He’s a year and half years younger than me,
but he’s definitely the parental figure in our relationship. Since
Mom’s always working, and Dad’s been out of the picture since the
beginning of time, I guess one of us had to step up and do it.

“
I don’t know.” I tried to
think, but I couldn’t actually remember.

After we left the diner, I had pretty much
been unconscious the entire time. I only vaguely remembered getting
the text from Jack, and I guessed it was somewhere around two or
three.

“
So what did you end up
doing last night?” Milo had given up on even the pretense of doing
something on the computer and tilted his chair towards
me.

His dark brown eyes settled on me with their
usual mix of curiosity and concern, as if he always half-expected
me to admit to shooting up black tar heroin and having sex for
money.

“
Nothing,” I
shrugged.

“
Nothing?” He raised an
eyebrow, his suspicion making him look older than he really was.
Aside from the baby fat that clung to his cheeks, he could actually
pass for being older than me.

“
We couldn’t get in
anywhere,” I explained through a mouthful of cereal. “So we just
wandered around looking for a club until my feet were completely
destroyed, and then we came home.”

“
Jane didn’t drag you off
to some party?”

“
Nope.”