“How do you support yourself?” It was a logical question, so it kind of surprised me that Mom had even bothered asking it. She looked like the only two questions that mattered to her was what he was going to be doing in ten minutes, and if he wanted to be doing it with her.
“Well…” Jack laughed a little, and both her and Milo closed their eyes, as if the sound was just too pleasurable for them to handle. “I guess I don’t really. I live with my family, and… they kind of take care of me. I guess.”
“But you’re twenty-four,” I interjected.
Really, if his family was loaded and wanted to take care of him, then I’d say, more power to you. But if Mom wasn’t going to ask the tough questions, then I was going to have to. After all, I didn’t really understand him at all, and the more information I could gain about why he did what he did, the better it would be for me.
“I know.” Jack didn’t look ashamed at all, though, like I probably would if somebody called me out on being in my mid-twenties, unemployed, and living at home. “It just makes sense for us. I don’t know a better way of explaining it.”
“So you live with your parents?” Mom took a drag on her cigarette, keeping her eyes locked on him.
“No, they’re dead.” He said it with the same flat tone that he had before, and I couldn’t explain it, but there was something off with that. “I live with my brothers and, uh, my sister-in-law.”
“Oh?” Mom raised an eyebrow, and she was probably excited of the prospect of their being even more guys like him. “How old are they?”
“Ezra’s twenty… six, and Mae is like twenty-eight or something, and Peter is nineteen.” Jack answered thoughtfully.
“Hmm,” Mom purred, and oh my god, she really was thinking about his brothers! This was so gross and so disturbing, and I was so glad that I had never seen my mom date anyone ever. “So, um, what about school?”
“I went for awhile, but I dropped out.” Jack shrugged again. “It just wasn’t my thing.”
“What is your thing exactly?” I asked.
As far as I could tell, working, school, having a relationship, doing anything that required any amount of responsibility just wasn’t his thing. What was my attraction to him? Then he laughed, looking over at me with an expression that was almost proud, and I remembered exactly what it was.
“I’m still figuring it out.”
“You’re still young,” Mom added quickly, trying to pull his attention back to her. “You have plenty of time to figure things out.”
“That’s what I think,” Jack agreed, and when he looked back at her, she let out a moan of some kind, and that was it for me. I’d let her stare at him enough.
“Well, we really should get going,” I announced abruptly.
“What?” Mom looked sharply at me, her face getting this stricken expression. “Aren’t you staying for dinner?”
“I misunderstood what Alice meant,” Jack explained, his voice getting overly soothing, but I decided that whatever would get us out of here without a fight was fine by me. “I already ate, and then I made plans for us. We really do have to be going.”
My mother tried to think of things to keep him trapped in the apartment with her, but I stuck to my guns. I escaped into the hall while they finished saying their good-byes, but I could still hear the unusually sweet tone to my mother’s voice as she cooed all sorts of things to him. Once Jack finally made it out to the hall and shut the door behind him, I shivered visibly, trying to shake off what I had just witnessed.
“What?” Jack laughed, looking at me as I pushed the button for the elevator.
“Oh my god, that was so disgusting!” I exclaimed.
“I thought that went very well, actually,” Jack smirked. “You mom seemed to like me.”
“Ugh, she wanted to jump your bones,” I groaned. The elevator doors dinged open and we stepped in. Leaning back against the wall, I groaned and shook my head. “It was so disturbing.”
“Its not my fault everybody wants me.” Jack laughed again and pushed the button for the lobby, and I knew he was only half-teasing. For some reason, everybody did want him, and I wish he would just tell me why.
“I don’t want you,” I grumbled, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Yeah, I know.” Jack got quiet and thoughtful for the rest of the elevator ride, but I wasn’t sure if was because he was disappointed that I didn’t want him or he just didn’t understand it. Then, in an attempt to fix my mood, he tried to change the subject as the elevator doors opened into the lobby. “So, your brother’s gay?”
“He is not gay.” I bristled, then stepped out of the elevator. It wouldn’t really bother me if Milo was gay, but he wasn’t. I mean, I would know if he was.
“Oh, so he hasn’t told you yet.” Jack shoved his hands in his pockets, following me as I hurried outside into the cold night air. Once we got outside, I realized that I didn’t know where he’d parked or even what car he’d driven, so I stopped outside the door and waited for him.
“There’s nothing to tell,” I insisted. He turned to the left, walking a little ways down the block, when I saw his Jetta, sitting in an amazingly good parking spot. He always got good parking spots, like luck was constantly on his side.
“Oh, come on,” Jack scoffed. “You had to have noticed the way he looked at me.”
“Everyone looks at you that way.” I tried to think back at everyone gaping at him and I couldn’t remember if the guys had been doing it too. Everyone reacted to him in a very friendly fashion, like the way the crowds parted for him at the concert, but I was pretty sure that guys hadn’t given him that particular look, not the ones like my mom or Jane.
“No, everyone does not.” Jack played with something in his pocket, and the Jetta beeped loudly, announcing the fact that it was unlocked.
“So how does that work?” I asked, opening the car door. “Your pheromones only react to people that would be sexually attracted to you anyway? How can they possibly know that?” Jack stood outside until I could finish my question, then he just got in the car, and I knew that was his official answer to that.
“You probably shouldn’t say anything to you brother,” Jack said once I’d gotten in the car. He started it, revving the engine for a second, then pulled away from the curb. “If he hasn’t told you yet, then he’s probably not ready for you to know.”
“He isn’t gay,” I repeated firmly. “He’s only fourteen.”
“Oh, right, cause when you were fourteen you didn’t know you were straight.” Jack rolled his eyes.
“How do you know I’m straight?” I countered. I mean, I am straight, completely 100 %, but he didn’t know that. “That would explain why I’m not attracted to you.”
“You are attracted to me.” He kept his eyes straight ahead, and adjusted the stereo, so She Wants Revenge would start playing softly out of the speakers.
“Otherwise you wouldn’t be in the car with me. It’s just not the same as it is with them.”
“Whatever,” I grumbled and crossed my arms again. Then I softened a little as I thought about Milo, and all the weird little things he did that I had always just chocked up to him being younger than me and more responsible.
“So… you really think Milo’s gay?”
“Yeah, he’s gay,” Jack replied definitively. “And before you ask, yeah, it’s something I know. I can’t explain it, but I just know. Like the way a lion always knows the weakest zebra in the pack.”
“Are you comparing being gay to being weak?” So, I was just coming to terms with the probability of my brother’s homosexuality, but already I felt defensive about it. Milo was my little brother and probably the only person in the whole world that really cared about me. No matter what, I’d always love and protect him.
“No, I’m comparing my uncanny ability to detect things to that of a lion,” Jack clarified. I was still kind of sulking, reeling from the fact that both my mother and my newly discovered gay brother wanted to do bad, bad things to Jack, but he wouldn’t hear of it. “Hey, you know what would cheer you up?”
“I can only imagine,” I said dryly.
“Playing Dance Dance Revolution at the arcade.” Without warning, he flipped the car into a u-turn across three lanes of traffic.
“That doesn’t sound that great.” It didn’t really, but Jack thought it was the greatest idea ever, and that managed to convince me somehow. I was starting to realize that my feelings seemed to be mimicking his, and that should alarm me, but he wasn’t alarmed, so I was kind of incapable of being alarmed.
