Dreamlessly, I’d managed to sleep for thirteen hours on the couch. My body ached because I don’t think that I’d even changed positions at all. Whatever happened with Peter, it had been tantamount to overdosing on sleeping pills. I stretched slowly, trying to work out the kinks and cricks in my back and neck.
Milo was sitting at the computer and he just smirked at my struggle to wake up.
“Morning, sunshine,” Milo chirped. For some reason, he still seemed energized from the night before.
“Shut up,” I grumbled. Already, the tired fog of my brain was filled with thoughts of Peter. Like some kind of hang over, my skin hurt and my head throbbed dully. When I breathed in deeply, I could still remember the way he smelled, like apples and something familiar that I couldn’t quite place.
“What are you doing?” Milo jolted me out of my daydream. He was looking at me like I had totally lost it, so I stood up and decided that I had to get myself in gear.
“Nothing,” I told him absently.
Walking to the bathroom, I pulled my phone out of my pocket. It was almost four in the afternoon, so maybe Jack would be awake by now. I shut the bathroom door, but before I could even actually go the bathroom (and I did have to go very, very badly), I had to text Jack first. He had a lot of explaining to do, but more than that, I had to see Peter again.
I need to see you today. I text messaged him, and then started the agonizing wait for him to respond.
After I showered, and he still hadn’t responded, I started getting a nervous pit in my stomach. Maybe I had done something wrong, and I wasn’t going to be allowed over there anymore. Or maybe Jack had just grown bored with me. It was probably pretty irritating to him they I was fawning over his brother, and I would hate me if I were him. When he’d been talking to Ezra, they had said that I couldn’t be alone with Peter. Maybe that meant that I couldn’t be around him at all anymore. Somehow, I had ruined everything.
I couldn’t take it anymore, so I decided to call Jack, and find out what was going on. When I got his voicemail instead of him, I was near tears. “Jack, it’s just me. Alice. Um… I just wanted to apologize for last night. I know that I… overreacted to everything, and I’m really sorry. I just… I really want see you today. We need to talk. Okay. So… just call me back, I guess. Bye.”
Going through all the routine of getting ready, I managed to dress myself and apply makeup, but none of it felt real. It felt like some shell of myself going through the motions. My mind was completely locked onto the way Peter smelled and the way he looked through me and how my body felt pulled towards him. When I had finished getting ready, I just sat on the couch, staring off into nothing, and tried to figure out what I would do if I never talked to Peter or Jack again.
“What’s going on with you?” Milo still sat at the computer, but he couldn’t ignore my zombie like stare anymore. I just shook my head and swallowed hard, so he got up from what he was doing and came over to sit next to me on the couch. “What happened last night over there?”
“Nothing,” I mumbled.
“Alice, come on.” He gave me a hard look, the one that said I-know-you-betterthan-anyone-so-there’s-no- point-in-lying. I sighed, and tried to decide how much I could tell him about Peter. “Did Jack’s brother do something to you?”
“No.” I bit my lip and wondered if he had done something to me. Why couldn’t I get him out of my head? It was like he had crawled underneath my skin, but not in a bad way. Just a very permanent way. “I just really like him.
Like more than I’ve ever liked anyone. It’s completely… visceral.”
“Did he blow you off or something?”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. I wasn’t sure if him sending me out of his room was rejecting me or done to protect me… or maybe both. My phone felt very heavy in my hand, and I looked down at it, willing Jack to call me and fix everything. “Jack hasn’t texted me back. I think maybe he’s mad at me or something. I think I did something wrong.”
“You did not do anything.” Milo was so completely incredulous that I looked over at him. “They love you over there, like crazy love. Mae talked nonstop about you, and Jack looks at you like you walk on water. It’s a little sickening actually.”
“Really?” That made me feel a little better, but Jack still hadn’t called, so I wasn’t over-the-top better.
“Yeah.” He nodded, then looked down at my hands and wrinkled his nose.
“Your nails are chipped really bad. Why don’t I repaint them while you wait for Jack to wake up?”
“You think he’s still sleeping?” I asked hopefully, and let my brother take my hands. I had left my make up bag splayed out on the coffee table, and Milo leaned over and grabbed the nail polish remover, cotton balls, and dark blue nail polish.
“We left at like two-thirty in the morning, and everybody in that house was wide awake. Plus, he’s some rich, young playboy that doesn’t have a job.
What does he really have to get up for?” He did have a point, and I finally started to relax. It was just too easy to get worked up into a frenzy when I thought about being away from Peter or Jack for any length of time.
“Considering this isn’t the first time you’ve painted my nails, I probably should’ve figure out sooner that you were gay,” I teased him. Milo had been painting my nails for as long as he could paint anything. When I really looked back at life with him, there were a lot of really obvious hints that I should’ve picked up on.
“Probably,” he agreed. He was pressing hard on my nails with the cotton balls to get off the remainders of my chipped nail polish. “You really need to stop biting your nails. It’s a horrible habit.”
After he finished painting my nails, he sat with me on the couch. He talked a little bit about how much he liked Mae and everybody, and that he hoped that I wouldn’t mind if he went back over there again. Honestly, I didn’t mind at all. It was nice being able to be around him and Jack at the same time. Then he pointed out that he’d never met Peter, and we both thought that was strange.
He hadn’t come down from his room all night, and Mae hadn’t given Milo a tour of the upstairs. Like they were purposely trying to keep them apart. Then my heart pounded painfully when I realized that Peter might actually be dangerous, and maybe it wasn’t the safest place for Milo to be hanging out. I considered saying something to that effect when my phone rang.
“Hey, sorry, I didn’t call you sooner,” Jack said when I arrived. Just hearing his voice made me elated, but then I realized there was a tightness to it.
Something was bothering him. “I ended up having a really late night last night, so I just woke up.”
“Sorry. I hope none of its my fault.” But I knew it was my fault. I had done something wrong last night.
“No, it’s not,” Jack reassured me warmly. “It was just … a little family crisis, I guess.”
“What happened?” Anxiety gripped me, and Milo shot me a confused, concerned look, but I just shook my head at him. I couldn’t explain it now, and maybe not ever.
“Um… I’ll tell you when I pick you up, okay? Will you be ready soon?” He was definitely keeping something from me.
“I’m ready now.” I was really glad that I had gotten up and gotten ready before he called. If I had heard this when I first woke up, I would’ve rushed to his house in last night’s clothes with greasy hair.
“Good. I’ll be there soon.” He hung up, probably to prevent me from asking more questions, so I flipped my phone shut.
“What happened?” Milo’s worried expression mirrored my own, but I was too frazzled to really answer him. Hurriedly, I slipped on shoes and grabbed my dark blue cardigan to throw on. “Alice?”
“I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me.” Why did I have to feel like crying? I swear, I didn’t really cry this much. Most of the time, I was a really sane, normal person. But something about Jack and Peter made me want to burst into tears all the time. My emotions just seemed to be on overdrive. It was like I had lived my whole life using just the bare minimum, and now this family had switched them into max and I couldn’t get a handle on them.
“Is everyone okay?” Milo leaned over the back of the couch, watching me rush about. I probably had everything I needed, but I kept feeling like I was forgetting something, then running back to make sure I had it.
“I don’t know, Milo!” I snapped. “He didn’t tell me anything!”
“Sorry.” He sounded hurt, and I wanted to apologize, but I didn’t have time. Jack would be here “soon,” which could mean anywhere from five seconds to fifteen minutes in his time. “Do you want me to come with?”
“Not today.” I finally managed an apologetic smile, and he slumped down in the couch. “Another time, I
