Аманда Хокинг - Flutter

“Yeah because they were fun and they had something to offer me! You’re the most boring immortal on the whole planet! I mean, look at you!” Jane gestured to me with a skinny arm. “You’re wearing a blink 182 tee shirt and sweat pants!” I looked down at my clothes, pulling a ball of Matilda’s hair off my band tee shirt.

“It’s pajamas!” I crossed my arms defensively over my chest anyways. Then I pointed to her.

“Did you see what you were wearing to the club tonight? Your dress was dirty and covered in stains!”

“I hadn’t had a chance to change,” Jane dropped her eyes.

“Girls!” Mae shouted. “You really need to calm down! Jane doesn’t need all this excitement.”

“Whatever.” Jane rubbed her eyes. “Can I just get my clothes and get out of here?”

“You can’t go anywhere, love,” Mae told her gently. “You’re sick. You need to get well, first.”

“And I can’t get well at home?” Jane tried to sound angry, but she was already relenting and leaning back in the bed. “Does Jonathan know I’m here?”

“Um, kinda,” I exchanged a look with Mae. “Did you tell her how she got here?”

“I told her that you found her at the club, and she was in bad shape.” Mae once again deftly avoided the truth, and I was wondering how often she lied to us.

“He won’t be happy when he finds out I’m here.” Jane wasn’t threatening us, and from the look she gave Mae, I’d say she was actually just trying to protect us. Her “boyfriend” definitely had an anger management problem, but I already knew that.

“We know, but we wanted you to be safe,” I said, looking at her evenly.

I didn’t really understand the animosity between us, except that she had always kinda been a bitch, but I wanted to get past it. She had been living a reckless, dangerous life, and I wanted to help her change that, and maybe get back to being friends again. It would be neat to be friends with someone that didn’t live in the same house as me. Although, she probably would be living here, at least for a little while.

“I understand.” Jane picked at her chipped nail polish and stared down at it for a minute, then she smiled wanly at me. “You look really good. Your hair is longer.”

“Yeah, our hair grows really fast.” I played with a strand of my hair and smiled back at her.

“You look… Okay, I’m can’t lie. You look pretty bad right now.”

“I know,” Jane laughed. “I guess really got caught up in everything and didn’t realize what I was doing.” She shrugged her bony shoulders. “But I’m here now. So I guess that’s something, right?”

We talked for a few more minutes, but she was obviously getting tired. Mae sent me away, saying that Jane needed her rest. It had been awhile since I had been bit, but I remembered being exhausted for days afterward. Jane had to be stronger than I was just to be able to sit up and talk.

As soon as the sunset, I enlisted Milo to make a run to the store with me. We picked up groceries for Jane, namely things heavy in fat and red meat, and energy boosters, like Red Bull and vitamins. Before we left I went to see if there was anything in particular she’d like to eat, and she said no, but requested we get her some hair dye. When we got back, Milo made her food, and she came downstairs to eat it.

Bobby joined her, and she seemed semi-interested in him until she found out that he was gay and dating Milo.

Then he became almost a nonentity to her. It was good see the old Jane back in action.

Half-way through her steak (which seemed unnecessarily rare, even by my standards, but Milo was the chef), Peter decided to make an appearance. It wasn’t really intentional. He had been back in the den, working with Ezra on some kind of business thing, and he wanted to go up to his room to grab a shower.

Unfortunately, as soon as Jane saw him, she locked her lasers on him. Naturally, he ignored her, but she almost tripped over herself trying to get up after him. Milo managed to assure her that Peter was completely off limits, but that probably only made her want him more. Still, she seemed to realize that she wasn’t up to getting a new suitor just yet, so she let him go without chasing him down.

Jane downed about ten Red Bull, then went upstairs. Mae was reluctant to let her out of her sight, but Mae needed to eat and shower herself. I finally convinced her that Jane would be safe in my hands, even though I was starting to feel a bit of thirst myself. Jane wasn’t that appetizing because she didn’t have very healthy blood, and what she did have was tainted by another vampire’s scent. Still, I knew I’d have to eat before I went to bed.

“So, I don’t really understand,” Jane said. She was strolling through my closet, looking for clothes to borrow since I stupidly hadn’t thought to stop and pick her up. Fortunately, I had a new and approved wardrobe, and for the first time in our friendship, I had clothes that she actually approved of.

“What’s not to understand about clothes?” I sat down on the small bench by the shoe rack.

It was overwhelming being in this room, surrounded by all of Jack’s things. I had to go in here every day to get clothes, but I hurried out as quickly as I could. Now it was all Converse and tee shirts, so I lay back on the bench so I could stare up at the ceiling instead of his clothing.

“Half of this closet are Jack’s things,” Jane touched one of his shirts. “But nobody’s made any mention of him since I’ve been here. Where is he?”

“I don’t know.” My phone was in my hand, and I looked down at the screen, willing him to call me.

Of course, he didn’t. I hadn’t tried calling or texting him today, but I was hoping that give him some space would make him come home. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Jane had moved on to leafing through my clothes, and she looked at me sharply. “Aren’t you two like in love or something ridiculous like that?”

“Something like that,” I muttered and lay my phone facedown on my belly, so it couldn’t taunt me anymore. “We got in a fight, and he left.”

“What’d you fight about? Who left the lid off the toothpaste?” Jane asked dryly.

She had never been much for modesty, so when she found something she liked, she just took off her top. She’d been wearing an oversized tee shirt, and she had kicked off the pants a long time ago. While she straightened out my dress to put it on, she stood there, dressed only in an lime green panties, but at least they were bikini cut and not a thong. Her spine stood out rigidly, but I looked away before I could think too much of it.

“No. It was a little more serious than that,” I sighed. Peter’s emerald eyes flashed in my mind, and I shook my head.

“I can’t imagine you doing anything serious,” she said absently. Her focus was on her reflection in the mirror, modeling the strapless cocktail she’d slipped on. Even though I had lost weight, so had she, so my clothes were still too big on her. I’d say they were too short too, since Jane was still two inches taller than me and the hem fell way above her knee, but that was probably just right for her. “What do you think of the dress?”

“It’s great,” I lied. For once, I’d look better in something than she did. Her shoulder blades stuck out like wings, and the top was made for a larger chest, so it was drooping weird in the front.

“Do you have any heels to go with these?” Jane turned, admiring herself from a different angle in the mirror. “Every good dress needs a good shoe.”

“Somewhere, probably. Dig around.” I gestured to the expansive shoe racks.

“So what did you do that made Prince Charming run away?” Jane wasn’t quite ready to dig for shoes yet, and instead returned to the task of stealing my clothes.