Amanda Hocking: My Blood Approves

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

“Yeah, we should get going.” No sooner had the words left Jack’s mouth than the waitress appeared with the check. She smiled coyly at him, making another comment rife with innuendo, which Jack ignored. I made some kind of tired play to pay for the check, but he wouldn’t have any of it. I knew it was only like a three dollar tab, but considering he’d saved my life, it was the least I could do.

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 so he couldn’t reach for me. I had stabilized myself enough, otherwise he probably would’ve pushed her out of the way. For the first time ever, a guy preferred me to Jane, and I couldn’t help but feel a smug satisfaction about it.

Almost the instant I sat in his car, I fell asleep. I remember a brief discussion about who he was going to take home first, with Jane insisting on me and Jack leaning towards her first. Before I could find out how it turned out, I fell asleep. It was probably for the best because then I got to miss out on Jane’s whining.

I woke up just as Jack pulled up in front of my apartment building. Jane was already gone, so I guess that he had won. I’m not sure how he knew where I lived, but it didn’t seem important then. He got out of the car first so he could open my door and help me out. Sure, I was tired, but more than that, my legs felt stiff and uncooperative. This time, he actually did offer to carry me inside, but I knew how that would look to my mother, who would most likely just be getting off her shift from work.

So I left Jack standing outside the entryway of my brownstone, and I waved forlornly at him. Part of me instantly regretted going inside. We had obviously made some kind of connection, but I would probably never see him again. That definitely made the most sense, considering he was older and everyone randomly seemed to be in love with him except for me, but it still saddened me.

Fortunately, my mom wasn’t home yet so I wouldn’t have to deal with any of her questions, and my younger brother Milo was already asleep in his room.

Painfully, I stripped off the ridiculous short-skirt get up that Jane had dressed me in, and pulled on an oversized tee shirt. I normally would’ve opted for sweats, but my legs felt too sore to push through pant legs. Then I pulled my cell phone out of my skirt pocket 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. I assumed it was Jane, but I knew that I should put it on silent and plug it in so I could sleep undisturbed.

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 my phone, under the name “Jack the Magnificent.” 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.

When I woke up, the first thing I noticed after the incredible, painful damage my feet sustained, was the ten million text messages from Jane. All of them were either demanding more information about Jack or simply gushing about him.

Either way, I felt no urge to reply. I pulled on sweats (with a bit of a struggle) 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, so 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 freshman 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. (This hasn’t been tested by scientists, but I’ve come to find that a Gatorade, a bowl of Fruity Pebbles, and an Excedrin will cure any hang over.)

“Hung over?” Milo noticed me creating my hang over antidote, and I had to admit that I did feel sort of hung over. My entire body just ached like I had been in a car wreck, and I cursed Jane underneath my breath.

“Something like that,” I mumbled. 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 really trashy Lifetime movie (the second part of my hang over cureall).

“What time did you get in last night?” Milo questioned with a hint of disapproval in his voice. He’s two and a 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 like the beginning of time, I guess one of us had to step up and do it. Shockingly, it wasn’t me.

“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 (and very fondly) remembered getting the text from Jack, and I guessed it was somewhere around two or three. Either way, that didn’t seem very late, but all that damn running with and without heels had just exhausted me.

“So what did you end up doing last night?” He had finally 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.

This was mostly the truth, since all of our plans had fallen through and we spent the better part of the night just walking around downtown. I decided to purposely leave out any mention of Jack. Generally, I told Milo everything (even all the naughty parts he probably didn’t want to know), but for some reason, I wasn’t ready to tell him about Jack. It probably had something to do with the fact that I didn’t know how to explain him.

“Nothing?” Milo raised an eyebrow, making this suspicious face that made 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. I lacked the wisdom and general common sense that he did.

“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.”

“That’s very unlike her to end a night without vodka or sex,” Milo commented, and there was a lot of truth in that.

That might have explained her desperation with Jack. He was just the last guy around, and she needed a fix. But then I thought of the text messages from her, and the way everyone else in the restaurant looked at him. Nope, there was definitely something up that I couldn’t grasp.