Flutter

“So… how is Bobby?” I walked over to Jack.

“Not good,” he said grimly. “He really almost didn’t make it. I mean, Milo drained that kid dry. It was bad.” Then he forced a smile at me. “But his heart’s beating, and that’s something.”

He wrapped his arms around me, and I buried my face in his chest, surprised to find myself crying. Milo would never hurt anyone, and he really loved Bobby. It was terrifying to think that Bobby might die, and it’d be because they were in love and careless.

It scared me even more when I thought about my relationship with Jack, and how I almost lost control with Peter. Milo was way more in control of himself than me, and he nearly killed Bobby.

What would I do to Jack? Even with him being a vampire, I could find myself in the same situation, and that was too much.

Worse still, Jane was still out there, doing that kind of thing all the time with strangers. Most of the vampires she picked up were probably more experienced than Milo and me, but maybe they weren’t. She had no way of knowing. And either way, they were still draining her of her blood, over and over again.

Accidentally or on purpose, the odds of her dying were getting exponentially higher ever day that passed. I couldn’t let her do it anymore. As soon as things were settled with Milo and Bobby, I was taking Milo to the club, and we were taking her away. I don’t care if we had to kidnap her; I wasn’t going to just let her die.

The house was incredibly subdued. Mae didn’t tend to Bobby. Immediately after he was stable, she returned to her room. Ezra stationed himself in Milo’s room to monitor Bobby, but Jack later confided in me that Ezra had been crashing in the den with him the last few nights. Mae has all but kicked him out of their room.

Milo didn’t feel right being around Bobby, and he was positive that Bobby would hate him when he woke up. I couldn’t convince him otherwise, but he wanted to bunk with me, and really, I didn’t mind.

Milo cried in his sleep, but I didn’t say anything. After what he’d been through, I didn’t blame him. I don’t know what I would do if I did anything to Jack, and then I pushed the thought from my mind.

I would never do anything to him, even if that meant I had to wait months and years to do things with him. Or maybe never do anything with him. I wasn’t going to hurt him, not like that.

Not like that. I had to amend everything with that now, because I was clearly okay with hurting him other ways, as seen by me making out with Peter.

That situation didn’t want to resolve itself quite so easily either. When I got up in the morning, I bumped into Peter in the hall. There was this awkward exchange where neither of us knew what to say and just kind of stared at each other.

It was almost a full day after the transfusion that Bobby started to really come around. He’d had some hazy conversations before that, but he hadn’t been lucid. Milo was too afraid to go in and talk to him, even after Bobby had started asking for him.

I even went in to talk to him, and Bobby repeatedly assured me that he didn’t blame Milo for what happened, and he still loved him. He was pale and tired, but otherwise, he seemed okay.

Milo’s plan was to hide away from Bobby, so he went down into Mae’s room with her. Mae was abnormally useless in the situation. Jack and I ended up getting Bobby food and clothes and doing all the maternal/nurse things that Mae usually did, leaving him to survive entirely on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Campbell’s soup.

He mostly slept at first, so I let it slide, but I wasn’t going to let Milo just hide while I took care of his boyfriend. I gave Milo another night to sleep on it, but the next day I would make him see Bobby.

When I went to fetch Milo from Mae’s room, I brought along Jack with me. Milo was still pretty fond of Jack, and I thought he might listen to him, even if he wouldn’t listen to me. Stupidly, I thought Mae would encourage Milo to get up and deal with Bobby, but that wasn’t how new sulky Mae rolled. They were curled up in the dark, listening to Norah Jones.

I flicked on the bedroom light, even though I didn’t really need it to see anything. I just felt like they needed a flash of something to wake them up. They both squinted at me and groaned, and Milo buried himself deeper in the blankets and pillows. “Milo, come on,” I said. “Bobby wants to see you.”

“He does not!” Milo pulled the blanket entirely over his head, so his protests came out muffled.

“I’m sure he does, love,” Mae sounded almost like her normal self. I don’t know if it was our presence or the light, but it momentarily snapped her out of her funk. She scooted a bit closer to Milo and pushed back his blanket. “He loves you, and you know he does.”

“I can’t see him!” Milo said, fighting back tears. “Not ever!”

“I know it seems major, but it’s really not as bad as you think.” Jack sat at the down at the end of the bed to coax Milo out. “I mean, it would be major for normal people, but he understood what he was getting into when he got involved with a vampire.”

“Well, maybe I didn’t!” Milo whined, and he almost never did. Mae pushed back his hair from his forehead, and he rubbed at his eyes with the palm of his hand. “I don’t know how I can ever face him again.”

“Just face him the same way you did before,” I shrugged. “You haven’t seen him, but if you had, you’d understand. He really doesn’t hold anything against you.”

“But he should!” Milo pulled himself out from underneath the covers a bit more, but he just stared up at the ceiling. “I nearly killed him. He should hate me. Something should happen. There should be repercussions for my actions.”