“I couldn’t tell you very much about anything since you wouldn’t answer my calls or return my texts,” Jack pointed out icily, and he glanced back at Peter.

Peter held our luggage and stood awkwardly by the front door. Matilda sniffed him, wagging her tail, but nobody else acknowledged him at all.

Ezra looked much better, but he was still clearly unwell. Mae had to smell the other vampires on him. Even I could still smell it - dank and musty and unpleasant. Touching his face gingerly, she had tears in her eyes, oblivious to the growing unease in the room.

“Come on.” Milo gestured to the other room. “You’ve all had a long trip. I’m sure you guys wanna relax for a bit, and fill us in with all the juicy details.”

Milo led the way to the living room, deliberately putting himself between Bobby and me. It was weird thinking of myself as a threat.

Jack’s arm was still around me, and I remembered with some delight that I was with him. I smiled up at him, but he was slow to return it. His heart beat too loud, meaning something distressed him.

“I would love to catch up with you. I missed you all so much,” Mae said when we reached the leaving room. She smiled and squeezed my arm lovingly. Ezra stood behind her, his expression drawn. “But Ezra and I are going to have to excuse ourselves. He needs some rest.”

“I understand,” I said.

As I watched them walk away, I felt Jack’s eyes settle on me. Ezra’s anguish made Jack wary about what had gone on in Finland. I avoided his gaze, because I wasn’t ready to explain it to him, especially not in front of Milo and his new friend.

Milo flopped back in an overstuffed chair. Bobby remained glued to his side and sat on the arm of the chair next to him, so he was half on Milo’s lap. Something about that sent a ripple of agitation through me. When Bobby put his hand on his thigh, I wanted to slap it away.

“So…” Milo asked me. “How was your trip?”

“It was okay,” I shrugged, unwilling to give up anymore right now.

Peter walked over to lean against the wall, and Jack moved smoothly around me, putting himself between Peter and me. This was the way things would go for awhile, and it was too early to already get annoyed by them. I went over and sat on the couch.

“Since you brought Peter back, I assume it was a rousing success.” Milo looked at Peter out of the corner of his eye. He’d only met Peter once, and that hadn’t gone that great.

“You could say that,” I said

Jack sat next to me, and Peter glanced around the room diffidently, managing not to look happy or upset. I pulled my knees up to my chest and leaned in closer in the crook of Jack’s arm, but he was unnaturally tense.

I would’ve loved to ease his fears, but I was preoccupied by this Bobby character that was all but sitting on my little brother’s lap.

“It looks like you’ve had a pretty busy time without us,” I said as casually as I could.

“You could say that,” Milo laughed.

Milo shared one of this disgustingly sweet looks with him. Bobby leaned down and kissed him on the lips, and I could hear his heart race faster. My stomach twisted in knots, out of disgust and hunger, and I didn’t appreciate that combination at all.

It wasn’t the fact that Milo was kissing a dude that I found so upsetting. It was that he was kissing anyone.

“I think I’m gonna crash,” Peter said. He looked to Jack, who tightened his arm around me, as if he expected Peter to tear me from him. “Is my room in the same place?”

“It’s exactly as you left it,” Jack said as evenly as he could.

“Alright.” Peter nodded at Jack, then he turned and went upstairs.

“That guy has weird vibes,” Bobby said, speaking for the first time since I’d met him.

He stared after the space where Peter had been and shook his head to toss his bangs out of his dark eyes. To comfort him, Milo rubbed his back, and Bobby smiled, settling back into the chair with him. Is it too early to say that I really hate Bobby?

“So Bobby,” I said, and he smiled clumsily. “Are you gay?” Jack laughed, filling me with a familiar glee. Once Peter left, he relaxed a bit.

“Alice!” Milo snapped, embarrassed.

“What?” I asked.

Nothing was overly gay about Bobby, other than the fact that he had kissed my brother. His clothes were fashionable scene apparel, skinny jeans and slip on Vans. He might be wearing eyeliner, but he might just have dark eyelashes too.

“No, it’s okay,” Bobby laughed. “Yeah. I am gay.”

“How old are you?” I asked pointedly.

“Twenty,” Bobby said, and I bristled.

Milo was a vampire, and thanks to they’re rapid maturation, he looked about nineteen or so. In actuality, he was barely sixteen, and he was making out with a twenty-year-old guy. Not cool. In fact, it was so not cool that I planned to freak out on Jack for letting this happen while I was away. (At this point, it had not occurred to me that Jack was born over 40 years ago, and I wasn’t yet eighteen.)

“Alice, you were in Finland for weeks!” Milo exaggerated, sensing my growing anger. “I’m pretty sure you have more exciting things to do than interrogate my boyfriend.”

Boyfriend? They were already up to that terminology? It had been months and months until I started referring to Jack as my boyfriend. In fact, in conversation, I still don’t think I would use that word. It sounded too weird to say about him. Once you’re over the age of twenty-five or you’re no longer human, the word “boyfriend” no longer fits.

“Yeah. What happened in Finland?” Jack turned to look at me.

“It’s too much to talk about right now,” I brushed him off.

“Seriously?” Jack raised an eyebrow. “That’s what you’re giving me? After weeks of this? You’re gonna come home and tell me it’s too much to talk about?”

“Well, I just don’t want to upset you needlessly.”

“You were in Finland with Peter! And you wouldn’t answer my calls!” Jack was all but yelling. “You’ve upset me plenty already, and it didn’t bother you then!”

“Of course it bothered me.” I pulled away from him. “I thought about you constantly. But I knew if I said anything you would rush over there and get yourself killed.”