“What’s in it for me?” I rolled back over to face him, eyeing him up.
“A good time!” Milo grabbed my hand, yanking me out from bed. “You’ve got to hurry. You can’t go to clubs looking all sweaty and hot!”
“Wait, wait, wait!” I protested when he pulled me to my feet. “You’re a vampire now. Don’t you think Jane will notice?”
“She never sees me or pays attention when she does. Just tell her I had a growth spurt,” Milo decided.
“A growth spurt?” I scoffed.
“This is Jane! She doesn’t put a lot of thought into anything, except how she looks. We’ll be fine.”
I let him rush around my room and play dress up with me. Ordinarily, when I got ready, I would at least express an interest picking things out, but I was basically being forced out against my will. If it wasn’t comfy pajama type clothes, I didn’t really want any of it.
When Milo decided I looked good enough to present in public, I stood in front of the mirror in my bedroom, inspecting myself. He picked out a light weight dress that felt good in the heat, and I smoothed it down.
“Oh, you look good,” Milo said. “And I don’t know why you care so much if you don’t even wanna go out.”
“If I’m going out – with you and Jane – I need all the help I can get.” At the mention of Jane, I glanced over at the clock. “She’s like ten minutes late. Are you sure she’s coming?”
“Alice, it’s Jane. She’s always late.”
Besides being vaguely depressed, I was a bit jumpy. I really needed to get out and enjoy myself while I still could and shake this ridiculous sense of foreboding.
“Is this the book?” Milo asked. Peter’s book had been sitting on my nightstand, and he flipped through it. “Oh, yeah. It sure is. Huh.”
“What?” I turned to face him, wondering what that little “huh” was about it. “What book?”
“This book.” He held it up for me to see.
“I know what book you’re talking about, but what did you mean by ‘this’ book? How did you even know about it?” I wanted to walk over and snatch it from his hands, but that felt inappropriate, so I fiddled with the hem of my dress.
“It’s Peter’s book. Jack told me.” He skimmed a page, losing interest in the conversation. When I asked what Jack had told him, he just kept on reading.
“Milo?” I repeated louder, and when he still didn’t look up, I went over and grabbed the book from him.
“What’d you do that for?” Milo demanded.
“You were ignoring me.” I took a step back from him, finding a peculiar comfort in putting distance between him and the book. I tried to seem nonchalant and tucked my hair behind my ears. “I asked what Jack said about it.”
“He said you had a book that Peter wrote about vampires,” Milo shrugged.
“That’s all?”
My heart had sped up, and I saw a flicker in Milo’s eyes as he registered it. I felt protective of the book because it was the only thing I really had of Peter, and I don’t know why it was important that I still feel a connection with him.
Thinking about it only made my body scramble, and my best answer was to turn and quickly put the book in my top dresser drawer.
“What was that about?” Milo’s voice had tightened. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” I slammed the drawer shut. Taking a deep breath, I gave myself a moment to recover before I turned around to face Milo again. “It’s just Peter.”
“I wish I had met Peter.” His defenses had softened. “I’d love to see what all the fuss is about.”
“There’s not a fuss. Is there?” I didn’t feel like I was making one, or at least I was trying not to.
“Oh, there’s a fuss,” Milo nodded with raised eyebrows. “That’s a big part of what Jack’s ‘training’ is all about.” He did air quotes for training, which would’ve made me smile, if I hadn’t been too distracted by the implications of what he was saying.
Jack’s use of words yesterday threw me off, but I hadn’t really put things together. “Arsenal” and “exercise” and “training.” Things that Milo needed to “master,” and in my head I had questioned, “Master for what?”