He had thrown the car into gear, and we were flying down the street and turning on the highway before I could even really protest, not that I would’ve anyway. Meeting families was usually my least favorite thing in the world, but a family that spawned Jack intrigued me.
“After what happened last night, I think it’s time,” Jack explained, but I had no idea what his family could possibly have to do with a rabid dog. Unless his family were dog breeders or something.
Then I remembered what happened and looked over at Jack’s arm, which was bare thanks to his return to his tee shirt uniform. (He wore one today that read “Frankie Says Relax.”)
I leaned in closer to inspect both his arms, thinking I must’ve looked at the wrong one. But neither one of them had a scratch or a mark or even a scar.
He noticed me looking and immediately chastised me. “No. Don’t even think about it.”
“What?” I leaned back in my seat, still staring at his arms. “You mean asking how you magically got rid of any trace of the dog bite so quickly?”
“Precisely. Don’t ask any questions about anything like that, not about me, not about anyone else,” Jack warned me.
“They’re like you, aren’t they?” By now, nothing should come as a shock, but I still looked at him in disbelief. Every time I thought things couldn’t get any weirder, they did.
“I want you to meet them, but you can’t be like this. You have to act completely oblivious.” His tone was light, but he was being firm. “I mean it, Alice. My family. My rules.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it.” I rolled my eyes and turned my attention to the world speeding past us out the window. “Where do you live anyway?”
“In St. Louis Park, by a lake,” he said. “It’s not that far.”
I didn’t know a lot about that area, but what I had heard is that there were lots of nice, expensive homes. So it would make sense that Jack lived there, since we were cruising down the highway in a bright red Lamborghini.
“Don’t worry,” he attempted to reassure me. “They’ll like you. I think. Well, Ezra isn’t there. So it’s just Mae and Peter. That should make it easier.”
“Where’s Ezra?”
For some reason, knowing one of his brothers would be gone made me more nervous. Maybe Jack knew Ezra wouldn’t like me, and that’s why he was bringing me over when he wasn’t around.
“Business thing,” Jack shrugged. “He’s gone a lot with stuff.”
“Well, the Lamborghini doesn’t pay for itself.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s true.” He looked over at me, and then laughed at my nervous fidgeting. I had started chewing on my nails, which was an awful habit that I kept vowing to quit. “Seriously, you’ll be fine. They’ll like you. I mean, I like you so… they’ll like you.”
“Yeah, cause everything in life is really that simple,” I sighed.
“This one thing might actually be,” he smiled confidently.
The car started slowing down, and he turned off the road, meaning we were getting closer, and my heart thudded painfully. When he pulled up to his house, I cringed.
Incredibly beautiful and massive, it was more of a mansion or a castle than a house. There was a five stall garage at the end of a short, winding driveway. The whole place had been done in some kind of pale sandstone.
The front door entered right into a rounded tower. There was a large rectangular window above it, covered in rod-iron bars. The tower flowed into what would otherwise be a rather conventional square house, if not for the gorgeous black iron balcony coming out of a second story window underneath a weeping willow.
“Oh my gosh,” I gasped as we pulled into the garage. “You live here?”
“Yeah.” He heard the awed tone in my voice and chuckled. “It’s just a house.”
“Nothing is ‘just’ anything with you,” I said under my breath.
He laughed harder and started getting out of the car, and I followed suit, but much slower. I had never felt so intimidated in my entire life. Everything about me suddenly seemed plain and dreary, and I felt totally ashamed that I had let him see the inside of my disgustingly tiny apartment.
“You know I didn’t buy this, right?” Jack turned to look back at me as we walked past the four other vehicles in the garage (Mae’s black Jetta, a green Jeep Wrangler with a canvas top, a black Lexus LS, and a shiny silver Audi TT Roadster). Then he gestured to the impressive collection of cars. “I didn’t buy any of this. None of it’s really mine.”
“Then who did buy it?”
“Ezra, mostly. And Peter.” We had reached the huge wooden door that presumably led into the house, and he turned back to grin at me. “Mae and I are just eye candy.”