Free My Blood Approves by Amanda Hocking

If Mom liked Jack, then she wouldn’t object to him.
    “Anna.” Jack repeated, and my mother looked down, flicking her cigarette in the ashtray.
    “So tell me about yourself.” Her eyes went back up to him, and they had never looked so young before.
    In actuality, my mother was only thirty-four, but she usually looked much older than that. But when she looked at Jack, there was this girliness underneath that came through. Suddenly, I could see how beautiful and radiant she must’ve been when she was young, before she had me. Feeling an odd protective jealousy, I hoped that Jack didn’t notice it.
    “What do you want to know?” Jack tilted his head at her.
    “Everything.” She was being coy, and that should’ve (and actually did) creep me out a bit, but her answer excited me. Given the situation, she would be able to ask him questions, and he would answer. Not vague little sidesteps like he did with me, but real, legitimate answers. Because she was my mom, and that’s what people did when they were interrogated by parents. “Well, that’s an awful lot to tell. Where would you like me to start?"
    “What do you with yourself?” Her eyes had gone sultry, and I had to fight the urge to vomit or take Jack’s hand or something. Milo pulled up a chair next to Mom, but he didn’t look even slightly disturbed by her behavior. He too had become too enamored by Jack and just listened for his answer.
    “Not a lot really,” Jack admitted.
    “You don’t work?” Mom pressed, and this fact that should’ve sent her into a glowering tirade of disapproval, just seemed to make complete sense to her. Of course Jack didn’t work. Why would he, when he was just that fabulous? “Nope.” He shrugged, and this time I felt irritated that he didn’t have to work and didn’t think anything of it. Mom should’ve felt the same way, but she didn’t. “I mean, I’ve done a lot of odd jobs over the years. Like I tried some bartending for awhile and once I was tour guide for Niagara caves out in Harmony for awhile, but that was too far away so I quit that. I don’t know. Nothing’s just really stuck, I guess.”
    “How do you support yourself?” It was a logical question, so it kind of surprised me that Mom had even bothered asking it. She looked like the only two questions that mattered to her was what he was going to be doing in ten minutes, and if he wanted to be doing it with her.
    “Well…” Jack laughed a little, and both her and Milo closed their eyes, as if the sound was just too pleasurable for them to handle. “I guess I don’t really. I live with my family, and… they kind of take care of me. I guess.”
    “But you’re twenty-four,” I interjected.
    Really, if his family was loaded and wanted to take care of him, then I’d say, more power to you. But if Mom wasn’t going to ask the tough questions, then I was going to have to. After all, I didn’t really understand him at all, and the more information I could gain about why he did what he did, the better it would be for me.
    “I know.” Jack didn’t look ashamed at all, though, like I probably would if somebody called me out on being in my mid-twenties, unemployed, and living at home. “It just makes sense for us. I don’t know a better way of explaining it."
    “So you live with your parents?” Mom took a drag on her cigarette, keeping her eyes locked on him.
    “No, they’re dead.” He said it with the same flat tone that he had before, and I couldn’t explain it, but there was something off with that. “I live with my brothers and, uh, my sister-in-law.”
    “Oh?” Mom raised an eyebrow, and she was probably excited of the prospect of their being even more guys like him. “How old are they?"
    “Ezra’s twenty… six, and Mae is like twenty-eight or something, and Peter is nineteen.” Jack answered thoughtfully.
    “Hmm,” Mom purred, and oh my god, she really was thinking about his brothers! This was so gross and so disturbing, and