Page 47 of Use Me Up

Sort of.

Okay, I hate salads. I clear my throat. “Pizza.”

“Excellent choice,” says Jordan, making another regal gesture with their wrist.

We go to the pizza place and order slices. I get a veggie one—spinach and black olives and mushrooms, so that’s sort of healthy. The pizza slices here are too big to actually fit on the paper plates they serve them on, greasy, salty cheese dripping down over the edges, getting all over your fingers, and everything here tastes amazing.

Andrew folds his pepperoni slice in half.

Jordan puts red pepper flakes and parmesan all over their cheese slice.

I chew, trying to concentrate on how good the pizza tastes.

“So,” says Jordan, “the thing is, your mother is really worried right now. She does not like the fact that you won’t pick up the phone when she calls.”

“She can text me,” I say. “I am texting her back. Texts are the way that everyone communicates now. Maybe she should wake up and realize what century she is living in.”

“Okay,” says Jordan. “I think that’s fair, and I will pass that on. But she is really upset, and she is your mother, so if you could pick up, say, every third call, I think that would be a good compromise?”

“If she’s so worried, why isn’t she here herself?” I say. “She sent you.”

“Yes, that’s true,” says Jordan. “But it is a big sacrifice to her to have sent me to see you instead of seeing to my other duties, and you should recognize that. Your mother is the sort of person who is always trying to do more things that a human being can actually do, and between her and me, we do the work of ten people, I’m telling you.” They take a bite of pizza and chew. “You know this, though,” they say around their bite, dabbing at their mouth with a napkin.

Andrew sets down his pizza. “Callie’s a fucking mess. She won’t let me come home—”

“She said that you were crying and you stayed at Mom’s,” I say.

“She told you that?” says Andrew, furrowing his brow.

“I maybe saw Ellis’s text messages,” I say. “He left me to go see her and he told me he went down on her. And she says you’re cool with that? But somehow, this is my problem, not that you married the crazy omega who is obsessed with him?”

Andrew clears his throat, looking embarrassed. He eats more of his pizza.

“Your brother is free to conduct his marriage however he likes,” says Jordan. “But you are being used by a psychopath—”

“Oh, if Ellis is a psychopath, then Callie is, too. Do you know how many texts she sent him?” I say.

Andrew swallows his bite of pizza. “Granted, they are, uh, toxically co-dependent. And granted, if I had known he was going to come back, and all of the progress she had made while he was gone would unravel in two seconds, maybe I would have thought harder about proposing marriage.”

“Whatever,” I say. “You had already bitten her at that point.”

Andrew makes a face. “True.” He eats more pizza, seemingly defeated. “That’s true. I’m fucked.”

Jordan raises both of their hands. “Okay, well, to stay on topic, we think that whatever the situation is, it’s improved if we get Hannah away from Ellis.” They give me a gentle smile. “Near as we can tell, you’ve spent the last three nights with him, is that right?”

“That’s not anyone else’s business,” I say.

“Well, when it’s affecting your brother’s marriage,” says Jordan, “maybe it is.”

“You mean,” I say pointedly to Andrew, “Mom wants you out of her guest bedroom.”

“Your mother is worried,” says Jordan smoothly. “About both of you.”

“I did not sign up for this,” says Andrew to me quietly. “Callie was the way she is about him, but he left, and I was there for her while she got through that. He abandoned her; she broke; I stayed by her side. I stupidly thought that would mean something to her, but she’s obsessed with him. She could give a fuck about me.”

“Andrew,” says Jordan, shaking their head at my brother.

“It’s not like I can divorce her or something,” says Andrew to me. “As you pointed out, I have bitten her. We have a life bond.”