Just a Kiss Contest
Story Title: Grounded
Penname: CertainShadesOfBlue
Summary: ENTRY FOR THE JUST A KISS CONTEST. Bella goes to live with her father Charlie, a lumber magnet in upstate Washington, and meets Jacob.
Disclaimer: All things Twilight belong to Stephenie Meyer. I just like to mess around during the time I should be cleaning my kitchen.
-x-x-x-
A/N: Hope you enjoy this. Warning: Charlie is very OOC in this story, and Bella is a little bit of a brat (or just a typical teenager).
-x-x-x-
Bella Swan dropped her suitcase on the huge four-poster bed in the room her father's assistant had brought her to. Nothing here seemed familiar, and the part of her that had been aching ever since she got on the plane from Phoenix took over, causing an ache in her chest that became too much to bear. She collapsed on the comforter, purple polka dots swimming in her vision as the tears brimmed over her cheeks staining the fabric a slightly darker shade of violet for the moment.
She had never felt so abandoned in her life. Her mother and new step-father had put her on the first flight to Washington State after their wedding ceremony, and her father had been too busy to even pick her up at the airport. His personal assistant had been there instead, holding a sign with Bella's name on it. As nice as Jessica seemed, she was too absorbed in the seventeen phone conversations she had held between the airport and the house to do more than introduce herself to Bella as they were climbing into the back of the limousine her father had sent to pick her up.
She missed everything she had grown used to - the tiny house she had shared with her mother for the past fourteen years, the friends she had gone to school with since kindergarten, the smell of the hot breeze blowing off the dry sand. Nothing was the same here and never would be, but there was little room for her in the life her mother had created with Phil, travelling around the country as a semi-professional ball player, and her father had offered to allow her to finish her junior and senior years of high school at a nearby private school he had chosen for her. It was supposed to be one of the best in the country, and she had told herself that it would only be for a couple of years. After that, she would be off to college and on her own.
It felt good to have a cry, to let all the things she'd been penning up inside herself free at last. Bella could feel the emotions flowing out of her with every tear, draining her and easing the tension that she'd been feeling in her muscles the entire day. This was the first moment she'd had alone since leaving her room for the final time that morning, and this had been a long time coming.
Bella fell asleep curled in the same spot where she had collapsed on the mattress, her suitcase resting beside her, and she remained there until the morning sun woke her, shining through the open curtains across the glass doors that opened to a balcony at the front of her room. She stretched and rubbed her eyes before rising and making her way to the bathroom, the bag of personal items she had brought along in tow.
She tossed the bag up on the vanity next to the sink and cringed at the dark circles underneath her eyes. She looked like she'd been sick instead of merely crying herself to sleep the night before, but she shrugged it off and drug herself into the shower, washing away the night before with the flow of the warm water across her shoulders.
She stayed in the shower until the water ran cold, trying to gather her thoughts and emotions into a manageable bundle and nearly succeeding before the temperature became unbearable. When she came out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel she nearly jumped out of her skin when she found a woman about her parents' age straightening the bed
"I'm sorry to scare you miss. My name is Sue. I'm the housekeeper." She smiled brightly, the brilliant whiteness of her teeth a stark contrast to the copper tone of her skin and the jet black of her hair. She was obviously of some sort of Native American descent.
Bella's shock wears off enough for her to murmur some sort of reply that even she didn't understand.
"I unpacked your suitcase and placed your things in the dresser and closet, Miss Swan, and breakfast is ready down in the dining room when you're dressed. Your father is there eating now."
Bella supposed that the mention of her father was supposed to serve as some sort of encouragement for her, something to entice her to want to leave this room eventually. It didn't.
Honestly, she could have cared less than to share breakfast with the man who hadn't cared enough about her to do more than send her a card each year for her birthday along with some ridiculously expensive gift that she was certain his secretary had picked out for him. God knew she had spoken to his various secretaries more often than she had ever spoken to him.
Charlie Swan was a busy man, too busy for the responsibilities of a wife and child, which is why he hadn't been burdened with them in the past fourteen years. Running the largest lumber business in the Pacific Northwest ate up a lot of a person's time and left very little for anyone else. The money that had provided had kept Bella in a small private school back in Arizona, rather than the overcrowded local public school and had put a roof over Bella and Renee's heads. It also meant that Renee didn't have to work, and could stay home with Bella, but that didn't make Bella resent it any less.
Bella decided against breakfast.
"I'm not hungry," she told Sue, quietly as she meandered over to the closet. It was one of those huge walk-in affairs. Her entire bedroom in their old house could have fit inside it, and the meager collection of things that Sue had hung up for her looked pitiful in the expanse. She supposed she would have to go shopping sooner or later to find something to wear. It was summer, late July, but already she could tell that her clothes weren't going to cut it against the weather here.
She supposed she would have to ask her father to take her shopping, or at least send her shopping with one of his employees, before the week was out, but for now, she couldn't bring herself to look at him over the breakfast table. She grabbed a pair of jeans, shutting the closet door and pulling the clothes she wanted off the hangers to get dressed. By the time she emerged, fully clothed, Sue was gone, and her room was in the same pristine condition it had been in when she arrived. Only the box that was placed on the dresser betrayed the fact that the room had an occupant at all.
Bella went to the box, sorting through the debris of her life – pictures and souvenirs of the various moments in her life. The things that she had chosen to bring with her were varied, but each of them reminded her of some happy time in her life – a photograph of her mother from high school, smiling and beautiful; a piece of ribbon from her first dance recital costume, frayed and worn along the edges; a card from her fifteenth birthday given to her by her best friend, Alice. She laid them out carefully across the top of the dresser, remembering the moments they represented with a little smile.
After she'd unpacked the box, Bella made her way around the room, examining it in the daylight and finding small surprises that she hadn't noticed the evening before. Charlie had had the foresight to prepare for his daughter's arrival with a few purchases. The pictures on the wall were from her childhood, when her mother and father had still been happy together. Baby Bella smiled from the bottom of a crib, the corner of a blanket stuck in her toothless mouth. In another, Charlie and Renee each held one of her stubby little fingers as she stumbled across the carpet, taking her first steps.
The desk next to the window held a computer, the one she'd been begging her mother to buy for her since her last birthday. Somehow, it felt like bribery, like Charlie thought he could buy her love, and it made her want to throw the whole thing out the window. However, she couldn't stop herself from running a finger along the smooth edges of the computer and opening the lid slowly. As it whirred quietly to life, she decided to sit down and let Alice know she was at least alive.
After completing all the preliminary steps to set up the computer and connecting to the wireless network that her father had run throughout the house, she logged into her email account. She had one message waiting for her in the inbox.
As expected, Alice was already panicking that her plane had crashed and somehow not made it on the evening news. Bella quickly tapped out a reply, letting her overly excited friend know that she was alright and at her father's house. What she didn't tell her was how much she missed the tiny girl's smile and how she didn't think she'd ever be happy in this place. After hitting send, she clicked the lid of the laptop shut and rested her chin on her hand.
The view out the window was beautiful, trees all around, stretching as far as she could see. The house was in the middle of nowhere, surrounded on all sides by forest. It had surprised her, since she had expected Charlie to live in one of those upscale neighborhoods in the city, but the car had kept on driving past the city limits and suburbs and out into the country side.
She drank in the scenery until a knock at the door behind her brought her out of her dream.
"Come in," she called to the door. It opened slowly, revealing her father standing behind it.
"Good morning, Bella. I hope you slept well." She turned to face him when she heard his voice, recognizing it at once.
"Morning, Dad," she replied, shortly.
"How was your flight?" He walked into the room examining the things she'd arranged on the dresser, careful not to look at his daughter's face as he spoke.
"Fine." Her answers were brief, and she could feel the tension between them growing. She didn't think she'd had a conversation with her father that lasted more than 10 minutes since she was old enough to talk.
"Glad to hear it. I suppose you'll be wanting to go and buy some new things for your room, so I took the liberty of arranging a shopping trip with Jessica for this afternoon. Here," he held his hand out, a piece of black plastic peeking from between his fingers, "I got you a credit card."
She took it from him gingerly. "Thanks."
"Don't go too crazy with it," he smiled, but it looked fake to her.
"I won't." She slipped the card into her pocket. "You going into work soon?"
"Yes, the car should be arriving any minute now. I just wanted to check in on you to make sure everything was going alright."
"Everything's fine, Dad."
"Glad to hear it. Well, I'll be on my way then. Jessica will be here around ten to take you shopping." He stopped half way out the door and added as an afterthought. "Oh, there's a party at the country club tonight. There will be some people your age there, but it's formal attire so make sure you pick up something suitable."
"Sure thing." She replied to his back as he left the room.
-x-x-x-
Bella fingered the material of the dress that Jessica had chosen for her to wear to tonight's party. It was strapless midnight blue chiffon with a pair of shoes that were exactly the same color. She didn't think all the clothes she'd brought with her from Phoenix had cost as much as the shoes alone, but Jessica had assured her that it was all within the budget her father had given her. To be honest, Bella's heart hadn't been in the shopping trip, and she'd let Jessica pick out 90% of the clothes she had purchased. Luckily, Jessica had excellent taste and wasn't much older than Bella.
Jessica had chattered on most of the trip about how she'd just gotten out of business school and was lucky to score the position as Mr. Swan's assistant while Bella merely nodded at the appropriate times to keep her end of the conversation up, but Jessica didn't need much encouragement to keep talking.
Bella had come home with more new clothes than she had owned in her entire life, and Sue had told her to leave the bags downstairs while she went to the kitchen for a snack. The party wasn't going to begin until 8 PM, so she was going to need something to hold her over until then.
When Bella had come out of the kitchen, her bags were gone. She found the clothes installed on matching hangers in the closet, sorted by type and color into neat rows. The shoes she'd purchased were sitting in their boxes neatly stacked on the shelves that lined the walls, and her dress for tonight was hanging on a hook on the back of the open closet door, waiting for her to get ready.
Bella sighed. She wasn't prepared for any of this, and the thought of a formal gathering her first real night in Washington was a bit much for her. She wasn't worried about embarrassing her father, because she could honestly care less about what he thought, but it seemed that there was going to be a lot of pressure on her to be Charlie Swan's perfect daughter. Perfect was one thing Bella Swan was not.
-x-x-x-
At 6:30 there was another knock on Bella's door. It was Sue checking in before she left for the evening.
"Is there anything I can do for you before I go, Miss Swan?" She waited dutifully in the hallway for a reply.
"I hate to ask you this, but can you help me get ready for the party tonight? I have no idea what to expect," Bella confessed.
"Miss Swan, I've never been to any of the parties at the club. I know it's a charity event, hosted by your father, but I can't tell you any more than that. Are you nervous?"
Bella shook her head no but bit her lip at the same time.
"You'll be fine, miss. I promise." Sue smiled warmly.
"Do you have any children Sue?" Bella asked curiously.
"I have a daughter a couple of years older than you and a son a couple of years younger." Bella could see the smile spread across Sue's face at the mention of her children, and it made her miss her mother.
"Thanks for everything you've done today," Bella replied. "See you tomorrow?"
"Goodnight, Miss Swan." Sue backed away with a small wave.
"Sue," Bella called behind her, "please call me Bella. All this Miss Swan business makes me feel weird."
"As you wish Bella. See you in the morning." Sue left the hall and made her way down the stairs as Bella began to get dressed for the evening.
-x-x-x-
At 7:45 there was another knock on the door. This time it was her father's driver, Billy, who was at the door.
"Are you ready to leave, Miss Swan?" he asked. "The car is waiting downstairs."
"Sure thing, just let me grab my bag." Bella scooped up the clutch bag that Jessica had chosen and turned to face him. "How do I look?"
"Beautiful, Miss Swan. Shall we?" Billy offered her his arm and escorted her down the stairs to the front door where her father's limo was waiting.
When he opened the back door to let her inside, she could see that the car was empty. "Isn't my father coming?"
"I took him a couple of hours ago to get ready for the party. He's waiting for you there."
"Of course. Thank you, Billy."
Bella settled into the seat as Billy pulled the car down the driveway, feeling less and less like Bella and more and more like Miss Swan, and she wasn't sure she liked the feeling.
When they arrived at the club, the parking lot was packed with more limos than Bella had ever seen in one place, and a steady stream of people in evening gowns and tuxedos filed in through the front doors. Her heart fluttered in her chest, and for a moment, she considered the possibility of telling Billy to take her home. Her father could do without her for one more night; he'd already done just fine without her for her entire life, but something inside her made her get out of the car when it came to a stop and the door was opened by the young man who waited on the curb.
She silently went through the double doors into the extravagant ballroom that had been prepared for the night. She scanned the crowd, looking for a familiar face but finding none. Instead, she was surrounded by a sea of strangers all her father's age with cocktail glasses in hand, chatting about nothing in particular. It was like some scene out of a movie, some corny movie on the Disney Channel about how a teenage girl finds out she's secretly a princess. Except, she wasn't a princess, and this wasn't a movie. It was painfully real.
Bella felt homesick and suddenly lonely in the crowd full of unknown faces, and she made her way over to the bar in the corner of the room, praying that there would be something real to drink instead of nothing but these fancy, strange drinks that everyone else seemed to be holding. Right now, she would sell her left ring finger for a Coke or anything familiar.
"Please tell me you have Coke," she begged of the young man behind the bar when she reached it.
He smiled at her brightly and replied, "Of course, miss. On the rocks?" He laughed, and Bella could only help return it.
"Sure." She sighed in relief as he put the glass down in front of her, filled with the familiar dark brown color of her favorite drink.
"This your first time at one of these shindigs?" he asked her when she put the empty glass down on the bar in front of her.
"Do I stick out that much?" she replied.
He shook his head. "No, I just haven't seen you around here before."
"Oh," she smiled. "My dad made me come. I just moved in with him since my mom got remarried, and why am I telling you this? I'm sure you're not at all interested."
"It's the most interesting thing anyone has said to me all night. If I have to hear one more old guy talk about the price of oil futures I think I'll scream."
Bella laughed, and for the first time since she'd arrived here, she felt comfortable. The young man behind the bar didn't appear to be any older than she was. Honestly, he looked younger, but it was hard to tell. He had long black hair pulled into a ponytail at the nape of his neck and the same copper complexion as Sue. There must be a group of Native Americans who lived somewhere in the area, because there were a lot of faces in the room that resembled his. Most of them belonged to the servers and employees of the club.
"I'm Bella," she held her hand out, and he took it warmly.
"Jacob," he replied simply.
"Nice to meet you Jacob. I'm glad I have somebody to talk to, because it looks like everyone else here is old enough to be my mom or dad or even granddad."
"Yeah, that's the typical group for one of these little get-togethers. Mr. Swan only invites his business partners and important people from around the industry. You know, senators and such. Got to grease a few wheels, and nothing does it like a little alcohol and some shrimp cocktail."
"True," Bella laughed.
"Besides, it's not like your average teenager has any pull with the House Ways and Means committee like little Mr. Cullen junior over there." Jacob pointed at a young man halfway across the room with carefully tussled hair, gelled perfectly into place. "Nothing like people with connections to help your violate a few EPA policies."
Bella was confused but decided not to ask Jacob about it. When he broached the subject, his voice had taken on an edge she didn't like. She decided to change the subject. "So, you don't look old enough to be serving drinks in a place like this, if you don't mind me saying so."
"I don't mind at all, and technically, no I'm not old enough." He laughed. "I'm only sixteen, but my dad's best friend owns the club. I'm doing him a favor since his normal bartender called in sick at the last minute. I'm usually just a server."
"Oh, well lucky you were around I guess," she replied. She sat quietly at the bar for a few minutes when a man in the black tuxedo that seemed to serve as the male uniform walked up and ordered two martinis. She watched in awe as Jacob deftly mixed the liquids together and shook them with ice, decanting them into the glasses in one smooth move.
"I'm impressed," she told him when the orderer was out of hearing range.
"Don't be. That's about the easiest drink to make, and I've made approximately 7 million of them tonight. Now you should see me try to make a Long Island Iced Tea. That's the one drink I screw up every time. Always add too much Coke. It's my favorite too." He refilled her drink as he answered her, and she realized how much she was enjoying watching him work. "Say, I have a break in like ten minutes. You wanna get out of this stuffy room for awhile?"
"I'd love to," Bella replied.
-x-x-x-
The two of them wandered around the grounds aimlessly for awhile, simply talking. It seemed odd to Bella that she'd found a friend in such an unlikely spot, but she decided not to think about it too much. Jacob had told her that he lived nearby. His father was one of the drivers waiting out in the parking lot, and the two of them lived out in the coach house so his dad could be on call twenty-four hours a day.
"That's kind of pretentious, isn't it? Do most drivers live with their employers?" She asked.
"Some, but it's cool because I get to go to the prep school up the road. Verona Academy, ever heard of it?"
"Actually, I have. I'm supposed to start there this August." Bella smiled, knowing that she would have at least one friend to start out the year with there.
"Oooh, lucky you! You get to go to school with me and Cullen Junior and his baby sister Rosalie."
"Wow, how did I get to be so fortunate?" Bella laughed, but her laugher was interrupted by the angry face of her father storming across the grounds towards them both.
"Where have you been all night, Bella? I've been waiting to introduce you to my business partners and friends, but I guess you've been too busy touring the grounds with Billy's son to bother coming to find your dear old dad," he nearly shouted and it broke the comfortable atmosphere that had been carefully built around them.
"Listen here, Dad," she began, but the touch of Jacob's hand on her elbow stopped her in midsentence.
"Sorry, Mr. Swan. I didn't realize you needed her inside or I'd have brought her in myself. I also didn't realize that this was your daughter. Please forgive me for being so rude. It won't happen again," he said apologetically.
"It had better not young man. I'm sure your father wouldn't appreciate having to look for another job just because you decided to ditch a party with my daughter." Charlie took Bella by the elbow and nearly drug her back into the party. There were too many things swimming around inside of Bella's head for her to formulate a sentence in reply to her father's behavior, and once they were inside the glass doors, there was no opportunity for her to express her frustration over the way he treated her and Jacob. It was only when she was finally shaking hands with the aforementioned Representative Cullen that she realized her father had called Jacob Billy's son. That meant he lived in the coach house she could see from her bedroom window. His father was the driver for hers.
She was still processing what all this meant when her father introduced her to Edward Cullen who shot her a dazzling smile and leaned down to kiss her hand with a twinkle in his eye. "You know, our parents have been trying to get us together for ages. They seem to think we would make a good match."
Bella laughed, bitterly. She hadn't even been in Washington for 48 hours and already her father was trying to auction her off to the highest bidder. "Is that so, Mr. Cullen?" she asked. "I suppose you are a big heavy metal fan too then?" She smiled brightly, feeling her father cringe beside her as she began, unable to stop herself.
"You know, I'm planning on spending the year after I graduate high school on tour with a lesbian band called Cleopatra's vagina, and I have to perfect idea for a tattoo to go right here." She pointed to the fleshy part of her left butt cheek. "It's going to be an eagle with a guitar in his talons landing on top of a ..."
"Isabella Marie Swan, that is quite enough," her father interrupted before she could continue. The shocked looks on the faces of the people around her was satisfying enough to have made it all worth it. "Isn't she cute?" her father asked Mr. Cullen. "She has quite the sense of humor. Actually she plans to study Chemistry after high school, but she hasn't decided which school she prefers, now have you sweetheart?"
"Not yet. I was thinking of the University of Hawaii so I could switch my major to surfing," she replied, her face deadpan.
"Very funny, young lady," her father replied. "Please excuse us."
"Of course," Mr. Cullen replied with a huge grin on his face.
Bella knew this wasn't going to go well, but she allowed her father to steer her over towards the corner of the room. "What in the hell are you thinking? That was Representative Carlisle Cullen, and I need his vote to get a bill through the House of Representative to fund you and your little shopping trips like the one you took this afternoon. If you ever do anything like that again, I'll…"
"You'll what, Dad? Send me to my room? Just living here with you is like being grounded. It can't get any worse than that. So bring it on. I'm not here for you to use to impress your friends, and I won't be coming to any more parties here with you. And you can forget about trying to set me up with that pompous asshole's son too." She could feel the words pouring out of her uncontrollably. "I'm leaving."
"You're grounded for the rest of the summer. Don't even think about leaving the house until school begins. We'll discuss this in the morning. In the meantime, Billy will take you home."
"Fine." She stormed out of the room and towards the front door as her father flipped his cell phone open. By the time she made her way down the front steps Billy was pulling the car around and stepping out to open the door for her.
The drive home was silent as Bella fumed in the backseat. Billy knew better than to try to say anything to her, merely opening and closing the door for her when they arrived back at the house. Bella made her way directly to her room, slamming the door closed and falling into a teary heap on the bed. She'd already cried on this bed more times than she'd cared to, but there wasn't anything she could do about it right now.
After she finished, she stood up, undressing and throwing the dress into a heap on the floor at the foot of her bed, and changed into her favorite pajamas she'd brought with her from home. She climbed into bed just in time to hear her father come through the door downstairs. When he peeked into her room, she pretended to be asleep.
"Bella…" he said uncertainly into the dark of the room.
She didn't move, slowing her breathing so that she appeared to be sleeping peacefully. Charlie closed the door behind him, and Bella sat up moving towards the computer desk. She stopped dead in her tracks when something clinked against the window. Just about the time she'd decided it must have been a bug she heard it again.
Bella walked slowly up to the glass doors and opened one of them just a crack. "Hello?"
"Bella, down here," called a voice she recognized.
She looked down towards the pool that lay below her window and saw a familiar face there. "Jacob?"
"Yeah, can you come down?" he half-whispered.
"I think so. Just give me a minute," she replied, closing the door behind her as she tip-toed her way across the room. Her father's room was on the other side of the house and another floor up, so she wasn't afraid of waking him up, but she was afraid he hadn't gone to bed yet.
The hallway was dark, lit only by the light coming up from the staircase and the light that spilled into it from the window in Bella's room, so she felt safe that her father wasn't anywhere near. She made her way softly down the carpeted steps and through the kitchen towards the back door. If she was caught in the kitchen, she could always say she'd come down to get a glass of water, but once she was outside, there were no excuses that could be made.
Bella decided that she couldn't get in much more trouble than she was already in so she opened the door and stepped out into the night. The back patio was lit by the lights that shined up from the pool, and she saw Jacob standing just beneath her bedroom waiting.
"How did you know that was my room?" she asked as she came closer.
"I know every room in this house, Bella. I've lived here all my life," he replied.
"Oh," she didn't know what else to say to him, so she fidgeted uncomfortably. Finally she said, "Listen, I'm sorry if I got you in trouble tonight. I just…"
"It's no big deal. Trust me. Mr. Swan's not gonna fire my dad just because I did something stupid. He's worked here too long, and no other driver in Washington state would work for him for more than a week without quitting." Jacob laughed. "Sorry, if you got in trouble."
"I'm grounded for the rest of the summer, but I did it to myself," Bella replied. "Well, me and my big fat mouth did it."
"Big fat mouth?" he asked.
"Yeah, I kinda told Mr. Cullen and his son that I was planning to get a tattoo of an eagle on my ass and go on tour with a lesbian rock band." She grinned.
"You didn't." Jacob's mouth fell open in shock.
"I did."
"Well, you're a braver man than me then," he replied. "Can't believe I was out done by a sixteen year old girl."
"Seventeen…" she interjected.
"Please excuse me, seventeen. Good, because I like older women."
"You do, huh?" Bella blushed at the implication in his voice and wasn't sure how to respond.
"Sure." The two of them stood in an uncomfortable silence for awhile before Jacob asked, "Wanna go for a swim?"
"I don't have a suit, and that water is probably freezing," Bella protested.
"I don't have a suit either, and it's a heated pool," he replied, pushing away her arguments by pulling his t-shirt over his head and tossing it onto one of the pool chairs. "Underwear is just like a bathing suit, right?"
Bella's mouth fell open as she watched him strip down to nothing but a pair of boxer shorts. His body was gorgeous; he was muscular and obviously not afraid to show it off as he jumped into the water in one smooth motion without making much of a splash.
He surfaced and swam to the side of the pool where she stood staring. "You coming?"
"I guess so, but turn around while I get undressed." She motioned with her hand for him to face the other side of the pool. She untied her pajama pants, constantly checking to make sure that Jacob wasn't watching her as she pulled them down her legs. Once she thought she saw his head turning slightly to the left, and she hissed, "No peeking."
He laughed. "I promise I won't look, just hurry up."
She tossed her pants onto the pool chair and quickly whisked the t-shirt off over her head, diving into the water much less gracefully than Jacob had. She swam to the opposite side of the pool from where he was standing, as far away from the pool lights as she could get. Still, her entire body was illuminated from below.
"I didn't think you were actually going to jump in," he said and began to slowly make his way across the pool towards her. Bella pressed her back against the side of the pool, frozen in place.
"Why not?" she asked, unsure if she wanted the answer.
"Because you looked petrified when I suggested it. I was afraid I had offended you." He smiled and came steadily closer.
"No, it's just… I don't normally go skinny dipping on the first date."
"Who said this was a date?" he asked, and Bella splashed him with a face full of water, making him stop to clear his vision and lungs.
"What was that for?"
"If I got down to my underwear for you, this better be a date," she replied.
He laughed. "Fine then, it's a date. Happy?"
"Ecstatic," she answered. "So, what do you like to do for fun around here?"
"Swim. That's about all there is to do. Swim and go to school."
"Great, because I'm grounded for the rest of my life, and those are the only two things I think I'm going to be allowed to do until I turn 18 or die, whichever comes first. Plus, if my dad catches us down here then I doubt I'll be allowed to see this pool again before my thirtieth birthday."
"He won't catch you. He's already gone to bed, and he'll have a monster hangover in the morning. I made sure of that." Jacob swam steadily closer. He was now less than three feet from her and closing.
"Please tell me you poisoned him," she replied.
"Not quite. I just added a little more tequila than was required in his drinks for most of the night. After you left, I doubled up on it." He grinned, and Bella couldn't help but return the smile. "Your dad doesn't handle tequila too well. Last time he drank it, he stayed in bed for three days. According to Sue, he only got up to pay homage to the porcelain gods before crawling back under the duvet."
"I should be so lucky." Bella's face was only inches from Jacobs now. Part of her wanted to move away, but most of her wanted to move closer. Most of her was steadily winning the war between the two sides.
"Besides, I'll make it worth your trouble."
"How are you going to do that?" Bella asked.
"Like this," he replied, closing the last few inches between them suddenly.
Bella closed her eyes instinctively, but when his lips pressed against hers she opened them again. It felt like a bolt of lightning had passed through her body, electrifying every cell it passed through one by one. Every place his body touched hers burned, even if they just brushed gently against each other. After a minute, she felt her body melt into his, molding herself around him.
Her arms wrapped around his neck, and her fingers twined themselves through his hair that fanned out behind him like a black cloud in the water. His hand found her waist and wrapped around her pulling her body against his even closer.
She lost herself in that kiss, and it never seemed to end. She wasn't sure if they'd been there for minutes or hours, and it didn't even matter. All that mattered was this thing between the two of them, because the kiss had taken on a life of its own, and become a palpable thing that wrapped the two of them up and held them suspended in their own universe for the time being.
She never wanted it to end, and Bella felt herself drowning in the kiss, needing to come up for air, but unwilling to break it for even a second. Jacob saved her at the last moment by pulling back a fraction of an inch.
"Was that worth the possibility of being grounded til you die?" His lips curled into a smile against hers, sending chills down her body.
She replied breathlessly, "Yes, it was." Quickly, she pulled in a deep breath and dove beneath the water, putting some distance between herself and Jacob. She surfaced.
"Bet you can't catch me," she called out, daring him to follow her. They spent the rest of the night chasing each other around the pool, playing until the horizon began to lighten and turn pink. She kissed him goodbye at the back door, and tiptoed carefully back up to her room. Bella stood at her balcony watching him make his way back to the coach house with a smile on his face that mirrored her own. For the first time in two days, she didn't regret her decision to come here. Now she just had to figure out how to deal with her father. As she crawled into bed, she decided that was one issue that was just going to have to wait until after she had slept to be dealt with.
She drifted off to sleep as the sun crept over the trees with a smile on her face and the image of Jacob's eyes dancing behind her own.