Jacob was terrified. It had been happening to him for a while now, at random points in time. He figured he was extremely lucky not to have been caught by now, what with Nessie's leech of a father and his mind-reading. Jacob felt his face grow cold with dread as he approached the road to the Cullen house, creeping at ten miles below the limit. He stopped his car near the entrance to the long drive and got out to walk the rest of the way. He needed time to think about all this. Alone.
Yesterday, at the beach with Nessie, Jacob had found out that she was feeling it too. So he wasn't just going mad. He didn't have a death wish. Not that it really mattered much anyway. Jacob was pretty sure he was about to be torn into teeny tiny little pieces by a couple of angry vampires.
If he was perfectly honest with himself, it wasn't Edward that Jacob was worried about. No, it was the thought of Bella that had his guts doing the nervous cha-cha. Jacob shivered.
Bella had been pretty angry when she'd found out Jacob had imprinted on Nessie. She'd attacked him, even. Edward hadn't done that. Weren't fathers supposed to be the overprotective ones?
Anyway, Bella hadn't been the most cheerful leech in the pond (not that Jacob ever normally thought of her as a leech; it was just nerves) when she'd discovered Jacob had moved from the "big-brother stage" to the "best-friend stage" either. She hadn't attacked him then, but Jacob was sure she would now that he'd moved on to the- …the next stage.
Nessie's wearing the pants in this relationship, Jacob thought bitterly, muttering under his breath. It had been Nessie, after all, who had suggested they tell Bella and Edward that they were going to try having- …to go on a date.
"Just a date, Jake," Jacob whispered to himself. "Just a date." That's what Nessie had said at the beach, after he'd looked at her like she was crazy and told her she was going to get him killed. 'Course, it was a lie, and Edward would know and Edward would tell Bella and Bella would kill Jacob. Jacob took a deep, calming breath (at least it was supposed to be calming) and knocked on the Cullen door.
It opened immediately, to reveal an angrily glaring Edward. Jacob gulped and bit his lip. He already knew.
Jacob stepped through the door when Edward (seemingly with immense reluctance) stepped aside, despite his better judgement. Jacob's better judgement didn't really have much voice when it came to Nessie. Sometimes Jacob wished it did. It would make a few things quite a bit less deadly. Jacob chanced a glance at Edward and shivered. He was so dead.
As soon as Jacob was fully in the house, he went right over to Nessie. As if she would protect him. This was all her idea.
"I'm blaming you when they all tear me to shreds," he whispered in her ear. Edward glared harder from across the room. Jacob took a step back. Nessie rolled her eyes and bounced over to her father with a cheerful giggle.
"Lighten up, Daddy," she huffed, wrapping her lean arms around his middle and squeezing. He oofed, but probably only to humour her. She giggled again and placed a haphazard peck of a kiss on Edward's cheek. Jacob felt a strange, irrational surge of jealousy at that. He wanted Nessie to kiss him, he realized. Only him.
"Hi, Jake." Bella sounded only somewhat happy to see him, but Jacob was glad for the distraction. He turned to face her.
Jacob really wished he hadn't. He really did. Bella was so beautiful and strong and tall and sleek and – and she was going to kill him. Slowly and painfully, he was sure of it. Jacob shivered and gulped again.
"Hey, Bella," he croaked out. Nessie laughed at his shoulder, her cool breath brushing the back of his neck and sending a different sort of shiver down his spine. Bella's eyes narrowed.
"Oh, are we finally beating him up?" Emmet asked, dropping in next to Jacob from the banister of the stairwell. "Oops," he muttered when he caused a crater to appear in the floor. From in the corner and behind a knitting magazine, Esme sighed.
"Oh, Emmet," she scolded gently. "You should know by now you can't jump off of things. You'll have to fix the floor again." She seemed completely unconcerned with the reason Emmet had jumped in the first place. Jacob held in a whimper. If even gently Esme was against him, he – well, he was screwed.
Alice's light footsteps sounded as she raced gracefully down the stairs after her "brother." She rushed headlong at Jacob and he flinched, thinking she was charging, or something.
But she grabbed him by the shoulders and looked him up and down, tsking. She shook her head distastefully.
"You're not dressed up!" she said, as if it were blasphemy. She wrinkled her nose. "I wish you didn't smell," she complained. "Though I suppose we'll be dealing with your smell even more than usual after tonight, won't we, Jake?" She winked.
"What?" Jacob squeaked, paling. He'd always been lead to believe that Alice couldn't see werewolves in her visions, or Nessie. Had they lied? Alice laughed her high-pitched tinkling giggle.
"Nessie tells me and Esme everything," she explained.
"Good to know," Jacob whispered.
"So you better be on your best behaviour," Alice went on, as if Jacob hadn't uttered a word. She prodded Jacob in the chest and put extra emphasis on the last two words, glaring. Nessie laughed as Jacob nodded weakly.
"I so wear the pants in this relationship," she said cheerfully. Silently, Jacob couldn't help but agree.