A/N: Here is a typical conversation we have on the side when writing.
[00:23] imXnotXaXsoldier: My computer is a bitch and should be punished.
[00:23] imXnotXaXsoldier: I just wish my computer were Robert P.
[00:24] heart: hahaha KINKY!!!!!!
[00:24] imXnotXaXsoldier: Or, rather, he were me and I was the comp
[00:24] imXnotXaXsoldier: LOVE ME SOME KINKY
[00:24] heart: Lol. Don't we all?
I flipped open the phone that was vibrating by my bed. It was almost noon and I had just woken up. "What?" I spat into the phone, still groggy.
"Jesus, man, what"—he groaned lowly—"happened to you?" Edward asked in a breathy but slightly offended voice. I almost hung up on him--anyone could tell by Edward's reputation what he was doing right now.
"I'm trying to get some sleep. What do you want?" I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand. There was nothing I would like more than to fall back into my bed and just fall asleep.
"I was"--there was a loud plastic sound in my ear before I heard Edward speak again. "One sec, okay?" he mumbled lazily. "Okay. Anyway. Let's hit up a bar. I've waited long enough for serving time."
I couldn't help but emit a laugh. "It's noon, and you're calling me to go get hammered with you?" I contemplated his offer for a second. "Meet me at Bernie's in an hour?"
It took Edward a minute to get back on the phone. "Sounds good." I had to roll my eyes at how out of breath he was when he hung up on me. He was such a prick, getting a blow job at lunch time. It was probably Jessica Stanley, though, so that probably was her lunch—
I shuddered at the thought and stiffly got out of bed.
I pulled on the ripped jeans I had lying on my bedroom floor and threw on a shirt. The sun was shining abnormally bright so I grabbed the black Stetson hat in my closet and bolted out of the door and into the garage.
My black car was sitting freshly washed in the humid garage, and my keys jingled as I pressed the button to unlock it, sat inside and cranked the ignition. I almost rammed into the thin wooden door of the garage before remembering to open it to the strangely hot and sunny day. My parents weren't home to witness me speeding out of the driveway and down the road to Bernie's. I was more than half an hour early to meet Edward by the time I pulled into the unfortunately small town section of Forks.
Not bothering to wait for him, I walked through the almost deserted parking lot and into the rustic hole-in-the-wall that was Bernie's. The best part of it was you didn't even have to waste your time or money getting a fake I.D.
The place was empty save two or three losers like me who were desperate to get their whiskey on this early in the day. I made my way over to the dimly-lit, dark wooden bar, sitting closer to the end.
I wasn't here to sit around a make friends with some lonely drunk. I was here to get drunk out of my mind and listen to Edward bitch about whatever was on his mind at the time. I ordered a beer, saving the heavier stuff for later.
I watched the news on the small television above the vodka bottles, which was silenced under the semi-loud sound of good, chill nineties music. When it zoomed in on the female anchor's face, I noticed that she had bright pink lipstick smeared on her front teeth. I downed the rest of my beer, hoping to find something a little more entertaining to do.
Almost the second after I finished my drink, Edward walked through the doors, smirking when he saw me. I pulled my hat over my eyes. "Whitlock," he said enthusiastically as he plunked down into the stool next to me. He signaled the bartender for two more drinks.
"What do you want to bitch about today, Edward?" I asked in a mockingly polite voice. He guffawed.
"Who said I wanted to bitch about anything? Maybe I just want a drink and my cowboy BFF to go with it," Edward retorted in a casually snarky tone. I snorted as the bartender slid two Heinekens in front of us.
I took a long draw from the bottle in front of me. "So, any special occasion or are you just in the mood to drink?"
Edward took a swig and opened his mouth to answer, but I felt a buzzing in my pocket. Shit—I hoped it wasn't my parents. I took my phone out of my pocket and flipped it open.
"Jasper, honey?" My mother's shrill voice answered.
"Hey, mom," I answered flatly, hoping she couldn't hear the bartender shouting out orders. My parents had been away all weekend for a business convention that I didn't care enough to ask about.
"Where are you?" she asked curiously, and I tried not to wince at my mom's piercingly high voice.
"Uh, I'm with some friends," I answered awkwardly. "What do you need?"
"Well, sweetie," she replied as I drank the rest of my beer. "You need to come home to get ready for dinner at the Swan's house."
"The Swans?" I asked. Charlie Swan was the chief police here in Forks, but he lived alone. He and my parents had been family friends for years. "Who else is going to be there?"
"Oh, it's just the sweetest thing. His daughter Bella moved here to live with him!"
I choked on my beer.
Bella Swan. The last memory I had of her was when we were seven years old. She had knobby knees and an overbite.
"Oh, okay. See you at the Swans'," I said, trying not to regurgitate my alcohol as I hung up on my mom. No matter how nice I had been to her before, there was no taking back the thought of Bella being an Ugly Duckling rather than a freaking Swan.
"What was that all about?" Edward asked between sips. He must have seen the look of horror now spread all over my face.
I rubbed my eyes with the heel of my hand. "I have to go have dinner with a girl." I turned to see a devilish grin on his face. "An ugly one." It vanished.
"So your parents are setting you up now? Is it really that hard for you to get a girl?" he teased.
I shot him a glare. "It's another family friend." I stood up from my seat, trying to keep my balance. The two beers I downed were starting to take a slight effect on me.
I didn't know why that copper-headed fuck was my friend, but he was. "I can always hook you up with a hook-up, Jazzy boy," Edward said, finishing the rest of his beer as well and standing up.
"Stanley's not my type, thanks," I told him, and a grin reappeared on his face.
"Hey, at least she knows how to lunch."
That piece of information was something I could have gone my whole life without knowing. "Has anyone ever told you about a little disease called Chlamydia?" He must have thought I was kidding because he laughed whole-heartedly and grinned.
I threw a twenty on the bar and turned to walk out the door, slightly inebriated.
"Hey, can I come to your house?" Edward asked, walking behind me. "I need to warm up my Gears of War skills." I ignored him and kept walking to the door.
"I gotta go get ready for this dinner. We can meet up later if you're not banging Stanley," I silently laughed to myself.
"That's really funny, man. Calling her Stanley is a real bonerkiller." he retorted. It amazed me that she could give him a boner in the first place.
--
Thirty minutes later, I was sort of pacing in my room. I didn't know why it was such a big deal that I was seeing Bella tonight, but it was. I attempted to mentally prepare myself for a worse version of what my childhood had brought upon me.
I thought about the ugly seven year old and then added about nine or ten years. I was in for hell, especially if my parents expected me to be her new buddy and show her around school.
My mom called me from her hotel phone around five o'clock, telling me I had to go. Shit, shit, shit. I threw on a cleaner looking shirt, not wanting my mom to get onto me in that awful voice of hers about how 'uncleanly' I was.
I hopped into my car and when I got to the tiny house, Charlie's cruiser and a red '87 Camaro were in the driveway. I gave the car a second look as I walked to the door.
I knocked on the door, not seeing a doorbell anywhere. The door opened, revealing an average height brunette. She had on a pair of snug fitting denim shorts and a clingy, vintage-looking gray t-shirt with a Betty Page lookalike on the front. When she reached up to hold the door I saw the smallest flash of her milky white stomach. She had her bottom lip between her teeth, biting it gently. I wondered if she saw me staring because she had a devilish grin spread over her face. I fiddled with the brim of my black, straw hat.
I shifted my stance. "Uh, hey, I'm—"
"Jasper," she said. "Don't you remember me?" She had an innocent smile on her face that I sensed had something else behind it.
"Wait," I said, giving her wide, childlike smile another glance. "Bella? Bella Swan?"
She threw her head back a little bit with a graceful laugh. "What am I, James Bond? Come on inside." Her voice was kind of husky, and I had to repress some Edward-like thoughts.
"May I take your hat?" she asked sweetly, still chewing on her lip. This girl was really making it difficult to be a gentleman. She grabbed the hat off my head and put it on hers for a moment before putting it on the coat rack by the door. I didn't know how, but she made hat hair look like sex hair.
"Bella? Who is it?" a gruff male voice asked from the kitchen. I assumed it was Chief Swan. Bella closed the door behind me, walking quickly in front of me. I tried not to fucking grab her and run as I saw her hips sway with each step.
"It's Jasper, Dad," Bella told him. I would have to sit down soon to protect myself from indecent exposure, especially if Bella tried to repress her seemingly unintentionally hotness. This definitely wasn't how I remembered the Ugly Duckling. I'd ugly her duckling—
I shook my head, attempting to drive the thoughts away.
I was sounding more and more like Cullen by the second, something that I was not proud of myself for. I thought of everything possible to drive away the inevitable effect Bella's firm little body had on me. No, no, no! I stored away all my...un-gentlemanly thoughts when Charlie extended his hand.
"How are you doing, son?" Charlie asked, smiling slightly underneath his mustache. I took his hand and shook it firmly.
"I'm doing well, sir, and you?" I hoped that this was proof that I was less like Edward than my mind was recently telling me.
"I've never been better, son. I've got my Bells here with me now," Charlie wrapped an arm around her shoulders and shook her back and forth roughly. She rolled her eyes. I could tell Charlie still thought of her as his precious little girl.
"I think dinner's ready, Dad," she told him, patting his chest twice under his half-hug. She held my eyes for a second with a sly smile before turning around to the stove and stirring something in a huge pot.
My phone buzzed against my thigh. I went into the living room and answered it.
"Hello?" My mother's voice rang threw the phone. "Jasper, sug. I'm so sorry but we won't be able to make it to supper tonight. Our flight got canceled so we're going to be home a bit later than expected. Send Charlie our regards."
"Will do, Mom," I answered before hanging up the phone and heading back into the kitchen, where Charlie was rummaging through a cabinet.
He stopped suddenly, narrowing his eyes and dragging something that sounded heavy out of the small, wooden cupboards.
"Bella, do you know where this came from?" Charlie asked, slight anger in his voice and face. Bella turned around from the stove to see Charlie holding a crate holding four bottles of Jack Daniel's. Bella's mouth shot open and closed in what I assumed to be surprise.
I watched the awkward silence between the two of them as Charlie began to get more and more angry. "What," Charlie spoke with nostrils flared, "is this?" Bella's eyebrows scrunched up and her eyes started darting across the room. If that was me, I'd be looking for an escape too.
"It's mine," I said, stunned by my own declaration. Charlie looked at me with disbelief and Bella shot me her best 'What The Fuck' look.'
"I mean...it's not mine. It's...It's a gift from my parents."
"Your parents aren't here, son," he told me.
I scrambled to think of another lie, feeling Bella's dark eyes on me. "Well, they dropped it off earlier in the week, but now their flight is canceled. They wanted to... surprise you," I told him with a nervous laugh. "They were joking around about how raising a teenager is a whole lot easier with a bottle in your hand," I joked, surprising myself with the quality of my lie.
Charlie seemed to accept this, which relieved me, since I thought police officers could sniff out liars like fucking bloodhounds. He smiled a little and picked the bottle up by its neck, admiring the label. "Well, tell your parents I said thank you. This will get me through a few baseball games," he said with a laugh. "Bella isn't much of a problem to me."
If only he knew how much of a...problem she was to me. I looked over at Bella. She was standing in front of the stove, shaking her head and smiling. "I owe you," she mouthed out to me. Bella 'owing' me was something I let my imagination take out of hand.
I was glad Charlie was there, or else something bad could have happened. And by bad, I meant me completely violating his daughter.
Charlie took everything over to the neatly set table. He sat at the head of the table while Bella and I sat at the two side chairs across from each other. I didn't pay attention to a word of the conversation, instead not being able to take my eyes off of Bella's mouth sliding over the metal of the fork, over and over again... Shit, I was in for it.
When Charlie went into the kitchen to grab another beer, Bella began to lick around the rim of her spoon with her small, pink tongue. I began tapping my foot against the floor rapidly. The discomfort in my pants was starting be just downright painful.
I took in a few deep breaths, but it did no good for my aching crotch.
A few minutes after dinner was over, Bella came out of nowhere and plopped down onto the couch next to me. I did the best I could to not stare at her bouncing tits, which were very prominent in the shirt she was wearing. Make that a raging hard-on.
"Okay, I owe you big time, but why did you cover for me?" Bella asked me, her finger tracing a little circle on my shoulder. I didn't know if she was aware of the effect she had on me, but my dick sure was.
I formed the words in my head before I spoke. The last thing I needed was to stutter in front of her. "Now that I think about it, I'm not quite sure. Maybe it was because I was a real asshole to you when I was seven," I teased.
This certainly wasn't the answer she was looking for.
"Psh, okay," she replied, rolling her eyes. "You weren't the only one calling me Ugly Duckling. And anyway, my frizz has reduced quite significantly, so I'm probably not as much of a fuggo as I used to be," she said, playing with the ends of her hair. My eyes roamed over her body of their own accord. I would say a little more than her hair changed for her benefit.
She was still fully enthralled in braiding the ends of her hair when my phone rang again. I pulled it out of my pocket, saw the caller I.D. and slid it back into jeans.
"Who was that?" Bella asked in a sing-songey voice.
"No one," I replied. I still had that ever-present wonder as to why Cullen was someone I considered a best friend. He treated me like pure shit sometimes and I didn't seem to care.
But, on the other hand, he was always there when I needed him. "That," I told her. "That was my best friend."
Bella cocked her head to the side, almost as if she were trying to read my facial expression. "Then why didn't you answer?"
"I... honestly don't know," I told her again.
"You want to call him back?" she asked. I was still electrically aware of her finger tracing a circle on my shoulder.
She began to rub the same pattern with her fingers farther up my shoulder, almost to my neck. Form words, Whitlock. "Nah. I'm not really in the mood for Cullen's bitching." I explained. I would have answered every question she threw at me if it meant she would keep her hand there on my neck.
"What does he get onto you for?" Her voice was lower and her hand began to play with the ends of my hair. I had to get a fucking grip.
"He just..." She tugged slightly on my hair, and I almost forgot what we were talking about. "He gets onto me every day about how I haven't been in a ton of relationships. You can't imagine how annoying that gets coming from someone like him." I looked over to find her looking at me as I spoke, her arm crossed over her chest. Don't look at her tits, Jasper. Do not look how they are halfway out of that wonderfully low-cut t-shirt of hers.
I caved once or twice but she never seemed to notice. "That's fucking ridiculous. You seem like a really sweet guy," Bella said, touching her fingertips to my jaw. I could only imagine what would happen if Charlie walked in, seeing his innocent little girl giving the neighbor the worst hard-on he's ever had. My breathing hitched and I just simply nodded. It took all the will power I possessed to not take her right then, right there.
Despite my throbbing dick and Bella's subtle ministrations on my jaw, an idea came to me. I could get Bella to return my favor in a somewhat non-sexual way.
"Hey, you know what you can do to pay me back for the Jack Daniels thing?" I asked her, raising an eyebrow with a lazy smile.
She bit her lip again, this time a little harder than before. "What would that be?" she asked, her tone just as husky as when she opened the door. The thought of her even contemplating having sex with me was enough to make my jeans strain even tighter.
I thought my zipper was about to pop when her finger traced the spot right behind my earlobe. I would have to say this next sentence without ripping her shorts off. "Will you pretend to be my girlfriend?"
She quickly looked back up at me but didn't move her fingers from the sensitive skin near my ear. "Can I ask you why?" Bella asked. She didn't look at me like I was some kind of psychotic maniac or like I was just some pervert wanting to get in her pants.
"So he'll get off my fucking back about not having one," I told her, as though it were simple.
"Cullen?" She asked innocently. I smiled, realizing that was all I ever referred to him as.
"Yep. Make sure you don't ever get in the car with him," I joked. She smiled, putting my earlobe between two of her fingers. "But what I thought we could do was just fake the relationship, as friends, you know?" I fumbled with a copy of Men's Health that was on the coffee table.
She gently squeezed on my earlobe, sending a shock of pleasure through me. "Yeah," she said, looking down at the apparent bulge in my jeans. "Friends."
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