This story was originally posted for a Summer Of Love contest. There were various prompts that you had to include - I can't remember them all now, but lemonade was there, and watermelon and icecream and wet t-shirt contest and star-gazing. The story that won was called The Neighbor Boy, and it has since been pulled, but if it's ever posted again, I recomment that you read it. It's ace. It's the one I voted for!
I've divided this story into three chapters, btw, so there are two more to come. Enjoy!
CANDY
Long days, and longer nights...
The fair was in town over summer, and Bella Swan had gotten a job selling candy apples. You could work the morning shift, nine till four, or the evening, four till eleven, and she'd said yes to both. She was intoxicated on the sights and sounds, and when she was on days she stayed into the night, and when she was on nights she wanted to sleep there and never leave.
"Come to the beach, Bella," her friends kept asking, but Bella had an indoor tan, and the beach was out of bounds.
"Come swimming, hiking, rollerblading..."
The invitations were issued tirelessly, but Bella couldn't drag herself from the fair. She thought she might be a carny.
"Sorry, Alice, you know I've got fairy floss in my veins. Why don't you come meet me this afternoon and we'll go on rides together?" she suggested.
"God, Bella, not likely. Once you've finished work don't you just want to get out of there? Aren't you a bit sick of it?" Alice said one day on the phone. "We're having a sand-dune picnic this afternoon, and there'll be ice cream and watermelon. You are cordially invited. In other words, I expect you to attend. Don't worry about your milky-pale complexion, by the way - I'll pack sunscreen. And Bells, all the cute boys are at the beach, you know."
"I'm allergic to sunscreen! You know it makes me break out in a rash. And ice cream makes me sneeze. And watermelon - well, it's just nasty," Bella protested, but she could take exception to another of Alice's claims as well. The boy remark. She had seen a cute boy at the fair, every day. He seemed to pass like a ghost - she'd catch a glimpse out of her peripheral vision, but when she tried to catch him with her eyes he'd disappear. It had been three weeks now, and he was as insubstantial as the first time. Once she'd even tried to follow him, but he was as frustratingly as out of sight as he was out of reach.
"Alice, if I come to the picnic today will you come to the rock concert tomorrow?"
"Done, Swannie. Look, I know you don't like the sun. I'll get you a giant parasol and you'll be fine," Alice rang off.
When Bella finished at four, she climbed into her beat up truck and drove straight to the beach. She could already hear the way Alice would groan at her clothes - jeans and a faded band t-shirt - because she had known from the tone of Alice's voice that Alice wanted to set her up with someone. That would be the reason behind the faux-humorous insistence that Bella attend, and the offer of the parasol, and the crack about boys.
Sure enough, Alice was waiting in the parking lot to intercept her.
"I brought you some shorts and a funky t-shirt," she said, after a quick hug, and an equally quick grimace at Bella's attire.
"NO in capitals," Bella responded. "Nothing skimpy, nothing revealing - and whatever you mean by funky - none of that either."
"YES in skywriting," Alice said sternly, holding the items out. "Just open your door and get changed behind it. No-one will see you."
"Alice, I don't even own any shorts, therefore these are yours, therefore they won't fit me because I am a different size and shape to you. This stuff is all in the geometry textbook, it's a matter of basic mathematical principle."
Alice just laughed.
"Bella, I went to your house, and talked your Dad into letting me into your room, and I cut off a pair of your jeans. So you've now got one less pair of jeans, and you have a pair of shorts. Minus one, plus one. Everything evens out. There's some more maths for you, Miss Brainiac."
"You cut up my jeans?" Bella hissed in disbelief. Alice sure knew how to take a liberty. "I am not letting you copy my homework ever again!"
"Oh, hurry up already. I made lemonade, and I want to go drink it. It's sort of lemonade anyway, with tequila. Sort of margarita, really. You'll want some. And stop trying to argue about the shorts. You know I'll just wear you down until you give in," Alice pointed out.
Bella shrugged, scowling, and reluctantly peeled down her jeans, which were now on the endangered list, tossing them into the truck behind her. Alice hadn't cut the other pair off too short, she realized. She had to take her bra off at Alice's instruction, which made her scowl more, but Alice was completely above recriminations, and immune to best friend disapproval. The t-shirt she'd brought spelt Love Me backwards.
"That's better. You look a bit less like a - what do you call your look again? Person without wardrobe definition?" she asked cheekily, pulling Bella along in the sand behind her. "Hey, everyone - guess who finally agreed to come after a little gentle coercion?"
"You're just lucky I like you, Alice Cullen, otherwise I'd kill you," Bella muttered, but she adored Alice, who could get away with anything, and frequently did.
The usual suspects were in a group around a half-finished sand castle that Bella could definitely see Alice's touch in, and a few more of them were playing volleyball. It was immediately obvious who Alice wanted her to meet - there was only one new face.
"Oh, Bella, this is Jake," Alice said casually, dropping to her knees next to the sandcastle. Jacob was Native American, and stunning. He was also shirtless, and Bella had never seen so many muscles on one person in her life.
"Spade, Bella?" he offered, handing her a child's plastic spade. "Alice is the chief architect here, and she's treating the rest of us like laborers. She's a hard boss. If I didn't think she was a direct descendent of Gaudi's I'd be telling her to go jump."
Bella was surprised. Not everybody got Alice, and not everybody recognized her gifts.
"If you told her to jump she'd somersault," Bella said, and Jake raised an eyebrow. They kept working on the castle for a while, following Alice's orders, until Alice called everyone together and started distributing drinks.
"You can have beer, beer, beer, or lemonade, made by my own fair hand. And it's not exactly lemonade. And there's orange juice, and water, too," she announced. "Here Bella, have some of this, it's medicinal," she stated, before Bella had time to declare her preference.
Jake opted for the margarita too, and Alice must have spiked it with humor potion, because although Bella had already been smiling inwardly at him, now she laughed openly, and he did the same. Damn Alice. Bella was fairly sure she didn't want a boyfriend, just as Alice was fairly sure she needed one, and now here was the boy Alice had found for her, who was of course, perfect. The other people there talked and chatted, but to Bella they were all marginal and Jake seemed to be the only person she could take any notice of.
"Right, I'm delegating. Architect's privilege," Alice suddenly declared. "Erik and Angela, you're on shell detail. Go south. Mike and Jessica, go up into the dunes and find twigs or flowers. Jake and Bella, you're on shells, too. Go north. Lauren and Tyler - "
Bella stopped listening after that. Jake stood and held out a hand and pulled her up, and she felt a little dazed and cloudy from the tequila, a little sharp-edged and clear, too. He was extremely tall, and he had everything going for him. Everything. Thoughtful, clever, funny, and he and Alice liked each other. That made him pretty much perfect for Bella Swan.
They wandered along, and neither seemed to feel the urge to speak for a while, and that made him more perfect.
"Hey, you know that liquid fire Alice has been I-V-ing us with? What do you think it's got in it?" he asked suddenly, reaching for her, and slipping an arm around her waist as though it was the most natural thing in the world.
Bella was fairly sure it contained love potion no. 9 but she didn't want to say so. No-one had ever had the nerve, or made the error of judgement, to touch her like this within a few hours of meeting her, but right now she was absolutely okay with it.
"Hey, what does em - evol mean?" he asked, and light-headed and light-hearted, Bella skipped into the waves and kicked water at him.
"Oh, no you don't," he said warningly. "You just don't. I'm very good at splashing, and you're going to get seriously soaked."
He followed her in and flicked water at her, and they were both playful and it was all out war, until Bella remembered that wet shorts were going to be really, really uncomfortable. She splashed her way back to the water's edge laughing, but he wasn't laughing, he was staring.
"You win the wet t-shirt competition. Not fair," he said quietly, and she looked down at herself, remembering now that her bra was lying under her jeans on the front seat of the truck. Her top was painted on by sea-water, her nipples standing to attention. She blushed and looked back up at him as he wrenched his eyes away, muttering, "We don't seem to have found any shells."
Neither of them spoke again as they collected a couple of handfuls each, but this time not talking was awkward, and Bella broke the silence to ask Jake about himself. He was a local, and had been away at University studying ecology and conservation, and was planning to become a ranger.
"And you?" he asked.
"I've moved here this year from Phoenix to live with my Dad. I'm studying English literature, and I want to be a teacher."
"Who's your Dad? I might know him."
Bella laughed. "I hope you haven't met him in his professional capacity. He's the Police Chief - Charlie Swan."
Jacob whistled. "You're Izzie Swan? I used to play with you when you were about three years old and I was five. My dad Billy is Charlie's best friend. Charlie told me his daughter was coming back... You sure growed up, little Isabella."
"Not as much as you did," Bella retorted. "I've just worked out you're Jacob Black."
"The very same," he nodded. They were smiling easily now, and Bella didn't miss the shrewd look Alice gave them both when they handed over their booty of sea magic, and Alice pressed the shells into the castle walls creating a pattern beneath the crenellations.
"Time for a fire, and more food, and more drinks, and then scary stories," she stated, as everyone admired her handiwork.
"Alice your masterpiece is inside the wave line. It won't survive the tide," Bella remarked to her friend while they trudged up through the fine sand to the hinterland to gather branches.
"Oh, I know. It's perfectly zen, don't you think?" Alice said, calmly.
Jake was beside them. "Like a sidewalk chalk drawing," he said.
"Exactly. You're the bomb, Jakey," Alice laughed, and Bella thought to herself that he probably was.
Later when the scary stories started she didn't want to listen to them, and made an excuse to go back to her truck. Mike had started on some ghoulish tale about a girl who found a creepy boy in her bedroom every time she woke up, and she didn't know if he was real or not, but then it turned out he was someone from her school who was climbing into her room every night and watching her sleep. Of course he turned out to be some sort of murderer, and Bella hated the story, hated the whole idea of it, even as the other girls asked lewdly if the boy had been handsome. As if that would make a difference.
"Hey, Bells, gruesome tellings of The Legend of the Night-Stalker not your entertainment of choice?" Jake's voice said, and he was walking alongside her back towards the car park. "I hope you're not leaving."
"No, I thought I'd just chill out a bit. Do some star-gazing," Bella told him.
"Mind if I join you?"
"No, s'okay," she answered, and he climbed easily into the tray and extended a hand to help her up. They lay back together, heads on their folded arms, and Jake pointed out constellations, embarking on a long and complicated tale he claimed was passed down through the generations amongst his people from father to son. It was the story of the Sky Father and the Earth Mother, and their children who became tree spirits and animal totems. While he was talking he extended an arm and Bella wriggled across a little to put her head on his shoulder. His voice grew quieter, and she grew sleepier and then the story changed a little, becoming about the girl-with-stars-in-her-hair, and the boy who loved her. It was wistful and beautiful, and very romantic, but when he said the girl had brown eyes, Bella grew suspicious.
"You can't see that up there! There isn't any brown in the sky. You're making it up - that's not a traditional story at all," she accused, and she could sense him smiling.
"Just seeing if you were still awake," he assured her. "I thought I heard snores."
"Yes, I'm awake," she whispered, and without allowing herself a second to think better of her impulse, she raised her head and pressed her lips to his. He only permitted the kiss for a moment before drawing his head away, but not before she had tasted the salt on his lips, and felt the warmth and softness, and had felt them part.
"Bella," he said softly. "I only met you this afternoon. I'm trying to be a good boy here, and not jump on you like a ravenous wolf."
"What if I want you to jump on me?" she whispered. She had never felt so bold.
"Jesus Christ. Okay, I'll do the jumping - but how about a date first? What are you doing tomorrow?" he said, his hand in her hair. He'd rolled to lie on his side facing her, and his mouth moved over her cheek.
"There's going to be a rock concert at the carnival. Will you meet me there?"
He didn't answer, he just nodded, and he slid a hand to her hip as if to pull her closer. Then he seemed to change his mind, and she couldn't see his expression in the dark as he brought the hand back up to her face and kissed her. The kiss was gentle, his mouth was already open and seemed incredibly warm. He didn't plunder her, he was tender, although she didn't feel as though he was holding anything back. She felt as though he was kissing her exactly the way he wanted to. Then with a groan he rolled onto his back again, and said, "Tomorrow."
She felt high and humming all the way home, full of anticipation and promise. High on a new boy, who had eyes crinkled from smiling, a mouth ripe for kissing, and arms that might have been made just to hold her.
.
.
.
We all know I love Mr Black.
