We see you have found us again, this time in a joint account. Snazzy huh? Any additional stories, because after COE coldplaywhore will probably strong arm Risbee into writing another one, will be posted under this account.
Just so you know, this story will post only during the summer, the posting date matching the date in the story. Expect at least one chapter a week, but sometimes we could surprise you with two or maybe a random POV outtake.
Risbee and coldplaywhore don't own Twilight. We do have some great support from MaggieMay14 and smmiskimen to get this story out to you.
Enjoy!
Chapter Song: Summertime by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince
BPOV
Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hal-le-lu-jah.
Yes, I know Handel's Messiah was generally sung around Christmas, but it was June, the sun was shining, and I was at the beginning of a two-month long stint at the beach with my two best friends, Kate and Charlotte.
Oh, and we were finally out of the car.
Hallelujah, indeed.
Well, we had technically been out of the car once already, but that was just to take our luggage and everything inside the house in order to make room in the car for the groceries. We were determined to get all our busy work done so that once we finally got back to the great big and obscenely beautiful house that was all ours for the summer, we wouldn't have to leave.
All that was standing in our way was a grocery cart, some aisles and the major decision of 'paper or plastic'.
We brought our own bags because we were all about conservation and everybody knew that plastic bags were evil incarnate. The three of us marched through the automatic doors of the Food Lion and eyeballed our mission. We were fierce, we were focused and, if I was being completely honest, we probably looked like the poster children for one of those blond light bulb jokes, but Kate and I weren't blonde. Charlotte was though. I could almost hear the internal snickers and testosterone filled appraisals of the baggers at the end of the check out aisles as they stared at us.
I may have used a particular finger to scratch a teeny tiny itch on my chin.
Yeah, it didn't take long before they stopped glaring.
"Bella, stop staring at the boys and pay attention. They're too young for you anyway."
"I wasn't…"
"You were and you know it. Look, I'm all about a good summertime hook up, but you can totally do better than boys that are wearing Band Camp t-shirts and work as baggers at the Food Lion. And Bella, they should at least be over five foot three."
Oh, god. She was right. One of them elbowed his friend and then winked at me with a little grin on his face. Ew.
Still, I wasn't looking at them for that, and she knew it. Picking up a date in the grocery store was so 1980's. I stuck my tongue out at Kate, ignoring the gasps from the peanut gallery, and took one of the pieces of paper she was holding out in my direction.
"Okay, so I divided the list into thirds to make things easier… and quicker. Let's go get the groceries and meet back here when we're done in, say, fifteen minutes? It shouldn't take longer than that, right?" Kate looked at me, then over to Charlotte and sighed. She took the list from Charlotte's hands, turned it right side up and then looked back at me. "Maybe we should say 'let's finish our lists and then go find her and help her with hers'."
"Do you think it's safe to let her wander around this place alone?" I wrapped my arms around the shoulders of my two best friends and squeezed them. I couldn't help the smile that was on my face and I winked at Kate as I tried to suppress the giggle that was fighting to escape.
Charlotte, on the other hand, was not as amused. "Shut it. I was just wondering if the tree had any idea what it was destined for when it was growing. I mean, did it know that it was going to end up paper, or a grocery list? Did the parent trees have conversations with the baby trees about goals? What if he wanted to be a corporate document or a diploma or something else? A grocery list just seems so… insignificant." Charlotte folded up the piece of paper and put it back in her pocket. Twenty bucks says she buries it somewhere in the backyard when we get back to the beach house.
Bless her heart.
"I mean, do boy trees grow up to build houses and girl trees get to be the grocery lists and notebooks? Because that's gender bias and discrimination, you know."
"You know what, Charlotte? Instead of being sad that it's just a grocery list, think of it as the tree's way of helping us become independent, functioning members of society. The items written on this list will help to keep us healthy and alive and all sorts of wonderful, magical things. Better yet, I think our little tree friend is just thankful that it didn't end up toilet paper 'cause that would have been way worse, right?"
Jesus, did she have tears in her eyes?
I looked at Kate and stage-whispered, "I think Charlotte and I will do our parts together. You come find us when you're done." I took a look at the three lists and scratched off a few things from mine and added them to Kate's to try and even things out and make things easier for Charlotte. "It's probably best if you get the paper towels."
"I hate you two," Charlotte folded her arms across her body and pouted, but I knew she wasn't being serious. She just had a different way of looking at the world, and in this day and age of cynicism and just all out rudeness, I wouldn't want her any different.
The funny thing was that she was academically brilliant. She was on track to graduate Phi Beta Kappa, had been inducted into every academic honor society imaginable and had plans to get her PhD in Clinical Psychology after completing her undergrad degree. Outside of the academic realm however, she was definitely a free spirit, though the only thing Kate & had difficultly with was her veganism. It was hard to eat a burger around the girl.
"You love us and you know it. Now, go get the groceries so we can get out of here and be lounging on the deck with some margaritas as soon as possible. If we hurry, we can still get some good beach time after we get the car unpacked. Daddy said that he let the cleaning service people know we were coming and that he'd make sure they get all the beds made up and whatever else they do." Kate shrugged indifferently and I rolled my eyes as she continued, "All we have to do is get the food and the drinks and show up."
Apparently deciding that was the last word on the subject, Kate took off with her cart towards the produce section. As I watched her walk away, I realized just how different the three of us were and yet how well we fit together. Kate really wasn't a snob, she absolutely knew how fortunate she was and most of the time she underplayed her privileged lifestyle, because people tended to take advantage of the situation.
Case in point, her father's fourth wife, Tanya, who Kate loathed and pretended didn't exist, but that was a different issue in and of itself. Kate was completely loyal, devoted and her biggest fear in life was to be misunderstood because of the size of her father's bank account.
He was a major defense attorney out of Raleigh and had built quite the practice in the past two decades. In fact, seeing her father's success in law was probably why she was going into Law School next fall. Though Kate was sometimes guarded to a fault and it made her seem a bit snooty, once you got past Kate's exterior, inside she was just a girl who loved her family and her life and tried to make every day as fun as humanly possible. Sometimes even more so.
"Tangerines or Cantaloupe?" I looked at Charlotte in confusion until I realized she was watching Kate saunter towards the produce section. Then I got it. There were two decent looking guys in that section and Charlotte was wondering aloud what would happen next. Would Kate go for the blonde or the guy with the hint of a tattoo peeking out from the bottom of his sleeve? Kate totally knew what we were doing too because she turned around and winked at us before going and standing by the strawberries…directly in the middle of the two.
"Both," I answered as I watched the guys slowly gravitate until they were both helping her sort through the plastic bins of fruit. The girl had skills; there was no doubt about that.
As Charlotte and I started walking down the bread aisle towards the bagels, I took a few seconds to think about how much my plans had deviated over the past two weeks and how lucky I was to have these two girls as my best friends.
In fact, saying I was lucky was the total understatement of the century.
Two weeks ago I was packing to go back to my hometown of Forks, Washington, for the summer. I was facing a summer filled with paperwork at the police station or, if I was really lucky, stocking inflatable rubber rafts and dodging the completely unwanted advances of Mike Newton. I'd spent four years of high school and three summers between college semesters dodging the 'heir-apparent' to Newton's Sporting Goods.
Gross.
But not this summer. Nope. Never again.
After finishing my last exam of the semester and somehow scoring an empty table at He's Not Here, the best bar ever in Chapel Hill, and over several rounds of Blue Cups, Kate, Charlotte and I came up with the epic idea of spending the summer at Kate's family beach house in Emerald Isle. The plan was flawless because it would a) protect the environment since I wouldn't be driving across the country and b) it would save us all money because there was no rent or summer school tuition. Most importantly, it would keep us all together. That part was our ultimate goal considering this was our last summer before real life interfered, and who knew where we would all end up.
All we had to do before our summer of slothdom could officially begin was get the groceries purchased, home and unloaded. I flew through the store like a girl at one of those wedding dress basement bargain sales that you see on TV, but without the hair pulling and scratching. Charlotte carefully drove the cart and I ran ahead on each aisle grabbing as much as I could in my arms and running back to her. I wanted the sun on my skin and the sand between my toes as soon as humanly possible.
We met Kate exactly seventeen minutes later and, since it was a Wednesday, there wasn't a huge crowd of other customers. Most rentals were Saturday to Saturday, so grocery shopping on a weekday instead of the weekend was key; otherwise we would be stuck here for hours.
Kate had spent the better part of the past couple of weeks teaching us the finer points of beach life. In other words, how not to look like a tourist once we got into town. She started pointing at people and we had to guess whether or not they were locals. Fanny packs were a dead giveaway, as was any person carrying a bag from Wings or anybody with Budweiser on their beach towel.
Just no.
More than once, I'd caught myself eyeballing people in the grocery store and in the parking lot and I felt like I had a pretty good idea of who was who around here. Yes, I realized it was somewhat ironic considering that technically I was an import myself, but Kate said that since we were going to be here all summer, it was completely different. Eh, whatever. At the very least it did help pass the time as our groceries were bagged and loaded back in to our cart.
The poor baggers looked so crushed as we walked out, ignoring their existence. I'd say sorry, but I really wasn't because all I could focus on was the fact that we were finally on our way back to the house. All responsibilities were done and, once we got back, I wasn't planning on leaving again for at least a few days. I had big plans that included nothing but decompressing from the semester's finals.
"As soon as we get the cars unloaded, we have to move them out of the driveway. Dad made arrangements for the driveway to get resurfaced this week before he knew we were coming. It will suck for a few days, but we should be able to get the cars back by Wednesday or Thursday. Our neighbors said we could park in their garage since they're not arriving until next weekend."
"Why don't we just get everything loaded into the elevator," cause, yeah, the house had one, "and I'll ride up with the groceries and start unpacking while you two move your cars…though it looks like your neighbors are already here." I pointed to the driveway where there were already cars parked. Kate tilted her head a bit and murmured something under her breath, but shook it off.
"All I know is that they assured Daddy that they wouldn't be here until the 4th. Those probably belong to somebody looking for beach access. I'm still moving my car over there and they can figure out how to get around me. Since they're the ones that aren't supposed to be there, it's not my problem."
I pulled a beer out of the bag and put it on the steps because Kate obviously needed one already. "I'm just going to leave this here and when you get back from moving the car, why don't you drink it. Fast."
Kate glared at me and I beamed back at her and we both realized that Charlotte had disappeared. "There aren't any trees to speak of around here and we've only been home a few minutes, where did she go?"
I peeked in the cars, but nothing. She wasn't in the front yard or on the deck or anywhere we could find her. All the grocery bags were still sitting by the elevator and the golf cart was still plugged in to its charger. It was like she had literally disappeared into thin air.
"Eh," Kate picked up a bag and handed it to me. "She'll turn up, she always does."
Charlotte still hadn't made an appearance by the time we were all settled, so I walked through the house and up to the third floor, towards the bedrooms, to see if she had fallen asleep. It was pretty hot and humid, so perhaps she needed to rest for a bit.
However, when I heard the shower running in the bathroom next to the room I had claimed, I was both a little bit irritated that she hadn't helped and a bit relieved that she wasn't floating across the ocean in a Sea Kayak and unable to get back to shore.
I may have made a mental note to make sure the storage shed stayed locked while we were here.
I decided to poke my head inside the bathroom door and let Charlotte know what was going on. "Hey Charlotte, when you're finished, come upstairs and find us. I think we need to have a toast to start the summer off right."
She didn't answer, so I stepped inside and spoke a little louder. "Charlotte? Are you okay?"
EPOV
What in the hell was going on? Who was Charlotte and why was there a girl in the bathroom. I pulled the curtain to the side and poked my head out to see who was talking to me. Well not me, but Charlotte.
Scratch that. There was a really fucking beautiful girl in the bathroom. There was just one problem, she looked completely mortified as I stuck my head out of the shower curtain and I looked at her rather curiously. "I'm not quite sure who this Charlotte girl is," I admitted coolly as I winked at her and she slapped her hand over her mouth in shock.
"Oh my god...I am so...so sorry," she rambled as she moved her hand from her mouth to cover her eyes. She looked absolutely adorable with her cheeks flushed pink in embarrassment and her hand shaking in nervousness. "I thought you were...well obviously I thought you were someone else.
"Yes...you thought I was Charlotte."
"Uh yeah... because I didn't know there were any guys in this house. Maybe I'm in the wrong house. Something is all fucked up here."
She began walking away towards the door, her hand still over her eyes even though her back was to me, and I had to admit, I stared at her ass. She was dressed casually in a loose fitting t-shirt and jean shorts, but fuck if it wasn't the nicest ass I could remember ever seeing. And that was saying something since it was covered in denim.
"Uh...are you going to tell me your name?" I asked flirtatiously, as I held onto the shower curtain, making sure my lower half was completely covered. It was irrational and completely unlike me, but I wanted to know as much as I could about her before she walked out of the door. If I even tried to get out of the shower, my junk would be front and center, and surely she would run for the hills, right?
Unfortunately, I quickly found out what she would do if that situation happened, because the water went ice cold and I jumped up in shock. "Jesus Fucking Christ," I cursed loudly as I slipped slightly on the cool water on the bottom of the tub. My grip on the shower curtain wasn't tight enough and before I knew it, I was tumbling from the shower and landing on the bathmat outside of the tub with a splat.
The beautiful girl turned back in horror, as though she wanted to help me, and my hand instinctively went to cover my dick. After all, I didn't want her to see the shrinkage caused by the cold water. Hell, a minute earlier and she would have known just how attractive I found her, but now here I was, in a heap on the floor with my hand over my cock wishing the floor would swallow me whole. There was no way this situation could get worse.
Apparently, there was.
"What the fuck is going on in here?" shouted a dark haired girl who threw open the door and ran in just as Bella reached for a towel to toss to me. Fucking great, now there are two girls in the bathroom seeing me at my worst. "Why the hell is there a guy in our shower? What the fuck, did you break in here? I am so going to call the cops. This is bloody ridiculous," she screeched in such a high pitched voice I was certain only dogs could hear her.
"No...no, no, I didn't break in," I shouted as I put the towel around me as best as I could and stood up shakily. Fuck, my back hurt. "I'm here with my friend, Garrett. His sister is married to the guy that owns this beach house and she said we could use it for the summer since they are on some extended honeymoon or some shit like that."
The taller brunette started shouting obscenities at the top of her lungs and I seriously thought her head would start turning around and bile would shoot out, just like in The Exorcist. It wasn't pretty. Her friend, however, was still standing in the bathroom, looking at me without shame. Her eyes flitted up to mine after a moment and she let out a small sigh.
"Ignore Kate, ever since her dad married Tanya, who he met during Parents Weekend at UNC when Kate was a freshman, she's been a bit...insane where she is concerned. Tanya was a senior at the time," she said simply as my eyes grew wide in surprise. Wow, that was kinda gross, and it meant there was only like 3 or 4 years between Kate and her new stepmother. However, Kate was the last person I wanted to know more about.
"So, if her name is Kate...your name would be?"
"I'm Bella. Well, Isabella, but no one calls me that but teachers on the first day of class and my parents when they get my credit card statement."
Bella... How perfect.
I began to extend my hand out to shake it, forgetting that it was holding my towel in place, and suddenly I was flashing her my dick again. Jesus Christ. Could I be anymore spastic? As I struggled to right the towel and cover myself up, I noticed that Bella may have spent a little too long staring at my junk. Hmm...very interesting.
"I'm Edward, and I'm really sorry I keep ending up naked in your presence. I'm not some sort of pervert," I admitted as Bella blushed and gave me a quick smile.
"No worries," she said casually as Kate, the angry glamazon came back to the doorway, looking at both of us with disdain. She had been gone for only a minute or two, storming through the house and screaming for Garrett, but based on the look on her face, I would guess that she had found him and things weren't exactly going as she wanted them to.
"If you are done flirting with each other, we are having a meeting right the fuck now. Get dressed and then start packing cause you are getting the fuck out of my beach house." Kate grabbed Bella by the wrist and pulled her away as she waved quickly to me before she was gone.
I sprinted to my room, trying not to run into anyone else and got dressed, but as I went through my clothes, I found myself wanting to look nice for Bella. What the hell was wrong with me? I may not even be staying here in twenty minutes if the crazy chick got her way. When I was finally dressed, I made my way downstairs into the living room, where Queen Kate was holding court with everyone.
Peter, my best friend, was sitting on the couch looking utterly confused as he stared at the blonde opposite of him who Bella was now perched beside. They were leaning into each other and giggling about something and I immediately became self conscious. They wouldn't be talking about me, would they?
"Kate," Garrett snapped as I sat down beside Peter and watched as Garrett circled around the room nervously. Our trip to the beach for the summer had been a last minute thing, none of us having any success in finding any decent jobs for the summer, so when Garrett mentioned the beach house in passing, we jumped at the chance. He literally called his sister, who agreed to let us use the house, and a week later, we were there. "This is all kind of pointless. Tanya gave us permission to be here over the summer and we're not going anywhere."
Kate was already on the phone at this point, no doubt calling her father, and she gave Garrett the finger as she paced around the room, yelling into her cell.
"You look just like someone I went to high school with," Charlotte said casually as she looked at Garrett and he gave her a curious look in return.
"Oh yeah? What high school? Maybe it was me."
"Not likely, he's in a coma."
"Huh. Who brought the good news bear? Somebody give her some fucking honey," Garrett shouted rudely as Kate started screeching and we all looked at her with uncertainty. This call could either make or break our summer.
"No Daddy...it's not fair. You promised we could have the beach house this summer... I don't care how many rooms... Tanya shouldn't have...fine...fine...yeah, I get it." The call went on for what seemed like forever with Kate huffing and getting angry and frustrated, and all of us simply sitting around, waiting for a verdict of some sort. When she finished, she threw down her phone in fury and stared at Garrett like she was about to cross the room and rip his head off.
"So...what's the deal?" Bella questioned softly as I stared at her carefully, my eyes watching her legs more than anything. They looked so soft and smooth, I literally wanted to crawl in front of her and kiss them. In a different situation, perhaps it would seem less creepy, but today, I'd get kicked in the head, I knew it.
"The deal is that my father refuses to let me kick these idiots out of the house," Kate said with exasperation as Garrett looked down at me smugly from his spot behind the couch. He was leaning against it with Peter and I perched in front of him on the sofa, showing a united front of sorts. "He is insisting that with six bedrooms in this place, we'll never even know that they are here, but I beg to differ."
"Oh come on, it's not like you're living with complete fucking idiots. We are about to be seniors at Wake Forest," Peter announced forcefully, reiterating the fact that he only speaks when necessary, unlike his little sister Alice who you can never get to shut the fuck up. She came for a tour of Wake last year and roomed with us for a weekend; it was a complete disaster.
"Think positive Kate, at least they aren't from Duke," Charlotte chimed in, smiling at Peter sweetly before she turned to face the wrath of her friend.
"Oh great, small victory," Kate replied as she threw her hands up in exasperation. "I hate this idea and I want it noted that you guys are completely ruining our summer vacation. There are three bedrooms on the west side, you guys get those ones."
"But they are the smaller ones," cursed Garrett. "How the fuck am I supposed to romance the ladies in a twin bed?"
"Considering you are wearing a t-shirt that reads 'Freelance Gynecologist' I don't think it will be much of an issue," Kate laughed as the rest of the girls joined in, and I may have cracked a small smile at hearing Bella's sweet laughter. "Listen, I am not here to make your life easier. If you want to stay here, then you guys get the rooms on the west side. This is not up for negotiations. Also, you clean up after yourselves, do your own groceries, laundry and don't eat any of our stuff."
"Oh something tells me no one has eaten your stuff for a while, which is why you are such a stuck up bitch," Garrett remarked snidely as Kate moved forward, ready to pounce and claw his eyes out, while Charlotte jumped up to stop her. "Did I strike a nerve?"
"This isn't going to work if you guys can't at least be civil," Bella remarked as she turned to look at me with a small grin. "I, for one, am not ready to leave yet. The boys will sleep on the west side of the house and we will sleep on the east. We each have to agree to try and respect each other; otherwise this won't be a good summer for any of us."
"I doubt you will even notice we're here," Garrett said with a smirk as he eyed up Kate, who was still pissed off. If anyone was going to be an issue this summer, it would be Garrett & Kate, who were already viewing the other as their mortal enemy.
"Listen, I think we are all mature enough to handle a summer here together. It's only like eight weeks, right?" I stated firmly as Bella nodded her head in agreement. "We agree to sleep in the rooms on the west side, and Garrett, you can take the one with the bigger bed, so stop complaining."
"Thanks man."
"We promise to try and maintain our distance and be as civil and polite as possible, deal?" I asked as I offered out my hand as Peter and Garrett followed suit. "Come on; let's shake on it so we are all in agreement."
Bella rose from the couch and slipped her hand easily into mine, a small shock coursing through my system as I tightened my grip around hers. We shook quickly, but our hands didn't separate as fast as our friends did, and I couldn't help but notice that when we did pull apart, she was blushing again.
This could turn out to be a very good summer after all.
