Chapter Two
"Yeah! I got it!" I shouted, running for the phone. "Joe's Automotive, how may I help you?" I put a finger in my other ear, trying to drown out the sound of the air drill that is being used by Jacob. "Yes, ma'am. Just bring it right in and we'll have a look at it for you. Okay. Bye."
Setting the phone down, I pulled the elastic band out of my hair and ran my fingers through my long locks, trying to get rid of the headache the weight of my ponytail had given me. It had been two days since we had gone to Seattle and I had been going non-stop since then. Unfortunately, today had not exactly been the best and only added to the stress I already felt. The phone has been ringing off the hook at the shop and now I have to hurry over to Newton's for my second job, that I am already late for, and try to find some time study for my final at the end of next week.
I smiled to myself with that thought. I have been in college since I was eighteen and now, I'm finally going to be done. It has taken me 7 years of continuous school, even during the summers, to obtain my law degree online and at the local college twenty minutes away. Of course, it hasn't helped that I could only afford around two classes a semester. I refused to rack up tens of thousands of dollars in student debt that would take me twenty years to pay back.
Just as I grabbed my bag, the phone rang again. I thought about just leaving it but huffed when I thought about how slow business the past week had been even though the phone had been more than busy. "Dammit." I rushed back over to the phone and picked it up. "Joe's Automotive, how may I help you?"
My brows furrow deeply when someone asks for Mr. Jacob Black. "Um, yes, just a minute." I pushed the hold button and set the phone down. "Jake!" I called out, but he couldn't hear me. He still had that damn drill going. "Jake!" I yelled again and this time he heard me.
He looked up from where he was putting a tire on a truck and smiled at me. "You taking off?"
"Yeah, but there's someone on the phone for you. They asked for Mr. Black." I raise my brows in question, hoping he might know who would be calling him at work and using his name so formally.
Jacob just shrugged his shoulders and hurried over to the phone. "This is Jacob." He answers it as I decide that adding an extra minute or two to how late I already was wouldn't make that much of a difference. My curiosity had been peaked. I want to know what the phone call is about.
When Jacob remained quiet and turned away from the shop, pressing his palm over his free ear, I knew that it was a more serious call. "What?!" Jacob finally yelled in surprise. "Are you serious?"
I moved around to the front of him in the small area behind the desk of the shop to try and make eye contact with him. When I did see his face, his skin looked like it had lost five shades of its dark tone.
"But I didn't know! How was I supposed to know! I've always paid my bills on time! I've never been late on anything!" Jacob howls into the phone.
"What's going on?" I ask worriedly. When I try to place my hands on either side of the tops of his arms, he shrugs my hands off and spins around away from me. "Jake," I say sounding slightly hurt.
"Yes, but I didn't do it! He did it!" he says with frustration lacing every syllable. He goes quiet after that for a moment, listening to the man on the phone, before finally asking, "So, there is no way for you to reconsider? No way around this?"
Jacob is only holding the phone to his ear for another brief second before yanking it away and slamming it back down into the receiver.
I survey him for a few moments and see his fists clenched in anger and frustration while he is trying his best to control his breathing.
Slowly, very slowly, I reach out and place a hand on his forearm and tentatively step around him to stand in front of him. "Jake. What was that phone call about?" I ask quietly. It seems like everyone else in the shop has stopped after hearing him shout and see him shaking with anger.
"My stupid fucking cousin, Quil." He grits out. His eyes finally move to mine and I see pure anger pulsing through them. "The motorcycle he bought that I co-signed for; he defaulted on the loan. It was repossessed yesterday."
My eyes slowly close as I realize what has just happened.
"When the bank went to run my credit one last time, it popped up and now they won't give me the business loan."
The only thing that is running through my head right now is I told you so. I begged him not to co-sign for that motorcycle with Quil, knowing how irresponsible he is, but he did it anyway because he was family and there was no way he would not tell him if he needed help with the payments. He just kept saying "He's family." But telling him I told you so would not be wise right now.
"Babe," I whisper to his frozen form, his muscles pulled tight. "It's fine. We'll go to another bank and…."
"And what?" he snaps at me. "They will tell us the same damn thing that that guy just said. That repossession will be on my credit history for SEVEN YEARS! No one will give me a loan until it's gone!"
He snaps then and stretches his arms across the counter and knocks over a few stacks of papers and a basket of keys before he reaches for the phone and throws it across the room.
"Jake! Stop!" I yell at him, but he's too upset. He shoves off my hands as they try to touch him and then he is storming out of the shop. I know better than to follow him when he's this upset so I stay put and places my elbows on the counter, resting my head in my hands.
The reality of what has just happened starts to sink into me and sadness begins to overtake me. For as long as I've known him, all Jake has ever talked about is his dream to open his own auto shop and build it into something that would get him out of the poverty he's always known. He started working when he was thirteen to help support his family after his father was paralyzed and hasn't stopped since. It's one of the things I love most about him. His work ethic is something to be admired.
And now, just when he was about to get everything he has worked so hard for, it is taken away from him by someone else's actions.
A few tears have started to fall from my eyes now, but I don't care. His dream, our dream, wasn't going to be happening any time soon and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.
My phone rings, startling me because the shop was still deathly quiet, and I hurry to pull it out. When I look down at the screen and see that it's Newton's, I curse under my breath. I'm really late now and after the news I just got, we really can't afford for me to lose my second job.
Wiping my face dry with my sleeves, I pick up the keys and papers all over the floor before grabbing my bag and bolting out of the door and yelling, "Tell Jake I went to work!" I don't look into the shop so I can see Sam and Embry's curious or sympathetic faces. It would only make me even more upset.
I have to stave off the tears the whole way into work and fight the overwhelming urge to pick up my phone and call Quil and curse him into next week. I already tried to call Jacob five times but he isn't picking up his phone and it's likely that he won't for the rest of the evening.
By the time I pull up to Newton's and hop out of my old truck, I'm fifteen minutes late and Jessica is rushing out of the door. "Thanks a lot, Bella. Why do you have to be so damn lazy? I'm late for my date now."
Any other day, I would have let the comment roll off my back. But today, I was not in the mood. "So that means that you'll only be able to put on two layers of makeup instead of three? Hasn't anyone ever told you that you can't hide the kind of ugly you are?" I point to Jessica's chest. "No amount of makeup can hide the evil bitch you are on the inside."
Jessica's face starts to turn the most vibrant red as her mouth opens and closes like a fish, struggling to breathe.
"That's what I thought," I say as I shove past her and barrel my way inside the store, pulling on my tacky hunter orange vest that is Newton's uniform.
To say that Jessica and I have bad blood between us would be an understatement. When I moved to Forks when I was sixteen, Jessica seemed nice and friendly and we became friends. Or so I thought. Six months after my arrival, I found out that Jessica had been telling everyone that I had confided in her that I had a plethora of STD's and I was sent to live with my dad because of my raging sex addiction and promiscuity. Apparently, she had told everyone that I had slept with over 30 different men and had 2 abortions.
None of it was true, of course, but that didn't stop the rumors that persisted for years afterward. Since then, Jessica had made my life a living hell any way she could think of and I was having none of it today.
When I finally clock in and get behind the counter, Mrs. Newton is glaring daggers at me. I give her a tight and apologetic smile and wait for someone to come in the door and ask me about tackle boxes.
I make it a full minute and a half before remembering the phone call back at the shop. I turn my body away from the store as my eyes begin to sting and pressure builds behind them. My heart hurts so much right now for my fiancée. It feels like his pain is mine and now I can't stop from letting tears roll silently down my face again.
All of our plans for our future have been wiped away in the span of only a couple of minutes.
It was always the plan for me to run the legal side of the business and handle liability and write agreement of services contracts and…
"Now what am I going to do with my degree?" I ask myself. I live in a tiny town with practically no opportunities for a lawyer. Yes, I had always wanted to be a lawyer. I was the daughter of a police chief and it had created a love for the law inside me, but there was always the knowledge that I would be my own boss and help the man I loved while doing it. We would build our future together, forever entwined with each other.
And now…..it was all gone.
Jacob would never move away from Forks and I would never ask him to. His father needs him too much and depends on our help, financially and physically. Billy can't afford to hire someone to help him and so it's always been me and Jacob who have had to do it after Jacob's sisters got married and moved away.
After a few more minutes of allowing myself to wallow in my own self-pity, I wipe my face dry and decide to stop my whining and be the rock that Jacob will certainly need. I close my eyes and whisper to myself, "It's okay. Everything is fine and it will work out somehow. It has to."
It was ten minutes past 10:00 when I walked in our front door. Jacob was sprawled across the length of our tiny couch with a half-drank beer in his hand and two pizza boxes on the coffee table. I could see that there were at least eight empty bottles that had been discarded on the floor already. There was a new stain on the old yellowing carpeting of their home from where a blob of pizza sauce had fallen out of the pizza.
When he looked up at me, his head swung heavily from side to side before he was able to hold it still. "I kicked Quil's ass." Jacob slurs out.
"Jake!" I chide him as I notice a few fresh cuts on the knuckles of his right hand. "Why would you do that? He's family."
"Not anymore he's not." Jacob shoves the rest of a slice of pizza in his mouth.
Knowing that it will do no good to argue with him in this state, I just huff and drop my bag on the floor by the door. Walking over to the couch, I stretch my body over the top of his and take the beer he's drinking for my own self. "Everything will work out somehow," I say quietly.
Jacob immediately stiffens beneath me and pushes me to sit up a little.
Apparently, that was definitely the wrong thing to say.
I raise myself up, bracing my hands on his wide chest, and look down at him confused. "No, it won't, Bella. For someone who is about to have a law degree, you're not that smart if you think that."
"What the fuck, Jacob?" I say back at him. Hurt runs fast and hard through me.
He wiggles until I am completely off of him and sitting on the couch where his legs just were. He plants his feet on the ground and looks over to me. "No one will give me a business loan, Bella! I called everywhere in the tri-county area and no one will touch me. Now, I'm stuck in a dead-end job in a dead-end town, destined to live like this," he gestures wildly at our old and tiny rental home, "for the rest of my fucking life!"
I narrow my eyes at him as my hurt morphs into anger. "I happen to not mind living here as long as I am with you. I couldn't care less about having money. That has always been your thing! Just as long as we have enough to pay bills is all that's mattered to me."
"My thing!" Jacob yells back, standing up and swaying a little. "Why are you trying to make me sound like the bad guy here for wanting to not live paycheck to paycheck and to be able to buy you nice things? I mean, we've been engaged for four years because we can't even afford to get married!"
"That's because you insist on having some big wedding. I've told you a million times that I would marry you in a paper bag at the courthouse. I don't care about having a wedding and never have! You know I hate being the center of attention."
"But I don't want you to have to marry me at the courthouse. I want you to have the wedding of your dreams!" He shouts back.
"Ugh. You don't listen to me at all! I have never dreamed about having a big or small wedding and you know that. I'm not that type of girl. All I ever wanted was to just be your wife but every time I suggest going to the courthouse, you immediately shut it down."
"You know what," Jake says with a huff, "I don't need this right now." He turns around and grabs the remainder of the second six-pack he was working on and walks out the front door, slamming it behind him.
In the silence that follows his absence, I curse myself. I'm not quite sure how it happened but we had gotten into yet another fight about getting married when I had resolved myself to come home and be the supporting and loving fiancée he needed.
The worst part was he was right about the business. No one was going to loan him anything. Even trying to get approved to buy a house was now out of the question.
Suddenly feeling like I needed a long shower to wash away the day, I moved to our bedroom, taking off items of clothing as I went. When I was headed back out of our room with some pajamas in my hand, I caught a glimpse of the blue dress Alice had let me borrow when I went to Seattle.
I sucked in a sharp breath of air as I remembered that night and the mysterious, sexy stranger. Hurrying back over to my closet and digging out the clutch I carried that night, I opened it and fished out the business card he had given me.
On the front, it said, Edward Cullen. Investor/Entrepreneur. There was an e-mail address and two phone numbers typed below, and on the back, there was another number, not one of the ones on the front. This one was written in ink.
He said he was a business investor.
A wild idea suddenly pops into my head then. Part of me was screaming at me to do it while the other part of me was screaming that it was a really bad idea.
He had clearly been hitting on me and I was positive that he had been the one to get us a table at the restaurant and then paid for our meal. Running my fingers across the phone number he had inked on the back, I knew I would be playing with fire if I did what I was thinking.
But, on the other hand, if I didn't, there is no telling what my and Jacob's future would look like.
The question was, was I willing to play with fire just so I could ask him to invest in Jacob's dream of starting his own garage?
"Now that is something I will have to sleep on," I tell myself as I tuck the business card back into my clutch and hurry off to take a shower.
As always, thanks for reading and don't forget to review to tell me what you think! Up next, we get to briefly hear from Edward. Yay!
