At her silent request, he found himself imobile even though she had asked him to leave.

He realised, with a fire burning inside him, that he could never leave her.

Whether she knew it or not...

She was his.

Learning How To Keep

Jacob

Seriously? Bella was home?

This was beyond awesome—mainly because she was grown up and had boobs and an ass that I would have absolutely begged to bite on... But also because this meant I'd get to hang around with an actual girl.

Don't get me wrong. Plenty of the res girls bent over backwards to catch my eye, but they were so not her...

She had a way of digging her claws into you. Deep. So deep you wondered how she even managed it with those small hands. And then asked how long they had been there.

And yet here she was, no less then 20 feet away, and I had trouble breathing. Or functioning altogether, either one.

She poked the tongue out the side of her mouth, eyes narrowed into near slits as she concentrated on reading her book; Where The Wild Things Are.

Jacob rolled his eyes as Paul made about the wittiest remark a child could at the age of six.

"If you look at it any closer, I'm pretty sure it'll explode," he told her seriously as he crashed his red Toyota toy car into Jacobs SUV silver van. Jacob blew out a sigh and continued to make tire tracks in the soil beneath him, glancing over to Bella and smiling when she met his gaze.

Then Paul abruptly threw his toy car at Bella's head and stormed off inside, complaining about cooties and gross girls.

Bella stared open mouthed at the ground before she burst into tears and Jacob felt so bad that all he could do was stare at her and try not to cry as well. She was only a year older then them both, but that had to hurt, and if positions were swapped, he was pretty sure he'd cry too.

He stood up, brushing the dirt off his knees and did the only thing that could fix a serious boo-boo like this.

He kissed her forehead and told her she smelled pretty.

I was brought back from the past when my father called my name, my almost-brothers name following soon after. We shared yet another glance before travelling inside, and I felt myself grinning stupidly at Bella as I strode past. She blushed and looked away.

Awh, damn.

I felt my heart pick up a pace or two before Billy ordered us to do the dishes while Charlie started the bonfire. We both groaned and rolled our eyes, but I rolled up the sleeves of my plaid-sleeved-shirt all the same and ran hot water into the sink, pouring a spittle of bright green dish-washing liquid into the boiling water.

Paul and I stared out the window above the sink in silence, our minds—well my mind was—full of Bella. And there she was. She was watching Charlie gather the wood and laughed when he complained about splinters.

From the dim back-porch light, she simply glowed beauty, radiating to a point where I was blinded by it. Dark chestnut waves just past her shoulders, her lips plump and pink, eyelashes touching her cheeks every time she blinked and I could not help but wonder what her lips would feel like on my—

"Dude!" Paul cried, the hot water overflowing. I quickly shut off the tap and stared at it like an idiot.

We both stared at the dripping head of the tap for what seemed forever.

"I get it, man," he said, and I hadn't noticed his gaze had gone back to the girl who was raised with us.

She had her back to us and I couldn't help but bite the inside of my cheek—those denim jeans left a truckload for the imagination; what was underneath came to mind almost instantly.

"Yeah," was all I could manage because honestly, what else could I say?

"Fuck off, she's mine," didn't seem to qualify as polite.

But I had patience on my side. I could wait... But not if Paul made the first move.

We went back to the dishes just as the smell of burning gasoline filled my senses. I passed Paul the soapy plate and grit my teeth.

This was the first time we had done chores without exchaning laughter or complaints.

How did I do? Too short? Meh. It was originally going to be a one-shot.

Paul's view is up next, and remember this fanfic IS rated M for a reason...