Chapter 4
"Hey Jake, there's a K-Mart up there on the left. We can stop there for the swimsuit." Bella decided K-Mart would be quicker and less painful than a mall or department store. You can only spend so much time and/or money on K-Mart swimsuits. Alice would have never approved this.
"Suit yourself, Bells," Jacob said. He turned with a smirk and added, "No pun intended." He chuckled at his own joke, and Bella couldn't help but join in.
They walked in past a gaudy 4th of July display made up of so many red, white, and blue items that it was almost impossible to discriminate one item from the next. Bella hoped Jacob didn't notice the hideous American flag bikini hiding somewhere in the mix, but he was too busy thinking about how hard it would be to find Waldo in such a place to notice.
"Oh my God, do people actually wear these things?" Bella asked as she picked up a pair of star-shaped sunglasses with glittery blue rims.
Jacob took them from her grasp and placed them on his own face. "What, you don't like them?"
"I like them so much I'm wishing I had a camera to remember them by."
"You know, we really should document some of today's awesomeness. You go ahead and find the swimsuit section, and I'll go find us a disposable camera."
The two headed off to their respective destinations, and Bella cringed when she reached the swimsuit department. She was by no means a fashion expert, but even she could tell that there was little hope here. Her options seemed to be limited to either tiny triangles or large flowery masses with ruffled skirts, neither of which appealed to Bella in the least. She picked up the only harmless looking swimsuit in sight; it was a simple navy blue tankini without any glitter or flowers the size of a soccer ball. Her luck ran out when she saw that it was easily six sizes too large. She moved on and fingered the silver sequins that completely covered one of the tiny tops and couldn't imagine who would actually be caught wearing something like that. Probably the same hopeless person who would wear the star-shaped sunglasses, she thought. She held it up to her body to get an idea of how much one of the triangle contraptions would cover if she had to resort to one, but her thoughts were interrupted by the flash of a camera.
"That's the spirit, Bells! You can save it for the 4th and match all of the sparklers." Jacob beamed.
She all but threw the top back on the rack and felt like she had been caught red-handed doing something filthy. "Don't get your hopes up. I was just seeing how big it was since all of the reasonable ones are too big."
"Hey, what about this one?" Jacob reached over and pulled out a simple black one-piece she hadn't noticed. It looked plain enough, and a glance at the tag proved that it was her size.
"Who knew you'd be better at this than me? I guess it will do. Thanks." She started walking towards the front of the store.
"You sure you don't want to try it on? I'm flattered that you trust my judgment and all, but maybe you should try a few."
"It's fine. We should get back on the road so we won't be so late getting back…" she stopped to calculate the time in her head. "Jake, we've been on the road for eight hours! HOW are we going to get back home tonight? Even if we turn around and go back now, we'd be pushing it."
The conversation was briefly interrupted as they reached the checkout and bought their necessities. The cashier was a girl who must have been in her mid to late twenties. She was eying Jacob as if she would bag him up and take him home if Bella weren't around. Neither one spoke again until they were outside, out of earshot.
"She was definitely checking you out in more ways than one back there," Bella teased. "Maybe you should just stay in the house until you turn 18, kiddo. Your new, ah, attributes are attracting an older, more illegal crowd."
"Just one's enough for me," Jacob alluded. They both knew he wasn't talking about the cashier.
Bella dodged the comment and reminded him of their predicament as they got back onto the road. "So, about getting back home…"
"Well, we should be there really soon, and it closes at 8, so if we leave right away, we could be back by..." he stopped to visibly count on his fingers, and Bella couldn't be quite so mad. "…by 4 tomorrow morning. Ah crap, I guess I got so excited I didn't really even think about the time. I mean, I can handle the driving, and the company," he smiled, "but I guess our dads might start to worry if we don't show up tonight." HOW could he have overlooked such an important detail? He wanted to crawl into a hole and hide. He had wanted to give Bella a perfect day, and he was probably going to get both of them grounded for a very long time instead.
"It's…okay. I should have asked before now. I can't believe I didn't think about how long it would take us to get back before now. Not to be cliché, but I guess time flies when you're having fun."
"So since we're already as good as dead, we might as well make the best of it, right?" Jacob was determined not to have the trip ruined. It could still be a "day of amazingness," but tomorrow might not be so pretty. He pictured pulling up to his house at 4 AM to find Charlie asleep in a rocking chair, cradling a shotgun. He knew Charlie secretly wanted Jacob and Bella to be together almost as much as Jacob wanted it himself, but overnight kidnapping probably crossed the boundary of acceptable behavior.
"Right. I'm not mad; really, I'm not. We were just talking about how there's so much we haven't done, and I guess now's as good a time as any to break a few rules. If we're going to be locked in our rooms for the next year, we should probably do something worth being locked up for." Bella reasoned. She couldn't quite understand why she was being so calm about the whole thing, but maybe it fell under the category of embracing danger.
"Right, then. To making it count. Cheers!" Jacob said, lifting his grape soda.
"Cheers!" Bella added, and she couldn't resist snapping a photo as the grape and orange sodas bumped together in conspiracy.
