A/N: Finally, an update. I'm sorry I've been so fail - real life killed my mojo. I was able to write the angsty parts of this chapter but not the fluffy ones (seriously, if i'd tried to write I'd have just ended up killing everyone in frustration). Then last month my laptop died :( But everything's okay and we should be back to regular updates.
Thank you to everyone who has reviewed in the meantime, especially if you enquired about my health. Sometimes when I was on the verge of just giving up on the story entirely, it galvanised me to keep trying.
Also thanks to my betas Octoberland and evieeden. You can thank Octoberland for getting two lemons, since I was going to cockblock you all on the second one and she forbid it :P
I'm on Twitter now as well (at sign) latessitrice. I'm not very exciting but I'm going to use it to post teasers (if anyone cares!) and you may get small hints about how my writing is progressing in between all my other babble.
Also, also...Amelie Gee created a thread on Twilighted. It was a while ago and I don't think anyone's been into it, but you can find the link on my profile if you'd like to venture in.
And so, without further ado:
Gifts
I woke bundled up in my blanket, pressed up against a firm body but not skin to skin. After I'd blinked the sleep away, I pouted at Edward.
"What's the meaning of this?" I said, sweeping my hand down to indicate the fabric which had clearly been wrapped around me and tucked in neatly.
"You can't sleep against me without something to keep you warm," he replied quietly, his face pressed into my hair. "Besides, I noticed in Italy that you don't find me particularly comfortable to lie against."
"The second thing I'll have to deal with, but the first we need to find a way around. I like feeling your skin. There has to be a way of keeping me warm."
He nodded absently, twining our fingers together, lifting my left hand up. "What's the meaning of this?" he countered, stroking my empty ring finger. He sounded – hurt?
It took me a moment to remember the thousands of dollars worth of diamond that still languished in my pocket, somewhere on the floor of my room.
"I can't wear it around Charlie."
"Why not?" He was very, very still beside me.
I wriggled around to face him properly. "Because he doesn't know we're engaged, and he's not going to know, at least for a while."
I was right, it was hurt. It flashed across his face, quickly replaced by perfect blankness. "You don't want to tell him?" he asked.
"Edward, I can't. My parents both have very strong negative views on early marriage. Plus, I just disappeared for nearly a week after living like a zombie for months. If I tell Charlie we're getting married he will hit the roof. You've got to work on regaining his trust before we have any hope that he'll believe that us getting married is a good idea."
He was quiet for a moment, his eyes unfocussed. "I saw it, last night," he murmured, tiny creases appearing on his brow as he frowned. "I saw what you've been like. He kept thinking about how you were when I was…away. You telling me what it was like was nothing compared to seeing it - " He flinched and stopped talking.
I curled my hand around his and brought it to rest on my cheek.
"That's why you're going to have to prove yourself to him. I might be ready to forgive you, but that's only because I don't really have a choice. I have to be with you or live out the rest of my life practically comatose. I don't want to live without you. Charlie, on the other hand, is going to hold it against you, because he can."
"As he should." Edward sounded weary. "I'll think about ways to prove myself to him."
"I think the best thing is just being here, proving that you want to be with me."
"And marrying you doesn't do that?"
"Not in his eyes, no. He knows all too well how likely divorce is."
"Divorce isn't an option. This is forever – not flippant declarations, but actual eternity."
"I know that, but we can hardly explain it to him that way. In his eyes us getting married any time soon will just mean we're doomed to become a statistic."
"Hmm." He was quiet again, staring off at something I couldn't see. I took the opportunity to snuggle in closer, breathing in his scent. It was the most comforting thing in the world and fairly soon my sheets would be back to smelling like Edward all the time. That made me happy.
It suddenly hit me that the last time I'd showered had been the morning we left Italy. I couldn't get out of bed fast enough.
"Where are you going?" he asked, perturbed by the sudden distance between us.
"Shower. You need to stay put."
I returned squeaky clean and already dressed, knowing I couldn't afford to get distracted if I was going to avoid being late for school.
He was waiting on the bed, disappointingly clothed, turning something small over in his hands.
"Alice has just been by," he said as I brushed out my wet hair. "She's not going to be at school today – it'll be a few days before our re-enrollment is finalized." My heart sank at that blow. I'd been counting on her help to fend off other peoples' attention. Once again I was inevitably going to be the source of gossip, the vultures descending to pick at the carrion of my relationship with Edward.
"She dropped this off as well." He held up the charm and I stepped closer to view it. It was a small glass heart, faceted like a diamond. "Since you won't be able to wear the ring very often, I wanted you to have something else to wear, something that people won't question."
I took it from him. It was curiously heavy in my hand, cold from the lack of body heat, and shimmered faintly where the light caught it. The facets sent rainbows dancing over Edward's skin.
"It's pretty."
"It was my mother's. I want you to have it."
"I couldn't - " I began to protest, but he gently covered my mouth with his hand.
"It's a gift and it would mean a lot to me for you to have it. It's something of a family heirloom and it's the closest thing to a real heart that I can give you. Like I said, you can wear it all the time and no one will think anything of it. It'll make me feel close to you, knowing this is against your skin when I can't be near you."
"Okay." I hugged him, pressing a kiss to his forehead. "You know I don't believe that about your heart any more than I do about your soul." I leaned to kiss above his heart too. "And you're getting it back when I can wear the ring permanently."
Neither of us wanted to draw away, but the clock ticked down to the very last minute I could leave without getting a tardy slip. I found a long chain before I left and hung the heart round my neck, where it dipped below the neckline of my shirt and settled against my breasts. I was conscious of it, close to my own heart, as I bid Edward a hesitant goodbye and left the ring with him for safe-keeping.
'***'
School was nothing short of horrendous. If it wasn't bad enough being separated from Edward, I was constantly reminded of him by the whispers around me.
"Hey, Bella," Mike greeted me as I traipsed into homeroom. "I hear Cullen's back." The way he said 'Cullen' got my hackles up, but I smothered the instinct to glare at him. He seemed to take my grimace as confirmation.
"Yeah, I heard he was in this horrific car crash and he was in a coma for, like, a month," Jessica chimed in.
"It was a couple of days," I corrected. How on earth had everybody heard the story so soon? Forks was a small town, but no-one was supposed to have heard it yet besides me, Charlie and the Cullens themselves. "He's going to be fine."
"So, are you two, like…" Jessica trailed off, realizing that maybe she'd put her foot in it.
"If you're asking if we're back together, then yes, we are."
Mike's entire posture drooped at the news and Jessica continued to press me for the gory details until the bell rang and I could escape.
Apparently my sudden change in attitude was turning heads as much as the news of the Cullens' return. I didn't realize how differently I was acting until I got into English. I was sat with Angela, who I'd seen over the course of the day but hadn't yet spoken to. Interestingly, I no longer felt waves of nausea as I watched her say a gooey goodbye to Ben at the classroom door.
"I heard Edward's back in Forks," she began tentatively as we sat down. I nodded, and she smiled. "You can tell, you know. You're different, not so closed in on yourself. Before spring break you were kind of…broken…and now you're like the old Bella."
I fidgeted with the cuff of my sleeve; she was startlingly perceptive. "I feel whole around him."
"It's good to have you back." She didn't press for details of the accident or our reunion, and we easily moved onto talking about the trip she'd taken with her family to Vancouver over spring break.
Lessons, on the whole, just gave me more free time to miss him, and brood over how things had been left with Jacob. Every time I thought about that it felt like someone had dowsed me in ice water. The few times I'd dared to imagine Edward returning to Forks, I'd never thought what that would mean for the wolves, or for my friendship with Jake. Edward was my life, but Jake was still my sun, and I needed as much of that as I could get in Forks. No matter which way I looked at it, I couldn't see a future where it could all be reconciled.
Lunch was the hardest. I walked into the cafeteria and the first thing I saw was the Cullens' empty table, which had never been claimed by anyone else. For a moment, it was like any other day from the past few months, walking into a room that Edward wasn't in, and never would be in again.
He's not here. He left you.
The wound in my chest throbbed, seemingly filling my lungs with ice, and I had to push past the pain to breathe in.
What if it was all a dream? What if I'd finally gone completely mad and hallucinated Italy? What if I was still all alone, and would surface from my delusions occasionally only to remember that Edward didn't love me, didn't want me, and the table in the corner would remain empty until the memory of the Cullens had long faded from Forks High School.
The weight on my chest was cool, pushing down against my constricted lungs. I reached up to claw it away and closed my fingers around the glass of the pendant, remembering what it was at the contact. Edward's heart. He'd given it to me, to be close even when I wasn't near him.
I calmed down, but not before several people – including Jessica and Lauren – had witnessed my near freak-out and started whispering again.
By the time the last bell rang I was ready to be gone. I'd even been contemplating cutting my last class, and only the knowledge that I was already grounded kept me hanging around. For the second time in twenty-four hours, I pushed the truck to its maximum speed and briefly toyed with the idea of asking Edward for a new car. Then I felt guilty for the rest of the journey, being especially gentle with it.
Charlie was waiting for me when I got home and so, surprisingly, was Alice.
"What are you doing here?" I whispered while Charlie was in the kitchen.
"Edward's feeling much better," she replied at a normal volume, treading the line between concern and chirpiness with aplomb. "He'd like to see you, so I came to bargain with Charlie for your freedom."
"I can't go, Alice. I'm grounded – and I deserve it."
Charlie stuck his head round the door jam. "I already agreed that you could go." I stared at him, dumbfounded. "Well, you're only going to mope around here if you can't go and it's not like he can get you into any trouble since he's bedridden and all."
"I should at least cook us dinner before I go…" I was trying very hard not to think about Edward in a bed.
"It's alright, Esme sent something over."
"She feels awfully guilty over what happened," Alice explained. "Since she didn't realize we hadn't told Charlie where you'd gone. I'm grounded as well, but I was allowed to come and get you, so I could apologize to him."
It was lucky we were relying on Alice's acting skills and not mine. We were on the road in ten minutes, after Alice had finished working her magic on Charlie. His parting words were to repeat my 10 p.m. curfew.
"He's very anxious to see you," she said, referencing Edward as we drove out of town and deeper into the forest towards the Cullen house. The whole car carried his scent, and I relaxed into the seats.
"Me too."
"He hunted today, and the rest of us are going hunting after you get there. You know, so you two can be alone."
"Subtle, Alice, subtle." Would talking about this stuff always make me blush so hard?
"But we won't be gone all night, so don't let him get carried away. Everyone wants to spend some time with you. We've all missed you, you know."
"Thanks. I've missed everyone too."
Out of the verdancy of the forest the Cullen house suddenly appeared white in front of us. When Alice parked up, I climbed out of the Volvo on shaky legs, staring at the looming structure like it was a ghost.
In a way it was. For months it had been the last tangible reminder of the Cullens' presence in Forks, one that I'd avoided even the memory of. The last time I'd been here, events had tipped from wonderful to catastrophic in an instant, plunging me into months of misery. Who could be blamed for being wary of it?
Cold arms encircled my waist as metal encircled my ring finger. I yipped, and Edward's familiar chuckle sounded in my ear.
"Relax, love, it's only me."
"Could you not wait until she was inside?" Alice asked with a tinge of exasperation.
"Go hunt," he growled.
She glared back at him. "7 p.m. We'll be back, and don't for a second think you'll be monopolizing her time - we have serious wedding planning to do. Ciao, Bella!" With that, she spun on her heel and disappeared into the tree line.
I caught a flash of blonde at the point she vanished – Jasper.
"Is it still really hard for Jasper to be near me?"
"No. It's hard for Jasper to be near me," Edward murmured, his voice muffled by the skin of my neck, which he was nuzzling.
"Why?"
"I'll show you why." I was airborne, my feet swept out from under me, and a moment later I was righted. We were in the living room, at the foot of the stairs, up against the wall.
The kiss started out tender, but within moments his hands were roaming under my shirt, trailing cool, tingling paths across my skin. That low-level current between us hummed in contentment. It was this that I missed when I was away from him; this which I had missed during the months he was gone; this that made me feel less than alive when he wasn't near me.
There was a sense of familiarity to all of this; me, pressed up against a wall while we gave into our mutual desperation. It had only been eight hours, but the effect of our separation was a tangible thing. His clothes came off first, so quickly that I didn't notice until my eyes fluttered open as he trailed kisses over my jaw to find him naked before me. As soon as he had my attention he unbuttoned my shirt, dropping to his knees to kiss the skin he exposed with each button. However, rather than removing it completely, he left it open and framing my torso.
My jeans came off next, down my hips and on the floor in moments. Edward leant in close to my panties, taking a deep breath and letting it out again in a rolling purr. The eyes that stared up at me were tar black and if it weren't for the absence of dark circles beneath them, I'd have never known that he'd fed.
Rather than standing up he pulled me down to him, and for a moment I was awkwardly balanced, one knee on the bottom stair and the other not quite reaching the floor, leaving me sprawled across his lap. He shifted, lifting me off of him and setting me on the stairs instead, kneeling between my spread legs.
We ground together, his hardness pressing exactly where I wanted him, the languor of our kiss not matching our frantic movements below the waist.
"One moment," he whispered, disappearing across the living room and returning in a flash of white with one of the cushions from the couch clutched to his chest. "Lean forward," he requested between hungry kisses, and I obeyed willingly because it pressed me against his skin. Every part of me thrummed with happiness at the increased contact. He slipped the cushion behind me, between my back and the solid wood of the staircase. Somehow my panties came off at the same time, tossed carelessly onto the pale floor. I reclined into the cool satin as his fingers moved south.
There was absolutely nothing tentative about his touch.
He pushed two fingers inside me and rather than stroking them in and out, he kept them tight together and circled round, touching every inch of me in a corkscrew dance. I panted his name and tried, once again, to dig my nails into his skin.
"Ready?" he asked, as I floated on the edge, and before I'd even finished my single, sharp nod, he was in me. The angle was strange like this and I shifted my hips up. He wasted no time finding a quick rhythm and I was thankful for the cushion – he was doing little short of pounding me into the stairs.
There was no time for words – he was utterly focused on seeking release for both of us, his fingers trailing to the place above where we were joined, and when I gave myself over to the bright pleasure, he followed quickly behind.
The cushion helped even more when he collapsed onto me, his weight pressing me into the stairs, one arm taut around my waist and keeping me tight against him. His face rested against my shoulder, soft breaths gusting over my skin and causing shivers.
For once, I wasn't feeling that odd, weightless feeling that followed us being together. Everything still shone in a pleasant haze around me, but my blood and adrenaline still flowed, pumping through my body insistently. I wanted more.
Instead of obliging, when he came to his senses Edward pulled me to my feet, retrieving my panties and jeans. He was back in his jeans, much to my dismay.
"So, that was why Jasper has to stay away from you at the moment?" I asked my voice low and gentle.
I pulled the panties on but left the jeans off, to demonstrate my willingness to him. His gaze kept flicking to my chest, where my shirt still lay unbuttoned, and the blackness in his eyes was very much evident.
"He's going to need to be far away when I'm near you, or thinking about you. The urge to…mate…is so strong in me now – it's instinctual for me to be physically connected to you, but until you are changed I have to hold back. My family is impressed with my restraint. Newly-mated vampires can usually focus on little other than their mate, except for blood, for a long time. You have other priorities."
"How long is a long time?"
"A decade, give or take a few years."
"A decade?" He'd begun leading me up the stairs, but I stopped short at this revelation. "You mean I'm going to feel complete desperation for ten years?" I tried to calm the rising shrillness in my voice.
"Is that how you feel?" he asked, his forehead suddenly against mine, the weight of his stare burning into me. There was softness and joy in his expression. "Desperation? You feel it too?"
"Of course I do."
He sighed, content. "I want to be sure that you want this too. I don't want you to go along with this just because I want it. I burn without you, and I never want you to feel that my desire is a burden."
"Always so earnest." I stroked the hair back from his forehead. "Believe me, if I didn't want to do anything, you'd know. And I know that you'd listen to me. Everything we've done, I've wanted to do - I've enjoyed it more than I thought was possible. If this gets even better after I've changed, then I can't wait for that to happen."
His expression hardened for a moment, before he swooped me up, setting me on my feet outside his room. "Well, it's good news that you're so willing. There's a Cadbury's shipment due to arrive before the weekend. I believe you made certain promises."
"I did, did I?"
"Oh, yes. And you know I was brought up to believe that you should never, ever break a promise."
"If you fulfill your half of the bargain, I'll fulfill mine."
The smile he gave me was positively devilish. I took a step towards him, the scant space between us already stretching too far, and he held his hands up. "Before we go down that path, I have something for you."
I groaned. "You've already spent too much on me over the past few days."
"The ring wasn't a gift for you; it was a symbol of us. The heart cost nothing. This isn't a gift either, but it will make me feel better when we're apart."
I narrowed my eyes at him. "You already used that once today." He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a sleek, silver cell phone. I took it, frowning down at it.
"If it makes you feel any better, I didn't spend any money on this either. Alice just upgraded and this is her old phone." I looked doubtfully at the pristine casing.
"Did she just upgrade because you decided I needed a phone?"
He smirked. "You know Alice; she always wants the newest things. It was a complete coincidence that she wanted a new phone when I wanted to get you one."
"Uh-huh. I believe you, thousands wouldn't. However, since this means I can keep in touch with you during the day, I guess it's not so bad." I closed the distance between us and snaked my arms around his neck. "Would you like your thank you now?"
"I knew you'd see it my way." He walked us backwards into his room, mouth latched onto mine, and I only noticed the presence of the bed when we collapsed onto it.
"Well, this is new," I said breathlessly. I took a quick peek around the room as he peeled my shirt off. The walls and carpet were the same as ever, but the couch had been removed to make way for the behemoth of a bed, covered in soft gold sheets and framed by an intricately wrought black frame. The light was muted by sheer curtains of shot satin that covered the glass wall.
"I called Esme from Italy and let her know we'd need a bed." He kissed a cool path down my throat, to the swell of my breast above my bra. He pulled the cups down so he had full access to my skin.
"That was – oh…" Very, very tentatively, he wrapped his lips around my nipple, applying the lightest pressure, the softest sucking. This was new. I arched up into him, his mouth apparently connected to everything between my legs. I wriggled free of my panties, kicking them off my feet, and set about undoing the buttons on his jeans. He discarded them and as he rose above me I pushed him backwards. I wanted to be above him for a change.
"I'm in charge this time," I said as I scraped my teeth, ineffectually, against his throat.
"Bella, I don't know if that's a good idea - "
I stopped grinding into him. "I disagree. I think it's a wonderful idea. You control everything we do, and I'd like the illusion that that isn't the case for a little while."
He seemed to be fighting an internal battle, and clearly didn't like giving up his control, but he conceded. "You always have the power, even if you don't know it."
I pushed him against the fluffy pillows, knowing full well he only moved by choice but he was doing it to please me. As I crawled back over him, a flash of dark hair above us caught my attention.
I snapped my head up to find my reflection staring back at me. Directly above the headboard was a gold-framed mirror, easily the size of a poster. Reflected in that, I could see another mirror on the opposite wall, and another. The three walls that weren't made of glass each had one hung, in the perfect position to display the activities on the bed.
"Wow. You really weren't kidding about the mirrors."
Edward's gaze was heavy and dark – he'd followed my eye line to each of the mirrors. He strained beneath me, his hands wrapping around my hips and applying gentle pressure to pull me down to him. I shook my head, letting my hair fall around me, and uncurled his fingers from my skin.
"I told you, I'm in charge this time." I led his hands to the headboard. "If you need something to hold onto, use this."
I teased him a little longer, grinding down slowly while he gripped the metal until it creaked. Every time he rolled his hips up to mine, I shifted myself away, shaking my head. When he tried to remove his hands from the now-dented steel, I backed away entirely, rocking back onto my heels and tutting at him until he complied. Only when it became too much for me, his hardness gliding along my wet skin but providing not-enough friction, did I rise up to take him inside me.
His eyes flickered around the room, from where our bodies joined, to each of the mirrors. He'd have a very clear view of our movement wherever he looked and he obviously couldn't decide which angle he preferred. Edward was definitely a visually oriented creature.
Rather than watching us in the mirror above the bed, I watched him: the tautness of his jaw as he restrained his most animalistic sounds, the classical lines of his shoulders and arms as he maintained his grasp on the poor bed frame, the desire that glazed over his honey irises as their focus consistently changed. I was free to run my fingers over his skin, following the contours of his muscles with fingertips and nails.
I thought that I would feel exposed like this, with every inch of my skin displayed to him, but his rapt attention stripped away all room for self-doubt. I could move my hips so the angle was just right, and control the pace so it was how I needed it, too. It was a heady feeling to have my own pleasure in the palm of my hand. I ignored the burn in my thighs as I moved faster, seeking the unraveling coil that would signal my release.
I didn't chastise him when he began to thrust up, or when his hands eventually found my butt, one sliding up my back to pull me down to meet his kiss. I was too far gone by that point, and it only took a few more rolls of his hips for me to fall apart above him, surrendering myself entirely and inelegantly to his embrace.
'***'
We dressed at 6.45, after I'd showered for a solid twenty minutes. Edward had delicately informed me that his family would be able to smell what we'd been doing – as if they didn't already know – but I didn't want to give them ammunition, Emmett in particular. Edward had removed the cushion from the stairs to his room, and opened the downstairs windows to get fresh air flowing through the living room.
"We're back!" Alice trilled as she glided back into the house. Carlisle, Esme, Emmett and Rosalie trailed after her, Emmett carrying a pizza box.
"I hunted for you," he announced proudly, setting it down on the dining table with a flourish. "And I can totally smell that you guys did it down here, so Edward can no longer complain about me and Rose."
"Emmett, that's extremely impolite," Esme chided, while Edward took a menacing step toward him. I tried to will the blood away from my cheeks and failed.
"You're coming with me," Rosalie snarled, literally yanking Emmett backwards by his collar and leading him outside.
I cast a startled glance at Edward. "Is she angry at him?"
"Not really. She was just distracting him before he said something to cause a real fight between us."
Carlisle spoke. "You look well, Bella."
I lifted my arms up. "No current injuries." Edward's jaw clenched in my peripheral vision.
"That's not what I meant," Carlisle continued softly, his gaze telling me that he was talking about my return from catatonia.
"I feel good. Thanks." Esme was practically glowing at Carlisle's side. I watched them both turn their eyes to Edward, silently communicating the same message to him. He'd told me a little about how much of a mess he'd been when he left Forks, and I realized how much that must have distressed his family – Carlisle and Esme in particular.
Charlie had been left in a perpetual state of confusion, not understanding why my simple case of teenage heartbreak cut so deeply and waiting helplessly for me to emerge from it. Carlisle and Esme had watched Edward's descent into despair, knowing there would be no cure unless he could be turned aside from the path he had chosen.
"Everything's good. Including the smell of that pizza. Do you mind?" I lifted the lid, glancing round to check they were okay with me tucking in. Something occurred to me. "Where's Jasper?"
Alice took a seat next to me at the table, dropping a heavy, silk-lined tome onto the polished surface. "We got within a half-mile of the house and it was too much for him." She shot a pointed look at Edward. "That's not important right now – you'll see him again soon. What's important is this." She opened the book dramatically, turning to the first page which was lettered in perfect calligraphy.
Edward & Bella's Wedding
"I'll be in my office," Carlisle said, smiling once more before heading up the stairs. I stared beseechingly at Edward, who clearly wanted to follow Carlisle.
"Um, Alice, I thought you were doing the planning and just consulting us on the big decisions?"
"Bella, these are all important decisions that need to be made," she replied, ruffling through to a page covered in swatches of fabric, all variations of ivory. Esme sat down across from us, dropping a box – no, a crate - in front of her, and pulling out a handful of glossy catalogues.
"I'm going to go and speak to Carlisle…" Edward muttered, flying up the stairs before I could protest.
"Now, where should we start?" Alice asked, oblivious. "What do you think, Esme – flowers or color schemes?"
'***'
Alice sulked on the drive home. I'd finally put my foot down and told her that she could only continue planning the wedding if she left me alone. Otherwise we were going to Vegas. Edward had been back at the table the moment the words left my mouth, saying we could go that weekend. That left me between a rock and a hard place – Edward wanted to get married yesterday and even Alice was pressuring me to tell Charlie so we could set a date. However, I was now out of planning duties, and that made me happy.
I'd hoped Charlie would be out, but not only was he in; he was waiting to talk to me, hovering in the hallway when I came inside.
"How's he doing?" he asked, fidgeting as I hung my coat up.
"He's getting better every day." I figured if I kept it simple, the less likely I was to give myself away.
He nodded. And nodded again. He opened his mouth a few times, doing a repeat of his goldfish impression from last night.
"Bells, I want to talk to you about yesterday."
Uh-oh. Was he reviewing my punishment?
"You were pretty upset when you got home from the res, so I, uh, went down there to have a word with Billy. I knew you'd be shaken from seeing Jake, but I didn't think you'd take it that hard, so I knew something else happened. Well, they wouldn't tell me what it was, but it's clearly more than Jake. If you want to tell me what it was, you can, okay?"
I nodded, staring at a loose thread on the carpet.
He sighed loudly. "Sam told me he likes you and he'd hate to see you get hurt by Cul – Edward again. Billy was a little less pleasant about it – damn near told me you deserved to be upset. I told him your relationship was none of his business and it was time he got over his ridiculous dislike of the Cullens. Guess I'm down a fishing partner." I glanced up, startled. "I'm on your side here, Bells. You might not have made the best choices lately, but if Billy was talking to you the way he was talking to me, I don't blame you for being hurt. I'd never talk to Jake like that, and he's got no right to do it to you."
The silence weighed on after his declaration and I felt warmth in the pit of my stomach. Affection. Sometimes I forgot that Charlie wasn't just an obstacle to spending all my time with Edward and that he really did have my best interests at heart. I'd never expected him to break his friendship with Billy over this. Their friendship was older than I was.
"You mean that?"
"Yup. Already told him that until he apologizes - to you – I don't want to hear from him."
I was struck by the sudden, overwhelming urge to hug Charlie, but I resisted because that would just be awkward for both of us. "Thanks, Dad."
And instead of heading up to bed, I watched the rest of the Seahawks game with him. We didn't talk, but before I called it a night, I finally gave in to that urge.
I'm not sure why I've done this since I'm not sure if anyone would actually be willing to spend money on my stories, but I've signed up to the Fandom Gives Back auctions. I'm offering up an Eclipse themed one shot First Come First Served, and then whatever you want in the auction. I'll add details and links to my profile as they become available.