Stephenie Meyers owns all things Twilight. No copyright infringement is intended.
Undying Love
Chapter 7
Emmett's mouth never shut the entire flight home. He relived our entire day at Disney Land, moment for moment, refusing to take off his Goofy hat even when it was smashed by the top of the limo on the way back to the dorm. Though our plan was to pick up Meagan then drop the girls off at the apartment, Rose had other ideas for the evening. She insisted that after we picked up Meagan, we guys needed to be dropped off first. She was going to make a spot inspection of Emmett's room for contraband. Not wanting everyone in the dorm to find out about Meagan just yet, I called Mom and arranged for her to meet Bella at the apartment thirty minutes later.
When the limo pulled up in front of the dorm, needless to say, it attracted a crowd. First one, then another, then practically the entire football team was hanging out of the windows of the dorm to see the spectacle Emmett was making of himself upon arrival. I quickly tipped the driver and asked him to wait on the girls and make sure they all arrived at their varied destinations safe and sound. After assuring me he would, I joined the others in time to see Alice slipping her plastic bag to Jasper. He squeezed her hand and then slapped Emmett on the back.
"Sooo, Emmett, you gonna pass inspection?" he asked rather loudly, getting the attention of those gathered around the door gawking at the limo.
"Inspection? Since when do we have inspection? Is that new this year?" one of the returning players asked.
"Naw, man. He means my Rosie's inspection. She's lookin' for contraband, and yes, Jazzman, I'm gonna pass with flyin' colors. I've got nothin' to hide from my Rosie!" Emmett bellowed, drawing the attention of more of the players who began following him up the stairs.
Rose led the way to his room, obviously having been there before. The men in the hall parted way as they heard what was going on. Hand out, she motioned for Emmett to give her his key. With a bow, he did. Unlocking the door, Rose slipped inside. She immediately went for his closet, Emmett following at her heels. Jasper went for his bed which was luckily unmade. He stealthily slipped the magazine under the mattress leaving a corner of it hanging out for good measure, and then he moved to the window where he took a seat on the sill and motioned for Alice to join him. Bella and I followed her over, Baker quick on our heels.
"Did you really put what I think you did there?" Baker asked Jasper in a whisper.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Jasper said, eyes on Rose who had finished taking apart Emmett's closet and was moving to his chest.
"Um, Rosie, that's my underwear drawer," Emmett whispered. The guys who had shoved themselves into the room cackled.
"Yeah, so? I've seen you in less," was Rose's reply.
"But the guys are in here, Rosie," Emmett begged to no avail. Rose opened the drawer to reveal Emmett's Scooby Doo boxers that we'd given him for Christmas last year along with his other, more conventional underwear that he wore in the locker room.
"What? No Sponge Bob?" one of the defensive linemen called out.
"No, Sponge Bob is for losers," Emmett made an "L" with his thumb and first finger on his forehead. "Now, if any of you can find some Scrappy Doo boxers, I'll take those."
"I'm still looking, Emmie," Bella called out. He smiled in her direction, and I hugged her closer to my body as Rose moved to his bed and found Jasper's plant.
"Ah ha! I knew it!" She pulled the magazine out from under the mattress and held it up for all of the guys to see.
"What? What the hell! Which one of you bozos did that?" Emmet was facing the guys and hadn't seen what the magazine was.
"Playgirl?" one of the returning players yelled? "What the hell Cullen? You're into guys?"
"HUH?" Emmett turned and stared at what Rose was holding up, his mouth hanging open. Then, ever so slowly, he pivoted to face us. "Which one of you did it?" He whispered. The sound almost didn't make it to us. But it did.
"Now, Emmett, we've been standing here since you and Rose walked into the room. Exactly when would one of us had a chance to plant that?" Alice asked, amazingly her face straight as an arrow.
"Besides, we've been with you all day. When did we buy it?" Jasper asked.
"In Disney Land, no less?" Rose asked. "I don't think they sell Playgirl, Emmett."
"Is this why you tried to douse me with the ice water this morning, to keep me from finding your stash?" I added for good measure.
"Out! Everybody out!" Emmett yelled. Nobody moved a muscle except Rose who made her way to Emmett's side.
"It's all right, Emmie bear. I'll love you no matter what. We can look at it together." She started leafing through the pages. Emmett's face had gone from bright red to magenta. His fists were clenching and unclenching, and he was breathing heavily. "Oh, you've marked one. Let's see." She paused for a moment and appeared to be studying the man on the page in question. "Well, he does have quite the six-pack going on, but, let's face it, Emmie bear, your eight-pack has his beat hands down. What made you mark this page, sweetheart?" The guys in the room had sweat rolling down their faces, they were laughing so hard. "Well, he does have an exciting dick, but again, Emmie, yours is so much better. I'd take you over him any day of the week."
At that point, Alice lost it. It started as a giggle, and then the tears started. Before Jasper could stop her, she had leaped across the room and high-fived Rose. Jasper soon joined the two of them. Emmett just stood in the middle of the room, silent for the first time all day.
"Why?" he whispered. The room fell silent.
"I'm tired of you spouting off about our sex life. My brother and your sister shouldn't have to hear about our private lives all the time. What we do behind closed doors should stay there. You don't wanna hear about Jasper and Alice's sex lives. Well, they don't wanna hear about ours," Rose said, pointing to Jasper and Alice who were nodding.
"When Edward gave us the opening about the Playgirl this morning, we decided to run with it," Alice said. Emmett's gaze whipped around to me.
"Whoa, don't bring me into this. All I did was mention that you had Playgirls stashed. It went right over your head. I didn't have anything to do with this set-up."
"Five minutes till lights out. Everyone back to their own rooms." The hall monitor pushed his way into the crowd. "What'd you do now, Cullen?"
"Me? Why do you blame everything on me?" Emmett asked.
"'Cause you cause all the trouble 'round here and everybody knows it, even if I can't prove it. Room check in five." Everyone scattered, and I led Bella out the door and down the stairs. Once outside the limo, I pulled her into my arms.
"I love you with all my heart. Give Meagan a kiss goodnight from me." After her goodnight kiss, I helped her into the car and shut the door. Racing up the stairs, I had barely entered our room when the hall monitor passed by.
"Another five seconds and you would be on report Cullen. Don't think I'm gonna cut you any slack. You must think you're something else, coming from money the way you are. The rest of us have to work for a living. We don't have it to throw around on limousines to impress girls." Staring him in the eyes, I shut the door in his face.
"What's got his panties in a wad?" Jasper asked. Shrugging my shoulders, I turned to face him.
"Do you think it was wise to prank Emmett like that? You three are gonna be on his shit list for sure now."
"No, I don't think it was the best idea, but you know Ali. When she sets her mind to something, it's impossible to change it. I'd rather have Emmett on my shit list than her. I don't sleep with him."
"Well, when you put it that way, I definitely see your point."
That night, I made sure Jasper set the alarm on his phone, and we hid it in his closet. When it went off and mine didn't, I knew Emmett was behind it. He'd been picking locks since the seventh grade when he decided to teach himself how in order to sneak into my house and start pranking me during the night. It would be like Emmett to make sure we were late for our first official team practice to get back at Jasper. When we walked into the bathroom to brush our teeth, Emmett's face fell.
"You're gonna have to do better than that, Emmett," I said, punching his shoulder.
"Where'd you hide it?"
"I'll never tell."
"What'd he do this time?" Baker asked.
"He cut off our alarm," Jasper said.
"How'd he get into your room? Didn't you lock your door?" one of the older players asked. "You should know Cullen, here, plays pranks."
"Cullen is my cousin. He's been pranking me since we were little." Emmett was shaking his head. "What, Emmett? You don't want me to tell them that you can pick locks?" He palmed his face.
"Is that so, Cullen?" the other guy asked.
"You know, Eddie. If you weren't gonna take us to the National Championships this year, I'd probably kill you for that," Emmett said.
I laughed. "No pressure, Emmett."
We finished up in the bathroom and followed the rest of the players to the locker room to finish dressing out. Once gathered on the field, Coach Spears ran everyone through the usual calisthenics and had us run twenty laps. All of the returning players were prepared and completed the laps without problems. Once morning exercises were over, we were sent to our specialty coaches. For the first time I was able to see that only Warrens was held over. Pickett, Paus, Isabel, Bonnell, Seery and Sweetman were the returning quarterbacks from the Husky's last season.
Coach Fields immediately put us to work, splitting us up to work with the wide receivers or the running backs. Paired with Isabel, Paus and Warren, we began working with the receivers. I was really happy to see Summers wasn't held over either. The others must have learned the plays before arriving at camp because we didn't waste any time going over them. He began with Isabel who couldn't hit the side of a barn. I had nothing to fear from him. Warren and Paus didn't fare much better, connecting on nearly forty percent of their passes. When my opportunity arrived, I was pumped. The pigskin felt natural in my hands, and I connected on my first fifteen throws before the receiver turned downfield before he tucked in the ball.
"Damn it Chambers! How many times do I have to tell you! Make sure you have the ball before you run with it!" Coach Wilson called across the field. "Hale, show him how it's done!"
Jasper ran to the line of scrimmage and set up to run the play. I placed the pass into his hands, and he tucked it into his side. After ten more connections, Coach Fields called for us to switch to the running backs. Jasper slapped me on the shoulder pads and wished me luck. After wishing him the same, I jogged to the other side of the field.
When Coach Spears finally called lunch, Jasper, Emmett, and I walked to the sideline and placed out helmets on the ground. Baker joined us after a slight hesitation.
"Do you mind if I join you?" he asked.
"No, not at all. Why would we mind?" I asked.
"Well, Emmett's here now, and I don't wanna impose…" he said.
"It's never an imposition. Besides, everyone should be running," I said.
"Ten?" Emmett asked. We all nodded and began our run. Several of the rookies who had begun walking to the cafeteria stopped as we ran by. I guessed they were thinking about Coach's speech on Friday. Several of them shook their heads and continued on their trek to get food, but a couple took off their helmets and joined us.
"Did you not run last year?" I asked Emmett.
"Yeah, I ran, just after practice. Why are you running now?"
"I wanna spend as much time with Bella as I can. If we run after practice it takes away from my Bella time."
"Makes sense." Emmett shrugged and picked up the pace. Jasper and I matched him step for step. As big as Emmett was, he could always run.
As we finally made our way through the lunch line, Emmett piling his tray with more food than two grown men should be able to eat, all eyes in the room seemed to shift towards us. We made our way to an empty table. Several of the returning players made their way to join us.
"Edward Cullen, Jasper Hale, this here is Sam Bryant, James Hunter, and Monroe Vance. They're all on the offensive line with me. Eddie's gonna take us to the National Championships this year," Emmett said.
"Wait, I remember you. We met at that party last year. You were with that pretty young girl, said you were married to her, and then you went upstairs with that skank. Did your wife find you? She was looking for you mighty hard," Bryant said, laughter in his voice.
"What skank?" Emmett asked.
"Tanya took your boy upstairs at that party last year. I sent his wife up to find him. By the look on her face when they came back downstairs, she found them all right," Bryant said.
"What's he talking about, Edward?" Emmett asked.
"It's nothing, Emmett. It's over," I said.
"Edward, Rose said Bella came up to her crying that night saying you two were leaving but wouldn't tell her why. What did you do?" Emmett's voice was carrying, and the others at nearby tables were beginning to pay attention to our conversation. I put my head into my hands.
"Emmett, it's over. Bella and Edward are happy. They have Meagan, and they're together. Whatever happened that night isn't any of our business," Jasper said.
"Bullshit! It's our job to protect Bella! She doesn't have anyone else in the world to protect her! After everything this asshole has put her through, from all that shit with Jessica to…"
"Stop it right there, Emmett McCarty Cullen! Outside! Now!" I was on my feet and headed to the door, Jasper and Emmett right on my heels. As soon as the door shut behind them, I spun on my feet to face him. Getting right in his face, I started.
"You know I didn't have anything to do with what happened to Jessica. She stalked me. She tried to ruin my life. Hell, she did ruin our lives. She killed Victoria, Emmett. She killed our daughter. You remember? You were there! You carried her casket to her grave, Emmett! And you have the gall to bring Jessica up to me? Yes, I fucked up at that party! I hurt Bella worse than imaginable, but we've worked through it, and we're together! For good! Nothing and nobody is going to tear us apart, ever again!" I was less than an inch from his face, yelling at the top of my voice.
"What did you do, Edward?"
"Less than you've done, Emmett! You were the one who cheated on Rose!"
"I wasn't married to her at the time! She wasn't pregnant with my baby! What did you do, Edward?"
"Go to hell, Emmett." I turned to walk away when he reached out and grabbed me by the shoulder, spinning me around to face him again.
"Does Charlie know? Maybe he should find out how you hurt his daughter." Instinct took over, and before I knew what I was doing, I had reared back to hit him. Only Jasper's reflexes saved me from what would have been a sure suspension from the team.
"Come on. Let's walk it off," Jasper said.
"I'm going to go call Bella. She'll tell me what happened," Emmett called out.
"Leave Bella alone!" I spun around and looked Emmett square in the eyes. "Do not bring this up to her. I swear to God, Emmett! Just…let it go…please. Don't make Bella relive what happened." I looked at the crowd of players who had since followed us outside. Suddenly, it dawned on me. This was the payback for last night and this morning. Though I had nothing to do with Emmett being pranked the night before, I was bearing the brunt of his revenge, and it was no practical joke. To save Bella, somehow I had to survive the embarrassment of coming clean to Emmett in front of my peers.
"Fine. I'll tell you what happened that night. Bella went to the restroom with Alice. Some girl brought me a drink, and fool that I was, I drank it. I must have blanked out, 'cause the next thing I knew, Bella had slapped me. When I realized where I was, everything had gone to hell. I was in a precarious situation with that girl, and Bella had discovered us. Nothing had happened, yet, though it was apparent she'd had plans for us. Dad discovered the next day I'd been drugged. That's it. Happy now?"
A throat cleared behind us, and I slowly turned around to face the source. To say the look on Coach Spears' face was angry would be a vast understatement. He was fuming.
"Scatter." He didn't have to say anything else. My gathered teammates abandoned me in five seconds flat. Jasper clapped me on the back before he, too, walked away leaving Emmett and me to face Coach Spears' wrath.
"May I ask what the fuck that was?" Coach directed at Emmett.
"Family squabble?" Emmett said.
"I suggest you keep your personal lives off my football field. That includes the cafeteria. If you wanna have personal discussions, take it off my campus or confine them to your dorm rooms. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Sir," I said, and Emmett nodded.
"Walk with me," Coach Spears looked at me. I followed him as he walked towards the field house. "Cullen, I plan on purple shirting you during the rest of training camp. The starting position is yours assuming you can keep it, and I think you can, but it looks like you come with a whole lot of baggage your high school coach didn't tell me about. I don't need skeletons jumping out of your closet that we're not prepared to deal with. I know that all teenagers drink from time to time; hell, most of my players are still underage, and I know they drink at parties, but you're gonna have to be squeaky clean."
"Coach, I don't drink. Not anymore. Ever. I don't know how much of our conversation you overheard, but I messed up really bad and almost ended my marriage the last time I drank. I promised my wife I'd never drink again. As for skeletons…well, I've got more than my share."
"More than being married at eighteen with a daughter? 'Cause that's not really gonna look great when you're making national news, you know."
"Uh, yeah. Lot's more. For starters, we got married at fifteen. Meagan is our second daughter." Coach Spears stopped dead in his tracks and turned to look at me.
"You have two children?"
"No, our first daughter died. She was stillborn."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"There's much more to that story. I don't know if any of it would come out…my part of it has been sealed by the courts, but I guess my name could still come up as Victoria's father. Jessica's trial was part of the public record."
"Whoa, what do you mean? You have a court record?" I ran my fingers through my hair. I thought my past was buried and forgotten, never to be trudged up again.
"Can I call my Uncle?"
"By all means." I pulled out my cell and dialed Uncle George's direct number. He answered after only two rings.
"Hi, Edward. Shouldn't you be at practice?" Uncle George asked.
"Yeah. Do you have a sec?"
"For you, all the time in the world. You know that. What's wrong?"
"Is there any way someone could find out about what happened by googling my name?"
"What exactly are you asking, Edward?"
"Well, if they looked me up, would they find my name under Jessica's trial since she was tried as an adult? And would that lead back to what happened?"
"Shit! Yeah, probably so, Edward. Even though your records are sealed, you testified in open court to what she did to you. That makes it part of the public record, and anyone and their mother can find it if they dig hard enough."
"Thanks. That's what I needed to know." I disconnected the call and turned to Coach Spears.
"I was arrested when I was fifteen for rape. I was cleared, and no charges were ever filed. All of the records were sealed, but the girl who accused me pushed Bella down the stairs and killed our daughter. She was tried as an adult and convicted of murder and attempted murder, and I testified at her trial making everything public record. If someone digs hard enough, they could find out."
"Fuck…when you say you have skeletons, you mean it. Why wasn't any of that on your application?"
"I told you. The records were sealed. Everything was expunged including the arrest. It was as if it never happened. It wasn't ever supposed to see the light of day."
"Only now you're gonna be famous, and someone is probably gonna do more research than they should…"
"Yes, Sir." By that time, we'd reached the field house. He opened the door for me and motioned for me to go inside.
"I guess we'll have to prepare for the worst and hope for the best then. Dress out. Purple shirt, Cullen."
"Yes, Sir."
I donned my pads as quickly as I could and joined the team which was already on the field. I was happy to see Jasper wearing the coveted purple shirt as I made my way to the huddle and clapped Pickett on the back to let him know I was relieving him.
"Can't show up on time for practice?" he asked as he left the huddle.
Ignoring his taunt, I called the play Coach Fields sent in with me. Working with the first string offensive line gave me all the time in the world, and I could do no wrong. I put the ball where I wanted, when I wanted. When the defense did break through, I was able to scramble long enough to make my connections. In a nutshell, I was home. I had claimed Husky Stadium. Several hours later, Coach Spears called practice. On the way back to the field house, I pulled Jasper off to the side. After telling him what I wanted him to do, I left to go see my girls. The time I spent with them was precious to me, and nothing was going to spoil that until it had to.
When I walked in the door to our apartment, I was met with the most mouth-watering aroma. Bella had been cooking…lasagna, her grandmother Swan's recipe if I wasn't mistaken. My salivary glands were working overtime all of a sudden, and I couldn't remember the last time I'd tasted this dish. It was before we'd been married, I was certain, probably as far back as before that fateful day that had started our lives together, back when she'd still been living with Charlie. After we'd moved into our own house and I'd asked her to make it, she'd always said it made her gain too much weight. At least she was keeping her promise to try to eat more. I really hoped she made enough for me to take back to the dorm. I could taste the midnight snack….
"Are you gonna stand in the doorway drooling, or are you gonna come in and help me?" Bella asked. Whipping my head around, my gaze landed on my wife who was wearing her apron and standing in the doorway to our bedroom…wearing nothing but her apron.
"Help me, I mean you?" I managed to stammer out, something about the blood leaving my brain and leaving me a little flustered. You need blood to think properly, after all.
"Yes. I seem to have gotten the strings of my apron in a knot. I need your help to get it untied."
"But Meagan?"
"Meagan is only five months old, Edward. She can't untie knots, yet. Besides, I put her to bed about thirty minutes ago. I was thinking we had unfinished business from the weekend, and the lasagna won't be ready for another thirty minutes."
Unfortunately, it took us forty minutes to get to the lasagna through no fault of my own. Bella's body was so damn responsive to my touch, I lost track of time. When she had clamped down on me for the fourth time calling my name, the sound of the oven's buzzer going off didn't register. It was the sound of the smoke detector's beeping that finally broke through my post-orgasmic haze and had my bare ass out of bed and into the kitchen fanning it while Bella was grabbing pot holders and pulling the smoldering, cheesy mess from the oven. Once the alarm was quiet and the ruined lasagna was in the sink, Bella and I looked at one another, stark naked and in the kitchen.
"I guess it's a good thing we don't have any neighbors, yet," I said, taking a seat at the table and pulling her into my lap. "We'd have campus security called on us for sure."
"Um, yeah, look," Bella's face had gone pale. I followed her finger which was pointed out our living room window to stare into the eyes of a man looking in. Standing quickly, I pushed Bella into the corner of the kitchen where she couldn't be seen from the angle of the window. As I rushed into our bedroom to grab me a pair of shorts and her robe, I noticed the red flashing lights of a campus fire truck. After taking a second to throw on my shorts, I walked back into the kitchen and handed Bella her robe. Once she was decent, I walked to the door. Taking a deep breath, I opened it and stepped outside.
"I guess there's no fire," the fireman said, trying to hide his smirk.
I knew I could play this one of two ways. I could be comical like Emmett would be and come back with something like, "There was before the fire alarm went off," or I could be serious. I wasn't Emmett.
"No, Sir. No fire. We burned supper. I guess the fire alarms are connected to the fire station?"
"Obviously."
"You come out here every time someone burns something?"
"No. We usually call first when we don't get a flame warning, especially around supper time, but nobody bothered to tell us this apartment was occupied. Why are you two here already? The apartment's on the list for the autumn quarter."
"I play football, so they made an exception for my family."
"I see. Well, since there's no fire, I'll let you two get back to it."
"Thanks." When I walked back into the kitchen, Bella fell into my arms, hiding her face in my chest.
"I've never been so mortified in my life," she said. "How did you face him?"
"I kept telling myself I'd never see him again, and if he ever recognizes me in the future, well, that's better than him recognizing you."
"I love you." She reached up and kissed me. "I'm sorry about supper."
"I'll go and get us a pizza," I said.
"Why don't we both go?" she asked. "I'll go get Meagan."
So we went out to eat. We stayed as late as we could, talking, laughing, being us. I dropped my girls back at the apartment and raced back to the dorm making it with seconds to spare. Breathing heavily, I walked up behind Jasper who was still sitting at his desk looking at his computer.
"Well, what did you find?" I asked.
"It's not good. When you do a regular search under your name, of course all your state championships come up. There's several pages of them, different newspapers, dates, stuff like that. Then there's your wedding license listing, your wedding announcement, Meagan's birth announcement, Victoria's obituary, even your grandparents' obits. Then, yeah, Edward, you're mentioned when you testified at Jessica's trial. However, and this is a big however, even when I did a direct search on Jessica, I couldn't find where it mentioned that she'd had you arrested. All it said was that you and Bella had testified and that she had been convicted of murdering Victoria and the attempted murder of Bella. Of course, everybody in Forks knows what happened."
"So, it won't be easy for Joe Blow to find?"
"It won't be if nobody talks. By the way, what brought this up?"
"Coach wanted to know what my skeletons were."
"And you told him? Are you crazy?"
"He needs to know, especially if there's even a small chance this could come back to haunt me. It would potentially be a scandal for the team. Speaking of scandal, you'll never guess what happened to Bella and me tonight…."
