Chapter Six
That bitch Leanne, who never bussed her own tables and whom Bella had known would never last, had of course quit last minute, leaving Rob scrambling to fill the shifts with whoever would take them, which, a.s usual, meant Bella. Five days of doubles had left her feeling like she had been hollowed out. Her feet ached, her head ached, even her smile ached. She had the weekend off, but this was cold comfort. The house had begun to feel strange to her, too big and too small at the same time. September was waning toward October, and lying in bed she could hear water dripping somewhere behind the walls, and finally at three o'clock on Saturday afternoon she decided to get out of bed.
Her phone was in the kitchen beside last night's half-eaten golden fingers wrap, the diner's best seller, cheap to make and most often encouraged for the server's shift meals. More than half-eaten, actually; the wrap had been nuzzled open, the chicken fingers popping out with ragged bites in them, and honey mustard leaking into the Styrofoam. Ariel had eaten breakfast, then.
She had a text from Angelique: Wanna visit me at work tonight? It's Smirnoff Saturday! Let's get LITTY KITTY.
"Ugh," Bella said, and swiped it away. Beneath it, a few drunken Friday night texts from Emmett. He missed her, he was sorry for everything he'd done, he just wanted to talk, why wouldn't she just talk to him, why was she being such a bitch, why—
Swipe.
She would pass on Smirnoff Saturday, and Emmett could keep texting into oblivion as long as he wanted, but that left her wondering how she'd fill all the hours left in the day. She felt like a movie night in, but for some reason, munching Flamin' Hot Cheetos and chain-smoking cigarettes by herself didn't sound so good. Even the idea left her feeling vaguely sad. She thought of going back to bed, but then another thought crossed her mind.
"What's so interesting on your phone?" Edward's mom asked, trying not to sound as curious as she was.
"Nothing. Facebook."
He read the text for the seventieth or eightieth time, kept having to make sure it was really there and not just a product of his desperate mind: I'm off tonight, maybe you want to come over and watch a movie?
That simple. After all the days of worrying and crying hot tears into his pillow, as easy as a spring breeze, it had come. He thought long and hard about his response. He could have filled a notebook with the texts he started and deleted, but finally settled on: Yeah, that'd be cool. What time? He sent it and immediately regretted it.
God, I'm such an asshole.
"Yeah?" his mom asked. "What's new in the world of Facebook?"
"Cat videos."
"That'd be cool?" That's like something Emmett would say. Fuck. I fucked it up. I fucked it up.
There were bubbles. She was writing back.
Oh god. Oh god.
Bella: K cool. How's 7?
Edward, eventually: Sounds good.
Bella: K there's a Chinese place right before you get to my street. Wanna tell me what you want and pick it up on your way?
"Hey mom, Billy's family's ordering Chinese food tonight, can I go over?"
"Sweetie, I can leave you money for Chinese if you want."
"Yeah, but can I go to Billy's?"
"I don't see why not."
Edward: Can I have a small hot and sour soup and pork dumplings and Szechuan beef combo, and please make sure they put water chestnuts and snow peas in it?
Bella: Jesus, you want to just order the whole menu?
"Honey, are you okay?"
"Yeah, why?"
"You just look very flushed."
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck
"I dunno, I feel okay."
"I hope you're not coming down with something." She came over to feel his head. Edward snatched his phone off the table. "Oh, you do feel warm. Maybe you shouldn't go to Billy's."
"Mom, I'm fine."
Once she was out of eyesight he checked the phone, damp with sweat. There were no bubbles.
FUUUUUUUU—oh. Wait. It's my turn to reply.
Edward: Just a wonton soup would be good, actually.
Bella: I'm kidding. Just say you're picking up for Bella. They know my order and they'll make it right there. I don't like when Chinese food sits around.
Edward: Haha okay, sounds great!
What a dipshit.
Bella: And I need hot sauce. You know the little packets?
Edward: Got it.
"You want me to drive you to Billy's before work?"
"Mom! Leave me alone for two seconds, please!"
She looked startled, and then a weary dread set into her face. She set down the casserole dish she'd been washing, turned off the water, and wiped her hands. Edward was a teenager. You couldn't stop it any more than the tide, and even though he had never raised his voice to her before, she braced herself for many more moments like this, angry words hurled like rocks.
"Okay," she said without looking at him. Emmett had hardened her heart. She supposed it would happen again with Edward.
"Hey. Mom."
She jumped. He was right beside her. He'd gotten up without her even hearing. And when she looked down, it was her Edward again, his eyes big and pleading and sad.
"I'm sorry. I just…I can bike to Billy's, that's all."
"Okay." She hugged him.
"Mom, you want to suffocate me?" he said with a little laugh, muffled by her sweater, and she had to force herself to loosen her grip.
It was one of those corner shitholes no bigger than a studio apartment, fluorescent lighting overhead, blurry pictures of various menu items above the counter, floor stained with the ghosts of soy sauce past. The man behind the counter looked up as the bell rang.
"Hi, um, I'm picking up an order for Bella?"
"Oh, yes, Miss Bella! Be ready in five minutes."
He stepped into the kitchen and issued hurried instructions to the cooks. Edward took a seat on an aluminum chair at one of the tables. His foot kept jittering up and down. He was trying to tell himself not to go in with any expectations, that they were just two people hanging out and he'd blow any chance of getting closer to her if he got too pushy. It was why he'd gone all week without texting her even as he'd grown increasingly deranged, like a man slowly starving. He had to take the hits, live with the uncertainty, cry in private, but when he was with her, be perfect. Somehow.
"Miss Bella order ready!"
The hot sauce packets were in a utensil tray on the counter. He grabbed a handful, shoved them into the bag the man had placed there, and with a quick thanks was on his way to the door when the man called after him.
"No, wait, wait, you need sign!"
Her full name, he saw, was Isabella Madeline Swan. He copied it in careful script on the dotted line, feeling the thrill of the name unspooling beneath the pen.
He texted her coming out the door. The night was turning black around him. With all the rain recently, the fallen leaves underfoot smelled musty.
As soon as he hit send, she wrote back: Got hot sauce?
He wrote as he walked: Yeah, got everything, be there in a minute.
He put his phone in his pocket, rounding the corner onto Bella's block, his senses on alert from being in this part of the neighborhood after dark. He was scanning the houses, thinking he saw hers up ahead but wondering if he should check the address to be sure, when his phone buzzed against his leg.
Bella: How many packets did you get?
Really?
So it was onto the curb, wetness creeping into the seat of his ripped jeans, bag set in front of him, rifling through to where the hot sauce packets had settled when he'd tossed them in, which had naturally been the bottom. He came up with six of them clutched triumphantly between his fingers, texted Bella so, and started off again, wiping the crud off his ass. In his pocket, the phone buzzed.
Bella: Need more, go back.
"Jesus, really?" he said aloud, but was already doing an about face.
Bella was trying not to wait for Edward, but she was waiting. The little things she latched onto to occupy herself were just distractions: feeding Ariel, putting the 12-pack of Natty Ice she'd picked up into the fridge, wiping off the counter. He was on her mind the whole time. She remembered the unsettling way he'd spoken when he'd been here last, sounding years older than himself, than even her. There had been a confidence radiating off him, which was probably the reason she hadn't, as she'd intended, put everything to bed last weekend, and why she'd invited him over tonight, and why her heart was racing while she watched the door.
Then the knock came. She got up in such a hurry she almost tipped the chair over. She was in a panic and didn't know why. One hand went to her necklace, and that seemed to steady her. This was her house, broken screen door, leaky pipes, and all, and he was just a kid.
She opened the door to find him looking uncertainly over his shoulder, in ripped jeans and a T-shirt that had once been white, a hat with an unfamiliar cartoon turned sideways on his head.
"…You okay?"
"There's some guy with a lazy eye next door sitting on the lawn."
"Oh. Yeah. That's Shug. He likes to watch the sky at night."
"Well, he's creeping me out."
"Yo, Bella, what's good?" floated a voice from the adjacent house.
"Tutoring," she called back, heart picking up speed at the thought of anyone being able to place Edward at her house.
"Working." He laughed lightly, like he had a secret joke. "Always working."
"What are you up to?" she called.
"Ah, I'm just out here doing my thang. Orionids supposed to be shooting tonight."
"Well, good. You, uh, you have a good time."
"I always do, girl," he said with another secretive laugh. She ushered Edward in hurriedly.
"What's his deal?"
"He's a little off. Wicked smart, though."
He handed her the takeout bag. Somewhere inside, hot sauce packets slipped and tumbled down by the dozen.
"Want to eat in here, or the living room?"
"Let's eat in there," he said, thinking that the TV would take some of the pressure off.
The living room consisted of a single battered loveseat, puke-green, with a chipped wicker coffee table and a TV so old it had tubes and was a good eighteen inches deep from screen to back. Bella set the bag on the table and went rooting. She came up with both hands filled with hot sauce packets, looked at them for a moment, and glared at Edward.
"This is all you got?"
"Uh…I mean…"
She tilted her head and smirked. "I'm fucking with you. Thank you."
"Oh." He laughed nervously. "Yeah, uh, no problem."
She started setting out the food while he studied the clunky remotes on the table.
"So, which one turns on Netflix?"
"I get the DVD's," she said. "Here. Wait."
She went over to the TV, where there was a red envelope resting. She handed it to Edward with an affected nonchalance.
"It just got here, but we don't have to watch it or anything. I have a couple others."
He pulled the DVD out. It was, he was amazed to read on the paper sleeve, 2006's Emperors of the Deep. When he looked up, Bella was watching him and hurriedly turned her head.
"Sure," he said. "Whales are cool."
"So you want to watch it?" she asked. Was that delight he heard in her voice? Probably imagining it, he thought. Nice and easy, don't get too excited.
He was in Bella's house, and they were watching a documentary on whales on her disgusting couch that was scarred with cigarette burns while she ate greasy deep-fried chicken wings, drenched with hot sauce, and there was no place he'd rather be. She watched the TV like she was a little girl again, enraptured, and he watched her, also enraptured. Whales were cool, but nothing could beat the view he had. The only distraction was when her hideous mutant of a cat plodded into view periodically to lick herself.
"Look at this part!" she exclaimed at one point, one hand shooting out and clutching his leg briefly.
He sucked in breath. She had only touched him for a couple of seconds, but he could feel it there afterward, lingering, as if she'd left prints behind.
"So amazing," she murmured, watching a whale birth underwater, and he told her in the same awed tone that yes, it really was.
He clung to all eighty-five minutes, but finally, far too soon, the credits rolled. Bella sat up as if coming out of a dream. She was no longer that little girl couch-side whale-watching. She had the familiar hard edge to her again. She stretched and got up.
Here we go, Edward thought, and even though he knew it had to come sometime, he wished he could rewind the night and play it over again just so he wouldn't have to leave.
"I'm gonna go get a beer," Bella said. "You want anything?"
"Oh, uh…yeah. I'll take a beer."
She questioned it for a moment in her mind, but she decided not to question him. Honestly, she couldn't even remember when she'd had her first beer, and she didn't want to come off as a scolding mother. But it made her think on her way to the kitchen of all the reasons he probably shouldn't be here.
She came back with two cans, handing him one. "Sorry, they're not that cold yet. I had to work a lot this week and I slept in."
"No, it's cool, I don't mind." He was looking at his can, reading Natural Ice, like he had never seen anything like it before, because it was his.
"You've…had beer before, right?"
He shrugged it off, playing it cool. "Oh, yeah. Plenty of times."
He opened it and took a tentative swig. His mouth worked. He swallowed.
"Ahh," he sighed like people did on TV. "Nothing like a nice cold one."
Bella burst out laughing. "You're a ham."
He looked wounded and pleased at the same time. He forced another swig down. "What do you mean?"
"Nothing." She was smiling at him.
She popped her own beer, drank half of it at a gulp, and lit a cigarette. After a moment's thought, she offered it his way.
"Want a drag?"
"Cool." He took it, holding it the wrong way but looking fearless.
"I'm not corrupting you, am I?" she asked half-seriously.
"No, what are you talking about?"
"You've never had a beer before. You were looking at it like it was gonna bite."
"I didn't mean to lie, but no, I haven't. It's good, though." He took a long swig to prove his point.
"Emmett never snuck you one?"
"Emmett guarded his beer like it was his balls."
Bella snorted. "Yeah, he sure did."
"So, you said you worked a lot this week?"
"Five doubles," Bella sighed.
"Shit. So that's breakfast, lunch, and dinner?"
"Yyyyep."
"I'm sorry. You must be so beat. I can get going if you want," he said, wanting anything but that, but feeling the need to offer.
"Nah, I slept till three today." She stubbed the cigarette out and lit another. "Plus, you're good company."
"Cool," Edward said, while inside choruses were singing and fireworks going off.
"How's school?"
"Eh. School. My algebra teacher keeps telling me I have to apply myself."
She sat up a little. "That's not Mr. Pitonyak, is it?"
"Yeah!"
"With the hairy—"
"Mole!" He dabbed at his cheek.
"Oh my god, he's the worst. I used to sit there staring at it wondering if I could just go up and rip the thing off." She swigged at her beer. "And then he'd tell me to apply myself, and I'd be like, 'Why don't you apply a chainsaw to your face and get that fucking thing off?'"
They laughed together easily.
"So, how's it feel to not be a virgin anymore?" she said, and his laughter dried up.
"It feels…cool," he said. "Weird."
"You know, I've only been with two people."
"Really?" He looked at her—beautiful, blonde, tough as nails, and, as his dad might have said, stacked. "So, Emmett, and…who was the other one?"
"You, stupid."
"So, you and Emmett…and then, you and me? That's it?"
"Yeah, is that so hard to believe?"
"No, I mean…yeah. I mean." He decided to come out with it, the big question. "Why me?"
She stopped being amused. She'd been asking herself that same question all week.
"You need another beer?" she asked, polishing off her own.
"Yeah, that'd be good," he said, although he had half a can left. He wanted to keep going, playing by her rules, make this night last as long as he could.
She pushed herself to her feet in her fuck-the-world way and sauntered into the kitchen. She came back a minute later with the entire case and an answer.
"This way we won't have to get up," she said, flopping back down beside him—closer, he thought—and cracking a new beer. "You wanna know why?"
"Yeah, I do."
"Because I never had anyone look at me the way you do. I've had plenty of guys who wanted to fuck me, believe me, but you…" She looked at him, and that hardness was gone, like she'd decided to take it down and set it away. "There's just something different."
"Good different?" he said, mouth dry.
"Yes, Edward. It's good different."
She leaned over. He could smell the beer on her breath, so unlike the way it smelled in the can or the way it tasted, because it was coming from her, and then she was kissing him, lips firm and wet against him, and after a shocked moment, he let all thought and doubt slip away. He touched her face with both hands and drew her in closer, kissing her back. Edward had never French-kissed anyone before, and her tongue was in his mouth, strong and searching. He met it with his own, and she made a noise, a kind of cooing, satisfied noise. His pants were getting tight again.
They made out on the couch for some unknown time, his hands going from her face to her neck to her hair, stroking and petting. In this moment, she was his. His precious gift. Then she stood up, out of breath, and asked him if he wanted to go to her room. He did, and he told her so. She took his hand and led him up and away. He was lost in the moment, feeling drunk in more ways than one, but he still had enough presence of mind to think, How do you like this, Billy?
Her room was dark and small and, to put it nicely, undecorated. He followed her in like he was sleepwalking, stood while she shut the door, plunging them into total blackness.
"Wait, where are you?" he laughed.
"I'm right here," she said, and her hands were on his waist, pulling at his shirt. It caught on one elbow, him having to help her free it, both of them laughing, and then it was off. Once it was, he felt bare and hairless. He knew girls thought about stuff like that, and he had nothing above his waist but a few fine strands on his chest.
"Your turn," she said. His eyes were adjusting to the room. He saw her hold her arms up. Her eyes were impossibly wide, expectant.
He took her shirt off, his breath growing ragged. Under her shirt she was braless. His hands went to her on their own, running over her skin, so soft, so smooth, and found her breasts. She moaned in his ear. Her nipples stood out against his palms. He ran a finger over each, and she jerked against him.
"Do me," she breathed in his ear. "Please."
"Wait."
His hands were already at her jeans, working the button and then the zipper, pulling them down to her ankles. He pushed her back gently onto the bed. Dimly, he heard her gasp, then laugh. He pulled her jeans delicately from each ankle.
"Come here," she said. "Where are you?"
"I want to try something."
"Just come here, I want to feel you."
He spread her legs. He could feel her hands on his head, nails kneading at his scalp, while he kissed her, running his lips up her thigh, her grip on him growing tighter. He knew what he wanted to do, had wanted to do since she'd first come in out of the rain. He kissed the slight bit of stubble above her vagina, then slid his tongue down between the wet folds. He'd been nervous about this part, the taste everyone laughed about, but it wasn't like that. It tasted like…he didn't know. A little like metal, but the sounds she made as he lapped made him moan, and he decided right then that there was nothing better than eating pussy.
She was still working at his hair, clawing him. He guessed that meant he was doing a good job? But in a way, it didn't matter. He was loving it. He licked at her, running his tongue up and down, tasting her, feeling the places between the folds of her skin. Some of them made her cry out when he ran his tongue over them, so he licked them more.
"Edward, stop," she moaned.
He lifted his head up, licking his lips and feeling guilty, like when the rollercoaster starts slowing down at the end of the ride.
"Why?" he rasped.
"Because I'm gonna cum," she breathed.
Without thinking, he put his head back between her legs, licking faster than before, trying to find that same spot. She was moaning louder, clutching at him.
"Edward," she said. "Edward, Edward, oh, Edward."
Yes. Yes, it's me.
He found someplace with his tongue, and it must have been the right one, because she cried out hard, "There! Right there! I'm gonna cum!" He kept going, moaning, grabbing her hips and licking her in that same spot, lapping up every drop of her while her breath came faster, and finally, she screamed, "I'm cumming! I'm cumming! Fuck! Edward! I'm cumming!"
AN/ If you are reading please review, it will keep the chapters coming at a great rate as they really are an author's inspiration.
