AN: Oh my, you guys are so great and intuitive. I hope everyone had a happy New Year. Go 2012! If anyone wants to see Bella's car go to:

http:/imganuncios . mitula . net/2011_mazda_mx_5_miata_93585608078943642 . jpg
without the spaces. If it doesn't work try the site at my profile.

I don't Twilight or Bad Reputation — darn it!

Chapter 10 What's up with your friend?

The next morning I was a little nervous about going back to school, so I got ready early. I called Jacob to find out if he wanted a ride. He said he was covered.

I got there and he waited by the entrance. When he saw me walking close, he ran over.

"Hey did you speak to your friends about Muscles?" he asked walking backward.

"No, I still haven't told them we're together again."

He stopped cold. "Why not?"

"Nerves. I'm worried how they will react. They will wonder if this is real or you're just playing with my head."

"They want proof," he smiled. "Some grand gesture. Okay." He lifted me up into his arms, carrying me like a baby as he kept walking.

I was laughing and flailing my legs. "Put me down! This is too grand!"

He set me down in front of his friends.

"Oh, hello," Emmett surprisingly responded.

"Hi," I uttered back straightening my outfit and my red coat.

"Muscles this is Bella," Jacob introduced.

"Didn't you used to have green hair?" Emmett asked.

"Yes," I answered sheepishly.

"Nice." He grinned to Jacob and high-fived him.

"And Bella this is James. Shorty's still not here yet," he pointed out.

"It's nice to meet you." James spoke in a voice that didn't seem to fit his rough exterior. It almost sounded kind. He even offered his hand.

A redhead stepped forward between us. "I'm Victoria." It was the girl from Halloween. Well I guess she wasn't drunk.

The morning bell sounded and students scrambled to head inside.

Jacob took my hand and gave it a little squeeze. "I'll see you in class."

As I headed toward homeroom, I noticed the redhead following.

I quickly turned. "What?"

She paused taken by surprise. "I'm just headed to class," she said firmly. "Did you think I'm stalking you?" I shrugged. "We happen to be in the same homeroom."

"Seriously? I think I would've noticed your red hair in my class," I responded.

"We actually have three classes together, not that you would notice anyone behind your mirror."

I felt ashamed. I couldn't figure out how I could have missed her red hair in three of my classes. I tried to remember.

"You're the redhead in PE with me. I wanted to talk to you in the locker room that day I played. You're really good. But you were gone before I was done changing."

"Don't flatter yourself. I don't need you to be my friend. I'm happy with James."

"O . . . kay," I said and turned around to continue on to class.

"I know what you're thinking," she said loudly following behind me. "What do I see in him?"

I looked at her. "I wasn't thinking—"

"He could be nice," she interrupted. "And sweet." Her green eyes unfocused like she was in a daydream.

I touched her arm to bring her back to reality. "So can Volcano." I smiled and she smiled, but it didn't seem to reach her suspicious eyes.

We stepped into class and I took my usual seat toward the front while Victoria went to the back and sat in front of the red bulletin board. So that's how she managed to hide her hair — she camouflaged it.

*0*

During second period, Jacob sat next to me. We were doing an experiment first thing and we needed to partner up. In those cases, students were allowed to pick different seats and we spread out in the room.

Being so close to me made it very difficult for Jacob to focus on the experiment. He kept making mistakes. I finally just told him to sit and watch while I did it. He smiled and I suddenly got a wicked thought that maybe that was his intention the whole time.

Once the experiment was over, Mr. Banner looked over our results complimented most of us and went on to his lesson for the day.

It turned out Victoria was also in my third period English class besides my homeroom trigonometry. Again, she sat in the back of the class.

Lunch came sooner than expected and I joined my friends in the cafeteria. I had no idea how to break the news.

"Guys, um, something happened after school yesterday," I began.

"OMG, were you there too?" Rose interrupted.

"What?" Asia asked.

Rose continued. "See Volcano and this kid Felix Oliver got into this massive fight. Only it seemed more one-sided. Felix ran over Volcano's bike a few weeks ago and Felix promised to pay for the repairs in lieu of getting his organs rearranged. Volcano kept asking Felix for the money, but he kept stalling, I guess. Well, yesterday Volcano had enough and insisted either Felix give him the money or something valuable in place of it. If not he was going to 'really get it.' Felix straight out refused saying Volcano was all bark and no bite. He said something really low to Volcano that took him by surprise. Volcano was in so much shock he didn't see Felix pull back his arm until it was too late. Felix punched Volcano right in the face. Volcano's face was turned from the force, but then he pulled it back. There was blood trickling down from his brow and his expression that didn't look human, more like an animal. There was a small crowd now and Volcano just pounced. He punched and kicked Felix so much people just grabbed Volcano pulling him off before he killed him. Volcano seemed to snap out of it and they took Felix to the nurse. That's all I saw, but Felix wasn't in school today."

"They took him to the hospital," I added somberly. I never realized what Jacob meant when he said "exploded." "Felix looked awful. He couldn't even walk." This didn't appear to be the right moment to announce Jacob and my reconciliation.

Of course that's when Jacob decided to come and sit right beside me. His arms wrapped around me in a gentle hug.

"Hey good-looking."

Everyone including me froze. Fear rolled through me and I unclasped his hands from my waist.

"Um, could I talk to you?" I mumbled to him.

"What's going on?" Angela asked.

"Nothing," I said to her. "Volcano please?" I got up and went out of the cafeteria. He followed. His eyes were wary as they looked upon me.

"You didn't tell them," he assumed.

"I couldn't tell them," I spat. "Rose saw the whole brawl yesterday. What you did."

His eyes shifted to the side for a moment. "I didn't mean . . . I didn't." His voice came out sounding small.

"What did he say to you?" He looked confused. "What did he say that distracted you?" I asked.

"He said you weren't around for me to use as an excuse, my whore girlfriend," he said with distaste.

I gasped. "He was talking about me?" I didn't understand why a boy I didn't know would call me that.

Jacob nodded. "He saw us outside the movies at the mall our first night. He provoked me and I lost my temper."

"And you pummeled him." He looked away. "They're just words Jacob."

Anger built up inside of him. "He insulted you!"

"We weren't together. It shouldn't have mattered to you!" My voice rose in volume. People began to stop to watch.

"It will always matter to me. You will always matter to me," his voice sounded peaceful as if we weren't in the heat of an argument.

"You need to control your temper. You could've killed him."

He looked away from me again. "He would have deserved it."

My anger flared once more. "And what about me? What if I, for example, pinched you?"

"Are we having sex at the time?" he smirked as he whispered.

"Jacob! I'm serious. What if I ignited your temper? What would you do to me?"

His expression went serious. "Is that what worries you? I would never hurt you, never lift a finger to cause you pain. You could do anything to me and you'd be completely safe."

"What if I dated somebody else?" I asked.

"I would probably beat up the guy once and dealt with it."

I couldn't help teasing even though I hated the direction the conversation had gone. "So you really think you could've beaten up Arnold Schwarzenegger?"

"You would have dated him? I thought you had taste." I allowed him to pull me into a hug.

The image of the bloody boy in the nurse's office flashed back into my mind. Jacob had done that. "No more beating people up," I whispered.

He looked into my serious face. "I'll try."

We headed back into the cafeteria finally to have some lunch and face my friends.

I looked directly at Angela. "Jacob and I are back together."

"What?" they all sounded.

"You saw what he did—" Rosalie uttered.

"He'll behave," I interrupted. "Won't you?"

Jacob looked at the three girls then at me. He slowly nodded his head.

"I gotta head back to the guys," he said softly. "I was wondering which of you three were interested on going on a double date next Friday night with Bella, me, and Muscles."

They all expressed their aversion to the idea very clearly.

"Heck no!" exclaimed Rose.

"Not even if my life depended on it!" uttered Angela.

"No way!" screeched Asia.

"Come on guys it's one date," I begged. "Rose?"

"Even if the idea didn't cause me to gag, I already have a date that Friday, remember? My neighbor's cousin, Robert Darwin will be in town."

"Right. What about you two?"

"Can't," Angela said. "Ben and I are making a go at it, so he's got exclusivity rights."

"I really don't want to. The guy freaks me out. I would rather be home alone sulking about everyone having fun without me than go with you guys," Asia declared.

"Well I guess it will be the three of us," Jacob resolved.

"We still have another week."

Jacob kissed my cheek and headed out taking my pudding with him, to join his friends out on the school lawn.

We began eating when Asia mumbled, "Why can't Volcano just get his own dessert?"

"He just does it to flirt." I got up and just bought another pudding.

*0*

Just as we finished our desserts, the warning bell rang. We threw our trays away and fell into line with the other students. Suddenly I felt like my hair was being pulled in another direction. My head snapped back toward the force.

"Ow!" I screamed and turned to the source. "What the heck!"

"He was mine!" Jane yelled. "Volcano was mine and you took him away!"

I looked at Jane's fist still curled around a few strands of my brown hair.

"You pulled out some hair, you psycho!"

"I can do a lot more than that!" She lunged at me and I raised my arms as I flinched.

Her assault never reached me. When my eyes opened, Victoria was holding Jane back by her arms. I didn't even notice Victoria was there before. It was like she was invisible and then just appeared. Angela, Rose, and Asia stood beside me.

"She's not worth it Jane. Come on," Victoria said. They sounded like friends.

With that everyone went off to class.

I walked into PE frightened. If Victoria was Jane's friend, she might not be too happy about Jacob and me getting together. I went to sit in the stands like I usually did. Alice was standing a little ways down dribbling a basketball and then brought it up onto her finger. The ball spun there for a good minute and a half, becoming an orange blur. As entertaining as Alice was, I couldn't keep my focus on her. It kept digressing back to the doorway where other students were coming in. I was waiting for Victoria's entrance, looking for her telltale carrot top.

When she finally walked in, her flaming hair in a tight bun, I became tense and anxious. My heart ran at speeds I wished I could escape in. Restricted to the gym, I grew oversensitive. When the person next to me touched my arm, I overreacted giving an audible shriek. Everyone turned to me.

"Sorry."

I noticed the object of my focus shake her head slightly as she walked to take a seat.

Coach came in from the sports closet carrying a white orb under one arm and a mesh sack over his opposite shoulder. He announced some students complained of the lack of activity sitting on the sidelines induced, so he decided to change the sport curriculum. Instead of basketball we were going to play dodge ball. The whole class was required to descend from the bleachers and spread out on the floor.

I instantly cringe. Not only do I have to embarrass myself with my poor throwing skills, but now Victoria had an excuse to exact revenge with her infallible aim. I was an easy target and she was practically invisible.

Coach divided us up into two groups, white and uniform. Those on the white team received these white mesh shirts from the sack to put over their PE uniform. The good news, I was on the uniform team so I didn't need to wear those things. Who knows when they were last washed? The bad news, Victoria wasn't.

I spent almost the whole game hiding behind Alice.

It was quite a difficult feat since she was so small, but I think it was a stroke of genius since Alice wasn't on my team at all. Any ball coming towards me, Alice would get and no one from the white team spotted me in the mist of the action. Alice knew I was back there, but just ignored me. Striking me wasn't much of a challenge so she didn't want to waste her shot.

Eventually, the teams thinned out and more of the chucking went my way. It came down to two students left for the white team — Victoria and Alice of course, and three students on the uniform team — Jessica, Mary, and me.

Victoria had the ball and she looked directly at me. She drew back her arm and I felt like a deer caught in the headlights. This was it. She was going to get me. I bet she'll aim for my head so that I'll get a black eye or swollen lip. My arms instinctively crossed over my face protectively.

Ahh!

Something touched my toe. I unclenched my skull to take a peek and see what was going on. The coach was signaling me to move to the side. I was out. That wasn't so bad. Was she just trying to torture me the whole time? Or was everything just in my head?

When the game was over — white team won, I approached Victoria at her locker before she could make her usual escape.

"I'm sure you aren't too pleased about me and Volcano, but thanks for not going for my face."

"Why do you think I would care about that?" she asked curiously.

"Well your friend Jane was really angry."

"Jane is not my friend. She hung around Volcano a lot, so she and I are used to being in each other's company, but there is no female that is my friend. All of you girls are self-absorbed. You all have too much drama to deal with. I told you all I needed was James and I meant it." She continued changing to prepare to leave.

I stood there contemplating what she said. When Jane was going to attack me, she was trying to help me. She didn't want to hurt me at all. "Thank you for stopping Jane at lunch and for not hurting me in dodge ball."

I turned to leave then I heard her giggle. "You looked really pathetic standing there covering your face. The game is dodge ball. How do you expect to dodge the ball with your eyes closed?"

I laughed too. "I guess I completely missed the point of the game."

"You should work on that. Tomorrow I may not be as sympathetic," she informed me, a smile still lingering on her lips.

"Well then, thanks for the warning." I went off to my locker to change for my next class.

*0*

For the rest of the week I kept my eyes peeled for Jane. I didn't want to end up with a bald spot or any other injury.

On Friday night I had yet to make plans with Jacob other than the concert for next Friday. I realized in my quest to avoid Jane I had avoided Jacob as well. We hadn't resumed tutoring due to the detention he received for fighting on school property.

I was going through my trigonometry homework and reviewing for my upcoming exam, when I heard something hit my window sill.

I walked over to my window and lifted it open. "Who's there?" I squinted my eyes over the snow covered front yard.

I saw a dark figure wave at me. "It's me Jacob," he called in a loud whisper.

I closed my window to shut out the chill. I smoothed on some lip gloss, put on a heavy sweater, ran my hands through my hair and quietly walked out the door with my keys.

"What are you doing here?" I gently closed the door behind me so not to alert my parents.

"I wanted to see you," he answered.

"Why didn't you just call instead of the stones?"

"My phone is still confiscated from toilet papering Principal Greene's house. I'll get it back on Monday."

I began to shiver. I wrapped my arms around my body. "So you saw me. Could I go back inside now?"

"Why are you avoiding me? Whatever I did I could fix," he claimed.

I huffed releasing a visible breath from my mouth. "Let's get into my car."

Once inside I started my engine and turned up the heat. Cold air shot in through the vents and I quickly turned the heat switch off again. Jacob wiggled out of his coat and handed it to me. He began rubbing his hands up and down my arms to produce some heat.

"Is that better?" he quested.

I put the coat on. It was warm from his body heat. "Yes."

"So tell me what did I do?"

"Nothing. It's Jane. She's under the impression that I stole you."

"Is that all? You don't have to worry about her. She's harmless."

"Harmless," I laughed. "I have a missing clump of hair that says otherwise."

"She attacked you?"

"Like a lunatic. I wasn't purposely avoiding you. It's just that I've grown accustomed to looking good and I didn't want her to change that."

He lifted his gloved hand to my chin. "You shouldn't let people phase you. She's trying to put a rift between us." He gave a small shutter from the cold.

I tried the heat again. It was somewhat warmer air.

"You know," he gave me a familiar smirk, "there's another way to keep us warm."

He leaned to touch his smooth lips against mine and I groaned.

"So Bella, I've recently come into a small supply of condoms I've been itching to use," he whispered into my ear.

I smiled. "Let's wait until the heat is fully functioning. I don't want to get hypothermia." I paused for a moment and then decided to ask. "Jacob, I know you were faking and stuff, but could I ask you about some things I wondered about?"

"Like?"

"Did you ever give Jane a ride to school?"

"No! I have a rule, no one rides on my bike," he said with anger.

"No one?" I questioned in disbelief.

"Well, only you . . . and my sister. It's her helmet you borrow."

"Rebecca rides on the back of your bike?"

"I like to ride really fast and don't like having to worry about someone behind me. Rebecca is like me, loves to go fast. I used to take her out a lot when I first got it. Then my mom started giving me beef about Beck getting hurt." He paused. "And you were a special case."

"Special?"

"Yeah," he smiled. "See I was so sure you wanted to go on a date because of a dare. I told you to make your hair green and you did it. I figured the bike would scare you off, but you were willing. I wasn't going to say, 'Just joking, we will take your car.' I wanted to see how far you were going to take it. I even drove really fast and you didn't say a word. So I kissed you. I was so sure that would do it, but the date was real. Now I'm not gonna say you can't go on my bike anymore. Not when I'm so used to your arms around me." He gave me his sinister smirk and caressed my face.

"Why did you think I gave Jane a ride?" he mused.

I gave a little pout. "I saw her sitting on your bike."

"Yeah, she climbed on once showing me how cool she'd look on it. I asked her kindly to get the fuck off before I got mad." He shook his head. "I gave that girl too much leeway. I knew I should've pushed her off when she kissed my neck, but I was in front of everyone. I knew you might see me, but I thought you understood when I said she was a fake. It wasn't my intention to hurt you."

"Was that an apology?" I asked with a half smile.

"I never apologize, but . . . there is definite remorse."

Heat finally blasted out of the vents at a good temperature. "Well I'm toasty," he smirked. "What about you?"

"I could definitely lose a few layers."

AN: Well did you all like it? Isn't Jane awful? I decided James and Victoria aren't so bad. We'll see. Don't forget to send me your comments. I look forward to every one.

~g2r~