Author's Chapter Notes:
You guys are winning in the review challenge, so thank you all for your continued support! I hope I managed to get back to everyone this time :)
This chapter is only late because PTB had a lot of problems! It might not be "professional" of me to place blame, but it's their fault it took so long! Chapters 12 & 13 have been written for weeks and I hope y'all know I hate leaving you waiting when I don't have to!
Nearly everyone of you got the song and are all happy that it seems Renee may be going! WOOOOOOOOOO! Only...she ain't going down without a fight :O
SM owns all things Twilight, yadda, yadda.
Enjoy! xx
Chapter Twelve: Life is a Rodeo
Felix led the way down the stairs to the foyer after our meeting was over. He seemed genuinely pleased to have me on board and was joking about framing my signature because it was the neatest he'd ever seen.
The first thing I noticed when we arrived at ground level was that Renee was no longer where I'd left her. The second was that Heidi was no longer alone. It seemed to be a recurring theme; when I thought of Edward, he just showed up. I slowed my pace as we approached him, and I hung back as Felix greeted him.
"Edward! Your appointment isn't until later. Getting some recording in already?"
I tried not to look at him or even make it look as if I had seen him, but I was pretty sure I failed. I wandered over to Heidi, who had her bag over her shoulder, ready for lunch. Felix had called down, much like he had the day before and asked if she was up for a lunch date again. According to Heidi, Felix always asked last minute, despite them having had lunch together every day for nearly a year. It was pretty sweet when I thought about it.
"Actually, no. There's somewhere I need to be later. I was hoping we could do it now," he answered slowly.
I rolled my eyes. Things always had to be done his way.
"Uh, of course. Sorry girls. Go without me. We can do it some other time."
"Yeah, sure. 'Cause whatever Edward wants, Edward gets,` right?" I turned to him and felt kind of smug when I noticed the shock on his face. Yeah, it was a day of firsts.
"Not everything, Miss Swan. My proposition still stands from this morning. I know it won't take too long for you to agree," he said with a bite, and I scoffed, trying to mask the way my heart sped at the sound of his voice. It almost seemed that it dropped to a softer, more seductive tone any time he spoke to me. Of course, I could have just been imagining it.
"I already told you you'd never get the answer you want, Mr Cullen. Did it bruise your ego to know that something was too good for you? I'm sure you can find plenty of willing whores – sorry, girls – to stroke it for you." I linked my arm through Heidi's and silently begged her to let us leave. "Emmett, Alice." I nodded at them both as we made our way past.
Edward's eyes caught mine, and the hurt in them made my breath catch painfully in my windpipe. The emotion was undisguised and real and was the only thing he had ever given me as an insight into him. Everything else had been acted, fabricated, and faked, from his attitude to his personality, and I found myself more confused than ever. What had I said to warrant such a reaction?
"Right, shall we?" Felix's voice floated over to us as we headed towards the door, and I breathed a sigh of relief when we exited the building into the warm sun.
"What the hell was that about?" Heidi started on me as soon as we hit the sidewalk. Crap, now I had to explain the whole thing.
I steered her down the sidewalk, careful to keep my voice low as I explained the whole episode that had been my morning. The entire way to the café, her mouth was agape, and her eyes were wide.
"Are you serious? What a freaking asshole!" I smiled faintly at her underhanded support; it was nice to know I hadn't overreacted.
"I don't know, Heidi. I just…maybe I'm just being naïve again, but there's something about him. All that bravado and all the snide remarks - I don't know if it's just me, but it seems as if it's a mask for whatever's underneath. I swear I've seen a different side of him, but then when I think about the way he acts, I wonder if I imagined it. I have witnesses for all the times he's been an asshole, but there's never any one else around when he says something that actually means something."
I sighed and leaned my head back against the red leather of the booth as soon as we sat down. Heidi had brought us to a 50s style café that had just opened and had also somehow managed to finagle us a table at the last minute. I wish I had contacts that could do things like that whenever I wanted.
"Maybe…" she started.
"What?" She shook her head at me. "No, tell me what were you going to say? Anything to stop me from going crazy."
"Maybe it's you." She put her hands up when she noticed I was about to interrupt. "No, I don't mean you're making it up, or imagining it, or that it's your fault. I mean, maybe it's something about you that makes him act that way. It's all I can think of, Bella. He's perfectly polite to Felix and me, and he's really carefree and happy when he's around his friends. I just don't get it…"
"So, he hates me so much that he can't help but lash out?" I stared at the swirling cream in my latte.
"No, I didn't mean that either. It's like it's a knee-jerk reaction. We have no idea what the man is like behind the mask. You know as well as I do that the man in the press is not the real Edward Cullen. We only get glimpses of what he's really like and even then it has been through the media. Maybe something about you reminds him of something, makes him feel like he's out of control, and he can't seem to get a grip on it." Heidi shook her head sadly when I looked back up at her. "I don't know. Maybe I'm just grasping at straws…I shouldn't excuse his behaviour, I'm on your side, Bella."
"I understand what you're saying, but for him to feel out of control or annoyed by my presence would mean he actually cared. I can only have some sort of power over him if he actually feels something, and I'm pretty damn sure he doesn't feel anything for me. Even when he lets his guard down, he's just acting on what he wants. It's not that he genuinely cares. He's used to having any girl he wants. He's said himself that it's more about the chase when it comes to me. He knows I'm a challenge."
Her hand swept across the table and rested lightly on the top of mine. "I'm sorry, Bella. Do you want someone to have a word with him? He doesn't have any right to talk to you like that."
"No, God no, that would just make things worse. I'd come across as some weak little girl who can't fight her own battles. We're not in high school. I need to face him and whatever problems he has with me on my own."
She nodded in understanding before we were interrupted by our waitress. She set two fresh mugs of coffee between us before laying down our plates. I felt my mouth water and laughed when Heidi rubbed her hands together theatrically.
We spent the next hour chatting about anything and nothing, both of us deliberately avoiding anything to do with Edward Cullen and his pack. That, however, did not extend to Jasper; it seemed he was totally allowed as a topic of conversation.
"So…Jasper Whitlock, huh?" She asks slyly.
I think she was expecting some sort of reaction, but I honestly had no idea what she was trying to get at. She seemed disappointed when I didn't stutter or blush or look away.
"Huh?"
"You left lunch in a hurry yesterday, and we all knew it was because of Edward…but none of us expected his best friend to go running after you…" She raised her eyebrows suggestively.
"It's not like I asked him to," I replied almost petulantly. On the inside, however, I was also beginning to question why he had done it. It was inevitable that I would blush eventually, but it was the memory of being pulled into his arms that did it.
"So, what happened?"
"Are you going to start every question with so laden with accusation?" She laughed loudly when I raised my eyebrows at her, gaining a very annoyed look from the elderly couple sitting next to us. I snorted into my mug, gaining my own look of disgust and only causing Heidi to laugh harder.
I took a moment to really feel what was going on around me. It seemed strange to stop and think about what I was doing, but laughing itself seemed like a foreign concept to me. I had never really had close friends or girlfriends I could giggle with over such menial topics as boys. It had been years since I had sat down with another girl and had a laugh. I felt lighter somehow, as if laughing had expelled some of the baggage that I had been carrying around with me.
I never really thought myself to be unhappy or worried, but if you aren't happy, then what are you?
"Are you going to answer my question?" she pressed.
"Which question?" We both knew I was stalling, but for some reason I wanted to keep that moment to myself. Nothing had really happened, but I wanted time to mull it over and think about it for myself without dissecting it.
"Okay, okay. Keep your secrets…I'll get it out of you eventually, Swan."
"It's not that it's a secret, I just don't know what it was." I shrugged and sighed in relief when Heidi smiled kindly.
"Don't worry about it. Enjoy it. We can gossip over him some other time. I'm sure there'll be plenty of other opportunities." She winked almost conspiratorially, and we both giggled, making sure to stay quiet.
Heidi settled the bill, thankfully, because who knew waffles and coffee could be so pricey, and we both slid out of our booth.
"Hey, Heidi. Where did my mom go?" She turned from where she was touching up her lip gloss in the window to answer me.
"She said she had to go to the bank to sort some things out for your contract." She shrugged, oblivious to how important that statement had been.
My mom was at the bank? I wasn't sure whether to be completely freaked out and worried, or to give her the benefit of the doubt. Would she be able to get her hands on whatever money I had made and make up some excuse to me when I noticed I had none? Would she take it and run? I had always wondered why she had stuck with me – I guess it was because I was her meal ticket.
But how would she know Felix and I had even talked about my account? Maybe she just knew it was bound to come up and had to cover her tracks. Maybe she realized that for such an important contract, I would finally need my own account, so she thought she'd sort it all out for me. Or maybe I was just being naive again.
I sighed - I had no idea.
Heidi's blackberry buzzed in her hand, and she looked down at it with a smile. Three guesses as to whom the message was from if it got that reaction. I couldn't remember the last time I received a message that made me smile. In fact, I could barely remember the last time I received a message. I think it had come from the only girl in school I had been close to, Lauren. The only true friend I had ever had when I thought about it.
We had shared secrets, gossip, news and likes. We had crushed on the same boy in our class for years and made a pact to never do anything about it because best friends came first. We had sleepovers nearly every weekend, took trips out to Port Angeles for shopping whenever we could hitch a lift, and studied together every single time we had a test.
We had promised not to promise to stay in touch when I left. We knew how those things went. We'd keep in touch religiously for a few months at the most, and then it would fall silent between us. Instead we had promised to always spare a minute to text or e-mail when something big was happening with us.
When she was asked to prom by Tyler, whom we both used to crush on, she immediately worried I'd be upset. She was sweet to care, and it showed me how selfless she always was. Of course, I didn't mind. In fact, I encouraged her; Tyler had grown into a very good looking guy.
I asked her to send me lots of pictures, and she didn't disappoint. She looked gorgeous in her knee length white dress, on Tyler's stylish arm. I envied her Lauren's ability to have a normal life. It made me homesick, wishing for the life I no longer had.
That same night I had spared a minute in my prayers to ask for it back. I didn't want to be tutored by strange men I had never met or travel to a different city every year. I wanted to be at home with my mom and dad snuggling on the sofa and watching sports on TV. I wanted to go to school and feel comfortable amongst the people I had grown up with.
I wanted to fall in love with the quiet boy in the corner who would look at me when he thought I wasn't looking - the one who would help me with my work during study period without me having to ask, and the one who would slip notes into my locker just to tell me he was thinking of me.
Either I was being really selfish in wanting all that, or God was simply too busy that week. I woke up the next morning to the same routine, but instead of feeling sorry for myself – that was the day I learned to suck it up and keep my head high.
I had to make the most of the circumstances I was in. I guess that was why I had let my mom get away with everything she had done. It wasn't that I didn't know what she was doing – I just didn't have the strength to confront her and ultimately lose her.
She had stopped being a mom to me years ago, but no one seemed to realize that, at the time, she was all I had. It was easy now that I was surrounded by a support system and potential friends to start fighting back, but I never would have been able to do that before.
I wished my newfound strength was my own, but I was drawing it from those around me. I was exposed to such talented people, and I desperately wanted to live up to them. They gave me the will to fight.
I was surrounded by brains, good looks, old money, and more talent than I could shake a stick at. Yes, I was once again thinking about Edward and Jasper, but I would be a fool to not see just how amazing both were at their craft.
For some bizarre reason, I was now a part of this large group of friends and acquaintances, and with that came a sense of responsibility and foreshadowing. I had to be as good, if not better, to be able to feel comfortable with these people. I couldn't be a nobody any more, I had to stand up and be counted, so to speak.
"Felix wants to know if you'd like to meet your new team?"
I squinted at Heidi through the sunlight and nodded my head, although somewhat confused.
"Don't I just have a new manager?" I asked.
She smiled as she quickly typed out her answer on her blackberry, shaking her head softly.
"No, Bella, you get a team to help you build your career. They can be anyone from sound directors to music editors. Felix usually chooses a team for each new client, so I couldn't tell you who you'll get or what their talent will be."
"Cool," I answered lamely. Her phone buzzed again, and she laughed lightly.
"He wants to know if he can have your number so he can actually ask you these things. He feels like he's ruining his reputation by using his fiancée to broker his deals." I laughed along with her, understanding what he meant.
I spouted off my number before blurting out what was floating around my head. "That makes the total number of people with my number…well, three." I laughed, but I noticed Heidi hadn't joined in.
"Seriously?"
"Yeah. My mom, an old friend from school at home, and Felix." I waved my hand at her phone as we continued walking along the sidewalk.
She pushed two buttons before turning back to me with a smile. "Make that four. I can't very well beg you to come shopping with me if I don't have your number, now can I?" She hooked her arm through mine, much like I had on our way out, and we walked along quietly. "Speaking of shopping, actually can we stop somewhere?" she added mere minutes later. I smiled and nodded, letting her lead me across the road.
She flagged us a taxi I hadn't even noticed and waited for me to slide in before doing the same. "Rodeo Drive, please." My jaw dropped. We were only going for a quick something, but it had to be Rodeo Drive. A smile spread across my face. Everyone knew it, and I was finally going to experience it.
I took in all of my surroundings, but it wasn't long before I had forgotten what turns we had taken. If I ever settled in this city, it would take me years to learn my way around. Maybe I should never buy myself a car and just rely on taxis for the rest of my life.
"Uh, I think here will do, driver. Thank you." I was too busy staring out the window to spare a thought towards the fare. Thankfully Heidi didn't seem to care and handed over a few bills. She stepped out first before standing beside the open door, waiting for me to join her.
Here will do. As if it wasn't good enough, but it was all we had time for. We were standing outside Tom Ford. What was so important that she had to buy it from a top designer? I was beginning to thank my mom for picking out such a great outfit that morning. There was no way I'd have even been allowed through the doors if I were in ripped jeans and a hoodie.
"Come on!" Heidi suddenly sounded like a kid on Christmas morning, and I giggled lightly as she pulled me through the glass doors into the cooled store.
She seemed like a woman on a mission as she led me straight down one wall, and I nearly knocked her over with my lack of anticipation for her stopping so suddenly. We were standing in front of a sea of varying types of sunglasses, dominating a wall of glittered mirrors. I didn't know where to focus my eyes first, but thankfully Heidi made the choice for me.
She took a step towards the wall and waved her finger over the lines of shades before stopping at a specific pair. I didn't want to speak out and tell her she already had a pair on her head, which I then noticed had Armani sketched into the side. Maybe they were out of style or something.
However, when she picked them out, instead of trying them on, she turned to me with a mischievous grin and held them out between us. My eyes widened momentarily, but I had to be honest - the thought of having them – owning them – made me feel good. Is that what a label did for you? Sure, it looked good, it cost a fortune, but did having it on actually make you feel better?
I shook my head, however, taking a small step back from her. I had learned early on in life never to trust something that didn't have a price tag. Whether it be because my mom had always handled our finances, and I never would asked her for something expensive, but in my experience, no price tag usually meant you couldn't afford it.
Feeling embarrassed, I tried to tell her quietly I didn't want them, which must have been some form of blasphemy. My brain, however, was screaming at me that trying them on wouldn't hurt anyone.
"Bella, please? I want to get you a present. Think of it as a good luck gift. I know this is a complete waste of money when I could have taken you to some tourist gift-shop, but what else do I have to spend it on? I know I told you I was making my own money, but that doesn't mean I don't have a card that comes from daddy." She winked, and I laughed lightly.
"I…" What, what was I going to argue with? She wanted to buy them for me, and hell, I wanted her to buy them for me.
"Please, Bella? I'm not above begging, you know." We both laughed again, and I hesitantly took the proffered pair from her.
I had to admit they looked fantastic – I had always been lucky to have a face that suited both hats and sunglasses – that wasn't my problem. But when you're spending so much money on something, it has to be perfect, and this pair wasn't.
I shook my head and put them back, moving down the wall with Heidi following me quietly. She picked out a few pairs, but I noticed she tried them on herself instead of handing them to me.
I was nearly three quarters of the way down the wall when I came to a stop. Aviators. It wasn't until I looked more closely that I realized each pair had their own name. Sunglasses with an actual name.
The pair that had caught my eye where called Charles.
I picked them up gingerly, sliding them onto my face, keeping my eyes shut as if it would make the "unveiling" more exciting. I peeked through my closed eyelids and smiled when I saw my reflection. Yeah, they looked good.
"Ooh, Bella, they look fantastic." Heidi clapped twice before turning back to the mirror, causing the hovering shop assistant to laugh. He sidled up to her, and I tuned them out when they started talking about her dress. It was Gucci, didn't you know? I rolled my eyes, and in doing so, pair number two jumped out at me, waving frantically to get my attention. Well, not really, but you get my point.
It took us another fifteen minutes before I was happy with my choice and handed them somewhat reluctantly to Heidi. I still wasn't entirely happy that she was about to spend so much money on me, but when I noticed she had two pairs herself, I calmed a bit.
"These are for Felix. God, I love him in glasses. He looks even sexier than usual."
I only laughed, having no opinion on the matter. Sure, he was good-looking, but sexy? Not when Edward was in the vicinity…
I battled the urge to faint when the clerk rang up her purchases, never having believed three pairs of sunglasses could actually cost that much. I mean, four figures, seriously?
"Here…" Heidi handed me my present with a flourish, watching excitedly as I put them on once we were out on the sun baked sidewalk. "Jeez, Bella. You look good, girl!" She swapped hers around, opting for the newest pair, before flagging us another taxi. "This is the beginning of big things, Bella. I'm so excited for you." Heidi squeezed my arm as we slid into my third taxi of the day.
"Do you know what? I'm actually excited for me, too. Thank you for today it was exactly what I needed."
She smiled sweetly at me as she rattled of the address of Volturi before answering. "What are friends for?"
What indeed? I thought. Things were certainly looking up, and I smiled at the passing streets outside the window.
"I was meant to tread the water,
But now I've gotten in too deep.
For every piece of me that wants you,
Another piece backs away.
You give me something,
That makes me scared alright
This could be nothing,
But I'm willing to try.
Please give me something,
Because someday I might know my heart."
Author's Chapter End Notes:
Song without Googling?
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