An Introduction to Swirl and Daisy: The Non-Romantic Romance
Beta: xsecretxkeeperx
Chapter 28: The First Time They Picked Up a Stray
. . .
Any sound above the click, click, click of computer keys and the shuffle of a mixed CD was the grating buzz of an insect that needed to be squashed. My headphones provided a portal to a world where I was queen, a world where the tap of my finger determined the outcome. Music, the keyboard, and the construct of symbols, numbers, and letters that laced together the backbone of MyT-Spot. com were all that existed here.
With Edward already having finished designing the new layout—no easy task, but not nearly as complicated as coding backdoor features and building the technology needed—his only job now was to be at my beck and call, in case of a missing graphic or last-minute design alteration. Under no circumstances was he to disturb me otherwise, not with our deadline two weeks away at the start of baseball season.
The music evaporated from my world as the pressure of headphones lifted. "Hello, my lady love," the culprit said, twirling the bridge of my headphones around his index finger.
"Give me those." I yanked them back.
"Wow. Not even a hello. This is worse than I thought."
"I'm working. What do you want?"
"Coach gave me a call. What do you say we get out of here? Go to the diner?"
"Can't. Almost done."
"You hear that, Coach? She doesn't want to go out with me. I'm hurt."
Charlie was leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed. "It's not you. It's her."
"You think so? I haven't grown scales or a third eye or something? Your daughter used to be excited to see me. She used to…."
I was so not in the mood for their rehearsed banter. There was work to do. Headphones back in place, I let the vocals of Kelly Clarkson call me back to the world of character data, nodes, and tags. Edward had Elvish as his second language (and Spanish as his third). I had HTML, CSS, JavaScript, XML, and FuckMeL.
Not one line of code later, two hands snagged their way around my waist and tugged me from my chair. "Ahh!" I was airborne and callously flopped over Edward's shoulder. "What the hell are you doing?"
"It's Friday night and we are going to dinner." Edward walked towards the door with a surprising amount of stability.
"I don't want to go! Put me down!" My face was in uncommon proximity to Edward's behind. I'd never seen it from this angle before. It was nice.
"Can you hand me her shoes?"
"No. Don't you dare, Dad. Arrest him! He's kidnapping me!"
"And I'm paying him to do it." I craned my neck around Edward's back to see Charlie stuff forty dollars into my sneakers and hand them to Edward.
"Sir, you don't have to do that," Edward said, taking the shoes and keeping me steady with one hand. "I'm happy to take her out."
"This one's on me, since you're performing a huge service. She's beginning to stink up the place."
"I am not!"
"Have fun, kids."
"Thanks. We'll have a great time. Won't we, Bella?"
"Eat dung, you Muggles."
Charlie disappeared a little more with each stair Edward took. I death-glared him down. Right before dropping completely out of sight, he stuck out his tongue.
"I know where you sleep, old man!"
"Stop shifting. I don't want to drop you," Edward said.
"Maybe you should have thought about that before you kidnapped me."
"Don't think of this as a kidnapping. Think of it as an intervention."
"An intervention? Been there. Done that. Now put me down."
"I'm not some common mule. I don't take orders." He stopped short of the door and turned so I was facing the coat rack. "It's drizzling outside. Grab a sweatshirt."
"Um, hello? Not a mule, either."
"Fine." He swung around and heavy fabric flopped over my backside. "This hoodie always was a particular favorite of mine."
I groped for the sleeve. "Which one is it?"
"My Spartans baseball hoodie."
"Oh, you probably want that back, don't you?"
"Ha! That'll be the day."
I pinched the only thing I could reach—his butt.
"Hey, hey! Hands, Missy."
"I thought you liked it when I borrowed your clothes."
"I do. But right now you're not borrowing my clothes so much as stealing them. I keep having to buy new clothes, and those end up in your closet, too."
"If I return all your clothes, will you let me drive?" I'd finally gotten my license a month ago but hadn't been able to use it nearly enough, work-related tasks keeping me cooped up.
"No way. You'll fall asleep at the wheel," he said, depositing me at the passenger seat of the Volvo. He opened the door and bowed my entrance.
"I've been sleeping just fine, thank you very much."
"That's not what Coach says." He shut the door before I could answer.
It wasn't until he had started up the ignition and pulled us out onto the street that I said, "I sleep. Maybe not as well as I slept in Florida, but I sleep."
He stared straight ahead to the road. The only indication that I had broached a taboo topic was the ticking of his thumbs against the steering wheel. After a while, he asked, "Is that something you need to talk about?"
"I liked waking up next to you every morning," I said quietly.
The first time it had happened, it was by mistake. Edward and I had been watching a late-night movie in his guest bedroom, and we'd drifted off to sleep. The next morning I had woken up tucked comfortably into his side.
I'd looked up to find Edward watching me.
"Hey," I'd said.
"Hey."
Aside from our hellos, we hadn't moved or spoken. We had just stared into each other's eyes, sharing the kind of intimacy that made you want to explode with bliss—the metaphorical kind of exploding. We had made sure to "accidentally" fall asleep in front of his TV from that night on and never spoke about it because… well, because it was us and because it was right.
Edward snapped his fingers in front of my face. "Earth to Bella. Can you please stay on this plane of existence for at least a few hours? I haven't seen you in weeks."
"You see me everyday."
"No, I see Metabel, Queen of Doctype." The car pulled into the diner's parking lot.
"Who?"
"Your evil alter-ego that takes over when you're coding. That's what I call her."
"Does that make you King of Doctype?" I asked, once we were out of the car and walking hand-in-hand to the entrance.
"I'm afraid not. I am a lowly peasant forced to kidnap the queen to save her from herself." I'd forgotten I was being kidnapped. I snatched my hand back.
The best thing about this diner was the privacy, being as each booth had partitions high enough to at least give the illusion of it. We settled in a booth toward the back and placed our orders. The moment we were alone again, Edward got down to business.
"About our sleeping arrangement in Florida," he said, "I can't begin to describe how much I miss seeing you first thing every morning. The month we were there, it was like getting a snapshot of what our lives are going to be once we're old enough to move in together."
"What's the but?" I asked, fully expecting one of his lectures on why what we did was wrong and how we couldn't do it again until we were married.
"No but. I don't regret anything we did or didn't do in Florida. One thing your mom gave us was freedom just to be. And it was great for a summer."
"But?"
"There is no but, Bella. Unless you want there to be."
My eyebrows crinkled. "Are you talking real butt now?"
"No, I'm still on the conjunction," he said.
I watched his fingers break the napkin band from around the silverware as I chewed over what was bothering me. If there was no but, then why couldn't we do it again? I didn't voice my question because I already knew the absurd number of reasons that stood in our way, Charlie being the main one, lack of accommodations being the second.
Edward seemed to know where my thoughts had gone. "At sixteen, we're growing up but we're not grown up, yet. That's why I want you to relax and take a break from all this website business."
"I find that funny coming from you. You've been working like a little grown-up since I met you."
"That's very true and maybe that's why I want to enjoy this while I can. Most of my life I played grown-up because, before we met, my only friends were adults. Now I have one, maybe two years left of being a carefree youth, whatever that means, and I want to embrace it."
It was hard not to point out that there were many things the carefree youth of today engaged in that we did not. I kept my mouth shut, remembering my oath to stop pressuring Edward into stuff he was not ready for.
"Come on," he said, flicking his napkin band, which he'd folded into a triangle, across the table at me. "Aren't you glad that I'm not the same socially-stunted, boring Ringer from eighth grade?"
I sat up. "Don't you dare make fun of my Swirl. I love him."
"Do you now?" He seemed surprised at how sharp I'd sounded.
"Absolutely."
Edward closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.
"What are you do—"
"Shhh." He held both index fingers out to me, then let them slowly descend to the table. "I need a second."
"What—"
"I need total peace, Bella."
When he opened his eyes again, Edward had disappeared into himself. He looked as if he was far away. Then he opened his mouth.
"Hello. I'm Edward Cullen, founder and president of E.C.T-shirts. I am thirteen years old and I have my birth certificate if you need me to prove it." He spoke in the soft, but crisp, voice I'd all but forgotten. It was peculiar hearing thirteen-year-old Swirl coming from sixteen-year-old Edward. "Here is my business card. It has my phone number, fax number, and email address. Please contact me at any time, because you are the most beautiful, angelic, breathtaking creature I've ever seen.
"Have you read The Lord of the Rings? Tolkien is the master of language. I've read the series almost fifty times, myself. Bella, wait!" I jumped at the shout and he became suddenly somber. His tone lowered to an almost inaudible whisper. "Maybe it would be best if you didn't stand so close to the bed."
Tears sprung into my eyes and I buried my head. Edward was by my side in a moment, wrapping me in his arms. "What's wrong?"
"I miss that little boy. He was so precious," I wailed. "He was so adorable and so d-d-dorky. He was adorkable."
"He's still right here." Edward took my hand and placed it over his heart. "And if it'll make you feel better, I swear, I'll walk around acting just like him until the day we die of old age."
A giggle took me by surprise. "Just you offering to do that was totally Swirl-esque." I wiped my eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm just so tired."
"I know." He hugged me closer. "You need a good night of sleep."
"I can't. I have too much to do."
"MyT-Spot is not worth this, Bella. Nothing is."
"You don't understand what I'm up against here."
"How about this? You tell me a problem, and I'll explain why you don't have to worry about it."
"Fine." If it would get Charlie and Edward off my back so I could finish the damn project… "Our deadline's approaching and if I don't keep pushing through, I'm not going to make it."
"That's too easy. The deadline was tentative. We can push it back to however much time you need."
"You don't get it. I have to make that deadline because if I don't…" It felt like all the air was sucked out of my body just thinking it. "If I don't, I'll never be able to push myself to finish it again. This is soul-sucking work. I love it, but it is so hard. And I am so tired. That deadline is the light at the end of my tunnel."
"But if you don't finish—"
"I will."
"But if you don't, Bella, it's not going to be the end of the world. We can put this project on the back burner until you're ready to approach it again."
"No, we can't."
"I'm the CEO and I say we can."
"No, we can't."
"Why ever the hell not?"
"You wouldn't understand."
Edward was definitely beginning to lose his patience. He rubbed an exasperated hand over his brow before grabbing my right hand. "Remember this?" he asked, touching my daisy dare ring. "We're partners, Bella, and not just in business. You owe it to me to stop telling me I won't understand and help me to do so. Please."
I sighed and sagged back into the booth. "You've never had to worry about money before, so you probably haven't thought about this yet." Somehow admitting I was poor was harder than talking about sex. "But I need the money for college. You're going to want to go to somewhere excellent and even studying every second I'm not working on MyT-Spot won't get me a scholarship. I'm not going to let money stop us from following our dreams."
He hammered the table a few times, pondering. "Okay, um, how do I break this to you?"
"Before you offer to pay, let me just tell you now I won't accept your money. This website is my ticket. It's going to change everything. Wait and see."
"You're not wrong about the website being your ticket." He lingered on the last word and let out a breath. "Okay, I'm just going to say it. My grandmother is paying for your college."
A reluctant chuckle made its way up my throat. "Don't be silly. I can't accept money from your grandma. That would be wrong."
"It's a little too late for that."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Hey, this has nothing to do with me." He held up his hands. "You're the one who took the job at MyT-Spot."
"What?"
"Think about it. How much money do you have saved up for college?"
"Just under forty thousand."
"That's not a bad haul. We'll estimate a combined hundred thousand between the both of us. How much has MyT-Spot made in t-shirt sales since we started in eighth grade?"
"Excluding manufacturing costs, somewhere in the realm of thirty-thousand," I said.
"Right. Do you spot a discrepancy there?"
Sure, the website hadn't paid for itself yet. But that's what an investment was. The business was growing and would continue growing, especially with the new developments I was working on. "Don't you think there's a possibility Mrs. Evans will make her money back? That all this work will be for something?" I asked.
"Yes, there is a possibility." He said it with the air of an adult trying to let a child down easily. "Our business does extremely well, especially considering it was established by a couple of middle-schoolers. I don't want you to feel this diminishes our accomplishments in any way, but Grandma Evans' investment was never in the business. It was in us."
"And she told you all this?"
"Not exactly. I was snooping around her checking book. She puts every penny we make off MyT-Spot into a bank account called The Wedding Fund."
My knee hit the underside of the table. "Ow!" I howled, rubbing my aching skin. Edward shooed my hand away under the table and took over massaging it. "And you don't have a problem with that?" I asked.
"Well, no. Not really." His hand moved from my knee to my thigh. "I want a big wedding, see."
A chill went up my spine. "I don't get this at all. What's the point of investing in a company if your investment never pays off?"
"It did. Don't you see? Forgive my frankness, but Grandma is loaded. She doesn't need the money, and would have paid for school anyway. What's brilliant is that she found a way to pay for college and teach us business and life skills along the way. And it made us happy to earn it."
"Happy to feel like we earned it."
"No. We earn every cent we make off that website. I mean," he scooted away a fraction and gave me a once-over, "look at you."
He was masking his intent with a joke, but I saw right through it. "Are you trying to tell me I'm ugly?"
"You couldn't be ugly if you tried. No make-up, hair in a messy thing," he twirled his hand above his bronze tresses, "wearing one of my shirts under one of my hoodies, you look gorgeous." He cringed and focused on his water glass. "If not a little unkempt."
"Unkempt? Unkempt? I am perfectly kempt. I still shower and brush my teeth in between working my ass off for the company and working my ass off for school."
"I know you're working your ass off. That is the point of this whole intervention."
"Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?"
"Of course not! You could come to school wearing a paper bag over your head and I wouldn't give a shit. I wouldn't have brought up the appearance thing if Coach hadn't asked me to."
"I hate it when you and Dad talk about me behind my back."
"Only because you were facing the computer and had your headphones on. We were in the same room as you while we were discussing it."
I bit my lip. That was incriminating. "Where's our food?"
"No deflecting. This whole thing hasn't been about the way you look. We don't care about that. It's about taking care of yourself and being healthy. What is it going to take from me for you to do that?"
"Look, I appreciate your concern, but we're so close to the finish line. Now is the time to all out sprint, not the time to hold back."
"I saw a thirty-two inch Harry Potter action figure online. I'll buy it for you if you promise to take it easy."
"I'm not ready to make any promises."
"Not even for an exact replica of Harry Potter's wand?"
I cracked a smile. "Not even."
"Forget the replica. I can find you an original."
"There's nothing you can offer me that's going to make me change my mind."
"How about…" Edward tapped his chin. "An I-Owe-You. One favor from me, redeemable at any time in the future. Standard rules applies."
"You still owe me one of those from the night you gave me this." I held up my right ring finger.
"But imagine what you could get me to do with two of those suckers."
"I'll think about it." I wouldn't.
The waitress finally came over with our food, and with it she ushered in a rowdy gaggle of girls to the table before ours. The high partitions could only block so much and, unfortunately, obnoxious was not included. They were very loudly discussing their favorite movie sex scenes.
"Do you mind if I ask you a hypothetical?" Edward asked, as one of the girls began to dissect Cruel Intentions.
I dug into my fries. It felt like I hadn't had real food in weeks. "Sure."
"Obviously, the reason why I am the way I am today is because of you. You gave me the confidence to make friends and expand my interests, to really live my life."
"That's not true."
"It is, Bella. I've thought about this before, where I'd be if we'd never met. I think I'd be trapped in the same loop as middle school. I'd be alone and friendless, standing on the outside of everything as I took pictures for the yearbook."
The image he painted broke my heart. "Is that the hypothetical?"
"No." His fork scraped the plate's rim. "I was wondering if… if we hadn't met in eighth grade, but somehow I was exactly the same as I am now. Do you think you'd still want to be with me if we met today?"
"Without a doubt, yes."
"How can you be so sure?"
"You were cute back in eighth grade, but you're hella hot now. There's no way I wouldn't notice you. If anything, I don't think you'd notice me."
Edward scoffed. "That's ridiculous."
"Not five minutes ago you called me unkempt."
"In the hypothetical, I still find you the most alluring woman to cross my path. But that's just surface attraction. Do you think our personalities are compatible without three years of relationship behind us?"
"Do you?" I asked, getting worried. Where was this coming from?
"I'm not the one who burst into tears when reminded of who we once were."
Ah. "It made me nostalgic is all. We were so cute back then, all naïve and new to everything. You resemble that young boy more than you'd like to think. You're still Swirl, just a few years older."
"But—"
"We complement each other just as much now as we did back then. I mean, look at MyT-Spot. You designed it, I built it, and it's going to be amazing because of both our contributions. We're a freaking power couple. Like Britney and Justin."
He squeezed my hand. "We've talked about this. Britney's married to someone else now."
"Oh, ye of little faith."
We fell into silence as we ate, and Edward's head seemed to be somewhere else entirely, perhaps plotting a more successful intervention. I found myself reluctantly listening to the debate next door. The two girls who were going back and forth sounded around my age, though I couldn't place their voices. They thought they were so cool, discussing sex openly in public. You could hear it in their brashness.
"Alice, what's with the silent treatment?" the girl I'd labeled Thing 1 asked.
I stopped chewing and sat up.
"I'm bored." And she sounded it. That was definitely my Alice. I shuddered. When had she become my anything? That is definitely the Alice I know, I corrected. "We've had this same conversation a thousand times."
I swatted Edward on the arm. "You almost ready to go?"
"Have you eaten enough?" he asked, frowning at my half-finished burger.
"I want to take it To-Go. They're being hella annoying."
My explanation was reinforced with Thing 2's, "What else is there to talk about in this loser town? We learn more from movies than we did from Sex-Ed this year."
"That's fine." He wiped his hands on his napkin. "I'll track down the waitress."
"Alice, if you want to talk about something different maybe you can give the four-one-one on Harry Potter Girl and her boyfriend." I grabbed Edward's arm, pulling him back into the booth. Thing 2 kept talking, so she must not have seen him. "You're friends with her, right?"
There was a certain morbid curiosity keeping me glued to the seat. Nothing these people said could be good, but I wanted to hear it anyway.
"We are so not friends. I'm only using her to get to Jasper." If nothing else, I had to admire Alice's talent for not mincing words. My admiration faded when I saw the look on Edward's face. Right. I'd have to explain that one later. "Why do you ask?"
"Ash mentioned Sex-Ed and I remembered what Edward was like during that class. I felt so bad for Sarah what's-her-face being partnered with him."
"I'd forgotten! He was a total freak," Thing 2 said. I lurched to break her face. Edward blocked me in. "But I have to admit, he's fine in a hot geek sort of way."
Thing 1 gave a hyena laugh. "Sorry, sweetie. I forgot you tried to blow him last year."
My jaw dropped and, before it could be helped, I shot Edward a lethal glare. "I have no idea what she's talking about," he whispered. I discharged a heated breath and relaxed my grip on his arm. It wasn't his fault we were surrounded by boyfriend-stealing skanks.
"Whatever. So what's the dealio? Is he socially-defunct or something?"
"No, he's cool," Alice said, to her extreme benefit.
"There has to be something wrong with him to stay with Harry Potter Girl. Forget the weirdness, she's become a total dumpster-woman."
My turn to hold Edward back had come. I gripped his arm and offered a small smile. Thing 1's insult had the odd effect of not offending me at all.
"She's been working hard lately," Alice said. "Give the girl a break."
"The only break she needs is one to the jaw to fix that overbite." That was new. No one had ever insulted my teeth before. It stung.
Thing 1 was tittering uncontrollably at the wit of Thing 2 when Alice stopped all of us cold. "Oh, shut up. Can you say jealous much?"
"Jealous? Yeah, right!"
"You are totally jealous of her and so is every other girl in school. We'd all pay a million bucks to have a boy look at us the way Edward looks at her."
It was the kind of thing I'd expect a nice person to say, not Alice f-word Brandon. Was it possible that Stage Two: Personality Replacement had actually taken? Was I some kind of genius?
"What the hell, Alice? You've been acting like a complete bitch since you started hanging out with that whore."
"How can you call her a whore? You're the one who tried to sleep with her boyfriend, which seems to me a pretty clear indication of who the whore is."
The bickering only picked up from there, morphing into subjects beyond the two of us. Edward pulled out the forty dollars from Charlie, placed it under the saltshaker, and pointed to a back exit. Excellent. We could escape without being seen.
As soon as the door shut behind us, Edward turned on me. "What was that?"
The rain had gone from drizzling to outright pouring and was banging heavily on the small canopy above us. I pointed to my ears, pretending I couldn't hear, flipped my hood up, and ran out into the rain. Taking the back exit meant we had to walk around the whole building to get to the parking lot. It gave me time to think about how I was going to tell Edward about my Diabolical Plot to Get Jasper a Girlfriend or, perhaps, figure out a way to avoid it altogether, but by the time both our doors had slammed us into the dry car, nothing had struck.
"It's time, Bella."
"Time?"
"After the intervention, the first one about Alice, I let the subject drop, assuming you'd tell me what was going on with her when you were ready. Given what we just overheard, I think it's time you let me in to that part of your life."
What was I scared of? That he'd be mad? Disappointed? That once he found out what we were up to, he'd shut us down permanently? Maybe we should be shut down. Maybe playing matchmaker was wrong.
"If nothing else," he said, "it's evident now more than ever that you and Alice are friends."
That got a reaction from me. "We are not friends. You heard her."
"Right. She's using you to get to Jasper."
No. I was using her to distract Jasper.
I didn't say that because it wasn't true anymore. This whole thing may have started out as a silly ploy to divert Jasper's attention away from Edward, but he'd been altogether tolerable since that first failed intervention. Now I did it because… I did it because…
Looking out into the darkness beyond the car window, I willed myself to admit the reason. I did it because… Alice wasn't that bad. A runaway groan escaped at the admission and I hadn't even said it aloud.
"You know what? It's late and you're exhausted," Edward said, sticking the key into the ignition. "Maybe we could try this conversation tomorrow after you've had time to sleep on it."
I knew there was a reason why I loved him. There were thousands, actually, but the occasional compassionate reprieve topped the list at present. And as a reciprocal gesture, I would give him what he wanted by taking the night off, crawling into bed, and sleeping a solid twelve hours.
At least that would have been the plan if fate hadn't stepped in. Edward turned on his headlights, illuminating a dog about five feet in front of the car. We hadn't seen it before because its black fur had camouflaged it into the night, but there it was: medium-build, shaggy, soaked.
"It's the grim," I said ominously.
"It is not the grim," Edward rebutted. "Wait, where are you going?"
"We can't just leave it out there. It's pouring."
"That thing could have rabies for all you know! Bella! Bella!"
I was already out and making my way over to the dog with an outstretched hand. "Hey, little buddy. I'm Bella. You're not going to bite me, are you?"
"Bella, get back in the car now."
"Ignore him. He's always grumpy." I took another step forward. "But me and you, we're going to be good friends, aren't we?"
"Bella!"
"It's okay, Edward," I shouted without looking back. There was only about two feet between the dog and me now and eye contact was essential to developing trust. "He's a sweetie." The dog opened his mouth into a smile and let his tongue out in a lovable pant, which I took as permission to close the gap.
Before I could take another step, Edward came barreling toward us. "AAAIIIIEEE!" he yelled, charging over with his arms flailing. I'm sure he thought he was being very brave; he looked like a drunken goat.
The dog didn't budge, except to wag its tail.
"Argh!" Edward tried again, right up in the dog's face.
"Apparently you aren't that scary."
Edward stepped back and reevaluated the situation. "It isn't easily spooked. What does that mean?"
"It means he likes humans," I said, finally making contact. I started with a few strokes on his head. The dog seemed receptive so I made my way to his neck, where I felt around for a collar. My fingers only found matted, coarse fur. Underneath all of that, I detected a slight shiver. "He's cold."
"Come on, Bella. There's nothing we can do about that. Let's go home."
I turned on my boyfriend, stunned by his indifference. "He has to come back with us for the night. It's our moral obligation."
"Are you crazy?" he shouted over the rain. "Our parents would kill us!"
"Esme and Carlisle would totally do the same thing. This could be some poor, little kid's missing dog."
"So he's coming to my house then?"
"Charlie's just as coldhearted as you are. We both know he'd stick the dog in the shed. We can actually help the dog at your house."
"And how do you expect to get him there?" Uh… that was pretty obvious. I glanced at his car. Apparently it hadn't been obvious to Edward. His grimace said so. "No, no, no, no. No, no, no. NO. You can't put that thing in my car! I'll never get the smell of wet dog out."
"Really, Edward. Now is not the time to act like a superficial teenage boy."
"Who's acting?"
"Now is not the time to be a superficial teenage boy. Be Swirl."
"Swirl hates animals!"
Something hit me like a ton of bricks. "What about our pets?"
"What pets?"
"Our future pets. I want at least three to begin with."
"Is this really the time for this discussion?" Edward asked, cupping his hands to catch the rain. He had a point. We were both drenched through our clothes at this point.
"Either we bring this dog back to your house in your car, or I'm walking him back to my house in the rain. I'll most likely catch pneumonia and die, but it'll be worth it to know I did the right thing."
Edward narrowed his eyes, sizing me up. I held my ground.
"If we bring the dog home tonight, you have to promise to take two weeks off work. You have to let the website deadline pass before you start working on it again. No cheats. As a matter of fact, I want the file removed from your computer until the day after the deadline."
"But—"
"And I want the whole truth on Alice. Tonight."
Pneumonia almost seemed the fairer option, but one look down at the dripping dog melted my resolve. "Deal."
. . .
"Can you pass me the scissors? Willow has a few patches of fur that need to be snipped."
"Willow?" Edward repeated without doing as I asked. To his revulsion, his bathtub had been transformed into a dog spa. His form of protest was leaning against the sink console, completely useless.
It didn't bother me in the least. I was quite Zen-like at the moment, scooping up cupfuls of warm water and pouring them over Willow's coat. "The obvious choice would have been Sirius or Padfoot. Or Fang, I suppose. But I like Willow. It's fandom-neutral."
"How do you figure?"
"We both like Buffy."
"Willow's a redhead."
"Not when she goes evil. Dark Willow has hair as black as dog Willow." Except for a brown-peppered spot that ran from Willow's left leg to his tail.
"You shouldn't be naming the dog at all. I know you. Once you name an animal, you get attached." There wasn't much point in denying that. He'd only throw Belle the blue jay in my face. I'd been devastated when he migrated and never perched on the branch outside my window again. "So it's a girl, then?"
"Who, Willow? No, he's definitely a boy."
Edward opened one of the drawers under the sink and pulled out a pair of scissors. "I'm not even going to ask."
"It's our tradition. All male pets will be named after kick-ass fictional women."
"I said I wasn't asking."
"There were other indications that you were deathly curious."
"And, Bella? Bella, look at me." He held the scissors out. "That dog is not our pet. We're taking it to the shelter tomorrow."
I took the scissors but didn't respond. Willow was a special dog: the strong, silent type. He'd been so good during his bath, happy even. There was something about those wide, brown eyes and that content little puppy pant that made my heart puddle. He didn't flinch as I cut the first patch of matted fur from his coat. They were all over his body, which led me to believe he was either a stray or had terrible owners. Either way, I hated the idea of leaving him at a shelter.
"Back to the other thing," Edward said, breaking into my mounting doggedness (pun intended). "Let me see if I have this right. Since sophomore year, you have been conspiring with Alice to make Jasper fall in love with her."
"Correct."
"And your basis for my friend's future happiness was a compatibility quiz from Seventeen magazine?"
"And my unfailing intuition."
"You realize you're insane. Right?"
"I'm not unaware."
"What's with all the daily lunch chats? That's been going on for months now."
"That's Stage Three: Re-Introduction to Society. We've been trying to snag her a lunch invite since the start of the year."
"Why don't you just invite her to come sit with us?"
"My plot is diabolical, Edward. A lunch invite from Angela or me is meaningless because we're in on it. An invite from you or Jasper, or even Cynthia, means she's accomplished something."
"I hate to break it to you, but that is never going to happen. And Jasper isn't going to fall for her. He hates her."
"Hate is a strong word. I have reason to believe we're making progress."
"I almost forgot. He got a haircut."
Having something to distract me while I'd told Edward about my Diabolic Plot had been helpful to the point of complete honesty, no matter how nuts I sounded. "Say that as sarcastically as you'd like, but ask yourself: what would you do if I told you I didn't like your hair?"
Edward wiped a hand down his face. He'd been doing that a lot tonight. "Are you almost done in here? I have to get the stairs cleaned up before I can take you home."
Funny fact: wet dogs with tons of fur can track in a lot of mud, much to the displeasure of even the most generous parents. "I'll be down to help you in ten minutes."
He stepped behind me and gave my shoulder a squeeze. "Don't worry about it. Please, just stay with him and make sure he doesn't touch anything when he gets out of the tub. I already have to clean out my car. I don't fancy having to decontaminate my room, too."
"No problemo," I said, placing my hand over his. "Hey, Edward?"
"We aren't keeping him."
"That isn't what I was going to say."
"In that case, how can I help you?"
"I was just going to point out that more than one person is capable of change since middle school."
He took a moment to let that sink in. "I'll give it a few days before I decide whether or not I want to pull the plug on your diabolical plot."
"Thanks. And Edward?"
"Yeah."
I gave Willow a syrupy grin. "You really need to have every square inch of your ass kicked."
"Quoting Dark Willow to me is not going to persuade me to let you keep him, no matter how much it turns me on."
"I love you?"
"Yeah. You better," he joked, giving me a look as dirty as his bathroom.
Missing chunks of fur gave Willow an odd, spotted appearance, but there was nothing to be done. He's ugly cute, I determined. As soon as he was free of the bathtub, he shook out his fur, tickling me with a spray of water droplets. It was time to make use of the dry stack of clothes Edward had left on the counter for me, and though I knew Animagi were the brilliant invention of J.K Rowling, I felt compelled to put Willow outside while I disrobed. Just in case.
His damp paws slipped all over the tiled floor as I led him through the bathroom to Edward's connected bedroom. At least they weren't muddy anymore. "Sit," I said firmly. Apparently, he hadn't learned that command yet, so I pressed gently down on his backside until he was in the sitting position and added a, "Stay."
But Willow wasn't there when I came back; he'd made himself comfortable in the middle of Edward's bed. Forget the puddle—my heart was an ocean. This was my kind of dog.
. . .
"You should see the mess she made in here. Your daughter's a hurricane."
Something warm was snuggled against the curve of my body. It was furry, which meant it wasn't Edward. It still felt nice. Comforting.
"She's out like a light. I don't want to wake her," the voice continued. The words were distant, coming from the bathroom. "Don't worry. I'm sleeping in the guest bedroom… Yes, I realize you would shoot me if I tried anything… Come on, Coach, my parents are in the other room. That's not exactly how I pictured it happening… That's— that's not what I meant at all. Of course I've never pictured it before…"
A sleepy smile tugged on my lips. Charlie giving Edward a hard time was funny even half-conked. I slipped back into unconsciousness to the sound of Edward's blustering.
. . .
Willow was the talk of our lunch table come Monday. I made sure of it. I told Jasper and Angela all about the way he would quirk his face to the side if you blew on him and how the only time he'd bark is if Edward clapped his hands three times. I also talked about what we'd learned from the vet over the weekend: he was around two years old, had never been vaccinated (which made it more likely he was a stray), and was a mutt of indistinguishable proportions.
Jasper seemed to be in a world of his own, but at least Angela appeared interested. "So what's the plan?" she asked. "Are you keeping him?"
"I definitely want to, but Edward's the holdout."
Edward let out the same huffy puff he'd been giving me all weekend. "I just feel like this is a really important life decision that we should take our time to consider. We have two weeks. This doesn't have to be an impulsive decision."
"What happens in two weeks?"
"The shelter predicts they'll have space open in two weeks to take him in." I gave Edward a calculated glower, still speaking to Angela. "You don't even want to know what that means."
"And your parents are okay if you decide to keep him?"
"I actually think they want us to," I said. "Charlie thinks it's a good way to teach us responsibility, which translated means he thinks it will prevent me from getting knocked up like my mother."
"But there are stipulations if we decide to keep him," Edward said pointedly. "Like we have to take care of all of his needs without our parents help and make all decisions regarding him together. They think the dog can teach us valuable life lessons for when we get married. So far, I've learned Bella sucks at teamwork."
"I do not."
"Did I get a say on his name?"
"Hey, Bella," a squeak of a voice broke in. Alice was standing behind my shoulder, lunch tray in tow.
In all the excitement over the weekend, we'd forgotten to practice a topic of discussion for today. "Hey, Alice," I said, preparing to wing it.
"Hello, Alice," Jasper said.
She almost dropped her lunch tray. The rest of us had similar reactions. In the four months Alice had been coming by for our daily chats, Jasper had never once spoken to her. Or acknowledged her. Or looked at her.
"I have to go," Alice said prematurely. She was panicking.
"Oh. Yeah. Have… the fun." Jasper said, which oddly brought Alice back to Earth.
"No, you have the fun." She was back to her usual flirtatious self. I wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing.
"Okay. I'll have all the fun."
"You can't have all of the fun," Alice laughed. "There won't be any left for the rest of us."
What. The. Hell.
Was. She. Doing.
Whatever it was, Jasper was going with it. He gave her an easy smile. "But you told me I could have the fun."
"Some, but not all. I think sixty-nine percent of the fun is just right."
Months and months of calculated, hard work… down the drain. I would have banged my head on the table if I hadn't caught a glimpse of Jasper's face. He was eating up every word.
Alice ended the bizarre exchange with a wink and turned to the cafeteria, looking lost. Eventually she took a left and sat at an empty table. Was she so dazed by the encounter, she'd forgotten where her usual table was?
Edward, Angela, and I slowly turned to Jasper. It took a double take for him to notice. "Yes?" he asked obliviously. "Oh, that? I'm feeling bad for her, is all."
"Why?" Edward croaked indignantly.
Jasper rubbed the back of his neck, then leaned in. "She got ousted."
"Ousted?"
"Voted out." At our blank stares, he added, "Of the cool kids."
"The popular kids have a democracy?" This was a loser town.
"Only the upperclassmen. I got the email over the weekend with some the particulars, asking me to vote." As the school's star baseball player, I probably shouldn't have been surprised that Jasper was one of them.
"What were the particulars?" I asked, worried (and slightly thrilled) that our names might have been brought into all of this.
He shrugged. "Apparently she blew up at some of the other junior girls in public. Can't say that I blame her. They can be a shallow group."
Edward was watching him closely. "Meaning that Alice isn't shallow?"
"Come again?"
"You said they can be a shallow group. Does that include Alice?"
"I wouldn't know." Jasper ran his fingers through his shortened hair. The twitch didn't escape Edward's notice. "I hardly know anything about her. Or care to know," he added.
"What did I tell you?" I muttered.
Edward only nodded, clearly deep in thought. I followed suit. The question was this: how could I help Alice now without derailing the entire diabolical plot? While searching for the answer to one problem, the solution to another popped into my brain like bubblegum.
I slapped my forehead. "I have you on the dog thing!"
"What?" Edward asked.
"You owe me a favor! Redeemable at any time, barring acts of prostitution. Standard rules apply."
Edward seemed confused until he spotted my ring. He sighed and sat back in his chair. "And you want to use it on the dog?"
"What else would I want to…" My voice trailed off as the lonely girl came back into view. Well, this was a conundrum. Exactly how obligated was I to Alice for sticking up for me at the diner?
"Alice!" I jumped at Edward's holler. She looked up, searching for the source. Edward waved to her. "Why don't you have a seat with us?"
Her face lit up like Christmas as she scooped up her tray. It should have been a moment of victory for both of us—we'd just accomplished Stage Three—but it felt hollow.
"I know that was the right thing," I grumbled, "but I hadn't officially made up my mind, yet."
"It's okay. I did. We can keep the stray." Edward pulled my whole chair closer, with me in it, and planted a kiss on my forehead. "And as long as nobody claims him, we can keep Willow, too."
