Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight
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"Babe," Edward calls after me as I walk away from the car. He sounds nervous and confused, but I can't clear up my thoughts enough to reassure him. "Would you please wait?"
I hear him, but I keep moving. Before Edward was with me, he'd said he'd only been with two other girls, but the Sam thing… If they both called him that… Edward doesn't date girls in Forks— everyone knows that. La Push is another story. I'm realizing I know way more about those relationships than I should.
I stop walking and sit on the park fence, which shouldn't even be called that because it encloses nothing. It's made of wood and splintering, but oh well. "Bella," Edward says, stopping a few feet away. Somehow, hearing him call me by name makes me feel like we're fighting.
"I'm sorry. I just need a minute. Sam, I mean… I know who Sam is and who he dates, or dated, I guess."
"Oh," is all he says, standing there as if he is not welcome to sit beside me.
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Having Leah around was different. Jake and I sat on the two-seat couch in Quil's garage, while Quil and Embry sat perched on old bar stools. Leah wandered around, randomly kicking things and complaining. At least, she wasn't brooding. Not anymore. Sam and her cousin had brought her down for a while, but she seemed to be coming back around to be her same old moody self.
"It stinks in here," she said before dropping a metal tool into the top drawer of a big red chest. The sound vibrated my eardrums.
Quil groaned. "That doesn't even go in there." He stood and waved toward the door. "You can go anytime. The door is open."
"Leave her alone," Jake said.
Quil sat back down. A question of why Leah was still there hung in the air. He didn't ask, nor did he have to. As out of place as it was for her to be there, we all knew why she was. She didn't just lose a boyfriend and a member of her family; she'd also lost the group of friends she'd spent most of her time with.
Quil opened his mouth again when Leah popped the hood on the old Chevy that'd belonged to his dad, but Embry kicked the legs of the stool beneath him. "Shut up, will you?"
Quil looked away and the room fell silent.
Leah took a deep breath before lowering the hood. "Can you guys just leave me be, please? I'm trying here. I just need…"
The girl needed a hug, not that I was going to give her one, but someone should have.
"A rebound," Embry said, his eyes opening wider, as if he couldn't believe what he'd just said.
My jaw dropped in shock. Quil laughed so hard that he started coughing.
Jake snapped his fingers. "Embry, you better start running because I'm going to let her hurt you."
"What for?" Embry asked. "I was just kidding, unless…," he said, his gaze going Leah's way.
"Embry!" Jacob said, his voice filled with warning, but Leah waved it off with a laugh.
"Thanks for the offer," she said before rolling her eyes and sitting on the arm of the couch beside me, "but no thanks. Rebounds are most definitely not a good thing, but they're probably even worse if they were dating the cousin who just stole your boyfriend. I can't trust myself to make good decisions anymore, obviously." She gestured at her current surroundings.
I was borderline offended. Whatever my threshold was for rudeness, she was close to reaching it. I had sympathy for her, and we'd been nothing but nice, but she'd been nothing but annoyed at being stuck with us.
"Who was she dating?" Embry asked, his interest far to keen on anything she'd be willing to tell him. We all knew Sam had left her for her cousin, Emily, but the details on the matter had been discreet. I was ready for her to lash out. Sam and Emily were subjects best avoided in her presence. When she didn't show her usual anger, my hearing tuned in a little, and I would bet, so did everyone else's. I doubted anyone in that garage had any kind of sexual experience except for Leah, who seemed to have a few stories to tell.
"Doesn't matter," she said.
With her encroaching on my personal space, I slid over, closer to Jake.
Leah took my movement as making room for her and slid right down into the spot I had just vacated. Looking at Jake and me, she said, "You two can learn from my mistakes. Don't trust each other, your friends, or your family, and when you break up, hooking up with someone else right away helps nothing."
We weren't together in the first place, so I didn't get it. She was either delusional, or she thought she was funny.
In a sarcastic voice, Jake said, "Yeah, sure, Lee. Whatever you say." Me, I just glared straight ahead and imagined my eyes were directed at her while Embry and Quil encouraged her to keep talking.
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"Sam's ex?" Edward moves toward me and hands me his gray hoody. It's far from the body heat that Alice had in mind, but I take it and put it on. "She's with Jake now, but you're friends with her?" he asks.
"No," I say, trying to negate his worry. "Maybe before, sort of, but not really, and not at all now." I reach out to him, before taking his hand and pulling him toward me. "She'd mentioned some things about a rebound after Sam. Probably just because I was around and all, but now, I know who she was talking about."
He nods, his gaze going off in the distance.
I bring his hand to rest on my thigh. I don't want what I've learned tonight to change anything between us. "So, before what happened with you and Leah, she was with Sam, and you were with her cousin, Emily, right? For how long?"
He shakes his head, mindlessly caressing my thigh. "It wasn't like that."
The lampposts at this park either don't work or don't exist because the only real light in the area is coming from inside Edward's car, and when that clicks off, there is a glow coming from down the street and the occasional headlights passing by.
I don't push him to tell me. I don't like talking about Jake. If he doesn't want to talk about exes, I don't blame him.
He climbs up on the fence beside me. The wood bends but holds our weight. "She didn't live around here, so we only hung out whenever she was in town. She'd call sometimes before she moved here, but she was into Sam the whole time. It wasn't like she was my girlfriend. She wasn't, so it doesn't matter."
I nod to show my agreement that the people from our past don't matter. I know Edward worries about girls being hung up on other guys. I've seen it firsthand with the girls in Forks, but these girls that he actually gave the time of day to have evidently brought that issue to a whole different level. "How long were you talking to her?"
"Like a year." He lets out a heavy breath. "I should have known though."
"How?"
"She'd call, ask about different couples, and want to know all these things about them." He waves a hand out in front of him. "So, basically, she's Jasper."
I laugh at the lightness of his tone as he compares her to Jasper. I think maybe he's been starting to warm up to him, but it may be too soon to tell.
"She'd ask me if Sam looked happy, and if I thought his relationship would last. She was obsessed with him, but she'd ask about other people too, so I didn't catch on. She'd ask about you and Jake though, and I didn't want to talk about that, so I'd just hang up on her."
I nudge his shoulder with mine. "You did not."
He smiles and nudges my shoulder right back. "I know, but I thought about it. See, I shouldn't have been talking to her anyway, but you had a boyfriend, so I didn't know what to do with myself."
My palm goes to my forehead. "So now it's my fault."
He hops off the fence. "Sorry, but yeah, I guess it is." He shrugs and laughs as he offers me his hand.
"Well, I'm really sorry I let you get involved in all that," I say, letting him help me off the fence as I play along for a moment. I push up the arms of his hoody to free my hands from the long sleeves and place a fingertip against his lips in the place I want to kiss before I do it. Just once. It's been too long in his presence without kissing him. I drop my voice to a whisper. "I'm also sorry to tell you, but back then, I didn't have a boyfriend."
We start walking toward the car hand in hand, but he stops and says, "For real?"
"For real. People just assumed, but we were just friends for a long time."
"Huh." He pulls his upper lip between his teeth.
He doesn't say anything after we get in the car, even though he looks at me several times as if he wants to. I leave him to his thoughts because I also needed a minute to digest what he'd just shared with me tonight.
Finally, he cracks the slightest smile, and says, "I guess I have to get you home. Huh?"
I nod before leaning over the center console and attempting to kiss away all these talks about other people. It's just us now. His lips are really soft. Why does that still surprise me?
"I like you," I say in a breathless, just-kissed way with words that tumble out of my mouth because he just makes me say these things.
His answering smile has me smiling right back. "Yeah?" he asks.
I nod and look away as my face heats up, shy all of a sudden, but I'm not. It seems my body doesn't know that. Even as a flushed feeling spreads through me, I look at him, feeling silly and giddy.
He laughs and shakes his head as he puts the key in the ignition. He turns it, starting the car just for it to turn back off. He tries the key again, back and then forward, but this time, it doesn't turn on at all.
He sighs and apologizes. I check the time in case I need to let my dad know what's going on, but Edward is calling Emmett, and we're not too far from home. We could maybe even walk it or run. People jog at night all the time. I'm sure. My dad would love that.
"He's not answering," Edward says.
I open my call log. "It's okay. I'll call my dad."
"Hold on. I'll try someone else," he says as he brings his phone up to his ear. "Hey, I think my battery died. Can you pick us up?"
He looks at me, but the expression on his face does not look like whoever he's talking to is going to help. "Okay, so you're a liar," he says. "Whatever happened to you'd pick me up no questions asked." He does one of those disbelieving, half-laughs. "How do you know I'm not drinking? Did I say I wasn't drinking? I am, now can you just hurry up?"
He hangs up the phone and starts texting.
"Who was that?" I ask.
He keeps typing as he says, "My dad. He's coming. He just likes to be difficult. Sorry about him in advance."
It's not long before headlights are turning off the road and pulling into the spot next to us. We're out of Edward's car and in the backseat of his dad's before he's out of the car himself. He shakes his head as he closes his door and turns toward the back, extending his hand. "Carlisle," he says with a smile that might rival Edward's, but I'm pretty sure that it's the same one.
"Bella," I say, remembering to make eye contact as I shake his hand, but failing to resemble anything close to a grip.
"Isabella Swan?" he asks. When I nod, he turns to Edward. "You're getting arrested."
"What? Why?" Edward asks.
"Do you know who her dad is? What time are you supposed to have her home?"
Edward leans over to see the time on the dashboard, scoffing as he says, "Ten thirty."
It's ten twenty-nine.
"Dammit, Edward," he says as he reverses the car and drives away from the park faster than I imagine he usually drives. "You could have told me that. Sorry, Bella."
Edward scoots over to the middle seat and puts his arm around me. "Maybe you should have come when I called you instead of messin' around."
"Yeah, okay. I'm not bailing you out when he locks you up. I'm as good as broke when it comes to you."
Edward rolls his eyes. "Why do you even say that? I can fish. He likes fishing. I'll be fine."
"Bella," Carlisle says, adjusting the rearview mirror so he can look back at me through it. "Don't listen to him. This guy hasn't been fishing since he was five."
Edward laughs. "Turn on the radio, would you? Seriously." He turns to me. "Sorry."
"It's okay." I can't imagine my dad will be too mad if I'm just a few minutes late.
Carlisle Cullen seems to know where I live based on the streets that he chooses to take without asking for directions, so I lean my head against Edward's shoulder.
A few minutes later, Edward turns to me and tilts my chin up. "I should have talked to you…back then. I probably never would have, but I should…I should have."
"It's okay," I say, taking his hand and intertwining our fingers, remembering the moment I caught him alone at that party and my impulse being to talk to him. "Because apparently, eventually I would have, and now we're good, yeah?"
"Yeah." He brings the back of my hand to his mouth and presses his lips against it.
When we're parked in my driveway, Carlisle offers to talk to my dad, but I'm pretty sure everything will be okay. Edward walks me to my door, shooting his dad a glare over his shoulder when he catches him watching us.
"Should I?" he asks pointing toward the door.
I glance toward the door that's about to divide us. I'm not quite ready for the night to end. "No, I've got it."
"Okay, well I should probably…" He motions with his thumb behind him, before looking back at his dad, who is busying himself with his phone. Edward steps forward and kisses me. It's short, but he lingers close to me afterward. It probably looks like he's still kissing me anyway, so I kiss him again.
"I'll call you," he says as he takes a step away.
"Okay…wait! Your hoody." I start to take it off.
"You hold onto it." The way he smiles at me lights up everything.
I go in before I mess up and smell his hoody in front of both him and his dad, but as soon as I'm inside, that's exactly what I do. I don't know what he'll wear tomorrow. He might like wearing limited clothes at home, but at school, he basically lives in this thing.
"Bella, is that you?" My dad calls from the living room.
"Yeah." I hold in my sarcastic thoughts of declaring I'm someone else as I head to the living room to face my dad. "Sorry I'm late. The car battery died, and his dad had to come get us. It won't happen again."
He looks from the TV, to me, to the clock on the wall, and back to me. "Oh, right. You're grounded."
He looks back to the TV, so I can't tell if he's serious.
"Oh, okay." My throat drops to my stomach as I imagine losing my phone and not being able to answer Edward's call. I stand there awkwardly and wait a minute before I ask. "What does that mean exactly?"
"No TV." He waves me off.
"That's fair." I start moving toward the stairs. "Night, Dad."
"Night." He waits until I'm a few steps up before he yells after me, "And Bella, that's just for tonight. You can have TV privileges back tomorrow." He laughs as if he's just told the best joke of his life.
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I'm in my bed with Edward's hoody against my skin when he calls.
"How much trouble are you in?" he asks.
"No TV for the rest of the night."
He chuckles. "Oh."
I laugh with him, as we start talking the way we have been every night. I miss him already, but in the dark, it's his voice in my ear, the smell of him and almost the feel of him as I lay wrapped up in his hoody that has me feeling like he's here.
"Are you sleeping in my hoody?" he asks.
"What?" My smile beams. "Why would you think that?"
"Are you?" he asks again.
I glance at the light coming from under my door and speak lower, as if just knowing my dad is still awake means he can hear me. "Maybe."
"What else are you wearing?"
Not much, is what I think, but I say, "These shorts-like things."
He groans. "Babe."
"What? They're boy shorts, so they're underwear, but shorts, so they're not even sexy."
He ticks his tongue. "New rule. You don't get to say what's sexy."
"Why?" I ask, the pout as evident in my voice as it is on my face.
"Because you don't know. At least not when it comes to you."
"Is that so?" I don't feel unsexy though, not right now, and really, I never feel that way with him.
"It is."
"Can I ask you something?" I ask, feeling brave in the dark after all the talks we had tonight, and a first date that ended with his hoody being left with me for the night.
"Yeah," he says, voice low and maybe just a bit deeper than normal.
My question might not fit with this mood. The past has a way of throwing ice water on things, but I ask anyway. "You know how like when we've done…things, and when you said you really liked the way I said your name. Do you think that's because of the whole being called Sam thing?"
"Um," he says and then there's a pause that lasts a little too long. "I guess the first time at Mike's, I was relieved, but then after that, it's just the way you sound, and you know…the way you wrap around me."
"Oh. Okay." Goosebumps ripple up my arms. "So…what are you wearing?"
He laughs. "Just these boxer things. They're like underwear shorts, though, so not sexy or anything."
"Yeah, okay," I say. We both laugh as if we both know how the other would feel if we saw each other's choice of sleepwear.
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Author's Note:
It's was amazing getting all your reviews last chapter and seeing that many are still reading after I didn't get a chapter up for several months. The next few chapters are written, but I'm still working out a few things, so an update isn't likely next week, but fingers crossed for the week after.
I really hope this chapter helped answer a few questions after I cut off the last chapter where I did. Thanks so much for reading! And thanks a bunch to Your Vixen for prereading and dazzled eyes22 for betaing!