The Flower Moon
Year Eight, Chapter Seventeen
Unknown Mistakes
Jacob's Point of View
It was still weird how easy school, not just French, was turning out, to be for me this year, which was good because my life was exceptionally busier now that Nessie and I had the kids. There was also my Pack to think about.
Embry was back home, watching over his Imprint. We were still doing monthly Skype check-ins, so he wasn't too hard.
Leah was pretty self sufficient, but it still worried me that she never phased with me anymore. When we talked it was on the phone or in person. She said everything was fine, she just wanted some space. Outside of Alpha ordering her to Phase with me and completely invading her privacy (which I refused to do) I didn't see what else I could do.
Seth was the one I needed to devote the majority of my attention to currently. Not him exactly. He was doing great completing the needed construction on the house we were flipping. But he didn't know it was Nessie and I who were bankrolling the project, and paying him, and we wanted to keep it that way.
Last week after quickly and easily finishing my homework, I settled into the living room couch, with my laptop, and started the long process of wading through all of the applications I had received, for a new intermediary, to replace Jack Fisher. It was taking longer and was much harder than I had hoped. Okay, it wasn't actually hard, exactly. More like boring. So very, very boring.
I wish Esme were here, she would be able to find the perfect person for us in no time at all. She probably had five or six people she already knew who would be perfect. I thought about giving her a call but quickly changed my mind. I'd relied too much on her, and the rest of the Cullen's, to do everything for me - arranging birthday parties for Nessie and my kids, buying us all clothes, and making the arrangements for deferring and now restarting school, just to name a few. I was an adult and needed to start acting like it.
All I needed to do was find someone who was trustworthy. Someone that could communicate to Seth what we needed to have done on the house and then have them relay, to me and Nessie, anything that Seth told them - without blowing our secret involvement. Of course I couldn't say any of that in the ad, I didn't want to risk having Seth find out we were behind his employment.
The wording of the ad had seemed simple enough, if not a little vague. But I got a ton of responses, many more than I expected, so I guess I'd been worried for nothing.
.
Liaison Needed
Independent. Flexible. Discreet.
Available 4+ days a month.
One on one personal attention required.
Complete confidentiality a must.
Exact details & requirements of job
& schedule may change as needed.
Some travel required.
Send letter of interest to email address provided.
Only professionals need apply.
.
At the bottom I listed an email address that Nessie and I'd created for any replies; just another precaution to keep our identities hidden from Seth.
I'd set up a few interviews for today, starting at three, and then one every half hour until six. The first candidate scheduled for today, a Ms. Crystal Price, seemed especially good, on paper at least. I kinda hoped she would be perfect and I could cancel the others and be done with it. But I doubted I would be that lucky.
"Hey Nessie, I'm going to head over, now." It was already two-forty and even though I was only going next door, I didn't want to arrive after her.
I thought it would be best to use the now empty house that Rose, Emmett, Alice and Jasper use to live in, to conduct these interviews. I hoped going over there would give me some privacy. I didn't need the interviewees accidentally seeing any supernatural occurrences, at either of the other houses.
Nessie dashed from the library to my side before I'd even finished my sentence. "Not so fast," she said as she pulled me back into the house before I even took a single step out the door.
"Is something wrong?"
"Not at all," she smirked, and I knew I was going to be late. Happy… but late.
Twenty-three minutes later I greeted Ms. Price at the door and showed her into the living room. David had called out when he saw her car pull up. After giving Nessie a kiss I was able to run into the other house through the back door. I'd hoped to have time to prepare, set up, I don't know exactly… do something to make it look like this wasn't my first time interviewing someone.
Oh well. I'll just have to fake it.
"Please have a seat," I said to her, indicating the chair I'd quickly placed in front of the couch I settled myself into.
Ms. Price was younger than I thought she'd be. Judging by her resumé it seemed like she had years of experience, but she didn't look any older than me. She was dressed professionally, in a charcoal grey suit. Her skirt seemed a little shorter than would generally seem appropriate for a job interview, but I wasn't the one wearing it, so who was I to judge. It's not like I was going to say anything to her either. But her shirt… I really didn't think much of it until she then took her jacket off, revealing how low-cut it was.
Nessie had a similar one she wore when she was younger. She stopped wearing it as she had, err... developed; Bella deemed it no longer appropriate.
I didn't care what Ms. Price wore; I didn't really care what she looked like. All I cared about was if she could do the job or not. My goal was to get the interview over with, see if she would work out, and move on, so I could get back to Nessie and the kids as quickly as possible.
Then again, I guess the clothes a person wore went towards their qualifications.
I wanted to appear completely professional, myself. And I also didn't want to scare the woman away by my appearance so I'd put on a polo shirt, a pair of khakis, and even some shoes.
After moving to New Hampshire with the Cullens I would only Phase once every week, when Nessie hunted, but since David's birth, I needed to phase daily and had adopted a uniform similar to my La Push days - Alice's expanding shorts, no shirt and no shoes. I only got completely dressed nowadays when going to school or the store. And today.
I'd also prepared a list of interview questions, and even remembered to shove them in my pants pocket, as I ran out the door on my way over here. Now, as my hand fished around in my pocket to retrieve them, I was unused to the tightness of these pants, and not wanting to tear them, was having difficulty retrieving the paper.
Part of my mind registered that the Ms. Price had gotten out of her seat, but I was too preoccupied to pay much more attention to what she was doing. She must be bored waiting around for me to start the interview, or thought I was a complete idiot, while I fished around for the questions.
Before I could stop her, or even realized what she was doing, she'd leapt into my lap, and was straddling me on the couch, while attempting to take off her shirt.
What the hell? "I... um, I'm sorry, err... Miss," I stammered, once I finally got out of the shock I was in. "I think... I think you've got the wrong idea about things," I continued as I grabbed her arms to prevent her from taking off any more clothing than she already had.
Apparently, as I came to realize, much too late, she was some sort of professional escort, or at least a professional... something.
She was fast… faster than I expected. I wasn't making much headway trying to get her off of me, and not hurt her. She wasn't a Vampire, or anything else the Wolf in me perceived as dangerous, but that was wrong. She was dangerous; a succubus… just of the human variety.
I heard the front door open and close, but wasn't sure if I was more grateful or agitated by whoever was here. Not that I wanted to get caught in a compromising position but I would be glad for a way to extricate myself from the current situation even if it was going to be embarrassing for me… and them.
But who was it that walked in? Nessie or one of our kids? Whoever it was, they sure were taking their time making their way into the living room.
After three agonizing minutes, of my fruitless attempts to talk the woman off of me, who else but Nahuel appeared in the doorway. Great that's all I needed. Damn-it!
I'm pretty sure the shock on his face seeing me with my arms on another woman was similar to the shock I felt myself, for having them there.
"Look darling," Ms. Price cooed, eyeing Nahuel, "if this is going to be a threesome then this little arrangement of ours is going to cost a lot more."
Eww! "Um... no that won't be -" Yikes! My voice trailed off mid sentence. I can't even... how am I even having this conversation?
"What's all this?" Nahuel has the audacity to smirk. Clearly I wasn't going to be getting any help from him. And now I realized that he might be bringing even more trouble for me.
"Nahuel, what -" I didn't even know what to say. How was I supposed to explain myself and this ridiculous, absurd, situation to him? "What are you doing here?" I asked, not being able to think of anything else. Ms. Price was still on my lap
Before he even got a chance to speak again Ms. Price started pawing at me and tried to shove her tongue down my throat. Not having any of that, I gently, as to not hurt her, but firm enough that she couldn't break free, grabbed her waist, lifting her up, off of my lap, before throwing her jacket back at her.
"I'm sorry Ms. Price, I think you've gotten the wrong idea and you need to leave now."
"So I guess you and Renesmee aren't as tight as I thought you were," Nahuel sneered.
Oh, good grief!
Nahuel wiggled his finger between the two of us, "Does she know you're doing this?"
"No... I'm not... it's nothing like that." Did he really think that? He knew I Imprinted on her. He knew what that meant. "You're completely misreading the situation. This was just supposed to be an interview."
He knew I was conducting interviews to replace Fisher, right? I know he'd been told the story of what had happened between him and Nessie and I really didn't feel like going into everything at this time.
"An interview? Is that what you call it? Ha! Yeah, sure, that's exactly what it looked like to me. I use to conduct a lot of interview myself," he smirked before turning and leaving me alone, well almost. I still had to get rid of Ms. Price.
It ended up costing me $400, but it was well worth it just to get her to leave. Once she was finally gone I ran straight home. If I thought for a minute she wouldn't follow I wouldn't have even bothered paying her.
Who knows what Nahuel was telling Nessie and I didn't need to give him any more ammo. Nahuel had an eight minute head start and probably had already told Nessie everything he saw.
"Nahuel would you mind giving us some privacy?" Nessie snapped as I entered the house.
Crap!
"Are you sure you don't want me to stay? I could help you hold Jacob down while you kick him a few times," the jerk chuckled.
"I don't think that will be necessary. I can handle this," Nessie replied to him, before she rather quickly swept him out the door.
Seriously? She believed Nahuel?
"Nessie... Renesmee, please you have to believe me, nothing happened. I didn't -"
"Jake, stop!" She then called our kids and I gasped. She wouldn't tell them would she? "Can you two run to the store for me and buy a few steaks for dinner?"
Oh, thank goodness. Steak was their favorite so they practically fell over themselves running out the door.
Once they were gone I started again to try to explain myself. "I swear. I was just -"
"JACOB!" she shushed me, cutting off my attempt to explain, for a second time. Crap! "Just show me the ad you placed." Her words held no emotion. They came out sharp and quick.
Wordlessly I retrieved my laptop and opened the ad.
Nessie read it and huffed. What was wrong with the ad? "Now show me the reply she sent you."
As I reread her reply I realized that I should have been able to figure out what Ms. Price was, but she seemed so nice and friendly on the phone. I really thought she was qualified for what we needed, when I read her email innocently, like I had the first time. But I guess it could have been taken a completely different way by someone who was looking for that kind of a service.
Once Nessie finished reading, she did the exact opposite of what I assumed.
I expected her to see that I was innocent in all of this and forgive me. I was hoping she would realize that Nahuel had been wrong and led her to the wrong conclusions. I believed that she would see that I loved her and only her, and would never want to be with anyone else.
Nahuel had clearly told her the truth in what he saw, and it wasn't like I could say it didn't happen. Worst case scenario I imagined that I would to have to grovel a bit. After all, I had been caught with a half naked woman on top of me.
But none of that was what happened. I wasn't expecting her response. Her laughter completely took me by surprise.
"You're... you're not mad?"
"Of course not. I'm your Imprint. I know the bond we share and how you feel about me. You're mine, just as much as I'm yours; your one and only, yours," she replied as she began kissing me.
Thank goodness.
Wait, something was still bothering me. "Then why did you snap when I got here? Before I could explain… You sent the kids away."
"Oh. My Jacob, I wasn't angry at you. I was irritated at Nahuel, thinking that you would do something like that. That's why I sent David and Felicity to the store. I didn't want him talking to them and spreading his lies. He knows, just as I do, how much you and I love each other. And even if you had never Imprinted on me, I don't think you're the type to cheat. And with a hooker no less... please," she snickered.
"Why would I want that when I already have perfection?"
"Perfection? Yeah right," she chuckled again, but I didn't think it was funny.
"Yes, you're definitely perfection, sweetheart, just as much as we're perfect for each other. Imprinting or not. Do you remember when you were little, when I took you to First Beach? Embry even mentioned it way back then. He said something to you like 'Wow, you really are perfect for Jake. You think with your stomach too,'" I laughed, while adding how Seth started snickering, Leah fidgeted, like she was trying not to laugh, and a few other minor details.
"Yeah, I do remember him saying that. But he wasn't actually correct. Wait..." she gave me a strange look, "I remember him saying exactly that."
"What?" I don't think I was remembering things wrong. She just said I remembered it right. Exactly right, actually. It had happened years ago and I remember everything about that day, word for word, the sights, the smells, the tastes, what she was wearing, what I was wearing, actually every single detail. Wow, that's strange.
"Jake, you just remembered something from six years ago perfectly," she replied, echoing my thoughts.
"Yeah, I know. Weird, I guess it was a really special memory to me and got burned into my brain or something." But it wasn't really, it was just some random thing had happened one day. I hadn't even thought about it since then.
"Okay, I give in, I guess we really are perfect for each other," she'd chuckled. "Now hand me the laptop so I can rewrite that ad, Jake."
A week later I was sifting through my inbox, full of insanely boring, but probably more appropriate, legitimate resumés.
Renesmee's Point of View
How had things gotten so bad? It was never like this before, not with my Aunt Alice here. I guess I hadn't really understood or appreciated exactly how much she'd done for me. And it took her being gone, for a year, for me to fully realize it.
My closet was a disaster!
We were already an hour into cleaning and it still looked like a mess. David and Felicity had graciously agreed to help me, but now I think that they wished they hadn't. It didn't look like we would be done anytime soon. So far we'd only sorted my clothes into styles. There was the dresses – sundresses, short sleeve casual, long sleeve casual, fancy, and ball gown (when would I ever even need those Aunt Alice?). Then they needed to be separated by length, above the knee, mid knee, below knee, mid calf, ankle, and floor length. And then finally by color.
And that was just the dresses. I still needed to organize my skirts, shorts, pants, Capri's, and jeans, just for the bottoms alone.
Argh.
Blouses, t-shirts, tank tops, sweaters, button ups, pullovers, turtle necks, jackets, bathing suits - the list went on and on.
I wouldn't have even bothered, but it had gotten so bad in here that I couldn't find anything to wear, that matched, yesterday. It probably wouldn't have really mattered to the average person, it wasn't like I would be going out and seeing a ton of people. Jake and I mostly spent our days at home, with the kids. But I'd been raised, at least partially, by my Aunt Alice and had a healthy (some might say unhealthy) respect for clothes and fashion. I wasn't obsessed with it like she was, but it irked me when I was so un-put together. I was raised to have respect for and take pride in my appearance, not to the point of superficiality, but to dress respectably and not look like a slob. And I couldn't do that if my closet stayed in its current condition.
Three hours later, we'd gotten everything organized and re-hung in my closet. Three hours, ugh, that was pathetic. I knew my Aunt could have had it done in forty minutes, tops. But she enjoyed this sort of thing and was better at it than me. Hell, even my Mother would have been able to do it in under two hours; having been practically groomed by Aunt Alice for the past seven years. They were best friends after all.
It wasn't like my clothes were just lying around on the floor, I'd washed them after wearing them and then re-hung them in my closet, it's just that there was so many of them and they gotten put back in no particular order, just hung on any available open space I found.
Unfortunately, even after all this time, my children and I hadn't even broken the surface of what needed to be done in here. We'd only addressed the hanging clothes, the drawers and the shelves hadn't been touched yet, not to mention the shoes, purses, belts, scarves, hair accessories, and jewelry.
Ouch! I think I was giving myself a headache. Not everything was going to get done today.
At first I'd been upset with Jake for seemingly ducking out, claiming he was still sorting through intermediary resumés. Really, it couldn't be taking him this long... could it? Normally we loved doing everything together, but now I realized that he was actually pretty smart not to get involved in this. It was torture.
I have a feeling I'll be able to persuade him to help me later though - organizing my lingerie. I had a lot of that as well, and not just the everyday items in my bra and panty drawer, I had a special section that I'd take out on special occasions, many of which Jake had never seen. I get Jake to help me tonight, after the kids go to bed, I plan on giving him a little fashion show in the process. He'll like that. And so will I.
Now that I think of it, the kids and I should probably just skip all of the drawers for right now; I really don't need my kids sorting through my underwear, or even seeing it, even by mistake. Instead we moved on to the shelves.
We'd been going at a pretty good pace for over an hour. I'd asked the kids if they wanted to take a break, but they declined, probably just wanting to get this over with and never agree to do it again.
"What's this?" David cautiously lifted the lid on a box he found.
"I'm not sure. What's inside?"
He held up a gaudy necklace with a chunky gold rope chain and a giant crystal, almost the size of a golf ball, hanging below. While it sparkled beautifully in the sunlight, the one and only time I'd ever actually seen it outside, when my Mother had worn it during our encounter with the Volturi, that first year of my life, it wasn't really my taste and I wasn't sure why my Mother had even given it to me. Not that she had; technically, it just ended up in my room one morning for me to play with when I was little. But once it had become apparent to my family that I was terrified of the Volturi coming back for me, when I started having nightmares, the necklace just disappeared one day as wordlessly as it had first appeared. Someone obviously had boxed the thing up and stashed it away, but how it ended up in my closet was a mystery. The only thing I could think of was that since it was mine whoever had done it thought I would possibly want it someday.
I didn't.
"You can just shove it back on the shelf." I had intentionally not thought of that horrible day, or the necklace, in years and didn't want to start now.
"You don't want to put it with your other jewelry?" David asked.
"It's not really my style. I don't think I'd ever wear it." And I don't think my Mother ever would again, either. I don't know why she even had back then; it didn't go with her outfit. But I knew her fashion sense wasn't as advanced as it was now, not having the past seven years of Aunt Alice's tutelage. "Do you want it, Felicity?"
"Um... no. That thing belongs in the box," she scrunched up her face to emphasize exactly how much she didn't want the hideous bobble.
"Okay," I chuckled; glad her fashion sense was prevailing without the benefit of Aunt Alice by her side. But then again where did my Mother get the thing in the first place? Who had gotten it for her? I didn't see her picking it out herself.
It couldn't have been my Father, could it? No. He had better taste than that. Oh well. None of them were here to ask, and I didn't really care that much anyway.
Back to cleaning and organizing.
"Oh, I found another box!" Felicity exclaimed a little bit later. She had to stand on the closets ladder to even see on top of the highest shelf and was stretching with all of her might, but would still probably never be able to reach far enough to get whatever was back there.
Luckily David was never far from his little sister, always there to lend her a helping hand, with whatever she needed. He, of course, now well over 6'5", almost as tall as his Dad, didn't even need the ladder to grab whatever his sister had found. She seems to have inherited little of my or Jake's height, reaching only to 5'5" on her best days. Still she was an inch taller than my Mom, but well under my 5'9" frame. She was seven months old now, and appeared as an eighteen year old so she was probably done growing.
"What is it?"
"Probably more shoes," David huffed. We'd been finding long forgotten shoe boxes all over the closet, and there was a growing stack of them in the corner.
But this wasn't a shoe box. It was the Memory Box that Billy had given to Jake when he first moved with us. I hadn't seen it in years, not since its first arrival. I hadn't thought Jake would get rid of it, but had no idea, until now, what had happened to it. "Oh, that's your Father's. Just put it back where you found it, please."
"What's in it?"
"I don't know. He's never shown me."
"Why not? Is he hiding something in here?" Felicity wondered, turning the box around in her hands, but not opening it.
"Eww," David grinned from ear to ear. "Do you think Dad has a hidden porn stash in there? Open it up. Let's see if he has any dirty magazines."
"Don't be ridiculous, David," Felicity grunted. "You know Dad Imprinted on Mom, he would never do that."
"No he wouldn't, now put it back. And where did you learn about porn anyway?" I questioned my son.
"Uncle Paul," he said, shrugging his shoulders, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"But he Imprinted on Aunt Rachel. Why would he have that and why would he show you?" Felicity gasped. She was right, he would have as little reason for it as Jake would.
"I didn't say he showed me anything, I just needed his advice about something and the subject came up," David jeered back.
"You're so disgusting. I can't wait for you to Imprint on someone. Maybe then you won't be so much of a pervert when you do," my daughter teased him, as she smacked her brother on the back of his head, just like Aunt Rose did with her husband, whenever Uncle Emmett said something stupid or crude. Then the inevitable cat and mouse game commenced as David ran after Felicity throughout the house, to try and capture his sister, which always seemed to end in a tickle or food fight; the two of them rolling on the floor in hysterics, until they had to stop to breath.
I shook my head and started laughing as I thought about how those two sometimes acted more like their actual one year old selves instead of the adults they now appeared to be.
Well, the shelves were done, and my helpers had abandoned me. I could see it was time to quit my closet organization for the day. And with that I set out to find Jake. Following his scent, I found him at my Aunts and Uncles old house. Hmmm. He smelled even yummier than he normally did. I wonder if he was using a new kind of soap?
A.N. So I know this chapter might just seem like a silly nonsense filler chapter, but the events that happened in it are going to have dramatic consequences in future chapters.
What do you think? Please review.
