A/N: Thanks so much for all your wonderful thoughts.
Wow. I don't even know what to say about all that's going on in the world. Just…keep safe, my loves, and I hope this little story is serving to distract you guys for just a bit, just as writing it serves to distract me. 3
I wanted to get further into this chapter, but I ran out of time and had to get back to RL. So…I'll try to keep the daily updates going 'til we're done. (Can't make any promises though!) ;)
Most characters belong to S. Meyer. The rest belong to me. All mistakes are mine as well.
Seven Nights – Chapter 15
One Month Before the Cruise:
"Holy shit, look at the size of that guy I just took down!" Quil chuckled. "Did you see that, Bella? Did you? I just riddled him with bullets!"
"What?"
Quil sucked his teeth. "Will you set that down and pay attention to me? I just took out the biggest guy in the game and doubled my score, and you totally missed it!"
"Quil, give me a sec. I'm doublechecking this month's spreadsheets. There were a couple of discrepancies, and now they're throwing everything off."
Over my cellphone screen, I could hear Quil's fingers moving rapidly and digging hard into the gaming system's controller, while music blasted loudly in the background. I lowered the cell phone's volume because I was in my parents' office, while Dad took some clients hiking, and Mom napped on the couch a few feet away. The window behind me ushered in the muted Forks sunshine, enough light so that I could work without being too bright to disturb Mom's slumber.
A couple of minutes later, I noticed that the latest song Quil played in the background had a rhythmic beat which while powerful, wasn't necessarily overpowering or distracting. Though I was no expert on music and admittedly hadn't listened to much beyond the radio's Top 30 for the past couple of years, the piece had a balanced cadence, a pleasing symphonic melding of instruments that struck just the right chord – literally. It made me smile, and for those few minutes, while the melody played, I worked in peace, glancing at Mom periodically to make sure she was okay. And I completely forgot that Quil was still on my phone screen.
"Take that, motherfucker!"
The abruptly shouted curse startled me and made my breath hitch. When I glanced over at Mom, she shifted, turning over on the couch.
"Fuck," I spat quietly, sucking my teeth. "Quil, can you not yell so loud? My mom is sleeping." I lowered the cell phone's volume yet again even though it had the unfortunate side effect of making the song in the background lower.
"Oh my God, Bella, tell me you saw that!"
"What now?" I sighed.
Quil exhaled heavily. "Bella, what are you doing that you're not watching me play?"
"I'm doublechecking my parents' spreadsheets," I hissed. "And it's not wasting time, and if you'd listen while I spoke, you would've heard me say that the spreadsheets are off."
Something crashed over the phone screen; it sounded like a controller being flung against a wall. The sweet-sounding tune ended.
"No point in the musical accompaniment now," Quil muttered. "I just got killed, Bella!"
I clenched my jaw, trying to simultaneously control my patience and focus on the numbers on the laptop.
"Maybe we should hang up, Quil. This is important, and I've got to focus."
"That game was important too! And I don't want to hang up. I'm bored. Jake and I were supposed to hang out, and instead, he's off somewhere with Leah."
I hovered the mouse over the next number so I wouldn't lose my place.
"If you're bored, why don't you work on your resume?" I said distractedly. "You said you were going to fix it up so you could start looking for something else besides assisting at Newton's Sporting Goods. Remember?"
"Yeah, yeah." I heard him groan and then yawn as if he were stretching.
"Quil, we've been out of college for almost a year now."
"Why don't you look at it for me, Bell? You were the Lit major."
"Quil," I sighed, moving on to the next number, "I don't have time right now."
"Well, not right now. How about if I take it on the cruise-"
Here, I looked away from the screen and glared at the phone. Quil wasn't a bad-looking guy; he had smooth dark skin and jet black hair and eyes so dark that the white surrounding them stood out dramatically. He was pretty much of average height and average build as well. Nothing physically about him other than the whites of his eyes was necessarily striking…but nothing was necessarily bad either. Back in college, he'd been of average academic intelligence as well; not necessarily a failure but not someone you'd want on your group project as well.
But he'd always had a knack for making everyone in school laugh – the clown of the group. He'd been…fun, I suppose, if mindless fun was one's idea of fun. He was still considered 'fun' by some of our friends…but not so much by others since we'd left school.
Or so much by me lately.
And he was still average everywhere else.
"Are you kidding me? Is this one of your jokes? Because not only have I begrudgingly promised my parents to do nothing but relax on that cruise and not think about work or…" I shook my head, seeing no point in continuing in that vein with him, "but I'm also leaving them shorthanded while I'm away. What's more, I paid a lot of money to go on that cruise. And you expect me to work on your resume?"
"All right, all right, chill with the sermon!" Quil laughed. "I was…joking. 'Course I was."
"And thank you, by the way," I continued sardonically, "for offering to help me since you were the Accounting major."
"Bella, I work as an assistant at Newton's because I don't plan to ever look at that many numbers again," he chuckled.
"Sounds like an amazing life plan," I muttered.
He kept right on chuckling. "Something else 'll come my way soon enough. I'm not worried."
"I can tell you're not. Opportunity is just going to come knocking on your door, huh?"
"Yep," he grinned.
"Yep," I nodded sarcastically and returned my attention to the laptop screen. "Damn it; now, I lost my place."
Again, Quil chuckled. He began humming the Jeopardy tune. "Come on, Bella, quick! Find your place! Quick, quick!" Then, he started shouting out random numbers, confusing me further.
"That's it, Quil. I'm hanging up."
He roared with laughter. "I was just playing with you, baby. Come on. Don't be that way. Where's your sense of humor lately?"
"Bye, Quil." I ended the call.
A half-hour later, I'd found the problem and fixed it. With a satisfied sigh, I shut the laptop. When I glanced at my mom, she'd woken, and her eyes were on me.
I grinned proudly. "I fixed it."
My mom smiled. "Aw, baby, thank you. I was trying to figure it out, but staring at all those numbers on the laptop screen was making me dizzy, and your dad had those clients waiting."
"Mom…maybe I shouldn't go on that cruise next month."
The smile withered off my mom's pretty face. "Bella, don't start."
"But what if something…"
She sat up slowly and carefully, patting the space next to her.
"Come here, Bella."
When I sat beside her, she opened the blanket she'd had around her and wrapped us both in it. Then, laying against the backrest, she pulled me with her so that my head rested on her shoulder, and her warm arms encircled my shoulders. For a few, wonderful minutes, we just sat there, in comfortable silence and relaxation while she stroked my hair, and I released successive sighs of contentment.
"Don't forget you made me a promise, Bella," she reminded me gently.
My eyes opened. "Mom, how am I supposed to relax?"
I felt her pull her head back, and I lifted my head off her shoulder so that I could look up. Other than for the circles rimming her eyes and the loss of her gorgeous hair, the chemo hadn't diminished her beauty. With the wide, red headband she wore, she looked almost like a starlet from Hollywood's golden era.
"You're supposed to relax because you're young and smart and beautiful and you deserve a break after four successful years of college and after all the help you've given your dad and me around here, and because," she took a deep breath and grinned, "because even though you're an extension of me, and I'm a part of you, we are not, in fact, the same person. Therefore, the limits of my health," she murmured quietly, tapping my nose with her forefinger, "shouldn't limit you."
"But Mom-"
"And I know that is easier said than done; trust me, I know. That's why I've asked you not to call home while you're away. If anything should come up that you need to know about, your dad and I will definitely contact you."
She shrugged, speaking in the easiest, conversational tone as if we were discussing something as benign as the possibility of another snafu in the spreadsheets. I swallowed hard, while my mom's vibrant blue eyes held mine. The chemo hadn't affected them either.
"So go," she smiled. "Be twenty-three. Party your ass off the way I did when I was twenty-three."
I smirked. "You were already married, and I was four when you were twenty-three."
"So what?" she chuckled. "I still partied, honey. Your dad and I would put you to bed, and we'd dance and drink the night away, sometimes with friends, and sometimes just the two of us. Or if we were hiking in the mountains, we'd tuck you safely and soundly into the tent, and then sit out by the fire and watch the stars, drinking wine for the rest of the evening."
"That sounds beautiful," I breathed.
"Either way, we'd always end the night in the best possible way."
When she wiggled her brows suggestively, I pretended to dry heave and looked away.
"Ugh, you had me envisioning all that right up to the very end."
Mom chuckled heartily. "Seriously, Bella. Don't spend your vacation envisioning your dad and me in any way, shape, or form; make your own memories. Island hop, explore, watch the sunrise and the sunset in the Caribbean."
All the while, I kept my gaze on the window and on the majestic view of the mountains beyond.
"Play all sorts of games," Mom continued. "Try new foods and exotic cocktails and get drunk off them. Have lots of sex-"
"Mom," I groaned, making her chuckle again.
"-but be careful," she added. "Don't be embarrassed to ask about a prospective partner's health history."
"Mom!" I choked, returning my eyes to her and feeling my face turn as scarlet as her headband regardless of how easily she'd always spoken to me about sex, "I'm not embarrassed to ask. Besides, I'm going with Quil, remember? I already know his health history."
"Mm," she hummed neutrally. "That's right. Quil. That was…an interesting exchange you two had a little while ago."
"Young lady," I set a hand on my hip and feigned indignation, "were you listening in on my conversation?"
"Sorry, Mom," she said, playing along, "but the boy was yelling pretty loudly about all the soldiers he was killing on screen."
"I know. I'm sorry, Mom." I offered her a rueful smile. "I asked him to keep it down."
"Don't apologize for him, honey. He's his own man…I think," she frowned, grinning at the same time.
I swallowed and again looked away. "He can be…a bit of a clown sometimes; I know."
"There's a thin line between being a clown and being a buffoon." She whispered the last word teasingly to take some of the sting off the criticism. "We all cross that line once in a while, but when we're constantly crossing it…how is the sex, Bella?"
"Oh my God, Mom," I shrieked, chuckling. "What's all this interest in my sex life today?"
"What?" she snorted. "It's a question."
"It's a pretty invasive question."
"No, it's not. Not between you and me." She grinned impishly.
"Don't you dare," I hissed. "It's bad enough I've got to hear all sorts of sexual innuendos flying back and forth between you and Dad all the time. I know you have a healthy sex life; I don't need to know any more than that."
She laughed and laughed throughout my entire speech.
"So, how is it?" she persisted.
"Oh my God." I rolled my eyes, shrugging as I replied. "It's sex, Mom. Sex is sex, right?"
She jerked her head back and made a face. "Well, sex is sex, of course, but if you've had the right kind of sex, the best kind of sex, you're generally not so blasé about it. You want to shout about it off the rooftops," – she shouted dramatically – "have it everywhere and all the time," she laid back against the couch – "throw around sexual innuendos," – she flung her hands wildly and sat up again – "and hope that everyone around you, when they're mature enough and ready, of course," she added, quirking a brow, "has the same kind of sex."
I held my stomach from the force of my laughter. "You're horrible, Mom. And you missed your calling as an actress. Seriously though, I'm shocked I'm not mentally scarred here."
Renee Swan laughed, hugging me tightly once more. "You're a resilient young woman. Besides, my point is-"
"There was a point?"
"There was a point, believe it or not," she confirmed with a sharp nod. "Generally speaking, it's usually more than just the sex that makes you respond that dramatically to someone. It's your dad who makes me scream dramatically more than the sex."
"Mom."
"More specifically, it's the memory of that first inkling of shared passion, when we just knew we were about to click, which keeps your dad and me so close and so in love. It's the fact that we refuse to allow that initial passion to dwindle. The great sex is simply a bonus byproduct of all that; a confirmation, if you will, of the rightness of us. It's like what your dad always says, 'When you know, you know."'
"Well, we can't all be that lucky to simply…know. Or to even find what you and Dad have, for that matter."
"Oh, I think we can," she said confidently. "I don't think your dad and I were so much lucky as we were…both willing to be open to the possibilities. I think, if we keep our eyes open and don't limit ourselves to average conversation and average sex due to current circumstances, we can all find something as passionate as what your dad and I have." She held my gaze meaningfully. "You're a passionate individual, Bella; there's no way you could escape it being the product of two individuals like your dad and me," she grinned. "Don't be afraid of the type of passion that makes you lose your mind. And that's all I'll say," she said, patting my leg, "before I start sounding like an old lady giving old lady advice."
"You could never sound old, Mom," I murmured. "You're my best friend, you know that? I wish I could bring you with me on all my adventures."
She cupped my cheek. "Go have your own adventure for you, Bella. And then afterward, you can tell me all about it."
OOOOO
Day 6: Early Morning Hours – Off the Coast of San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA
I remove my heels and run.
"Bella, wait, wait!" Edward calls out from behind me.
"Edward," I breathe, shaking my head as I sprint down the deck and head toward the elevator bank. "I can't wait. They kept us in that damn office for three damn hours," I grit through my teeth, "and I need my phone."
"I know, but hold on. Hold on." He catches up and firmly yet carefully takes my hand, but like I said, we were in that office for three hours, and I ran out of patience before we even got there.
When I round on him, I find his hair disheveled, clothing wrinkled, and eyes dark and wary. And I know I look no better.
"Stop it! Let go!"
"You're going the wrong way, my love. If we take those elevators, we'll have to get off on the Atrium deck," he explains carefully, weaving his fingers through mine, "and walk all the way to the bow of the ship to catch the elevator bank up to our suite. But if we cut through mid-ship-"
"Then let's cut through mid-ship," I say impatiently, already sprinting back the other way.
The fucking cruise ship has never felt so overwhelmingly cavernous. We snake our way up and down decks, up random staircases, bypassing late partiers and early risers on our way until we reach the correct elevator bank. I pound on the call button then furiously slam on it again five seconds later.
"It's five in the damn morning. Where the hell are all the elevators?"
When one finally dings, announcing its arrival, Edward pulls me swiftly toward it. It's five in the morning, therefore the elevator is thankfully empty, but it feels like it's crawling up each deck with the speed of a turtle.
Edward pulls me against his chest, his arms winding around my waist while my hands instinctively rest on his chest. He's warm and hard yet yielding, and his thumbs stroke my hips…but panic stiffens me, making it impossible for me to melt into him and acknowledge the comfort and reassurance I know he's attempting to provide. My eyes remain trained on the changing elevator numbers over his shoulder.
"Bella, I'm so sorry." Remorse is thick in his voice. "I'm sorry I forgot the phone in the room…and I'm sorry I kept at it with Quil. I should've just shut-"
"It wasn't your job to remember my phone, Edward. That was always my responsibility, not yours."
I feel him tense. His thumbs cease their stroking. He exhales as though I've dug my palms deep against his chest and forced the wind out of him. Yet other than for that, he makes no reply.
"But yes, Quil is a goddamn prick, an immature child. Coming on this cruise with him was my fucking mistake, and he was already getting kicked off the ship." My eyes flash up to his, and they're as mournfully contrite as was his voice. "You should've dropped it."
I can't suppress the accusatory tone in my voice, though a part of me knows I'm being completely unfair – at least in regards to this. But it's now three hours later, and at least five hours since I last checked my phone.
As our gazes remain locked, there's more I could say and ask, but I have only one priority now; everything else between Edward and me has to wait for afterward, for after I retrieve my phone and confirm that my heart is racing and my temples throbbing for no reason.
When the elevator finally pings on our floor, I disentangle myself from Edward's arms, and as soon as the doors open, I fly out without waiting for him. Over the past six days and five nights, I've learned my way around here, at least. Nonetheless, he's right on my heels, and I can practically feel him holding back from reaching for me.
As soon as we round the corner to the correct hallway, I break into a run, my heart beating against my ribcage. Swiping the key card, I push the door open.
"It should be on the dresser," Edward says quickly behind me, and then adds with even more urgency, "Bella, love, whatever happens, please remember I'm here with you."
"It's nothing. Nothing's going to happen," I snap, shaking my head wildly as I spot the phone. "I'm just being…"
Even as I reach for it, I chide myself for being stupidly irrational. There have been no calls since I left home days ago, for days on end; days spent in ports like St. Thomas and it's beautiful beaches; sea days with perpetually lapping waters; on the gorgeous yacht – which was likely Edward's yacht – in St. Maarten; while playing Trivia games and pool games and ping-pong games. Not one single call during all those long, distracting hours Edward and I spent making love on his bed, in his jacuzzi, on my bed, in the shower, on the floor, up against the wall…
Why would there be a call now? In what cruel and twisted world would an urgent call come through precisely on the night when I was stupid and distracted enough to forget my phone, and Edward ended up holding it, then ended up forgetting it in the room? Precisely on the night when Edward wouldn't just let it fucking go and got into a pissing fight with Quil, not only almost getting us all kicked off the ship but keeping us in Security Bay for three fucking hours explaining ourselves – all while I had no phone?
Therefore, as I flip the phone over, a relieved smile pulls at my lips. Because I'm being ridiculous; I know I am. I was overwhelmed by the scene a few hours earlier, by the discovery that Edward has been keeping things from me, and the anxiety of it all manifested itself in illogical panic. Everything is just fine back home, and once I confirm it, Edward and I can have a long discussion.
Except that when the screen wakes up, it reads, 'Four missed calls,' and they're all my dad's cell phone number.
A/N: Thoughts?
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