12
"What the fuck are you doing here?" asked Bella, stepping closer to me.
"We came to check up on you," said the man as a blond woman came out of the dressing rooms.
"It is absolutely filthy in there," she griped. She stopped as she looked up at Bella and smiled. "Bella, there you are."
"Renee?" said Bella, stepping away from her as she stepped toward Bella. "When did you and Charlie get back into the country?"
"Yesterday," smiled Renee, looking from Bella to me and Esme. "Aren't you going to introduce us to your friends?"
"I guess," muttered Bella. "Esme and Edward Masen, this is my sister, Renee, and her husband, Charlie."
"It's nice to meet you both," I said, politely. I looked over at Bella. "You have a sister?"
"Yes," She muttered, shrugging her shoulders.
"It's nice to meet you too, Edward," smiled Renee, giving me the once over before she turned back to Bella. "So, we've heard that you've been in some trouble."
"Oh really," gritted Bella, looking over at her brothers, all of whom were looking at the floor.
"Yes, something about skipping school," said Charlie, cocking an eyebrow at her. Bella rolled her eyes.
"They exaggerate," muttered Bella. "I had a small problem with a fellow classmate but I don't think she will be bothering me again."
"What'd you do to her?" asked Emmett, grinning widely at Bella.
"Um," said Bella, looking back at Esme. "I'll tell you later."
"Well, as fun as this little…reunion is, Bella and Edward, go change. We have work to do," said Carlisle. Charlie and Renee looked from me to Carlisle and back.
"You're training him?" asked Renee, incredulously.
"Yes," said Carlisle, glaring at his sister. "He's good."
"Hmm," snorted Renee. "I guess that remains to be seen."
"Come on, Edward," muttered Bella, pulling on my arm.
I followed Bella over to the dressing rooms and quickly changed. I went back out to the gym and followed Carlisle and Bella over to the weights. He wanted us to work on our strength training so we spent the next hour doing repetitions. Esme and Renee spent the entire time talking, which seemed to really irritate not only Bella, but Carlisle too. Emmett, Jasper, and Charlie just sat there the entire time not saying anything more than a few comments about the weather.
Carlisle finally told us to go change out so Bella and I headed to our separate dressing rooms. I quickly changed back into my regular clothes and shoved my workout clothes in my bag before I headed back out to the gym. Bella was standing outside the door to the dressing room, tapping her foot nervously on the ground.
"You ok?" I asked. She sighed and looked up at me.
"Yeah, I'm fine," she muttered. "Let's go to the party down at First Beach."
"Aren't you grounded?" I asked.
"Yeah," she snorted. "It's not a problem."
"Ok, sounds good," I said, shrugging my shoulders.
"Cool, we can take my car," said Bella.
"It's kind of cold for the bike, isn't it?" I asked.
"Yes, that's why I said car not bike," laughed Bella. I cocked my eyebrow at her. "What? We live in the coldest, rainiest place ever. I have to have more than my bike."
"So what kind of car do you have?" I asked.
"You'll see," she smiled. I followed her over to where Esme was waiting for me.
"I'm hanging out with Bella tonight," I told Esme.
"No, you're not," she said.
"Yes, I am," I replied.
"No, you are not," smirked Esme. "You are grounded because of the fight you got into."
"I don't think so," I snapped. "I was defending myself and Bella-"
"From what?" asked Renee.
"-and we both know that Dad wouldn't ground me for that," I smirked, ignoring Renee's interruption.
"Fine," gritted out Esme. "But you have to be home by midnight."
"One," I offered.
"Midnight or I call Mom," smirked Esme, looking from me to Bella.
"Fine," I sighed. "But you might want to check your email, Es. I'm sure Mom sent you a nice long one wanting to know all about your…life here."
"You fucking little shit," muttered Esme, realizing that I ratted her and Carlisle out to our mother.
"Where are you going?" asked Renee, looking at Bella.
"Just going down to First Beach to hang out," shrugged Bella.
"Who all is going to be there?" asked Renee.
"I don't know," mumbled Bella. "Just some…people."
"You can't just go hang out with people that we don't know," said Charlie, wrapping his arm around Renee.
"How could you know anyone here when I haven't seen either of you in a almost two years?" yelled Bella.
She grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the gym. I heard Carlisle, Emmett, and Jasper all laughing as Renee yelled for Bella to come back. Obviously, there was some tension there. I followed Bella back behind the gym to a large warehouse, or what I thought was a warehouse, anyway. Bella hit a few buttons on a key code and two large doors slid open. She looked back and smiled as she led me into the building.
My mouth literally fell open. Sitting in front of me were some of the nicest, most bad-assed cars I had ever seen. Besides Carlisle's Mercedes, there was a red tricked out jeep, Bella's bike, a black Camaro, a red Corvette, and a silver Mustang. They were the most beautiful cars I had ever seen.
"You can shut your mouth," laughed Bella. I looked over at her.
"These…" I trailed off.
"I know," she smiled. She went over and placed her hand on the Mustang. "This one is mine. The Mercedes is Carlisle's. The Jeep is Emmett's, he believes the bigger the better. The Camaro is Jasper's pride and joy, and the Corvette is Renee's."
"Fuck me," I mumbled.
"Ok, Pretty Boy, let's go before they wise up and stop us," laughed Bella.
I laughed as I ran around to the passenger side of Bella's mustang and climbed in. She smiled as she started the car and pulled it out of the oversized garage. She turned the radio up as we drove out of Forks toward La Push.
Ten minutes later, she pulled her car up in the parking lot of First Beach. There were maybe a dozen other cars in the parking lot. Bella and I climbed out of the car and headed down to the beach, where there was a huge bonfire. There were probably thirty people hanging around on the beach.
"Bella!" squealed a beautiful red headed woman as she came running over to Bella. She threw her arms around her.
"Hey, Nessie," laughed Bella. Nessie pulled away from Bella and looked over at me.
"This must be Edward," smiled Nessie. "I'm Vanessa Black, Jacob's wife, but if you value your manhood, you will call me Nessie."
"It's nice to meet you, Nessie," I smiled, back.
"Bella, let's go get you a drink," smirked Nessie, pulling Bella away.
"I see you've met my better half," laughed Jacob, stepping up next to me.
"Yep," I chuckled. "She's certainly a firecracker."
"Oh, trust me, I know," sighed Jacob. "Let's get you a drink. We've got just about every nonalcoholic beverage you can think of."
"I'll just take a water," I said. I followed Jacob over to one of the coolers. He tossed me a bottle of water. "So how do you know Bella?"
"She showed up one day in the diner about nine months ago," said Jacob, shrugging his shoulders. "She just sat down in one of the booths with her iPod on, staring out the window. She ignored me when I tried to take her order. She came in nearly everyday for the next month. Same thing, just sat there with her iPod on. Then one day, she ordered a chocolate milkshake. That was all she said. Slowly over the next few months, she started talking to me and Nessie more and more. She's a cool kid."
"That she is," I murmured, looking over to where she and Nessie were standing. They were laughing and smiling.
"Don't hurt her," said Jacob. I looked over at him. "Look, you seem like a decent guy. The Bella you see over there with my wife is not the same Bella that I knew even a week ago. She's always been, almost nice, to me and Nessie, but I have never seen her smile or laugh like that. I think it's because of you. Just don't hurt her, ok? Something tells me that she's been through more than enough."
"I won't," I promised.
Twenty minutes later, Bella and Nessie came back over to me and Jacob. Nessie dragged Jacob away so Bella and I walked down the beach a little ways. She plopped down in the sand so I sat down next to her.
"Having fun?" I asked.
"Oh, a blast," she snorted. "These kids are pretty cool. The elders here at the rez allow the kids to have these parties as long as they keep the alcohol away. They figure it will keep the kids from drinking and driving. A few of us pale faces, as they like to call all of us from outside of the rez, come down and hang out sometimes."
"Why didn't you tell me you had an older sister?" I asked. Bella sighed and pulled her knees up to her chest.
"We don't really get along with Renee," said Bella, looking over at me. "She's two years older than Carlisle. After my parents died, she and Charlie moved to China, leaving them here to deal with my breakdown. Renee never liked that we all boxed, especially me. She thought that because I am a girl that I should be, I don't know, less rough around the edges, I guess. Anyway, she tried to talk the boys into letting her and Charlie take me to China with them but I didn't want to go. They all fought, it got pretty nasty. Renee and Charlie left without telling us goodbye a week later. We moved from Seattle to Forks about nine months later."
"You seem really close to your brothers though," I smiled.
"Growing up, Carlisle, Emmett, and Jasper were my hero's. I used to spend hours in the gym watching them train. When they would step into the ring, it was like watching Muhammad Ali defeating Joe Frazier. They move with such grace and pose. My father used to tell us that boxing was an art form and a truly great boxer was an artist painting their masterpiece. He thought us to respect our competitors as much as we respected ourselves," smiled Bella, looking out at the water. "I wanted to be just like them."
"I get that," I said, softly. Bella laid her head on her knees as she looked over at me. "When I was little, Esme was my hero. She still is, as uncool as that sounds. She's ten years older than I am but she never treated me like I was. She didn't care that I followed her around. She would let me play in her room while she did homework or listened to music. My mother used to tell me to leave Esme alone but Esme would just laugh it off and tell her that it was fine. Maybe it's because we never really had friends so we relied on each other. When it was time for me to decide to move with my parents to Italy or move in with Esme, I chose her because I knew that no matter what, she was here for me."
"Was it hard moving around so much?" asked Bella.
"Yeah," I said. "You learn pretty quickly not to get too attached to people because you will have to leave them."
"Yet, here you are insisting on a friendship with me," she smiled.
"Touché," I smirked.
"Bella!" squealed Angela and Kate as they came over and pulled her to her feet.
"Let's go dance," begged Kate.
"Um, no," smiled Bella.
"Please?" whined Angela.
"Fine," sighed Bella, rolling her eyes.
I laughed as I stood up and followed them back over to the bonfire. Angela, Kate, and Bella started grinding together along with the music that was playing. I couldn't help but notice the way that Bella's body moved. It was just like when she boxed. She truly was an artist. She caught my eye as she swayed her hips from side to side. Her face turned a soft, pink as she smiled her breathtaking smile. I smiled as I felt someone put their hand on my shoulder.
"There is nothing hotter than seeing three gorgeous women dancing together in front of a giant fire," chuckled Ben.
"Except if they were naked," pointed out Garrett, causing me and Ben to laugh. "I'm just saying that if they were naked, it would be much, much hotter."
"I seriously wonder what Kate sees in you, Garrett," I laughed, shaking my head.
"Me too, Edward, me too," sighed Garrett.
The three of us stood there for a moment and watched the girls dancing together. After a few minutes of openly ogling them, we made our way over to them. Ben and Garrett immediately pulled Angela and Kate into their arms. Bella blushed as she looked up at me, biting her bottom lip.
"Want to dance?" I asked, holding out my hand.
"Sure," she smiled.
She placed her hand in mine and I gently pulled her to me. The song had changed from an upbeat number to a slow song. Bella slowly slid her hands up my arms to my shoulders as I wrapped my arms around her waist. She looked up at me as we started shifting out feet side to side. She shivered slightly.
"Are you cold?" I asked, pulling her a little tighter into my arms.
"No," she whispered. My eyes traveled from hers down to her lips and back up. "Edward…"
"Bella…" I murmured, leaning down slowly. My lips were so close to hers that I could feel her cool breath. I licked my lips as I leaned down and-
"OK, BREAK IT UP, KIDS," yelled a police man, turning on his siren. Bella pulled back from me and took a deep breath.
"Guess it's time to go," she sighed.
"Yeah," I mumbled.
Bella slid her hand into mine as we made our way back over to her car. Neither of us said anything as we climbed into the car. Bella turned the radio up as we headed back to Forks. Ten minutes later, she pulled her car up in front of my apartment building.
"You coming to the gym tomorrow to work out?" she asked, turning in her seat to look at me.
"Probably," I said. "I'll probably get up in the morning and run first, though."
"Yeah, me too," she murmured. "Maybe, I'll see you on the road or something."
"Maybe," I smiled. I took off my seatbelt and opened my car door. "Goodnight, Bella."
"Goodnight, Edward," she said with her own smile.
I climbed out of the car and made my way up to my apartment. I looked back and waved at Bella before I headed inside. I headed straight to my room where I changed into a pair of pajama pants and laid down on my bed. What a strange evening it had turned out to be. I put my iPod on and thought about my dance with Bella as I drifted off to sleep.
