Disclaimer: Twilight belongs to Stephanie Meyer. I'm just playing with her characters. Also, I did not come up with Jasper as the God of War or of Peter 'just knowing shit'. Those ideas belongs to IdreamofEddy. I would like to thank the spectacular covenmama for providing me with the info that IdreamofEddy was responsible for those so I could give her credit.
A/N: Thank you to my awesome beta Laurie Whitlock, my pre-readers AlwaysJASPERsLOVE and Shadman, and my beloved sister Shelljayz who also happens to pre-read for me. Thank you also to shirleypositive72. Read her story The Lists! It's awesome! Thank you to Ellie Wolf for the beautiful banner she made for Longing.
Once again, everyone who has read, followed, favorited, and reviewed this story - WOW! I don't know what else to say besides thank you and you are awesome. I hope that Longing continues to deserve the response you are giving it. You all amaze me! :D
In chapter 8, Jasper plays the guitar and in most all of the stories I've read, guitarists name their guitars. I had every intention of naming his but I couldn't think of anything, so I left it blank. However, I went back and added the name "Charlotte Rose" as Jasper's guitar's name. While you may think I named his guitar after his sisters, and that would be a reasonable guess, I actually named the guitar after my adorable, beautiful, brilliant niece Charlotte Rose. :)
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I am so happy that my sister is here to celebrate it with me and that I'll get to see BD 2 with her as well! Now if only final papers weren't such a bitch all would be right in my world. :)
Enjoy!
oOo
September 2080
JPOV
My eyes closed of their own accord, just as hers had, and my lips began their slow descent toward hers. I was so fuckin' ready to taste her …
Then two idiots, two "can't tell my ass from my face" drunken idiots, stumbled down the alley and stopped not far from us. One of the idiots either couldn't hold his liquor or didn't understand the concept of "enough is enough" since not five seconds after they arrived, he promptly vomited. The dude didn't vomit on us but we were in the splatter radius and both our shoes suffered because of it. I was in a pair of old boots so I didn't care and the girl's shoes were covered in sticky alcohol, juice and food from her shift at the bar so I didn't think she did either, but the presence of the two asshats and especially the sound and smell of the retching were like a bucket of ice water being dumped over us. I couldn't decide if I wanted to kill them or send them season tickets to the sports team of their choice.
The girl and I jumped apart like we'd been burned. Maybe pulling away from her hadn't been the right thing to do but I'd done it anyway and she seemed just as eager to put some distance between us as I was. I couldn't quite bring myself to leave, though that's what I should have done; instead, I took up the place I'd initially inhabited against the alcove wall across from her. She didn't leave either but that didn't surprise me. She didn't shy away from challenges and what we'd been doing before Tweedle Drunk and Tweedle Drunker had interrupted us had been exactly that, so she wouldn't have.
We were both silent as one drunk asshole tried to take care of the other equally drunk, still vomiting asshole, pretending like we hadn't just molested each other.
It took several minutes for our crashers to get their acts together enough to leave and I was actually grateful for this. It gave me time to get myself under control, while still debating whether or not to hunt them down later. I managed to contain the urge to attack her again, but my cock refused to get the message that he wasn't gonna get any. It took a fair amount of adjustment to conceal the situation, which wasn't something I could really hide completely, but it's not like I could wave a magic wand and make my dick a more manageable size whenever it was convenient. Besides, what guy would actually want that?
When they finally did leave, the girl made no move to pick up where we'd left off.
That's a good thing, Jasper. It's good, my inner voice said. My inner voice was a douche.
We started watching each other again and, yet again, I couldn't read her … not her face or her emotions and it made me want to scream. Everything about this girl made me want to scream.
"So," she said, breaking the silence several minutes later, "stalked many girls in your time, Texas?"
How was I supposed to answer that question? I still felt a compulsive need to be honest with her but I couldn't tell her the truth, and I still hated her; so I avoided it.
"You've called me that twice now. Why?" I asked curiously. There were sixteen states that made up the South, and she'd chosen the right one after exchanging only a handful of words with me.
"Smooth deflection," she noted. Then she shrugged noncommittally, "I know accents."
I furrowed my brows but decided not to think too much on it. There were other, more pressing, things I wanted to know. "What are you doin' here?"
The girl rolled her eyes. "I live here. What are you doing here?"
I threw one of her noncommittal shrugs back at her, "Road trip."
"By yourself?" she queried. I just nodded in response.
"Doc and Mrs. Stepford let you take a road trip across the country by yourself?" she said the words slowly, as if they were foreign on her tongue. Then she lifted her eyebrows in assent. "I can see it. They are pretty liberal aren't they, what with them letting PMS Barbie and 'Roid Rage, and Tinkerbell and Choke play house together?"
I burst out laughing. Peter had some funny nicknames for the family but the human's were even more hilarious and I hadn't laughed in so long. It felt good.
"Liberal is one word for it," I agreed. I couldn't very well explain that Emmett and Rosalie, and Edward and Alice were not only decades old vampires, but mated, married couples who had every right to show their love and affection for each other openly even if they looked like teenagers. She was a human and I could never make her understand that. "You pick this place because the weather is so startlingly opposite of Forks'?" I asked. I had to find something to talk about if I wasn't gonna stick my tongue down her throat and the weather was as good a subject as any.
"Nope," she said, smiling slyly at me.
I found myself smiling back, "Then why?"
The girl huffed a little, "You know nothing about girls do you?"
"I know plenty sugar," I smirked, my implication obvious.
Before I'd made mention of it, for those few minutes it was like nothing had happened between us at all. We were just two acquaintances in an alley chatting, and she didn't let my remark change that even though the slight acceleration of her heartbeat told me what I'd left unsaid hadn't gone over her head. I wasn't sure how I felt about it.
"I came here because of the horses, dumbass," she explained matter-of-factly, rollin her eyes.
"Right," I said, my tone sarcastic. I'd almost forgotten how much some human girls liked horses. I'd liked horses as a human, loved them in fact, and that hadn't changed now that I was a vampire but being a vampire had closed any equine doors for me more than two centuries ago.
"Right," she mimicked me perfectly. It was a little eerie. She knelt down and picked up the cigarette she'd dropped at some point during our interlude, giving me a damn nice view of her cleavage.
Why are you torturin' me? I groaned internally. I hate you.
She twirled the cigarette between her fingers dexterously but made no move to light it, which she couldn't do with a lighter she didn't have, or bring it to her lips.
"If you aren't goin' to smoke that why do you have it?" I asked, wanting to satisfy my curiosity.
"It fits the bartender image, I guess," the girl said with a shrug.
"How'd you swing that anyway?" I drawled, folding my arms behind my head and looking at her attentively because I truly wanted to know.
"Swing what?" the girl asked warily, clearly hoping that by playing dumb I might drop the subject. The problem with that was I knew she was anything but dumb.
"Gettin' a job at a bar," I retorted, my voice conveying I absolutely was not going to let the topic go until she'd given me an answer.
Yet another eye roll from the human. "I turned in an application, had an interview, filled out the paperwork but you wouldn't know that, would you? Have you ever had a job in your life?"
Her assumption should have pissed me off but it didn't because I saw the perfect opportunity to inflame her already present irritation. Grinning lazily at her, I said, "Whether or not I've had a job is irrelevant. We're talkin' 'bout how you managed to snag a job mixin' drinks at a bar when you're not even old enough to legally smoke, let alone consume alcohol. I mean, you're what, sixteen?"
The girl's eyes narrowed and she clenched her hands into fists at her sides. Half of me prayed that she didn't dig her fingernails into her skin hard enough to draw blood; the other half prayed that she did so I could lick her palms clean. Deciding the latter would only lead to bad, bad things, I held my hands up in surrender. I had to defuse the bomb before it blew.
"Now, now sugar," I placated, purposely thickening my accent, "I'm not tryin' to offend," and I wasn't. As much as I'd hated Emmett deciding to call her Storm for the short time she'd been a guest in the Cullen home, this girl really was pretty badass. I didn't know what her story was but I did know that she was a survivor. Sometimes you had to play by a different set of rules to survive, rules you may not have been too fond of, but you played by them anyway. That was something I respected because it was something I'd had to do for a very long time and I was still alive because of it. It impressed me and I told her so.
"I'll be seventeen in three weeks I'll have you know," she said indignantly, as if she hadn't heard what I'd just said. "Wait? What?" Apparently, my placation had just now sunk in. She eyed me doubtfully, "Why would you be impressed?"
I gave her a lopsided grin, "A guy can't go tellin' all his secrets now can he? It takes his mystery away; makes him less attractive or some shit like that."
The girl huffed and shook her head, "I don't think that's possible."
I chose not to respond to her comment even though it made me want to fly across the alley and pin her to the wall again. The look on her face and the tone of her voice made me think she hadn't meant to say it out loud. None of the women I'd been with, or anyone else really, found me anything but scary looking. They were attracted to me and wanted to be with me because my scars were an indication of how powerful I was. Power was an aphrodisiac of sorts for vampires even if my scars should have sent women runnin' as fast as they could in the opposite direction; but she couldn't see them. I wondered if she would still find me attractive if she could. The idea that it might change her opinion about that made my chest hurt.
If she'd planned on saying anything else, she didn't get the chance to because Harpy Bitch rounded the corner of our little alcove, glaring at my human as she planted her hands on her hips. I may as well not have existed, but I was more than fine with that.
My human? Where the hell did that come from?
"Paige, what the fuck?!" She screeched, reminding me very much of Rosalie in that moment. "You've been out here for like forty-five minutes, which means your break ended fifteen minutes ago, we're busy as hell, and people are fuckin' insane tonight! We've had to kick a shit ton of customers out for foolin' around or outright fuckin' in the bathrooms, dark corners, or on the damn dance floor," she griped in disgust.
I guess I really had projected pretty strongly.
"Quit takin' advantage of Christian and pawnin' your work off on me and Ashley. Last call is in an hour so get your ass back in that bar and pull your weight for once," Harpy Bitch concluded snidely, with a glare that could have stopped a raging inferno in its tracks.
Harpy Bitch was the one I wanted to pin to the wall this time, only face first and with enough force to bust that fake nose of hers. Her emotions were hateful and full of jealousy and envy. They made me uneasy but mostly I was offended. My human was a damn fine bartender and waitress, far superior to Harpy Bitch, opening four tabs for every one of the bleached blonde's. She got three times the work her fellow employee got done in the same amount of time both behind the bar and on the floor, smoothing out drunken conflicts like a pro, cleaning up spilled beer without complaint and she didn't take any lip from customers, or tolerate any other unnecessary body parts for that matter. She'd even helped the short order cook a couple times. Accusing her of not pulling her own weight was like calling a four hundred pound woman anorexic.
"You are such a harpy bitch, Sharon," the girl snapped, apparently at her wit's end with the woman.
Did she read my damn mind? I wondered at hearing our apparently shared nickname for her wench of a coworker.
"It's not my fucking fault Christian doesn't love you, so quit being such a monstrous pain in my ass!"
Harpy Bitch's hate, jealousy, and envy increased exponentially, rage joining 'em. They were intense and all-consuming and, without thinking, I enveloped her in a cloud of calm, watching in smug satisfaction as the rigidness in her posture eased and most, but not all, of the fire drained out of her. Just like the situation with Rosalie I couldn't be too obvious in the way I used my gift, even if humans were generally oblivious to my influence.
"Whatever," Harpy Bitch bit out, turning on her heel and marching out of the alcove. She moved into the alley and made her way toward the bar, the clacking of her heels fading the further she got from us.
My human frowned, "That was weird."
Yes, that was weird. The girl was more than capable of handing Harpy Bitch her ass in a verbal sparring match and from the way she'd man-handled me earlier, I had no doubt she could pull off an impressive chick fight if it came down to that. She hadn't needed my help so why the hell had I interfered?
"What was?" I asked innocently, hoping that hearing her speak would help clear my head enough to either figure out what I'd been thinking or come up with something to throw her off if this stubborn, stubborn girl was headed where I thought she was.
"Sharon," she said, still frowning. "She should have screamed at me for what I just said to her. She should still be screaming at me for it."
"Maybe you just put her in her place," I reasoned, hoping she would buy it. This girl was way too observant for her own good.
"Nah," the girl said and then backtracked. "Well yeah, I did but she never would have admitted to it. She's a denier. She would have gone ballistic on me for even suggesting that she likes Christian let alone loves him, but she didn't say anything. That's just not normal."
"Shouldn't it be a good thing that she didn't resort to hair pullin' and bitch slappin'?" I asked humorously, cocking a brow at her.
Just let it the fuck go, I silently pleaded. I was tempted to try to make her - a healthy dose of confusion and some hypnotism would do the trick; but, once again, I had no idea if my gift even worked on her and there was a good chance all I would succeed in doing would be to raise her suspicion more. I couldn't risk it.
She looked thoughtful, distracted, not seeing the humor in my comment. "Something isn't right," she said concernedly. "I've got to get back in there. She drinks on the job more than she should and flirts even more than that. Someone might have slipped her something."
"Why is that your problem?" I asked, my tone full of indifference and none of the relief I felt at the fact that I'd dodged a bullet.
The girl glared at me, "Someone has got to watch her back."
"I mean," I clarified, "why don't you tell Doucheb-" I paused, lamely clearing my throat but not bothering to look sorry for what I'd nicknamed her boss, "Christian about it and let him deal with her? He is her boss. Isn't shit like that his job?"
She shrugged, "It is, but I'm not going to."
"Why?"
"Why, why, why? What are you, five? I swear if you ask 'are we there yet?' next, I'll punch you," she retorted, but I didn't think she was nearly as exasperated with me as she appeared to be.
"You still haven't answered my question," I pointed out, and I really wanted to know her answer. It was another puzzle piece in the great mystery that was this human and the more time I spent with her, the more I felt compelled to solve it.
"Because," she sighed, "if I tell Christian, he'll do it."
"Which is the point, sugar," I said.
"You really don't know anything about women," she said, shaking her head.
"I already told you," I responded, annoyed, "I know plenty."
The girl gave me a dubious look, "There is a difference between knowing how to physically please a woman and knowing how to love one. You obviously don't have the first clue how to do the latter."
I advanced on her again, forcing her back against the wall. This time though, my intentions had nothing to do with sex and I left a good half foot of space between us, placing my arms on either side of her head so that she was fenced in. I was so fuckin' angry I knew my eyes had gone completely black, and in that moment I really could have killed her.
"You don't know anything about me," I muttered lowly, my tone grave and oozing with danger.
The girl swallowed hard, her heart rate sped up, adrenaline mixed with the blood rushin' through her veins, and her pupils dilated. She was afraid of me.
About fuckin' time!
"You shouldn't make assumptions about things you don't understand," I continued in the same menacing voice.
The girl's heart rate didn't slow, the adrenaline in her blood didn't dissipate, and her pupils didn't shrink - she was still afraid of me, but she didn't let her fear hold her back; she let her anger spring forward and override it. Her gaze turned steely, she placed her palms against my chest and shoved. I let myself be pushed back a few inches for the sake of appearances even though that pissed me off even more, but came right back at her. She was back against that wall in two seconds.
"I swear if the next sentence out of your mouth includes the words 'assume,' 'ass,' and 'me,' not even your doctor daddy will be able to restore your balls to their fully functioning glory," the girl seethed. I was guessing she was more upset that she hadn't managed to push me off her than anything else and her chest was rising and falling rapidly with her shallow breathing. It was very hard for me to keep my focus on her face.
"So you admit my balls are glorious, hmm?" I smirked, saying it just to rile her more.
She shoved me away again and kept shoving until my back hit the opposite wall.
"Nothing about you is glorious!" the girl hissed. "You want to know why I won't tell Christian about Sharon? This is why!" she shouted, changing the subject. "She is in love with him, and Christian, being a guy, is completely oblivious. He breaks her heart at least twice a week but even though he can't see what's right in front of his face, he's still a good person. If I tell him I think Sharon's been drugged, he'll insist on taking her home to keep an eye on her. That will give her hope that maybe his feelings for her have miraculously changed in the course of an hour and that maybe, just maybe, he might love her back. Then he'll say something completely innocent in his mind, but completely hurtful in hers and her heart will be broken again!"
"Why do you care?" I demanded, forgetting for a moment that I was angry with her for what she'd said to me. "She's horrible to you!"
"Because broken hearts suck," she said softly, "and she's an even more bitter, harpy bitch when she's coming off yet another bout of Christian heartbreak. Are you done asking stupid questions now?"
"You know nothin' about guys do you?" I said, not able to resist throwing her words back in her face and not quite managing to hide my smile as I did it. It wasn't the most flattering way to use her words against her but it was true enough. Guys, whether human or vampire, asked a lot of stupid questions. I was a guy but I could admit that much.
The girl snorted but couldn't quite manage to hide her smile either, "Apparently, I know just as much about guys as you know about girls, Texas."
And just like that, the tension between us was broken. My anger faded away and I wanted to pull her close to me, rest my forehead against hers.
What the hell is this girl doin' to me? I wondered, so confused I hardly knew what to do with myself. No one had ever been able to calm me down like this when I was so fuckin' angry; especially not when they were the reason I was so angry in the first place.
While I'd been wondering about the effect this girl had on me, I had unknowingly pulled her closer to me just as I had wanted to. I wasn't touching her now but my hands and arms were tingly from the contact with her skin. She was looking at me, searching my face for something. I stared right back, my gaze never wavering, and wondered what it was she was searching for.
"I have to go," she said, not looking away, and making no move to leave.
"Yeah," I replied, not looking away either.
She moved toward me an inch, then another, our eye contact never breaking.
"Food to serve, drinks to pour, living to earn," she breathed, her lips so very close to mine.
"Yeah," I said. Her scent was heady and I was drunk on her. In a fit of bloodlust-induced madness, I'd almost kissed her earlier; but that was earlier. Still, I made no move to push her away. The words to tell her to stop were stuck in my throat. The only moving my lips would be doing in the next several seconds would be when they were tangling with hers.
She leaned in closer and closer, and just when I thought our lips would finally touch, she shifted. Her mouth met my ear instead, and she whispered, "Get some sleep, Texas. You look like shit."
Maybe I should have gotten angry with her again but I found myself laughing instead.
"You are somethin' else, sugar," I chuckled.
The girl grinned at me, winked, and turned, heading out of our alcove and into the alley that led back to the bar. For some reason I couldn't fathom, I didn't like watching her walk away from me.
"Hey Paige!" I called out, to my surprise. I'd never called her anything but 'the girl' or 'the human' for a reason. Giving her a name, a real one, and referring to her by it would open the door to thinking of her as an actual person with feelings, hopes, and dreams. Acknowledging that shit led to caring. Even calling her 'sugar' was on the verge of crossing that line. I hadn't meant to call her by her name. I hadn't meant to call out to her at all.
From her expression as she poked her head around the corner, she hadn't been expecting me to extend our encounter any more than I had. She didn't ask what I wanted, just cocked a brow at me expectantly.
"I lied," I told her impulsively. At that point, even I hadn't known what I was going to say. It was almost like I wasn't in control of my own mouth but the only time that ever happened was when the Major had staged a coup. This was hardly cause for something like that though, so I dismissed the thought immediately and went back to the theory that my bloodlust made me stupid around this girl.
"About what Jasper?" she asked, that sexy voice of hers all soft and curious. It was the first time she'd said my name and the way it sounded as it rolled off her tongue had my already aching dick throbbing with the need for release ... again. I did my best to ignore it.
"You are anything but mediocre," I said. In the 236 years I've walked this Earth, both as vampire and human, you are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
Nope, the Major was definitely not responsible for this episode of verbal diarrhea both internal and external. He would rather rip our balls off and toss them on a barbecue for roasting than make allowances for the pussy that was currently operating our mouth. I was still trying to figure out who that pussy was.
The girl snorted but her smile was genuine, "Cheesy bastard."
I smiled back at her for a split second so she knew I meant it before I let my lips spring into their usual smirk.
This time when she went to go back to work, I watched her walk away without comment or interference.
I stood there leaning against the brick wall of that alley for a long time, letting the smell of cigarettes, alcohol, sweat, asphalt, humidity, and horses as well as other humans try to cleanse her scent from my nose. It was fading but it was still there and I knew I had to leave Louisville. If I didn't, I would do something stupid, something monumentally, fantastically stupid … like kill her or, worse, kiss her.
I really, really hated that girl.
oOo
When I'd settled into the driver's seat of my Mustang my cell phone rang and, for the first time in four days, I answered.
"Howdy, Major," the voice on the other end of the line greeted brightly.
"Peter," I greeted back peevishly.
"Ali says you're in Louisville," he said, sounding excited.
Alice shouldn't have been able to see where I was since I hadn't been making conscious decisions during the whole of my impromptu road trip, but I had made a clear decision to leave Louisville so I guess it really wasn't that surprising.
"I am," I acknowledged, my voice still somewhat cold.
"Feel like comin' to visit on your way back up to the town of perpetual tears and depression?" Peter asked dryly.
At the moment, there wasn't a better way to describe Forks for me and I knew that a visit to Peter was exactly what I needed, especially after the mind-fuck that was my stop in Louisville. He and Charlotte were my brother and sister both in venom and in arms because I'd sired them and they had fought at my side in the Southern Wars. They had lived that hell just as I had and wrestled with their own horrific memories as a result. There was a camaraderie between us that I would never have with my adopted family, a camaraderie I never wanted to have with them, and that camaraderie, that simple understanding was soothing in a way that couldn't be described with words. They just got it and I had never felt more like I belonged in the same way with anyone else. Sometimes it was just easier for me to breathe, figuratively speaking, with Peter and Charlotte. That didn't mean I didn't love my family or enjoy living with them. It was just the bitter truth. I usually spent my summers with Peter and Charlotte to decompress after spending nine months cooped up in a confined space with a bunch of hormonal teenagers but it just hadn't happened this year. Maybe spending some time with them, even if it was just a little, would get me back on track.
"Sounds good," I agreed, smiling. I was still miffed at him and Charlotte for ignoring me but Peter didn't usually do things without a reason, so I was going to have to let it go … after I tried to pry it out of him, of course.
"Well then," Peter drawled, "put your boot to the floor and get your ass to Texas already."
"See you soon, brother," I said with a chuckle, then hung up and punched the gas.
oOo
A/N: Okay, so I know I'm evil for breaking things off between them and having Jasper leave but does it make up for it at all if I tell you that the next chapter is the first peek you get inside of Bella's head?
Aside from my inherent evilness, what did you think of the chapter?
