Thirty-Nine

During the whole run back to Forks, in his wolf form, Jacob thought about what Nadia might have typed to him in her text. His phone had been in his jacket pocket, tucked against the seat of the motorcycle, left back at the Cullen compound. Emmett had grabbed the bike with one hand, carrying it with him down the long winding hill toward to the main road, before he tossed it, like a discarded toy, into the ditch.

He thought of her—the mysterious girl with the umbrella—as a defense mechanism to not think about Renesmee. Something had sparked between them, something akin to like-minds, and Jacob was sure that it wasn't just because they were both native, although, it seemed like ages since he had last spoken with an indigenous person who wasn't a part of the Quileute tribe, or wasn't in some way, in awe of his father.

The smell of dawn breaking was behind him as he made his way to the highway, keeping close to the tree line and the main road, though the highway was deserted but for the occasionally passing car. When he got to the turn off toward the Cullen compound, everything was still and quiet. The remains of his bike were crumpled in the ditch, metal caved in, as though it were tin foil rather than steel. Transitioning back into his human form, he lifted it up, there was some damaged to the body, but the tires and the frame seemed straight and intact. Beside the bike lay his jacket, rumpled against the wet grass. Jacob didn't need to open the waterproof pocket to know that his phone was inside. He could feel the hard outline of its case with his hand.

The rest of his clothes were gone, having been shredded when he turned into the wolf so many hours ago, but he saw, to his surprise, that a zip lock bag, was underneath the jacket. When he opened it, he was even more shocked to find a pair of sweat pants, warm and dry and clean. He was sure the kind gesture hadn't come from Rosalie, or Alice, or any of the men in the Cullen clan. He hadn't seen Bella last night, but he was sure these dry clothes did not come from her. A fleeting hope made him wonder if it was Renesmee, but he quickly dashed it away. She wasn't the type to send him away and then do this. He knew her too well for that. His only other thought was that it had been Esme, who even now, in spite of what he had done the night before, was still, like always, very kind to him.

Jacob didn't feel the cold like normal humans, but the chill of the morning was making his balls creep up into his body, and he wasn't interested in dealing with the spectacle of being found, naked on the side of the roan. Putting on the sweatpants was a blessed relief. Adding the jacket to his bare chest made him almost passable as normal. With bare feet he walked the bike to the road, gravel and debris biking into his skin, and after a few kicks to the ignition it started with an annoyed growl. He would see about taking a look at it later in the day when he started his shift at the mechanics—if he still had a job, that is.

As he made his way back home, the sun began to rise, purplish against the dark storm clouds of the morning. There was full light above him when he made it back to the autobody repair shop where he rented the second-floor apartment. There was hardly anyone out and about at this time of day, but the deep green neon sign at the Evergreen bar across the street flickered and buzzed, permanently courting with going out, though somehow always staying on. Hustling up the stairs, three at a time, he quickly snatched the second set of keys that he hid inside the broken porch light next to his door.

His skin was slick with rain water when he stumbled inside, immediately going to his cell phone, still tucked neatly inside the jacket pocket. His first hope was some kind of communication from Renesmee, and he was immediately disappointed by the silence that he saw from her on his messages.

There was a short text from Esme, confirming his earlier evaluation. It read:

Thought you might need these. Take care.

There was a missed call from his sister Rachel, followed by a voicemail, which he did not doubt was scathing after his unexpected visit to her and Paul's house the night before. After that, he saw a missed call from his other sister Rebecca, likely issued when Rachel called her after she couldn't get a hold of Jacob. Rebecca, thankfully, did not leave a voicemail, but he did see several missed texts from her last night. They consisted mostly, of her asking how things went between he and Renesmee, followed by a few more texts from a few minutes ago. From a quick cursory glace they looked to be photos of her menagerie of birds. Nonsense that he mindlessly scrolled through.

Then there was Nadia's. Beneath the others on his phone.

Her text read:

This is Nadia. From the Grizzley Den. Text me back to prove that you are who you say you are.

Jacob smirked when he read it. It was so refreshing to find an indigenous girl who wasn't from his tiny reservation, where every male and female, be they adult or children, knew who his father was and who he, Jacob, was being groomed to become. His failure, as the elders would see it, of imprinting on the daughter of a human girl and a vampire, would always be in the back of everyone's mind. Even Emily, one of the kindest people he had ever met, saw him as having a chip on his shoulder.

Thumbing the touchscreen keyboard on his phone he wrote:

Jacob here. Home at last. Returning the text, as promised.

Surprisingly, a response came back right away:

Well, well, chief-boy. Consider me surprised. Did you make up with your little girlfriend, yet?

The thought of Renesmee doubled him over again. Absentmindedly, he backtracked out of this particular message screen and searched again, in vain, for any sign of communication from her. As he searched, he got another picture message from Rebecca, another one of her birds. He swore in exasperation.

Flipping back into his communication with Nadia he wrote:

Like I said, it's complicated. And, don't ask, too hard to explain.

No more than a second later her reply came through:

Too complicated for text or too complicated in general? Why don't we meet for drinks later today to discuss? I'm dying of curiosity.

Jacob hadn't meant to text her—the whole run back, after shredding the ill-fitting clothing he had pilfered from Hoquiam High School Student Norm Soule, his mind had been on Renesmee. The slit of her voice telling Emmett that she didn't want Jacob here, the change in her tone, like the shedding of an original skin, and his thoughts, chasing the conundrum of who she, Renesmee, would be now that he had done this horrible thing. Why did he want or even need to see this stranger, Nadia, again? She was nothing to him. Renesmee was everything. And yet—and yet…

There's a bar here in Forks. The Evergreen. Messed up green sign. The only bar in town. How about after 7:00?

Jacob was holding his breath. The response didn't come right away like the others had. He put his phone on the table top. Wandered slowly to the widow. Checked the parking lot for his boss' car out front. Pacing away from the window he went to the fold out bed. The sheet on top was rumpled from the last time he had slept here. It felt like days ago, but he couldn't be sure anymore. Every time he blinked Renesmee's face shimmered behind his eyes.

When the phone on the table top buzzed, finally, Jacob forced himself to walk slowly back toward it.

Her text read:

Okay. See you then.

So simple, it made him snicker out loud.

Around 9:00 AM, Jacob wandered down the body shop, eyeing the crumpled mound of his bike. Emmett's fingerprints were clearly dented into the frame. He hadn't spoke to Brian, his boss, since yesterday when he stormed off during the middle of his shift in a desperate need to check on Renesmee. Before that, he had missed several days without calling out when Renesmee was sick.

Brian was bent over a tiny VW Volkswagen Bug, wrench in one hand, while the other pushed aside a smudge of dirt against his forehead. When he caught sight of Jacob he shouted a frustrated expletive, which made Jacob wince.

"I can explain, Brian."

"Oh, really? I'm sick of it, Jacob. Go take your sob story to someone else."

Sighing, Jacob pleaded, "Brian, I've been working for you since I was seventeen. Years of under the table work, before that, remember?"

Brian ducked back under the hood of the Volkswagen, effectively ignoring Jacob's entreaties.

"I've just been going through a lot of stuff recently."

Brian huffed, disinterested.

"Look, I'm sorry. I should have called. I should have communicated better. My girlfriend—"

"I don't want to hear about your lady problems, Jacob. This is a job; I need you here to perform the work. If you're not here to do it then the customers suffer. They're no excuse I'm interested in hearing after the last week you pulled."

Jacob changed his tactic. "I know. There is no excuse." He watched Brian tinker under the hood. Silently, Jacob strode over to the tool box, lifting out a secondary tool, and went to Brian's side to assist. Wordless, he worked beside his boss. The quiet was loud enough to make the hair on Jacob's neck rise.

Brian stood back, letting Jacob take over the repair. It only took a few adjustments for Jacob to gesture to Brian to turn the engine on. When Brian sat in the driver's side, twisting the key in the ignition, the roar of the engine billowed inside the quiet room.

"…One of the most gifted mechanics I've ever met," Brian explained, shaking his head, in disbelief.

"I really am sorry, Brian."

"Can you promise me that it won't happen again?"

Pausing Jacob weighed his options for answering. He could lie, claim that it would never happen again, but even that lie seemed too out of line. He shook his head, downtrodden. "No, I can't promise that."

"Jesus, man. You could have lied."

"I don't want to lie, Brian."

Brian was silent, studying the ground. Finally, he said, "I need you to work some overtime this week. We're days behind in getting these cars out."

"Agreed."

"You've got hardly any hours on your timeclock this pay period, it won't be time and half, it'll be straight time."

Hesitating for a fraction of a second, he said, "Agreed."

Sighing, Brian confirmed, "Alright. Go ahead and get started. I'll call Mr. Winters and tell him that his daughters' bug is back up and running."

"I didn't know this was the Winter's car…?" Kylie Winters, the oldest of Mr. Winters daughters had been killed in a car crash a few years ago. Now that both of his younger daughters were driving, Winters brought his cars in for regular maintenance every couple of months or so. Brian usually gave him a discount on the services.

"Get to work on the others, Jacob."

The rest of the day passed by in a blur. Jacob worked on car after car. Completing tasks that were as minuscule as changing oil and as complicated as measuring the frame on a wrecked vehicle to determine if it could be totaled for an insurance company. When five o'clock rolled around, the two other mechanics left, but Jacob worked on. Eventually, at six o'clock he started to wind things down. Washing his hands in the large tub sink in the backroom. Letting the soak lather between his fingers and underneath his nails.

He had thought, all day, of Renesmee. Casual moments that they had shared over the years, somehow building up to the aching moment the night before when she wanted him gone. Between those thoughts, though, was the thought of Nadia. Looking back, he had felt similarly years ago when Bella was still a human, and getting to spend the afternoon with her back at his father's tiny cabin by the road was the height of his misspent youth.

Brian had left more than a half hour before, and the shop was empty and quiet. Echoey, as all garages were while the cars settled from the work that had been done all day.

He hustled back upstairs via the interior stairwell, snapping his fingers, fidgeting with anticipation and apprehension. After taking a quick shower he dressed in a clean pair of jeans, the same pair he had worn since high school, and pulled a softened grey t-shirt over his head. This wasn't a date, just meeting a new friend for drinks.

Right before 7:00 o'clock he started down the stairs outside his apartment. A light rain had been falling most of the day, and now that the sun had gone down completely it was turning into a downpour. The cold water sizzled slightly, when it touched his supernaturally hot skin.

No need to be early when the destination was across the street. His sneakers, nothing particularly fancy, crunched against the gravel as he crossed the distance between the mechanic shop and The Evergreen bar, with the same flickering green neon sign that often times kept him up at night.

Nadia's car, the snazzy jeep that he had seen the night before, wasn't in the parking lot when he got to the front door. Stepping inside, just as the last dying flickers of daylight disappeared behind him. Despite having been twenty-one for months, and having lived across the street from this particular bar for over a year, he had never actually been inside. There was nothing particularly special about the establishment. A scratched wooden bar stretched the length of the front with a few tables scattered in the middle, and a collage of pool tables and billiards in the back. Two big screen tv's gave off a grainy picture—one showing an old Mariners game, while the other promised the new Seahawks game within the hour.

Jacob took a seat in the back, close to one of the tv's but far enough away from the bustle of the rest of the patrons. He was too restless to sit, suddenly filled with a boundless energy, like a little kid who had been cooped up all day and was finally getting released to go outside.

She wandered in, finally, with a flutter of noise. A gaggle of men stammering behind her, like a stream following the powerful flex of a jet in the sky. She was laughing, an unheard joke split open like a cracked egg in her wake. One of the men behind her cackled, like a little girl.

Turning her head, he watched as she caught sight of him in the darkened corner in the back. "Well, that's my que, gents," he heard her say to the followers at her heels. "I found my guy. I'll see y'all later."

The boys behind her protested, but the wave of her hand silenced them as she sauntered away, toward Jacob. He saw, as she moved that she was wearing a knee-length dress, it was black and loose at the arms, similar, if not the same one, that he had seen her wear last night. She was also wearing the same ankle high boots, but close up now, he could tell that they were a slick leather, rather than the velveteen crush look they had had last night in the gloomy parking lot.

"No umbrella tonight?" He asked. Noticing that the accessory he had noticed the most last night was nowhere to be found.

Nadia extended her arms, raising her eyebrows. "No rain inside, chief-boy. No need."

Jacob stood, reaching his arms out to her. A handshake felt too formal, but not getting up or doing anything also felt off. She tilted her head—had he surprised her? But she scurried over to him with a bit more pep in her step and let him envelope her.

"Wow," she noted after he released her to take her seat across from him at the table. "I guess I didn't realize how tall you are."

He scoffed. "What about you? You must be 5'10, at least."

She scratched her tongue along her front teeth. "Six feet, even. Honestly."

The bartender approached them, interrupting the intense smirk that they were both giving each other. "What can I get you?"

Jacob eyed Nadia.

"I will have…" she paused, thinking it over. "Whiskey, on the rocks. Actually, make it a double."

Jacob was impressed. Though, Nadia didn't strike him as the frivolous type to order a fruity cocktail, even if it might have her signature umbrella inside it.

"I'll have the same," Jacob told the bartender. "Do you want to get something to eat?"

Nadia replied quickly. "Maybe in a bit. Let's talk first."

After the bartender left them, he asked, "So, how is Felicity?"

She cocked her head, puzzled.

"Didn't you say that was your sisters name?"

Hissing a laugh, she said, "Oh my god, I just had the biggest brain fart. I forgot we talked about that yesterday. It was like that meme, 'when two worlds collide,' or something. And yes, she's good. Swim practice was a success."

"What grade is she in?"

"She's—six—sixteen, so she's in tenth grade…"

Laughing, Jacob asked, "Are you sure? You seem confused."

Nadia pushed her hair out of her face. "Sorry, it's been a long day. She's still in high school, beyond that, it's hard to keep track sometimes. She swims, she likes bears, her favorite color is black. She always wants to listen to emo music when she gets into my car. She's my little sister. I love her, but she stresses me the fuck out, sometimes."

The bartender came back with their drinks. Jacob watched her cup hers, fingers sliding along the cold sweating glass, taking a long sip from the thin set of straws that came with it.

"Woah, slow down there, tiger."

Nadia shook her head, letting the amber liquor slide slowly down her throat. "No tiger here. I consider myself more of a bird."

"A bird? What, like a finch? A swallow? A dove?"

She cocked an eyebrow. "Like a raven. A hawk. A buzzard."

For some reason the word, 'buzzard,' sounded hilarious when she said it. Jacob couldn't help but laugh when he heard it.

He took a slow sip of his drink. There had been a few lonely nights in the last few years where he had cautiously consumed alcohol. A few teenage exchanges, mostly beers, and then later, when he was moody or depressed over Bella, or much later, in the last six months, when his tension and feeling about Renesmee had overcome him, he had turned to the bottle. Usually, it was a tall glass jug of tequila that Embry had brought back from a trip to Mexico.

"So, tell me," She took a moment to taste the way his name sounded in her mouth, "Jacob? What's the backstory with your girl?"

Jacob wanted to shrug, but he held it back. "We're just going through something."

"But she is younger than you, right? I guessed that part, correct?"

He looked off in the distance, the blurred, abstract movement of the athletes on the tv screen behind him, momentarily distracting him. "Yeah, she's younger."

Nadia sucked her teeth. "She's in high school, isn't she?"

He could see the shock already on her face. Just thinking about what her face would look like if he admitted that Renesmee was in junior high, or even that she was in actuality only four years old, made him snicker.

"What's so funny? Oh my god, is this a statutory issue? Should I call the police? I think I drove past the chief of polices house earlier… Tiny white house, nestled in the woods like a Norman Rockwell painting."

Brushing her off, he tried to change the subject. "What is it that you do, anyway? Didn't you say something about freelance last night?"

After taking another slow sip of her drink, she explained. "I do research."

"Okay, what kind of research?"

She swiped her tongue along her teeth. Jacob could feel against the side of the table that her foot was tapping, nervously.

"Think, privet eye, stuff. Cop stuff. Cold cases and unsolved mysteries."

"Wow," he noted, impressed despite himself. "That sounds intense. How'd you get into that line of work?"

"My grandma did something similar. I spent a lot of time with her when I was younger. When I was a kid, I was a massive introvert who spent all her time at the library reading. Looking things up. How does this work? Why does this happen? That kind of stuff. Then a couple of years ago I stumbled onto a forum where family members posted information on their missing loved ones. I guess, ultimately, I wanted to help people. Sometimes it can be a bit of an obsession. You know that case that's been on the news, recently? That pregnant women who went miss—well, they just found her body—in Italy."

Jacob shook his head; he hadn't heard anything about it.

"Really?"

"I don't watch a lot of tv."

Nadia cocked an eyebrow. "I guess I can see that. Well, anyway. I'm assisting with that case… in a very small way."

"So, what does a missing pregnant woman in Italy have to do with a twenty-three-year-old in Washington state?"

"See, that's the thing," she gestured with her hands, encompassing the wide breadth of the world. "I can do this job from anywhere. All I need is the internet, essentially."

"So, are you tracking down her killer or something, like that?"

Nadia hummed. "More researching her husband. What his backstory is. The company he works for. It's very 'hush, hush,' I can't say too much."

He shook his head, understanding. There was a hell of a lot that he could never tell her. "Do you still live with your parents, then?"

"No," she huffed. "I move around a lot, by nature. I'm a Sagittarius, I don't like to stay in one place too long. I'm in Hoquiam now, well, because of my sister."

"Felicity?"

"Yep. Teenage things."

Jacob nodded. "I have two sisters."

"Oh, yeah? Do they live around here?"

"My sister Rachel does. She works in IT."

"Ooh, a woman after my own heart."

"She's involved with someone," he pressed. The notion that she may actually be into girls crossed his mind. He didn't think that she was, but he had to admit that he barely knew her. Either way was fine, but he didn't want to ask.

Nadia didn't seem disappointed.

"And my other sister, Rebecca," he went on, "Lives in Hawaii with her husband. She's an artist. They have a bunch of birds—parrots and cockatiels, that kind of thing."

"Not bad," Nadia said. "I love birds. I've been to Hawaii once or twice. Too many tourists for me, but a lot of people call it home. What about your dad?"

Jacob tiled his head, immediately put on guard. Odd, he thought, that she hadn't asked about his parents. His mother had died when he was a kid, but she had no way of knowing that.

"Oh, sore subject, yeah? Sorry."

He shook it off. "Nah, it's fine."

Pursing her lips, she added, "Things are tense with my parents, too. I mostly grew up with my grandmother."

"You and your sister?"

Nadia paused for the briefest of seconds. "Yeah." Jacob eyed her. "It can't be easy being the son of the chief. I'm native, but I never grew up with anything like that. We did a few things, culturally speaking, kind of like how people go to church on Christmas Eve and call themselves Christians for the rest of the year—"

Jacob heard her phone buzz. The sound comically loud, like the cawing of a thousand birds calling to each other. He watched her pluck the phone from a mysterious pocket in the side of her dress. Nadia looked at the screen, her eyes scanning the breadth of whatever text had come through. Jacob thought he saw her frown, but as soon as he noticed it, it dissipated to her usual Cheshire grin.

Dropping her phone on the table, and leaning back in her chair, she asked, "Are you sure you don't want to tell me about your little girlfriend."

He blushed. "There's really nothing to tell. We had a fight, and—"

"Oh yeah," she interrupted. "What did you fight about?"

Jacob sighed. "Her family is moving away, things got tense. I said—did—things that I regret now."

"There's a big difference between saying something and doing something, Jacob."

"…I may have—accidently—hit… her aunt."

Nadia's mouth dropped open.

"I know," he pressed. Saying it loud made him feel twice as worse as he had before. True, it had been the wolf who had struck at a vampire. The fight was ultimately as chased as two toddlers wrestling over a toy, and he knew he hadn't done Rosalie any significant or long-lasting damage. And yet, he had struck out, his women (albeit a vampire woman,) and he had inflicted pain on the one person that he loved more than anyone else in the world. There was very little difference in what he did from what Sam had done all those years to Emily when he shifted in front of her in anger and mauled her face.

"Saying 'I know' doesn't do anything, Jacob. You hit this girl's aunt? You're like, well over six feet tall. And you don't strike me as the kind of guy who likes his girl tall. You've got a five feet five inches vibe to you."

He shook his head. "Renesmee is actually really tall." She had inherited Edward's height and was much taller than Bella.

"Wait… What is her name..?"

"Renesmee," he said again, slowly.

She raised an incredulous eyebrow. "There's no way I'm ever going to be able to pronounce that."

"It's not that hard."

"There's like, eighteen syllables in it."

Nadia's phone buzzed again. Jacob watched her glance at it, scanning the message. From his vantage he couldn't make it out.

"Hardly," he said. "It's a beautiful name."

"Anyway," she continued. "Do you not realize how fucked up what you said was."

He was abashed. "Yes. I know. But like I said, it was an accident."

Nadia's phone buzzed again, and her voice tightened. "You can't hit someone on accident. That's not the way it works."

Once more, the phone buzzed, a persistent wail. Jacob was about to argue with her, but he could tell from her face that she would only be half-heartedly listening now.

Holding up her finger to silence him, Nadia said, "Hold that thought. I need to make a phone call."

He watched her jump up, phone in hand, taking a final swig of her whiskey before turning and strutting out through the front doors of the bar, leaving a wake of curious male stares in her direction as she passed through like a tornado.

At first, he wondered if it was something that he had done. He could tell that she was offended by what he had said about accidently hitting Rosalie, even if he had stretched the truth to the very limits by how he had said it. Yet, in those last two minutes, she had been clearly preoccupied by what was happening on the other end of her phone. In his mind, it was her sister who was calling him. Nadia had said she was back with her family because of something her sister was going through.

Several minutes passed while he waited for her. Enough time to let his mind wander back to the ache he still felt in missing Renesmee. He hadn't felt that same old heartbreak when he was with Nadia. Absentmindedly he watched the football game on the big screen off to the side. The team completed their first down, the second down, then on to the third, when he heard the front doors open wide, and Nadia came forcefully back in.

She stared him down as she approached, and Jacob bit his lip, feeling slightly uncomfortable by the intensity of her stare. "Is everything okay?"

Leaning against the tabletop she said, "No." She gave him a half-hearted, annoyed smile. "I have to go."

He was disappointed, but also a bit relieved. "Okay."

"Don't sound so broke up about it."

"Was that your sister?"

"No," she said. "It was work."