Chapter 5.
I'm dragging my feet back to the dorms under the noon sky. It's hot and bright and my eyes hurt behind my shades. Luckily, it's Saturday, so there's no practice today, not even disguised as other activities. So I plan to sleep for the rest of the day.
"There you are!" Bella is coming out of my room as I reach the hallway, which I find strange. Her phone in her hand. Her face as bright as the sun outside. It makes my heart speed up in my chest. "I was just going to head over to Subway."
Emmett must have told her where I work. "What's up?" I ask, curious. She's almost buzzing with energy.
"Well," she says, grinning widely, but as her eyes inspect my face, her smile falters. "You okay?"
"Just tired." I rub my neck, eyeing my door.
"What time did your shift start?" She sets a hand on her hips. I try not to look.
"Six."
"Ugh, that sounds awful." She steps closer—entirely way too close. Her voice turns into a whisper, her eyes showing concern and her hand reaching for my arm. "Why didn't you tell me last night? We didn't have to stay out so late."
"It's all right." I shrug. I try to breathe. Gay or not does not seem to affect how Bella acts around me. "All I plan to do today is sleep."
"Okay. Good." Her fingers run down my arm and then clasp my hand, pulling me in the direction of her room. "But first you gotta see this."
Bella and Vicky's room is identical to mine and Emmett's, except it faces south and it smells way nicer. The furniture's the same, arranged the same way. Bella's bed is on the right, like Emmett's, but with squishy pillows and a purple comforter instead. There's a watercolor painting of three little birds on a wire, hanging above her bed.
She leads me to sit on her bed and stacks her pillows against the wall. I comply with a sigh because I am exhausted but also because I can't seem to be able to say no to her. She's sitting in front of me then, her phone in hand, the screen pointed my way as she scrolls. She shows me the same video from last night, the one that zooms in at my arms and her legs in slow motion.
"Do you see that?" She points at the little heart on the right panel of the video, and the 103k underneath it. "Over a hundred thousand likes, Cullen, and that's just from this morning!"
"Oh…" I realize it's not just the video playing from her camera roll. She's posted it somewhere.
"Ugh…" She moves the phone away from me and scowls at me. "You don't seem very impressed."
I chuckle softly. "I guess I don't really know what that means."
Her nose wrinkles and she purses her lips in the most adorable way. "It means a lot of people liked it. It has almost two million views in less than twelve hours."
"Wow!" I say loudly, and she rolls her eyes at me, making me laugh. "I'm sorry. It is a pretty cool video. The editing is nice and I love that song."
She turns to me with a smile, so I think I am forgiven. "There's a lot of comments on it too. And a clear theme in most of them."
"Yeah?" I ask through a yawn. Her pillows are comfy, and they smell like her.
"Everyone wants to know who the tatted arms belong to."
"Pfft." Why they would be looking at me when she's in the frame is beyond me.
"So, I've been thinking…" She scoots back on the bed, so instead of looking at me, she's resting her back on the wall, next to me, her shoulder touching mine. She holds the phone between us, while searching on the internet. "We should try for the NCA CoEd Partner Stunt competition." She pulls up the NCA website with the rules and entry information. My eyelids threaten to flutter closed while looking at the screen.
"The qualifying videos are due in November." She keeps talking as I sink deeper into her pillows. "I have some ideas for a sequence, and we have all summer and fall to practice in our free time."
She starts going over the scoring guidelines then, the requirements for the video, and I try to pay attention, I do, but I think I doze off before I hear anything else.
~.~.~
I wake up in Bella's bed. Her room is dark other than the glow of her laptop coming from her desk. She's sitting in front of it, headphones on, but once I stir, she turns to look at me.
"I'm sorry." I sit up on her bed, scrubbing a hand down my face and wondering what time it is. "I passed out."
She takes off the headphones, smiling sweetly at me. "It's all right." She pulls her chair closer to me, one eyebrow raised. "You talk in your sleep."
"Fuck, what did I say?" I know I talk in my sleep, Emmett has said so before. It can get pretty embarrassing.
"Nothing that made sense." She laughs a little. "Something about food?"
"What time is it?" I realize light is peaking through the window, but her room is mostly dark because she closed the curtains.
She eyes her computer before answering. "Eight."
"PM?"
"Yeah."
"Shit." I slept for more than seven hours on her bed. I can't say it didn't feel great, but I missed lunch and an afternoon snack, and now will have to stuff myself for the rest of the night to meet my calorie intake requirement for the day. "Why didn't you wake me?"
"You looked like you needed it." She's unapologetic, even looking proud of herself.
"I gotta go eat or I won't hear the end of it from Jasper." I get up from the bed and she stands as well, looking expectantly at me. For a second, I think about inviting her to come and eat…with me, but I hesitate, not wanting to step over any lines. There's a half-eaten granola bar next to her laptop, so maybe she already ate.
"Are you bulking?" she asks, and I nod. "Okay, you go have fun with that. I'm going to finish this." She smiles, gesturing to her laptop, and that's when I notice the still shot of another video she's editing, from our stunt session last night.
It was the hand-in-hand. My favorite stunt I've been able to hit with her so far. In the shot, she's in a handstand, balancing with her hands on the palms of mine. As she starts the video, I dip and let go of her left hand, while she holds herself on her right hand, spinning 360 degrees, and landing again with both hands on mine.
How can someone so tiny be so powerful?
It's fucking amazing.
"Ugh, my arms are so shaky." I inch closer to the screen with my hands on her desk, finally noticing myself on the video.
"Shut up, look." She rewinds the video and starts it over. "Look how our hands find each other so seamlessly."
"Damn, that's a nice shot." My taped wrists, her fingers clasping on my palm with colorful fingernails. Her forearm tensing while veins pop on mine.
She turns back to me with a huge smile, our distance shortened with her leaning over her desk as well, my heart speeding up. "Right?"
"That's pretty cool, Swan." I stretch my back, cracking my neck, subtly inching away from her and taking a step back.
She looks soft and warm and cuddly and I should definitely leave her room.
"Do you mind if I post it tomorrow?" she asks tentatively, her bottom lip trapped under her teeth.
"Sure. That's fine." A couple steps back take me further away from her. "Sorry again for passing out in your bed."
"No worries." She walks with me to her door, but stops, turning her back to it and looking up at me. "By the way, you already agreed to do the partner stunt competition with me. At least in your sleep…"
I smile before I can help it. I'm not surprised at all. Conscious me has trouble saying no to her; unconscious me must be hopeless to her power.
"But I'll give you some time to think about it." She presses a finger on my chest, leaving me burning.
"Won't your chances be better with someone else?"
"Pfft..." She opens her door, holding it for me. "Didn't you see how good we look together already? And that's only after two weeks of training."
That's all her though. She'd look good with anyone.
"I haven't even made mat yet."
She rolls her eyes at me. "You're going to make mat. But okay, we can talk about the partner competition after the summer, once you've made the A Team."
"I don't know." My voice is soft and so is everything inside of me.
At her door, I'm suddenly enveloped by the urge to stay, or to ask her to come with me, to extend our time together, but I know I'm already walking on a thin line with her as it is—I can't afford to make more mistakes.
"Like I said, think about it," she continues. "We have plenty of time."
"All right, I'll think about it." I'm going to say yes anyway, but for now I need to remain focused on this summer and making the A Team.
She nods eagerly, satisfied, while I lean on her doorway, stalling. She's stalling, too, it seems, staring at me, eyes crinkling, lips twitching…almost in amusement at some inner joke I am not aware of.
There's something else she's not telling me.
And I just fucking know it.
"What else did I say in my sleep?" I ask and the way her face splits in a grin confirms it for me. She's blushing, too.
Fuck.
"Swan, what else did I say?" I ask again.
"N-nothing, really…" She stammers, her cheeks burning. She lets out a little laugh. "It mostly confirmed to me that you're definitely not gay."
"Ah, shit…" I hang my head, shoulders sagging, my own ears burning in embarrassment. She must think I am a pervert.
"Nothing too bad. Just some random things…and, uh…body parts." I hear and feel her step closer to me, I don't dare to look up yet. "Don't worry. You didn't mention anyone's name," she says, and she sounds…disappointed?
"I'm sorry." I finally look up with a sigh.
Her eyes train on mine, her smile still in place. I can only imagine what I might have said, but I get the feeling she'll never tell me.
"It's all right." She chuckles with a friendly pat on my arm as I straighten up.
We stare at each other for a second too long, until she speaks again. "See you tomorrow at Coach's BBQ?"
"That's tomorrow?" Fucking hell. I thought we had another week. I need to get better at adding shit to my calendar.
"Hello?" She laughs. "4th of July?"
"Right." No wonder I was able to get some hours at work. Now, I worry I won't have time to work, train with Jasper, and make it to the party. "Starts at five?"
"Yep."
"All right. Yeah, I'll be there." I need to stay in Coach's good graces. Maybe Emmett will give Vicky a ride. Maybe Bella will ride with us too. That'd be nice. As friends, of course. As teammates. To please Coach Hale.
"Okay. I'm going to work on those videos." She interrupts my mental rambling and points back over her shoulder with her thumb. "Maybe I'll post another tonight."
Right. The videos.
"Sure," I say nonchalantly, like I don't care. But the truth is, having her showcase our stunting together on her page fills me with something. Pride, maybe? I am not sure.
I say goodbye and leave reluctantly, wondering about what other videos she has and who else is featured on her page. Curiosity nags at me. Jealously, too. How many other guys have gotten to toss and throw her and spin her in their hands? Does she smile for them like she does for me? Does she jump into their arms as she does when we hit a new skill?
I tell myself it is for research purposes—so I can study her form in different stunts—that I stay up the rest of the night watching, over and over, every fucking reel on her Instagram.