Chapter 7.
Bella chooses a spot by the shed, like I thought, for our impromptu photoshoot for her clothing line. She sets up her camera on a little tripod she had in her backpack and tells me it will be taking pictures throughout, so we should just have fun with it.
Fun is out of the question for me though, especially when she takes off her shorts.
I mentally check out. That's not Bella anymore. That's my stunt partner. My teammate. My focus turns to hitting the stunts, to keeping her safe, and most importantly to not dropping her.
She could be wearing a potato sack or nothing at all and it wouldn't make a difference. Or so I keep telling myself.
We've been at it for at least half an hour when the sun starts to set and she says she wants to try backlighting, so we switch spots. I'm sweating through my shirt but she doesn't seem to mind, or if she does, she doesn't say anything.
I have her up on my right hand, in a cupie, when I see Coach coming closer through the corner of my eye.
"Hold it!" Coach says, as I was about to set Bella down. "Oh, that's beautiful, Bella!"
I huff as she circles around us, inspecting the stunt.
"Good form. Great grip," Coach says to me as she adjusts my free arm and closes my hand into a fist. It's a correction she's given me before, as I never know what to do with my free arm and it always ends up looking awkward. She then pushes on the middle of my back, straightening me up as I try to contain my hiss. "Okay, better." She circles back until she's in front of me, while I try my best to keep my arm from shaking. "We do need to do something about your face."
A few others have come up the hill with Coach to watch us. I eye Emmett who is laughing behind her. If this is about my eyebrows, I'm going to lose it. I've declined all of his manscaping ideas. I'm holding a person over my head in one hand. Who the fuck cares how bushy my eyebrows are?
"I'm not saying you have to smile," Coach explains. "But you gotta lose the wince."
Oh.
"Where does it hurt?" Coach asks softly, while I feel Bella tighten her pose and readjust her weight, as if trying to make it easier on me.
"I'm fine, just a little sore from training," I say through my teeth, breathing to try to relax my face.
"Better," Coach says, turning away from me. "It needs to look effortless," she says a little louder, as if in a lesson to everyone. "Like she's made out of feathers. Weightless. Levitating on your palm."
I'm shaking all over when Coach looks back at me. "You can put her down now."
"Pop off," I say quickly to Bella and bring her down while Coach continues the 'Game Face' speech to the others, walking away from us.
"Holy shit…" I roll my shoulder with a deep breath, pressing my fingers on it. "Didn't think bases had to smile through the pain like you do," I joke, chuckling softly while still rubbing my shoulder. The girls on the team are constantly told to smile, no matter what, to put up a show.
When Bella turns around, she has no smile for me or my joke; instead she's frowning.
"I'm sorry," she says, puzzling me. "I think I've gotten a little heavier since I moved here." She looks down with a sigh, in the most unlike Bella demeanor ever. Then, she turns around and walks away from me.
"Wait, what?" I rush behind her, catching up with her quickly and stopping in front of her. "It's not that."
She tries to smile but it's still a little sad, her eyes dim, the usual light behind them gone.
"Swan, you're the smallest girl here. You're not heavy…like at all."
"Everybody gains weight in college," she says, still looking down. "You know, the Freshman 15?"
"I'm pretty sure that's a myth."
"Not according to my mom…" She sighs, looking up at me, her hands clasping over her hips.
"I really don't think you need to worry about that." I look at her incredulously. She's probably the fittest person I know. She's lean and toned. Strong. Powerful. Beautiful.
She shrugs, still looking unconvinced.
"Listen, I had weight training with Jasper today, and he pushed me…hard. So yeah, I'm hurting all over." My fingers boldly reach for her face, pushing under her chin, making her look at me. "I couldn't lift up a tiny grain of rice comfortably."
Her face shines a little as she chuckles softly.
"Why didn't you tell me you were hurting?" Her eyes travel to my shoulder, to my fingers still pressing on it.
"It's not too bad. I wanted to help you get your pictures." I drop my hand with a sigh, hoping my next words distract her. "Honestly, I wanted to be in your pictures. Maybe even ask you to tag me in one." I half smile as her mouth drops. "You know, for my new Instagram."
"I knew it!" She punches my arm with a laugh. My heart speeds up. The Bella I know is back.
I rub the spot where she hit me while she picks up her stuff, and then we start to walk back to the pool. I try to decipher what's going on in my chest, why the fluttering won't stop, why even though I am exhausted all I want to do is spend more time with her, make her laugh again. "So, did we get any good ones?"
~.~.~
Bella picks a blanket from Coach for us to sit and watch the fireworks while I go grab us some waters. I'm chugging from mine on my way back when Jasper stops me.
"Edward, how are you feeling?" He's away from everyone, as if he was waiting for me. I immediately get a bad feeling about it.
"I'm good," I say, trying to keep the nerves from creeping in.
"Did you ice earlier today like I asked you to?"
"I did," I say a little defensively, not sure where this is going.
"Hmmm…" His eyes roam behind me. "Coach Hale seems to think we overdid it. Did I push you too much this morning?"
"I don't think so," I answer honestly. "I mean, it was more than I've ever done before, but so has been pretty much everything else I've done these past two weeks." I chuckle, scratching my neck. "Including all of her trainings."
"That's what I thought." He smiles, satisfied, but somehow it feels that's not all he wanted to say.
I nod and move to take a step forward but he grabs me by my arm, pulling me closer.
"You know that Bella is Coach Hale's pride and joy, right?" His eyes are intently on me. His serious tone frightens me.
I nod again. Bella. That's what this is about.
"We've been waiting for a long time for her to join our team," he explains. "It took a lot to convince her parents to let her come here."
"Okay." I don't mean to sound so defensive, but I don't know what he is insinuating and there's something about Bella that ignites the protective side of me.
"She's young, Edward, and has a lot on her plate." His tone softens, and so does his grip on my arm. I relax, too.
I take a deep breath, peeking at Bella, whose eyes are on us.
"I can see you two have gotten closer." Jasper turns to look in Bella's direction, and she suddenly pretends to be very interested in her fingernails.
"We train together a lot." I shrug; I play it down. "That's all."
"That's all?" He raises an eyebrow at me, questioning.
"We're friends."
"Okay, good." He doesn't sound convinced at all. "You do remember what I said after first practice, right?"
"Right." I remember. "The team is family. Teammates are off limits."
"All right." He clasps a hand on my shoulder, the grip of his fingers reinforcing his message. "As long as we're clear."
"Crystal."
"We don't want any complications." Jasper lets go of my arm, patting me on my back before taking a step back.
"There won't be any." I look up at Bella again, and Jacob, who has now approached her. I think I must not be as subtle as I intended because Jasper chuckles next to me.
"Don't worry, he's received the warning too…as well as every other guy on the team who's made advances. And she's shut them all down already. Several times, in fact."
"Great." I seethe, moving away from Jasper. I want to know who these other guys are. My eyes roam through the crowd of people—of teammates—as I make my way back to Bella. There's fucking Mike Newton, jumping on the pool, asking her to watch him do a flip. There's James, too, on a hand stand at the edge of the pool, showing off for her.
And then, of course, there's Jacob, who is sitting next to her, but stands back up quickly at whatever she says to him.
Knowing Bella is off limits for Jacob, and every other idiot here, should make me feel better, but it doesn't. It won't be me. It won't be them. But it might be someone else someday. Someone not on our team.
The thought burns in my chest as I walk over to her.
"Thanks," Bella says as I hand her a water bottle, dropping next to her. "I think I found the one." She scrolls through her phone, showing me the screen.
In the photo, her left leg is stretched, all the way up, so that her foot is above her head, and her legs make a vertical line. Her body is straight, her right hand holding her left ankle, while the left arm crosses perpendicularly as the "arrow" in this crazy "bow and arrow" pose.
"Jesus, how do you even bend like that?" I say, and she laughs.
I take another look at the picture to finally notice me. I have her up in both arms, my hands gripping her right foot tightly. Luckily, I'm looking up at her, so you can't see my too-strained-for-visual-appeal face.
"Looks good, doesn't it?" she asks, beaming.
"It looks amazing." It's all her. She's incredible.
She smiles, bringing the phone to herself, and starts playing with the lighting and the filters. She types something on it, then turns to look at me. "Do you really want me to tag you?"
"I was joking about that." I look down embarrassedly. I should have known better than bring up my latest attempt at social media. Now I'm going to have to fess up.
"There's no Edward Cullen." She frowns at the screen. "What's your username?"
"I just created it last night," I say quickly. "I have nothing on it. Not even a picture."
"What's your username?" she asks again, turning her head in my direction and smiling widely at me.
"I don't want to say." I fail at containing a chuckle.
"Tell me!"
"It's stupid."
"Please?" She looks up at me with puppy dog eyes and pouty lips, the ones that bring that flutter back to my chest. I groan and pull my phone from my pocket, opening the app, and showing my blank page to her.
"ColoradoBoy001?" She manages to keep a straight face while I cringe.
"One and ZeroOne were already taken," I say, cracking, unable to hide my laugh.
"Name: Bob Vance?" She starts giggling too, so I snatch my phone back. "Of Vance Refrigeration?"
I'm surprised she knows the reference from The Office—it's old even for me—but it's what Emmett was watching last night and the first thing I thought of when trying to come up with fake name. Honestly, the only reason I even opened an Instagram account was to anonymously look at her posts.
"Oh, Cullen…you're such a dork." She shakes her head, still laughing.
My name falls off her lips in the most natural way. It makes me warm all over. "I told you it was stupid." I sigh and chug from my water.
"I got you. Gimme that." She motions her fingers at me until I hand her my phone.
Both phones in hand, she sends pictures over to mine, and in the next couple minutes, right before the fireworks start, I have a revamped Instagram profile with one of the pictures we took earlier.
It's the one in front of the sunset, where you can only see our silhouette. Her in a handstand on my hands, her legs split almost in a wave shape, her hair falling down, flowing in the wind, right above my face. I can almost smell it.
Even my pose looks good. Strong. I think it's my favorite picture ever.
She leaves the handle as ColoradoBoy001, saying we could always change it later—we.
We lie on the blanket and watch the fireworks. Sometimes, I watch her as her face lights up with the sky, looking forward to the rest of our summer. To getting to know her better. To learning more and more from her, about her.
Team rule or not. I don't want to distance myself from her. I don't want to push her away. I won't.
I know I can control myself. I can be there for her when she needs me, as her friend, as her teammate, but nothing else. It's what I've been striving for since the beginning of the summer.
She has goals. They have plans for her. I won't stand in her way. I won't be a distraction. I won't complicate things for her.