previously...
I shook my head and grabbed my duffel bag, left my guitar where it was, and then slipped on my duck boots from the line of shoes. I needed a reason to come back. Alice was right, and I couldn't fall into playing house with him like any random guy from any random town. "I'm ready."
He smiled and walked over to take my bag from me. "Then let's go."
CHAPTER 11
I woke Friday morning to see Winnie staring at me, curled up near Edward's pillow.
"Good morning, beautiful." I giggled.
She stretched her neck out and licked my face.
"I do like good morning kisses. Thank you." I said and reached up to scratch her head. I turned and grabbed my phone from the nightstand to see the time. It was only six forty five. "Where's your dad?"
Winnie perked up and hopped off the bed to sit in front of the bedroom door.
"You're pretty goofy, ya know that?"
She did a weird grumble bark and looked at me expectantly.
"Alright, alright. Let's go find him." I said, pushing the covers off and getting out of bed.
Winnie ran out of the room as soon as I opened the bedroom door. I followed her into the living area and looked around. The apartment was empty. I looked over at the coffee pot and saw that there wasn't any coffee made, so I walked into the kitchen and started to fill the carafe from the sink.
The front door opened just as I was scooping the grounds into the filter, and Edward walked in wearing gray joggers and a black, long sleeve athletic shirt that fit snug on his arms and chest. His hair was extra messy, and his cheeks were flushed under the stubble on his face. I felt my jaw drop slightly for a second, and I had to peel my eyes away to focus on finishing the coffee.
Fucking hell. Lord, just take me.
"Hey, you're up early." He smiled and walked over to kiss my cheek.
I swallowed. "Yeah, just slept good, I guess. Where've you been?" I asked as I pressed the button to start the coffee dripping.
"Just went down to the gym for a bit." He answered casually, flipping through the pages of his planner. "How long have you been up? I didn't wake you up when I left, did I?"
"No, I just woke up a couple minutes ago."
He finished reading something on his calendar before he turned back to me with a crooked smile. "Good." He said and then leaned to kiss my nose. "I'm gonna shower and get ready for work. When do you have to be at the bar today?" He asked as he started making his way to his room.
I followed him and leaned on the doorframe, watching him get his clothes for the day ready. "Um… at one, I think. I need to double check."
"Okay. There's some leftovers in the fridge if you need lunch before you leave." He said and walked into the bathroom.
"Alright." I made my way back into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee.
I was curled up on the couch with Winnie and my coffee and watching the news when Edward emerged from the hallway in a perfectly tailored dark gray suit and shiny brown boots. He walked into the kitchen to get a thermos of coffee and then sat on the arm of the sofa next to me.
"You watch the news?" He asked, sounding a little surprised.
I smirked. "No, but I figured you did."
"I need to see what traffic is like before I leave."
"I know, E. You're very responsible." I teased.
He rolled his eyes and kissed the top of my head before standing up. "Well, it's a good thing I am. Traffic looks like a bitch today, so I'm going to head out. I'll talk to you later, beautiful."
"Bye!" I called as he opened the door.
"Bye, baby."
I sunk down more into the sofa and got the remote. "We're not watching this anymore, Miss Winnie Mae. Ya know what comes on from seven to nine every morning?"
She perked up.
"That's right. The Golden Girls comes on." I said and changed the channel.
I half-watched the old reruns playing on the television. I kept running through the night before in my head. Yelling at Alice, packing up to leave, getting the news from Emmett, leaving to come to Edward's apartment. It all happened in a whirlwind.
I had ended up following Edward to his apartment in my car, and when we got inside, he left again to let Winnie outside. When he got back, we went to bed and laid in silence for hours with him just holding me. The air was thick, and the silence wasn't completely comfortable. I knew he had things he wanted to say to me. I would too if I was in his position. But he must have felt like I had gone through enough that day because he didn't say anything. He only let his hand trail gently up and down my spine as I laid with my head on his chest.
The time for me to leave for work rolled around, and I debated on if I should take my bag back with me. I did. If the night before had done anything, it made me decide to be better about how I treated my relationships. I still wasn't ready for a serious romantic partner by any means, but I already knew what was coming for me when Edward and I finished our conversation from the other night. I already knew that ignoring him for three days had probably pissed him off and that he was only being nice to me because he was the one to witness all of my breakdowns last night. So, if I wanted this to work, even for a little bit just to get to know him more, I had to set some rules for myself. I thought about what the rules should be the entire drive to work.
One – no more than two, eh… three sleepovers in a row. No… better stick to two.
That one seemed like the least daunting. It was the easiest way to settle into my own routine and have enough separation between the two of us that I didn't rely on only him to keep me tied to Fort Worth. He wasn't the only person I needed to improve my relationship with.
Two – stop saving face and say it with your chest.
Ironically, as much as I loved seeing myself as the black sheep, I definitely had some people pleasing tendencies. Part of the reason I hated communicating was because I was afraid to make the other person upset, and so, the silent treatment and running away always just seemed like the better option. I couldn't keep doing that, though. I needed to say when I had a problem and when I needed space. That rule made me slightly sick to my stomach, but it was a work in progress. Baby steps.
I pulled into my normal parking spot at the bar and went up to my apartment to change my shoes since all I had brought with me were my duck boots that had seen better days. I set my bag down on the bed and grabbed the shoes to change into.
Three – keep your shoes and clothes in the actual closet. And buy a damn jewelry box. The Ziploc bag method is a pain in the ass and a time waster, and you know it.
I sighed. Before I set that rule into motion, I had to find Jasper and grovel and pray he didn't fire me and kick me out for screaming at his wife in their bar. But before I even did that, I had to find Alice and grovel to her for screaming at her in their bar.
There was that sick feeling again.
Don't be a little bitch. Rule number two.
I opened the door to my apartment only to find Alice standing there with her hand raised to knock. I saw her sigh in relief as she dropped her hand.
"You're usually early. We just wanted to make sure…" She trailed off. They wanted to make sure I hadn't bailed.
I pushed the guilt away. "Yeah, I'm on my way down. I wasn't here last night so I'm running a little behind." I replied softly.
She nodded and smiled sadly. "Bella, I'm really so—"
I shook my head. "Don't be. I overreacted. Your heart was in the right place."
"Yeah, but that's the problem. I have a habit of… over-caring. I know I can be pushy, and I'm really sorry. It is because I love you, though. And if you and my brother don't work out, I'm still going to be friends with you… I just… I do think that the two of you would be good together. But I promise, I'm done matchmaking. That's between the two of you. I'm out of it completely."
I tried to fight my smile. "No, you're not."
She smiled sheepishly. "Would you give me any points for effort?"
I nodded.
"So, you forgive me?" She asked hopefully.
"Do you forgive me?"
"I do if you do."
"Me too." I laughed.
She smiled brightly and pulled me into a tight hug. "Thank God. I drank so much vodka after you left that I sang Hello Darlin' at karaoke."
I pulled away from her. "Alice, no! That's nowhere near your range."
She snorted. "You're telling me! It was awful. Jasper has it on video. I think he's going to use it for blackmail. Can you blackmail a spouse?"
"Well… I don't know. What does he have on you?"
"Everything."
I made a face. "I don't know, babe. But it doesn't look good."
She sighed. "You ready to head down there?"
I nodded and followed her downstairs.
My shift went by pretty quickly since it was a Friday. We stayed busy, and I knocked off just in time to avoid the crowd before they became obnoxiously drunk. I didn't have the chance to check my phone to see if I had gotten any word from Edward. I was itching to, and it was making me antsy in the last few minutes before I was able to clock out.
I made it outside, thankful for the cool air, and pulled my phone from my back pocket. I felt the relief wash over me when I saw Edward had texted me at around three.
What do you work tomorrow?
I quickly typed my reply as I walked up the stairs to my apartment. It's my Saturday off. Did you have something in mind?
His reply took a few minutes. I was already in my apartment and in the process of throwing my duffel bag and shoes in the closet. It was part of those baby steps.
How do you feel about long unnecessary road trips?
I smiled. They're my favorite kind.
A buddy back home has something I left last time I was there. I'm meeting him in Shreveport to pick it up. Keep me company? We'll be back by dinner.
I thought for a minute. Shreveport was a three and half hour drive there, plus three and half hours back, not including traffic. That was at least seven hours alone with him, which gave him plenty of time to finish our conversation. On one hand, it made my stomach do flips with anxiety. On the other hand, it was an entire day that I basically had him all to myself. It was an exciting prospect.
Can I pick the music?
His reply was immediate. You can.
I'll go. What time?
We worked out the details and told each other goodnight before I hopped into bed. It was a while before I settled down enough to sleep, and I felt like by the time I was in a deep slumber, it was five in the morning, and my alarm was going off.
I groaned and glared at my screaming phone. Begrudgingly, I got out of bed and dressed as cutely and as comfy as I could with what clothes I had. I looked at my scarce wardrobe sadly for a couple of minutes and settled on jeans, a dark teal top, and my trusty black cardigan. I put the coffee on to start dripping and then went into the bathroom to finish getting ready. I had just finished my makeup and was pulling my hair back with a clip when the pot chimed that it was finished.
By six o'clock, I was on Edward's doorstep, coffee in hand, and bright eyed and bushy tailed. After I knocked, he opened the door with a smile.
"Good morning." He greeted and kissed my forehead.
"Morning." I replied as he let me back in.
It hadn't escaped my notice that he hadn't kissed me on the lips since he dropped me off Monday night, and I'd be lying if I said it didn't worry me just the slightest bit.
"I'm almost ready." He said as he walked back towards his bedroom.
He was in jeans and a brown quarter zip pullover, and as always, I got distracted by the way his jeans hung on him perfectly and how his sleeves clung to his biceps. Gah, I loved when he dressed down.
Edward came back a couple moments later, putting on his watch. "Okay, let's head out."
I followed him down to the parking lot and started walking towards his car.
"We're not taking that." He said as he unlocked a truck beside it.
It was an older model Silverado, probably late 90s. It was fire engine red with black tire rims and lifted just below to the point of it being completely obnoxious. He was just full of surprises.
Edward helped me in and then walked around to the driver's side. He started the truck and handed me an aux cord.
I plugged in my phone and started a random playlist. It was a mix of a bunch of random music, mostly country but a lot of rock, seventies, and alternative was thrown in.
When we made it to the highway, I looked over at him. "So, I have a question." I had to speak up a little. The engine was loud.
He looked over at me, smirking. "It was the first truck I ever bought with my own money, and I have a sentimental attachment to it."
I nodded. "Okay, that's understandable. But why would you take something with awful gas mileage on a four hundred mile round trip when you have another option?"
He sighed. "I tend to get a lot of shit for my current lifestyle from the guys back home, so I try not to give them any ammo when I go back."
I frowned. "Why's that?"
He shrugged. "They'd never admit it, but I think they got pretty offended when I didn't move back after law school. They have pretty negative views on life in the city, so I think they kind of see me as a traitor. And so… as you can understand, going to see a bunch of guys that drive diesels and flatbeds, and showing up in a Volvo… It makes me a pretty easy target." He joked lightly.
I nodded in understanding and then looked out of the window. "How far is where you grew up from Shreveport?"
"About an hour." He replied.
"Why didn't y'all meet halfway?"
"Because I'm technically crashing an anniversary weekend he's having with his wife." Edward chuckled. "I needed to get my stuff back this weekend, so I agreed to meet him at their hotel before they had to leave for a concert they're going to tonight."
"You're so last minute." I chided playfully.
"No minute like the last one."
I laughed.
We rode in silence for a while with only the music from the radio playing loudly over the rumbling of the engine. I tried to think of a high school version of Edward after he first got the truck, running down backroads and maybe trying to lose a sheriff's deputy or two after he got caught somewhere he wasn't supposed to be. The thought made me smile a little.
"Your music taste isn't what I expected." Edward commented.
"What do you mean?" I laughed.
"I don't know… but I wasn't expecting Nickelback and Florence and the Machine." He smirked.
I shrugged. "Honestly from my junior year in high school through when I left college, I was hardly listening to anything remotely country. I was kind of tired of it. It all sounded the same, so I started branching out. A lot of what I listened to was what Emmett illegally pirated on our house laptop." I laughed.
"That explains the Nickelback." He joked.
I nodded. "And eventually the tacky rock bands got me into indie and alternative, and I very quickly fell in love with that style of music. I still love it. For the same reason I like a lot of the country artists that are flying under Nashville's radar. It's real. It means something. It's not a formula and a snap track, ya know?"
The song switched at that moment to a pop country song with a snap track, and Edward looked over at me with a smirk and a raised eyebrow.
I sighed heavily. "It's really catchy, okay? I have my exceptions."
He chuckled and looked back at the road. A couple minutes of silence passed. "Whiskey with Waylon or weed with Willie?"
"Ugh, don't ask me that."
He smiled crookedly. "You have to pick one."
"What would you pick?" I asked him.
"Waylon."
"Figures."
He laughed. "Now, you."
"Honestly… I think I'd go with Willie."
"Really?" He sounded shocked.
"Yes, really. Why?"
"You have a Waylon hat."
"It's a cool hat." I laughed and let a comfortable silence fall over us again for a while before I spoke again. "So, you said your dad was an equine vet? Did y'all have horses, too?"
He shook his head. "Nope, just cattle. Don't tell her I told you this, but Alice is deathly afraid of horses."
"Interesting." I laughed. "But not cattle?"
Edward smirked and shrugged. "I don't get it, and I don't know where that fear even came from but yeah. My dad would've definitely gotten one or two, but it just never happened as long as Alice was still at home. And by the time she left for college, both of my parents didn't want any more extra animals to take care of. My dad sold about half the herd not long ago in an effort to get closer to retirement, but really, I don't see him ever fully retiring. He's the type that can't really slow down."
"Do you ever miss living somewhere rural?"
He shrugged. "Only when I'm stuck in traffic." He replied with a faraway look in his eyes.
It went back to quiet, and I leaned my head against the headrest, closing my eyes for a few moments.
I must have drifted off because when I opened them again, the truck was parked at a gas pump. I looked around and saw Edward walking out of the gas station with two bottles of Coke. He made it back to the truck and slammed the door shut when he got in. I wasn't sure how that sound hadn't woken me up before.
"Good nap?" He chuckled.
"I'm sorry. I'm being bad company." I laughed.
"Nah, it's fine. I got you up too early."
"Where are we?" I asked as he started the truck back up.
"A little over halfway there. Probably about an hour fifteen left."
Thank God. I had only been sleeping for twenty minutes. I took a sip of the Coke he handed me, trying to wake myself up a bit.
"So…" Edward began and looked over at me with a weak smile.
"I know." I sighed. I wasn't lucky enough for him to forget about that conversation we were supposed to finish, and it was definitely too much of an ask for him to just sweep my attempt at ghosting him under the rug.
"You okay?"
I figured he was talking about Thursday night, so I nodded. "Yeah. I wish I could say I wasn't always that dramatic, but…" I trailed off.
"I'm asking an honest question here, and I promise I'm not trying to come off as an asshole. Do you always make impulse decisions?"
"I mean, not exclusively. I just… have a very 'eh, why the hell not' concept of life. I make quick decisions thinking that I can always change my mind later if I want to, which I know isn't really true, and it just makes my life harder in the long run. But it goes back to the whole commitment thing... I just, I don't know. It's something I'm trying to work on. It's caused some issues if you haven't already noticed."
"I've noticed."
I gave him a wry smile and turned in my seat to face him.
"And giving me the silent treatment?" He continued.
"Was self-sabotage for the sake of self-preservation." I repeated my mantra for the past week to him. "Again, the commitment thing. I saw the diamond. Freaked out. You were right."
He nodded, deep in thought.
"Can I ask why you haven't given me the silent treatment? I mean, I kinda deserve it."
He sighed. "I thought about it, but it's like I told you before. I used to run away when things got serious, too. I almost quit law school because of it, but one very overbearing pain in the ass made me stick through it. And I realized that commitment, whether it was a job or a relationship, didn't mean having to give up my freedom if it was what was meant for me."
"It was your sister, wasn't it? That got you to stay in law school."
"That it was." He looked over at me with an apologetic smile. "She does mean well."
"Yeah, I know. We talked it out."
"Anyway, I thought quitting on you would be a little hypocritical, especially when I knew that I still had feelings for you."
I leaned my head back on the seat, still facing him. "Thank you." I whispered.
He held out his hand for me to take, and I held it in both of mine on the center console. "You're turning me soft, bellbottoms."
I smirked. "Oh, please. I'm starting to think you never even had any edge, law school."
A mischievous grin spread across his face, but he kept looking at the road. "Remind me to prove you wrong later."
Rule number four – keep your legs crossed and your hands to yourself. Be a fucking lady, Swan.
A/N I'm not sure bellbottoms is going to be able to act like a lady, but I mean, time will tell. Also, Nickleback is good, and you'll never convince me otherwise. Let me know what y'all thought of this one.
Side note: I posted two days in a row to make up for the fact my next post probably won't be until next week. I do have a day job that keeps me pretty busy during the spring and summer with traveling, and I'm also working on my masters and have finals coming up. Posting may get a little weird from here on out, but I'll try to have at least one chapter a week posted. Just be patient with me.
Until the next one, bebs.
