Chapter 5: Road Trips Are The Devil


It was chaos. Pure and utter chaos.

Mom was running around like a chicken with its head cut off. She was picking up clothes, tossing them away in disgust and then picking them up again. I hated the final check-up she did every fucking time we went somewhere over night.

Mom's blonde hair was a mess and I wondered how she could go out looking like a lunatic that had escaped from a mental hospital. My mom never appeared in public if she wasn't dolled up to perfection. The same way that I would never step a foot outside of my house unless I looked perfect. Image was everything and it was so weird to see my mom so frazzled up.

"You know, I thought my mom was bad..." Faye whispered into my ear, looking freaked out of her mind.

I grinned. It was Faye's first official family reunion. She had met Granny May last Christmas and a handful of dad's side of the family, but this was the real trial by fire. She would be scrutinized maybe even more intensely than I was going to be. I would've felt sorry for her, but all of my worrying was reserved for me exclusively. I would throw Faye to the sharks if it meant I could get away unscathed. And I actually liked Faye.

Faye looked beautiful with her long black hair curled elegantly. Mom had spent hours on her hair, and this was not even the wedding-do. First impressions were important and mom was making sure that our family would make a huge bang.

I couldn't help but to do a villain laughter inside of my mind. Between me and Faye, we would outshine Ariel so completely. She had nothing on us. The bride would be the third most impressive, if even that. We had a lot of cousins and Ariel was nowhere near the top in the looks department. I was competing for the top spot with cousin Lydia and aunt Mary who was my youngest aunt.

"You just wait for Saturday... I don't think we'll be able to leave our rooms until the wedding starts. My scalp is already aching just from thinking about what mom will do to us." I said, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. It was awkward since Faye was like a foot taller than me. Literally. She was 5 ft 11. I don't know what they fed to the people living on the reservation, but they were all so fricking tall. Or maybe their Quileute blood just had some witchy magic that made the people tall and attractive. I mean, rumour has it that some of them can turn into magical wolves so who knew what else they had in their systems. So unfair.

"Can we still cancel?" Faye asked, her big brown eyes round and wide. Oh, she was adorable in her naivety. Brody wrapped his arm around Faye's waist and another around my shoulders and leaned heavily on us. I nearly toppled over. If Faye was tall next to me, Brody was the freaking Hulk. Big and wide. Kind of like Emmett Cullen. Except waaaay less hot. Ew.

"Oh, my love, if only we could. You see, mother is on a mission to showcase her beautiful Quileute Princess Daughter-in-law to the hyenas we like to call our relatives. There is no escaping this, I'm afraid."

"Brody Augustus Johnson! You shut your big mouth and go help your father with the luggage!" Mom screeched out.

Brody and me automatically straightened our bodies. Damn that woman was scary. Brody let us go and hurried out of the door. I sighed and slumped against the wall. I couldn't believe I was really doing this. I was so getting caught. I was going to be the laughing stock of the whole fucking family tree. I fucking hated Ariel and her stupid wedding.

"Isn't Jasper supposed to be here already?" Faye asked quietly so to not disturb the dragon. I hummed.

The plan was for us to drive to the wedding venue with Jasper's SUV. Brody's car was acting up and while we would have been absolutely delighted to miss the wedding because we got stranded in the middle of nowhere, mom had vetoed the idea and ordered us to use my date's car. I was pretty sure she just wanted us to take that car for appearance's sake. We were well-off and Brody's Volvo was a nice car, but the Cullens were in the league of their own. Mom was milking this fake date situation for all it was worth.

"He's hiding somewhere near by. I'm texting him as soon as mom and dad leaves. She'll scare him off if they meet before we get there."

"Good call. I wish Brody had been so considerate."

Dad walked into the house, looking frazzled like hell. I think he might've hated the family outings even more than me and Brody. Mostly because ever since Brody got his driver's license we have refused to travel in the same car as mom. That left dad as the only one she could nag to. Her favourite past time.

"Where's that blasted boy of yours, Ella? Your mother is going insane." He grumbled. Oh, how that silent disapproval surrounded me like an old companion. I would miss it when I someday managed to get the hell out of the house. Mmmh... just a few more years...

"I strongly advised him to not meet with my mother until we've arrived at the venue and it will be impossible for him to run away." I said, smirking at his twitching, bushy eyebrow. I loved to make him frustrated. It was one of the only benefits of being an angsty teenager.

"Good call..." He muttered, averting his eyes and clearly resigning to his fate. Hah! Served him right. It was entirely his own fault that he had been stupid enough to fall for my mother. That woman was all sorts of crazy.

I watched as they finally drove off. About the fucking time. I was all about being fashionably late, but I didn't want to give off the impression that I was afraid of attending the fucking wedding. Goddamn I was so sick of thinking about this fiasco. The sooner these four days were over, the better. I texted Jasper and he appeared on the driveway like 30 seconds later. Apparently he took it literally when I told him to stick close.

"That's him? Ooh, I can't wait to see what sorry creature you've dragged home." Brody appeared from behind me, nearly knocking me off of my balance with his giant of a body. Honestly, why did he have to suck out all of the height being passed down in our genetic coding? It was so unfair. Like most things in my life.

Well, at least I could get a little bit of joy out of Brody's expression when Jasper stepped out of his very nice black SUV. Okay, I couldn't blame him. Jasper was looking FIIIIIINE. He was wearing an aquamarine button-up shirt and perfectly fitting jeans with a designer leather jacket to top it all off. Stylish, yet casual. And it fit with my lilac sweater and white skinny jeans pretty well. Thank God for his (or his girlfriend's) sense of style. I could already see Ariel's smug little face fall at the sight of this man-candy. Fuck, I hoped I wasn't drooling. Entirely possible.

"Oh my God... I think I'm in love." Brody gasped out. His eyes were round and he was nearly drooling. For a hot second I thought he was taken back by Jasper's sexyness, but then I realized that my brother was having a hard-one over a car. A fucking car.

"Damn, Ella! I mean, I heard the Cullens were hot, but DAMN." Faye gasped next to me. I couldn't blame her reaction. I had thought that the limit of vampire's sex appeal came in the shape of Dr. Cullen, but daaaamn his son got something wonderful going on for him. I just really hoped I wouldn't spew out some sort of garbage out of my mouth. Objectifying others was all good and fine when it happened inside your mind. It all turned to shit when you said any of those things out loud. I really didn't want to be THAT person, even if my mind was imagining all kinds of naughty things I would love to do with him.

"Oh yeah, you've never seen any of them. I see you around the house so often I always forget that you don't go to my school."

It was really hard to remember that Faye lived at the reservation. She was just always around and my mind automatically connected her with what I was familiar with. Home and School. Come to think of it, I had never been invited to Faye's place. Her parents were really into the whole secret society thing the Quileutes had going for them. No outsiders. It was something about some Quileute boys turning into werewolves and nobody was supposed to know. Psh. I often wondered if people around here were blind or just extremely stupid.

I mean, Sam Uley, once the shining star of the reservation, had gone missing for like two months and then he came back buffed as fuck. Faye had told her tribe's old legends during family dinners and me being me, I had written them down to show Angela later. When the rumours of Sam started floating around, she had made the obvious connection.

Really, once you knew about vampires, it wasn't that hard to make the leap to werewolves. Especially when the tribe members had some wonky relationship problems with our resident vampires.

Anyway, back to me trying not to drool and make a complete idiot of myself.

"Hey. Thanks for doing this. I mean it." I greeted Jasper. I was feeling exceptionally proud of myself for staying in upright position and for not draping myself all over him like a cat in heat. Yay for Ella's growing immunity to vampiric sexy-vibes. I feel like it should be something I could put in my resume.

"Oh, so I had a choice in this?" He said jokingly enough. The boy was learning. Maybe he could be unleashed into the society some day. Okay, I shouldn't be that mean, not even in the privacy of my mind. I could never be sure if Creepward was lurking in the shadows.

"Other than dooming my sister to certain death? No, bro." Brody exclaimed loudly from the car. I don't think he even properly registered who my date was and was just happily drooling over his car that we would be driving to my personal hell with. Boys...

"That's a bit melodramatic." Jasper remarked. Oh, that poor boy had no idea. If I didn't absolutely need him, I would've told him to run. My relatives were going to leave nothing left when they were done with him. I wondered if Jasper would ever be free from the nightmares that were sure to come.

"If you only knew... Hi, I'm Faye and that is Ella's brother Brody."

"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintances." Jasper said, very formally. I snickered quietly. A simple 'hi' would've been just fine, but it seemed like Jasper Hale liked the theatrics.

Brody started tossing our suitcases into the trunk of Jasper's car and Faye went to make herself comfortable on the backseat. I tried my hardest to not stare at Jasper's magnificence too much, but he was making it super difficult.

"Did you read the notes I gave you?" I asked to kill the awkward silence that was forming. I would have called it sexual tension, but I was pretty sure it was just one-sided so it couldn't be anything other than awkward. Story of my fucking life.

"Yes. Your notes were very well compiled and it was easy to follow them. I assume that note-taking is a hobby of yours?"

I nodded. My mouth felt dry and other places felt a little damp. It was fucking ridiculous. Jasper was just literally standing there and I was going gaga over him. I had a bad feeling about the next four days.

"Oh, thanks for doing my homework. Mrs. Saunders was impressed with the 'improved quality of my horrid school work'. I appreciate that you half-assed it. I think that the old bat would have been suspicious if I suddenly turned in a Cullen-worthy paper."

Jasper graced me with a small smile. I got the feeling that he didn't practise smiling all that often. That was something that should be fixed. His smile lit up the area around him and he looked so much more handsome with a smile than with the pained or bored look he sported every day at school.

"The car is packed. Dude, you mind if I drive? I'm dying to take this baby for a spin." Brody said, breaking the ogling I was practising. I looked at the two of them side to side.

Jasper was an inch or two taller than Brody, but Brody was much wider. They both had clearly muscular bodies, but Jasper was all lean muscle while Brody was bulky as fuck. He lifted weights four times a week and was constantly trying to beat his record. Jasper looked more like a natural athlete or like those yummy men that decorated underwear catalogues.

And now I was imagining Jasper without his shirt on. I was way too thirsty...

"Yeah, sure. It's all yours."

It was funny to watch Jasper trying to interact with Faye and Brody. He seemed so fucking uncomfortable that it was adorable. And these were the most tolerable out of all the people he would encounter before we could get the fuck out from the wedding on Sunday.

"We need to hit the road. Mom will skin us alive if we make a bad impression." I said, checking the time on my phone. We had three hours of driving ahead of ourselves and that didn't include the several stops we would inevitably had to make. Faye had a bladder the size of a pea. I groaned and dragged myself to the front seat of Jasper's car. I just wanted this thing to be fucking over.

000

It's my very humble opinion that the Devil created the concept of road trips. There was nothing good or pure about being packed tightly together in a metal box with no escape in sight. I mean, what options did you have except just to grin and bear it? You can't just get out of the car when you get sick of it. It would only cause you to be stranded, most likely in a place where nobody would come and pick you up.

Then again, that option was starting to sound very much appealing. It had been only 20 minutes, but the mood in the car was driving me crazy. Faye was constantly checking Jasper out. I could feel Jasper's eyes burning into the back of my skull and Brody was grinning in a way that only meant a world of trouble for me. Brothers... they should all just get dropped into hell or something.

Nobody was speaking and it was awkward as fuck. I tried to think of things to talk about, but what was there? Hey Brody, did you know that Jasper is a vampire? That would go over so beautifully. And it happened to be my only real, tangiable fact I knew about Jasper. Sure he had told me a great deal of things over our planning session, but I didn't know if any of it was true. I could talk about our arrangement for my school work, but that would raise a lot of questions on how I managed to rope Jasper into being my homework slave/tutor... and I don't think that particular conversation would end well.

Besides, the idea of my brother cozying up with a Cullen made my skin crawl. Even the undead didn't deserve that. It would be better if Brody never spoke to Jasper. Ever.

Unfortunately, such was not my lot in life. I knew it the second Brody took a deep breath. My body tensed and I hunched over slightly, my brain telling me to be prepared to jump out of a moving vehicle to escape the embarrasment that was about to ensue.

"Soooo... Jasper..."

MAYDAY! ABORT! ABORT!

"Don't you 'Sooooo Jasper' him!" I growled in warning. My brains were gathering data on things I could use against him, but it was a lost cause. Brody shared everything with Faye and that girl was too disgustingly in love with him to even care. Fuck...

"Do you think my sister's hot?"

Facepalm. And I mean that literally. Brody's face and my palm had a beautiful collision. The last word came out muffled, but with the vampiric super powers, there was no doubt in my mind that Jasper had heard it perfectly clear. So fucking unfair.

Goddamn that white line at the edge of the road looked inviting. I mean, how badly could it hurt? I'd take a mangled body over this ordeal any day.

"Yes, do tell." Faye said in a sugary sweet voice. That traitor. What a bitch.

"Don't encourage him! And Jasper, ignore them!"

"Aww, look how red she's getting!"

"Keep your damn eyes on the road and quit the bullshit!" I screeched. Loudly. In such a high pitch that I was sure the resident humans in the car couldn't even hear properly.

I willed myself to NOT turn my eyes on the rearview mirror that happened to be positioned just so that I could see what was going in the backseat. It didn't work out. I HAD to peek. I couldn't help myself. You know the saying, curiousity killed the cat? Well, this cat just got thrown under a fucking road roller.

He was smirking. Fucking SMIRKING! Oh the nerve! I could accept a humorous smile, but not this. That arrogant, annoyingly sexy smirk made me want to smear his face on the ground or something. It was sinful as fuck. And fuck me if it didn't do some wonderful things to my body.

By now I was convinced that my hormonal overdrive would never die down. I was doomed to go totally gaga over this guy for the rest of my life. Just my fucking luck.

"Oh yes. I could just eat her right up."

Fuck. Me. Vampire humour. Eating people, hardy-har. What a fucking riot. Well, at least now I knew two things for sure about Jasper Hale. He was a vampire and he had a really sucky sense of humour. Ha! See what I did there? 'Sucky'? I'm so funny I want to cry.

"Oooooh... that sounds promising. You trained him really well, Ella." Faye, that traitorous beast, said. Oh, she would have hers before this disaster was over and done with. I was looking forward to seeing how she could handle my relatives with some conversation starters from me.

"Yeah, especially since you've never even had a boyfriend before."

Thank you Brody. Please do shut the fuck up now. I was not comfortable talking about my lack of romance in life. It wasn't that I was embarrased by my lack of romantic experience or anything like that. It's just that every time my relationship status is brought up, it's being made fun of. That kind of stuff gets old really fast and I had to deal with it for so fucking long.

"Wait, you've never had a boyfriend before?" Jasper asked, utterly surprised. It's just sad that my pathetic social life was the thing that could break the masks of vampires.

"What of it?" I mumbled, toeing off my heels and lifting my knees so I could bury my head into something. Hands just didn't work when you didn't want to look like you were pouting like a little kid, even though you totally were.

"I'm just a bit surprised. You seem to be constantly surrounded by guys at school, so I just assumed that you had dated at least some of them."

I scoffed. As if any one of them would actually ask me out. The reason I was so well-liked overall in school was that the guys saw me as one of them and the girls found me unthreatening because of it. Girls were the bitchiest of creatures ever made and they would swoop down on you like a pack of vultures if they thought you were stealing all of the attention from the guys. Myself included, of course. I wasn't above that shit.

"Not a chance. They wouldn't want to date their 'bro'."

"It's sad really. Our little Ella is just too manly for them to feel attracted to her."

I was going to murder my brother one of these days. Faye gave his seat a little kick. She didn't mind my brother teasing my light-heartedly, but she always drew the line with his more mean-spirited comments. I theorized it was because she was brought up in a community where everyone was considered family and all that jazz. It must've been quite the culture shock when she was introduced to the daily fights occuring in our household. It sometimes felt like we were never meant to be born in the same family.

"Really?" Jasper asked with a raised eyebrow. Goddamn he looked hot doing that. I had to stop looking at him. I was in so much trouble. I prayed that this was just a temporary period of insanity and that it didn't leave any lasting problems in my brain.

I could feel his eyes going up and down at the lenght of my seated body. I guess he was trying to find what was so manly about me. It was a mystery to everyone. I mean, you had to search really hard to find someone girlier than me. Even Lauren and Jessica, our token girly-girls held no candle to me and my obsession with all things pretty and sparkly and feminine.

"Can we make a quick stop? I need to pee." Faye said in her whining puppy dog voice.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I actually wished we would be at the venue already. Fucked up, right?

000

Brody pulled over at a gas station right outside of Port Angeles. Faye practically ran to the little girl's room. I got out of the car in much slower manner and stretched my body. Sitting still for so long didn't really fit me.

I breathed in the fresh air. It was pretty damn cold. I regretted not wearing a jacket. I had decided that it would be unnecessary since I was going to be in a car the whole way and I could put on a jacket or a thicker set of clothes if I got cold once we arrived to our destination.

Jasper walked up to me and shrugged off his beautiful leather jacket. He dropped it on my shoulders like he was handling something delicate and precious.

"Here. The weather is a bit chilly to wander around without a proper jacket." He said smoothly.

I swooned. Like, my knees actually buckled and I had to catch myself. My heart gave a little squeeze and I felt super touched and emotional. Like, I was blinking back suspicious moisture in my eyes and swallowing down that choking feeling you get in your throat when you cry.

Jasper Hale was a fucking majestic creature.

"Thanks. So, do you get cold at all?" I asked after looking around to see if Brody was anywhere near by. He must've went inside to buy something because he was nowhere to be seen. It was just me and Jasper and honestly, I preferred it this way.

"No, not really. I can feel that snow and ice are cold, but the coldness doesn't affect me in any way. It's the same with heat. Things feel warm and hot, but I don't feel warm."

He was surprisingly open about this whole vampire thing. I had thought he'd be much more reluctant to share information. It was almost like he was relieved that I knew the truth so he didn't have to pretend to be a human around me. I guess that was understandable to some degree.

"May I ask you something, Ella?" He said after a tiny pause. He looked down at me, his face neutral. I nodded.

"Yeah, sure. What do you want to know?"

"Why did you choose me? Carlisle said it was a process of elimination...?"

Fuck... I went bright red and my ears felt so damn hot all of a sudden. Yes, ask the hard questions, why don't you...

I thought about how to answer his question. Honestly, I had to think about what the answer even was. There had been certain desperation of course. I wasn't suicidal and getting mixed in the whole vampire business was a guaranteed way to lower your chances of living to 100 years old.

I had thought about picking Rosalie. I didn't think I was gay, but I was pretty sure I could've faked it with Rosalie as my partner. I mean, the girl was like a Goddess and I wasn't entirely sure if I wanted to be her or bone her. In the end I had decided that I was too afraid of her and...

...much more attracted to Jasper Hale. It appeared that I had a thing for blondes. More specifically, to blonde vampires. It turned out that Jasper filled all the requirements on the list of things that I found attractive. He was tall, he was blonde and he was a vampire old enough to be my great-great-grandfather.

I had serious issues.

"If I tell you the truth, will you run away screaming? Cause I can't have you do that." I asked. It was a valid question. Angela had told me to be honest with him. She reads a lot of books and she has a whole collection of books about healthy relationships and the importance of good communication.

If I was going to be completely honest with him, I needed to know that he wouldn't bail just because I freaked him out.

He smiled again. Damn that was a good look for him. I pulled his jacket tighter around me and took a deep breath. Fucking hell he smelled amazing. I needed this scent in my life. Was it possible to bottle this perfection and use it as a perfume? I would actually consider using perfume if it smelled like him.

"I promise you that I will not run away. I am committed to seeing this wedding through. I gave you my word that I would help you and I am not one to go back on my word."

I hummed, mulling over on how to phrase my answer.

"Because I think you are like stupid hot and I kind of want to fuck you."

Well, that was eloquently put. My face had just started to cool down and now I felt hot all over again. I looked Jasper dead in the eyes. He promised not to run away. Time to see if he really meant it. I was going to fucking embrace this awkwardness.

Jasper looked at me blankly for a while and then the most amazing thing happened. He let out a little huff of laughter. His eyes crinkled up and then he really started laughing. It wasn't mocking or mean laughter. It was infectious and the corners of my lips started to tug upwards. There was a giggle building inside of me that needed to be let out. So I did.

We laughed for a good while. It felt so liberating and did wonders to my stressed-as-fuck mind.

"Thank you for your honesty. You are a rare wonder, Ella Johnson."

Hello, hormones. I was wondering where you had disappeared to. I swooned again. This boy was seriously going to be the death of me. All of this horniness couldn't be healthy.

I wanted to ask him how he knew for sure that I was telling the truth and not just making a big joke of it all, but Brody and Faye chose that moment to step outside of the gas station. Was it just me or were they looking a lot more frazzled than they had going in?

Fucking hell. My brother and his girlfriend had just had a quickie in a dirty gas station bathroom. Ewwwww! So fucking gross!

"I can't believe you two. You couldn't wait until we got there?" I complained. I was throughoutly disgusted. On a plus side, it meant that my lust of Jasper had been pushed back. Nothing killed the mood quite like knowing your brother just got laid.

"Come on, little sister. When the nature calls..." Brody waggled his eyebrows like an idiot. I honestly couldn't understand what Faye saw in him. Love really was blind.

"Whatever you say, mr. 30 seconds. We are running late so let's get a move on."

"Hey! I lasted way more than 30 seconds!"

Gross! Gross gross gross...

"Ew, shut up Brody! Let's just go!" I screamed and covered my ears. I just needed to find my happy place.

A place where I was an only child and Ariel was slowly dying of leprosy and I didn't have to attend her stupid wedding...


Author's Final Notes:

Another day, another chapter. So, most of you have probably figured out that this is going to be a really long story. I hope it doesn't feel like the story is not progressing at all. I just like to take my time building up the characters and their relationships. I'm sure that eventually something resembling a real plot emerges from this sea of words... maybe.

Again, thank you for sticking with this story! It brightens my day whenever I get an email notification that someone has followed my story. These are the small joys in life that make it worth living! Hopefully you all will stick around to the very end, but no hard feelings if you don't. Shit happens and sometimes you just get bored of stories.

Well, next time we finally arrive to the dreaded wedding venue! And the infamous Ariel shall finally make her appearance. The next chapter will hopefully be out early next week. I'll see you all then!