Welcome back, everyone! Blown away from your response from the prologue. I hope you enjoy the ride! I love how most of you figured out that the contract isn't going to hold up for long.
I completed my other fic, The Rec, last month (you can vote for it over at the TwiFanfictionRecs' To 10) and it was a little on the heavier side. This story, is the opposite of that. Something light and fun is just what the world needs right about now, right?
BPOV
It's impossible to imagine I spent the first eighteen years of my life without an ocean within a five mile radius.
How could I have lived without hearing my name whispered against each crashing wave on the awaiting sand? Where did I go when my hormonal, teenaged-self needed a break from the troubles of high school and boys and teachers and parents?
I can tell you this much – it wasn't to a place like the scene in front of me.
I stand outside on a patio with white sand sprinkled generously on a decent sized slab of concrete, the sun beating down on me through the slits of a tall palm tree swaying above me. There's a small glass outdoor table for two tucked into the corner of the patio in an attempt to hide from the beaming Florida sun, and even though it fails remarkably, I have an urge to find out for myself.
I pull one of the chairs back, its legs crunching against the lost sand from the beach, and I sink into the obviously used and battered cushions. Still able to find comfort in the well-used furniture, I take a quiet moment to take everything in.
A few feet ahead of me and directly off the patio is a concrete path of squares, haphazardly placed in a green grass landscape, dotted with an array of freshly bloomed flowers along a fence that has seen better days but still performs its duty of separating these bungalows from the beach in front of it.
The beach is public but this entrance is private, only belonging to the lucky few that can call it their own.
I listen to the seagulls sing their requests and the wind whistle in my ears and I can only hope that I can be one of those lucky ones.
I can't imagine being anywhere else.
The sound of the glass door sliding open behind me breaks me from the trance that only the lull of the ocean can bring me.
Rosalie joins me, her face disappearing as she slides her sunglasses down to cover most of it, and takes a look at the view I have been mesmerized by. She joins me, pulls the other chair away from the table next to me, and shakes her head slightly in disbelief.
I agree with her. There are no words for what we see.
It is four o'clock on a weekday in April, and the beach looks comfortably crowded. It looks to be filled with college people our age, various games of beach volleyball and music coming from different blankets at a respectable volume. Beach blankets and chairs decorate the white sand before the turquoise sea takes its rightful place as the main attraction.
The door slides open again and out comes Alice with Garrett, the owner of this little row of beach bungalows, trailing behind her. He's got a backwards hat on and a cigarette perched behind one ear. He nods his chin towards the ocean, his deep voice smothered by the cigarette between his lips.
"It's your lucky day," he says, his words seeping into the smoke.
"Is that so?" Alice answers, the most talkative of the three of us.
Garrett nods. "Tenants aren't staying until August like they said."
"They broke their lease?" Rose questions.
"It's yours in five weeks." He takes another drag. "If you want it," he adds. He leaves us to ourselves once he's finished.
"'If we want it'?" Alice squeaks, jumping to sit on the top of the railing near the corner of the patio. She leans back so her face is colored by a gleam of sunshine.
"This is…." Rose, still at a loss of words, trails off. "This is paradise!"
"We can't pass this up," Alice replies, her face still facing upwards. "We'll never get another chance like this."
Rose nods vigorously, apparently gaining back her speech. "I agree. We've been looking for places to live after this semester for weeks, and this practically lands in our lap."
We had decided on New Year's Eve that this would be our last semester on campus. We would be college seniors next year, all three of us would be enrolled in our required internships prior to graduating, and we didn't want to deal with any drama that came with living in the dorms. We had started looking in February, and had seen more than our fair share of unmentionables in the last few weeks of our search efforts.
We had decided, in an attempt to boost our spirits, to take a break from apartment looking as the outlook was becoming more and more bleak as the days passed, but Alice had by chance caught a listing on a local Facebook group for this place earlier this morning.
Alice had texted us immediately.
Rose and I were both in morning classes but we responded that we could meet her later in the afternoon to see the place she had found. None of us had high hopes to begin with, but it is plain to see that we were completely wrong.
"It'll be gone by the end of the day." Alice states and jumps off of the railing to take the couple of steps it takes to sink her toes into the hot sand.
Looking around again, I know they're right. Location, and cheap rent, is key to barely legal twenty something college students like us, and when both are almost handed to us on a silver platter like this, we would be stupid to say no.
My thoughts betray me like a black rain cloud on a gorgeous day like this.
"Five weeks?" Thirty five days.
"Five weeks," Rose confirms.
"Earlier than August," I say, stretching my legs out beneath the patio table.
"A lot earlier," Alice drifts back over to us, crossing her arms as she stares at her toes in her flip flops.
"Will Charlie say yes?" Rose questions.
I laugh out of my nose and shake my head. "He said yes to August. Not May."
We had originally agreed that we would move back to the area right before the fall semester in August. We would finish the year five weeks from now this May, go back home for a little bit, then head back to Florida for our final year.
Now everything is turned upside down.
"What do we need to come up with?" I ask, glancing at the rental agreement rolled up in the back pocket of Alice's shorts. Reaching behind her, she takes it out and tosses it on the table towards Rose and me.
"First month's rent and a month and a half for security," Rose reads the terms and places the paper back onto the table.
"In five weeks?" I ask, reaching for the paper myself, hoping that they both had read it wrong.
They did not.
"Yeah, but split three ways." Alice interrupts my panic, and reaches for the paper and takes out the calculator on her phone. "Let me do the math."
Rose and I give her a few minutes, both of us going back and forth with the pros and cons of this place. We struggle to add any cons onto the list other than the cost.
A few minutes later, Alice turns her phone so Rose and I can see the numbers on the calculator. "So that," she points to the screen, "plus three month's rent before August."
"3,000." Rose reads aloud.
I deadpan. Deer in headlights.
"3,000 dollars in five weeks?" For a broke college student, that amount is unheard of.
"I'll call my Dad," Rose offers but I shake my head something fierce before she can dial the number.
"No way. Absolutely not." I watch her put the phone down. "Charlie will fly a plane over here from Washington himself if you spotted me the money."
"You're still babysitting, right?" Alice questions, referring to the afternoon, evening, and sometimes weekend hours I put in watching Liam, a four year old boy in town, while his parents work.
I nod. "Yeah, but his parents could go away for a week and it still wouldn't get me close to $3,000 in five weeks."
"Wait, stop. You only need $1,275 in five weeks," Rose interrupts, doing her own math now. She shows me her phone. "Your part for May's rent and the security deposit."
"That's easier," Alice says. Rose and Alice's financial situation is vastly different than my own, but it rarely makes a difference in our friendship. It only appears in situations like these which, luckily, are few and far between. I was lucky enough that Charlie had agreed to help cover my rent starting in August as opposed to paying for me to stay on campus.
"Yeah, and what happens between then and June 1?" I counter, already knowing that I'll be short on the rent with starvation as an accompanying friend.
"Charlie will never let me stay unless I have it all before we even sign a lease." I say, mostly to myself but loud enough for them to hear me think out loud.
After a couple of minutes with all of us in contemplative thought, Rose shrugs and points at the agreement.
"So tell him you have it," Rose says. "You'll find a job to figure out the rest."
Rational thought leaves me when a breeze picks up off of the ocean and blows my dark brown hair away from my face, the aroma of coconut tanning oil and sea salt filling my lungs.
"What'd ya think?" Garrett reappears, and momentarily, I forget the problem that has fallen into my life.
With a nod from both girls, I answer him back with a smile.
"Where do we sign?"
-ptp-
We take our time before we leave, excitement getting the best of us as we roam the bungalow that will soon be ours. We view it with new sets of eyes, eyes that picture furniture in the rooms, coffee brewing in the kitchen and string lights draped across the patio. It is only located three miles away from campus so we are familiar with the area, but Alice drives her car at a snail's pace so we can take in our new surroundings.
I can picture us here as easy as breathing, and I lose count of the palm trees on our way back to campus but I don't lose the uneasy feeling I've had since we signed the papers an hour ago. I can describe myself as a relatively determined person, so earning the money is not completely out of my realm to accomplish, but I have to admit the timing is horrible and the odds are stacked against me.
It's mid – April, and so much stands between now and the end of my five week deadline: end of the semester and everything that goes along with it, packing our suite in the dorms, babysitting Liam, and the upcoming Graduation and graduation parties for Emmett, Jasper, and Edward, among other things that make me close my eyes and rest my head on the headrest in the car.
Alice and Rose are flitting back and forth in an animated conversation about the bungalow in the front seat, and there's no way I can tell them that there is a strong possibility that I won't be able to come up with the money. Even with the wealth from their families back home, I can't let them cover my share.
When it takes us ten minutes to find an empty parking spot once we're back on campus, I may change my mind and let them, after all.
"Guys at dinner?" I ask as we walk in silence towards the dining hall, all of us lost in our own thoughts.
Rose nods. "Yeah, they just got there."
'The Guys' referred to Emmett, Jasper, and Edward. We walk up the steps to the dining hall, using our IDs to get whichever meal we want. We all head in different directions but end up back at a table near the floor to ceiling windows in the left corner.
"Three bedrooms, on the beach, one and half baths, kitchen, living room, three parking spaces," Alice trails off a little later as her boyfriend, Jasper, flips through her phone to see the pictures she had taken from the bungalow earlier today.
Our bungalow, I should say. Or I will say in five weeks' time. I gulp down the rest of my water at the dining hall two hours later during dinner in an attempt to drown my anxiety. I wish it was something a little stronger than water, but that would come later.
"Some utilities included." Rose adds.
"It didn't smell, either," Alice mentions.
"That's a plus," Emmett, Rose's boyfriend, says while taking a bite of his burger.
There are six of us sitting around a circular table in the middle of the dining hall. There's Alice and Jasper, Rose and Emmett, and Edward and I. The guys are seniors, one year ahead of us, and were in charge of welcoming us during freshman orientation. We had all been friends since, the rest of them a little more, but Edward and I had remained close for the three years we had been on campus.
"I can't wait til we can decide whether we like something or not based off of something other than how it smells," Alice crinkles her nose as she looks over the pictures again.
"I think smell will always be a factor when picking a place to live," Edward adds, slurping a large spoonful of cereal into his mouth. He's known to believe that cereal counts as a meal for any time of day.
"Is it now?" Jasper retorts, putting down his silverware. "If that's the case, why am I still sharing a dorm with your stank ass?"
Edward and Jasper, captain and co-captain of our university soccer team, can clear a room after a practice or game in the Florida heat.
"You've shared a room since freshman year," Rose argues. "You're immune to it by now."
"And you signed?" Edward asks me, pointing towards the pictures he's looking at on Alice's phone.
"Had to," I shrugged as if there were no other choice.
"Did you hear from your Dad yet?" Rose asks as she spears lettuce onto her fork.
I shake my head. "Not yet. He's probably getting off his shift now," I answer, glancing at my phone to check the time. "Time difference."
"Lyin' to the Chief," Emmett ponders before sending a fist bump my way. "Brave." I accept the bump with a roll of my eyes.
"Badass," Edward agrees.
"Definitely brave. I mean, he interrogates people for a living." Jasper says. "He'll pick up on your lies, you know."
"I'm not exactly lying," I argue, guilt balling up in my stomach again. It tightens every time I remember what I've committed to without the means. "I will have the money by the time we move in. I don't know how, but he doesn't need to know that."
"$3,000 in five weeks?" Edward asks again for confirmation. I nod. Emmett whistles and shakes his head.
"Impossible?" I ask the table again. It seems like we've spent the last hour making sure our numbers and figures are right.
"Not impossible," Jasper says, trying to make me feel better. "Extremely difficult, but not impossible."
"You could strip," Emmett suggests, and we all laugh.
"As in take my clothes off in front of an audience?"
"Is dancing required?" Alice asks, laughing when she adds, "If so, that's definitely a no for you, Bella."
I nod and agree with her. "You're right. My lifelong aspiration to be a stripper is only trumped by my aversion to dancing," I joke, as if that were the only reason for that idea to be off the table.
"Lack thereof," Edward corrects, and they all reminisce of times where my dancing has been the root of many a laugh.
"We'll keep an eye out for you, Bella," Rose says as we start to clear away our dinner. With only five weeks left until the end of the year, and Graduation for the guys, we are swamped with school assignments and group projects in preparation for finals.
"Where should we start?" Alice asks, her positively always uplifting.
"I'll start with this phone call," I respond, showing everyone my Dad's incoming call on my phone.
"See you at class?" Edward shouts as I gather my things to head out. Edward and I have one night class a week, Tuesday's at 6:45. I nod, even though spending the next three hours trapped in a dimly lit room is the last place I want to go right now.
"Maybe he'll say yes?" Jasper offers as I wave goodbye to them and start the trek back to our room. I take my time, enjoying talking to my Dad along the way.
I can't put it off forever, though, and end up sitting on a bench outside of my dorm as we finish our conversation.
"We agreed on August, Bella. I told you it would take me some time to save up for you living off campus," Dad says, and I can hear the disappointment in his voice. I know it's not directed towards me, and only towards himself. The last thing I want him to do is beat himself up over something that isn't his fault. "Five weeks isn't possible, baby."
I know he would if he could. If this wasn't thrown at him, I know he would do whatever he could to make this happen for me.
I am forever grateful for him.
"I know. I didn't want to ask at all," I apologize.
"I'm glad you did. Even if you knew my answer was going to be no," he chuckles. "You said you have it, though?"
I swallow the lie before it comes up again. "Yeah, I do. All $3,000." I hate lying to him.
"It's scary making an investment in yourself this big," he says. I nod even though he can't see me.
"It's not that," I add. "It's just that I won't have much left for anything else."
"Yeah, you'll have to eat somehow," Dad laughs and I groan inwardly again, thinking of additional expenses like groceries and water and electric and cable.
I'm in way over my head.
"Did you ask your Mom?"
"Nope," I answer, and leave it at that. I'd rather starve.
"It'll work out," I lie again but this time it's a little more difficult to say.
"It always does," Dad says. "Does that mean I won't be seeing you when school is done?"
"It depends on when we move in," I say and grab my bag off of the bench and use my student ID to buzz myself into my dorm. "I'd love to go back home for a few days."
Love is a stretch. I do like going back home but it is vastly different than here. I chose to go to school in Florida to escape the confines of a gray sky and trees reaching the clouds above them. I chose to trade snow for the ocean, and had fallen in love with the rise of the tides and everything else with it within minutes of stepping foot onto campus.
The ocean had immediately brought me a sense of peace I hadn't even known I was missing in my life.
The thought of being separated from the sea makes me quick to push the thoughts away.
"Maybe I'll come out there," Dad muses as I let myself into my room. Alice and Rose must have stayed behind to fill up on ice cream in the dining hall. "Help you ladies move in."
"You're not going to inspect the neighborly crime rates, are you?"
"I can't be across the country from you and not know if you're safe or not."
"Thanks, Dad."
"I'll start looking into flights."
We hang up a few minutes later, and I ignore the texts of pictures of strippers that filter in from our group text from Edward and Emmett. Instead, I flop down onto my bed, hoping that I will soon find the answers I desperately needed.
-ptp-
I'm a good handful of chapters ahead of you all and I'm about to write their first "encounter". This is fun! Oh, and please don't alert the authorities about what you would find in my computer's search history.
Next up, EPOV!