Chapter Forty
While Kim and Embry sat outside talking, Jared spent his time sitting at Emily's kitchen table, his gaze unwavering from the door and his entire body tense, ready to react at a moment's notice.
"You know," Emily began after ten minutes of this, having finally finished berating Sam, "It doesn't matter how long you stare at that door. You're never going to be able to see through it."
"I can hear through it," Jared countered stubbornly.
"Jared!" Emily reprimanded him sharply, and Jared flinched automatically. It happened so rarely, Emily was scary when she got angry. "Stop eavesdropping. Or, at the very least, try not to take advantage of your supernaturally-enhanced hearing. Kim is fine. After this afternoon, you should be more than aware that Embry wouldn't do anything to hurt her."
"I don't think he would hurt her," Jared mumbled, but Emily's unimpressed look easily told him she didn't believe a word he was saying. She was wrong, though.
Well, mostly.
Because Jared did believe that Embry, his pack brother, would never purposefully hurt Kim, his imprint. But the fact of the matter was, right now Embry was upset. And when any of the wolves got upset they tended to, well, turn into wolves. And Emily was evidence of what could happen when a normal human was too close when that happened. Personally, Jared was impressed with himself for not putting up more of an argument when Kim announced she was going outside to talk to Embry alone. Then he again, he definitely believed that if Embry showed even the slightest sign of phasing that Kim would respond appropriately to the situation.
So basically, right now, he was trusting Embry enough to agree Kim could be safe in his presence, but he sure as hell wasn't putting his complete faith in the other boy, no matter what Emily had to say about it.
And of course, naturally, since Jared spent so much time worrying, when Embry and Kim returned inside a few minutes later, of course it was without any sign of phasing and all signs that the pair was developing a stronger camaraderie than simply being exposed to each other through pack life. Because Emily's smug smirk was the kind of injustice Jared should have expected in his life by now. Typical.
"Well this is a surprise."
Jared perked up at the sound of the familiar voice. He'd been leaning against Kim's locker, waiting for her to get out of class, but now here she was.
"A Friday miracle occurred today," Jared agreed. "Public Enemy Number One was out sick today and the sub totally let us out early. How has your afternoon been?"
Kim shrugged as Jared stepped out of her way, allowing her to open her locker and begin switching out all of things she would need over the weekend.
"Longer than normal, it felt like," She sighed. "I swear they make the clocks slower on Fridays. There's no way today wasn't longer than yesterday."
"I support that conspiracy theory," Jared stated.
"How was your afternoon?" Kim asked after slamming her locker door shut and turning to him expectantly.
Jared sighed theatrically. "Horrible. Every moment I spend away from you is pure torture."
As Jared had intended, this caused Kim's face to light up with a smile as she let out a small laugh. Honestly, though, even though he'd spoken with the intention of making Kim laugh (he really loved hearing her laugh), saying that he hadn't enjoyed his afternoon away from her wasn't that much of a stretch. Jared fully enjoyed every moment they were able to spend together, and he definitely hated when they had to be separated, whether it was because of his patrol schedule or because they had different classes to go to.
"Even with the absence of 'public enemy number one?'" Kim questioned. As one, they both turned away from the row of lockers and Jared automatically reached for Kim's hand as they began making their way out of the school.
"Hmm…you make a compelling argument," Jared said thoughtfully. "For once, almost unbelievably, math was a bright spot in an afternoon that was otherwise dull…up until now, of course."
"Oh, of course," Kim agreed, then she smiled again. "So…was there any particular way you were planning to spend the rest of your afternoon?"
"Funny you should mention that," Jared began, "I actually have quite the full afternoon ahead of me. First, I will of course be driving you and Kylie home—I heard it might rain, naturally I can't let you walk home in that kind of weather. And after that, I convinced Paul to switch patrols with me today."
"So you have to patrol all afternoon?" Kim questioned, and Jared definitely didn't miss the disappointment that now laced her voice at this news. Well, he would have to rectify that.
"I do," Jared replied easily. "But that's because I realized last night that in all of the chaos on Wednesday, we never got our afternoon together. I was really looking forward to that, too."
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kim give him a funny look. "So to make up for not spending time together, you switched patrols so that we could again not spend the afternoon together?"
"I switched patrols," Jared corrected her with a grin, "So that I could have tonight free to take you out on a date and beg for your forgiveness so that you won't dump my sorry ass."
Now Jared actually turned his head so that he could look fully at Kim, only to see that her smile was back in place.
"Once again," She advised him, "Next time, you should probably lead with that."
"That movie had some serious flaws," Kim announced as they made their way out of the movie theater later that night.
"You said that about the last three movies, too," Jared reminded her, though not without a certain fondness. She really was adorable when she got worked up about things.
"That's because they did!" She insisted, just as he knew she would. Okay, so maybe sometimes he purposely egged her on to get a reaction out of her. But did he really need to repeat how adorable he thought she got? "I mean, the first two were okay…honestly, I don't have any major complaints about them, except that they weren't word-for-word adaptations of the books. But that third movie…good lord did they screw that thing up. And I liked this one, I really did—creative liberties aside—but it just felt so…rushed. Again, they seriously would not have gone amiss with a word-for-word adaptation straight from the book."
"That book was over seven-hundred pages!" Jared protested. "Can you even imagine how long that movie would have to be to include every single detail from the book?"
"Yes," Kim stated immediately. "And it would be glorious."
By this time, they were now standing outside in the parking lot, having paused beside Jared's truck to continue their conversation uninterrupted. Before Jared could say anything more on their current topic, however, he noticed that Kim's attention was now focused somewhere behind him.
"Isn't that Jacob?" She questioned, and Jared turned just in time to see the unmistakable figure of Jacob Black helping another boy he didn't recognize into the back seat of a small car; there was also a girl with them who Jared vaguely recognized as Isabella Swan.
"It is," Jared agreed. "I didn't know he was friends with the Swan girl."
"I'd say maybe more than friends," Kim said as they both observed the pair getting into the front seat of the car, before Jacob wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
Jared couldn't help the snort of laughter he let out then. "Well if that's true, then she just seems to attract all sorts of supernatural beings."
Jared turned back to face Kim as Jacob drove away, only to see that she was now looking at him with a thoughtful expression on her face.
"Jacob hasn't phased yet…" Kim began slowly, "But, if he does, do you think it will be soon?"
"It's hard to say," Jared frowned slightly. "The signs are there, but they've been there for ages. For all we know, he could be going through a completely normal growth spurt. I know we weren't keeping an eye on Embry, but we definitely completely missed the signs with him, so who really knows if Jacob will change soon."
"For Embry's sake, I kind of hope he does," Kim admitted. "He's doing loads better now, but I still think he'd be happier with one of his friends around."
Jared shrugged now, and reached for the handle on the passenger door of his truck. "It will happen when it happens…if it happens. Let's forget about all that for now though, we were doing so well with our pack-free night. What do you say to some ice cream? It's still relatively early, so we don't have to head home yet."
Almost immediately, Kim bit her lip and, for reasons unclear to Jared, she appeared to be holding back a grin even as he saw the pink tinge creeping onto her cheeks in the dim light.
"We could do that," Kim agreed slowly. "Or…we could just go home. Have I mentioned yet that this is Kylie's weekend with her dad and my mom is working a late shift tonight?"
"Um, no," Jared said immediately, practically yanking the door off the frame of the car in his haste to get it open. "And you're always saying that I need to lead with the important stuff. C'mon, get in the car, we have places to be!"
Jared should have known then it was too good to be true, though. One night completely free of anything pack-related was definitely too much to ask for.
When the couple got back to Kim's house and quickly made their way inside, the phone was already ringing.
"I should ignore that," Kim frowned in the direction of the kitchen, where the nearest handset was located. "I normally do."
"No need to break tradition," Jared said easily. "Besides, I think I've got the perfect idea to distract you from the ringing," he continued with a smirk.
Kim was still frowning, though, as the phone continued to ring. "It is after ten, though…and people don't normally call this late without a reason. I'm going to check the caller ID really quick, and then I promise you will have my complete attention for the rest of the night."
"I'm holding you to that!" Jared called after her as she moved towards the kitchen.
"I'd rather you hold me to you!" Kim called back over her shoulder.
Jared smiled broadly as he took this opportunity to toe off his shoes and slip off the light jacket he was wearing. Not for the first time, he found himself thinking that everything about Kim was absolutely perfect.
"Jared!" Kim's shout immediately drew Jared's attention. Taking advantage of his inhuman speed, he was quickly at her side.
"What is it?" Jared demanded, taking in Kim's wide-eyed expression as she clutched the phone in one hand. "Did something happen? What's wrong?"
"That was Emily," Kim told him swiftly. "She's been alternating calling here and your house for the past ten minutes. The pack needs you. It's Jacob. There's no 'if' about it anymore; he finally phased."