"Guys, no!" Jake whispered fiercely.
Why is he outside of my room? I'm going to kill him for waking me up.
"Come on, Jake. I'm not waiting all day!" A deep voice replied.
Oh great, a party outside of my room.
"Yeah, I'm with Quil. We'll be really nice about it." Yet another deep voice said.
Did he invite the whole fricken' village?
"Ugh, don't hurt her, I'm having nothing to do with this." Jake said, his voice seeming further away.
That didn't sound promising. I'd caught on that they were talking about me, stuffing the pillows in the shape of a body underneath the covers, I ran over to the closet and hid.
"Yes you are, you're giving us permission." The first guy said.
Definitely going to come in here.
"Just do it before I change my mind!" I could barely hear Jake's voice at this point.
Nice, Jake. I barely know you and you're letting two strangers into my room?
I stopped my inner monologue when my door slowly creaked open. Two figures, almost as large as Jake, slyly slithered into the room.
How can they be so large, and not make a noise? I added that to my list of weirdness and decided to think about it later.
One of them pointed to the bed and covered their mouth in silent laughter. The guy hit him in the back of the head, shook his head, and continued to travel towards the bed. Just as they were about to reach the bed and pull down the covers, I opened the closet door.
"Don't move or I will shoot you both!"
The two of them froze with their hands above their heads.
"Don't shoot! I'm too young to die!"
"Quil would you just shut up!" The other man said, beginning to shake.
"Paul, cool it."
"What are you doing in my room?" I asked.
"We were just coming to wake you up," Quil said.
"Yeah, I don't want to waste a sunny day waiting for you to get out of bed," Paul agreed.
"You can turn around," I said.
Slowly, they turned around, hands still in the air.
"I never really had a gun you know. I just thought it would be a nice touch, it works in the movies," I joked.
Paul began to shake.
"Dude, calm down. Give the girl props, that was a good one," Quil said, hitting Paul lightly on the shoulder.
Closing his eyes, Paul stopped shaking.
"Yeah okay, you got us. I guess you're cool enough to hang with us, let's go down to the beach now." Paul said, smirking slightly.
I gave a pointed look towards the door.
"Give me five minutes, and can one of you go hit Jake for me? I would do it myself but apparently that won't do my hand any good..." I said.
Both of them burst into laughter.
"Alright you've got five minutes, no more than that," Quil said.
They left the room, closing the door behind them. Rolling my eyes, I got dressed for the beach.
"I can't believe it's sunny!" I cried, throwing my hands toward the glorious sky.
"It doesn't happen often," Jake agreed, smiling.
I got a tingly feeling in my stomach. I couldn't really figure it out, when Jake smiled at me like that I felt happy, I felt completed.
"So...how many of your friends are coming today?" I asked.
"Sam will come with Emily, Jared with Kim, Paul and my sister, Rachel, Quil, Embry, and Seth. You'll probably meet Leah, Brady, Collin later. They had... prior arrangements made for today," Jake told me, pointing off people with his fingers.
"Your sister? I thought Billy said they moved away?" I asked confused.
"Yeah, Becca lives in Hawaii still, but Rach came back for a visit and her and Paul hit it off. She volunteered to stay with Emily for a while so you could stay at our house," Jake explained.
"She moved out of her own house for me?" I exclaimed, my voice rising in question.
"Uh...yeah. Don't worry about it though, she wanted to. It gives her and Paul more 'quality time' together," Jake said grimacing.
"Well I guess that makes me feel a little better," I replied.
Jake smiled.
"Good, you're suppose to feel comfortable here, Brooke."
"Speaking of comfortable, maybe you could refrain from letting total strangers into my room again?" I said sarcastically.
"Yeah, sorry 'bout that. They were just really eager to get to the beach since they have to work later. I held them off for as long as I could," Jake said, scratching the back of his head.
I smiled at him.
"I'll let it slide this time, only because I owe you one."
"How do you figure you owe me one?" Jake asked, his face brows drawing together.
"For all of those times I kicked your butt when we were trying to see who could make the best mud-castle." I smiled.
"Hah! I remember it the other way around!" Jake said, laughing loudly.
"You would, you're a guy," I said, rolling my eyes.
"What's that suppose to mean?" he asked.
"It means that guys can't lose to girls, they always have to win," I retorted.
"Sure, sure." He punched my shoulder lightly.
I felt comfortable with Jake, safe somehow. It wasn't like I was drawn to him or anything, but it was like we've been best friends since the day I was born. It sounded silly, but I felt connected to him somehow.
Jake continued to lead me down the beach, staring at me oddly.
"Do I have something on my face?" I asked jokingly.
"No..." he shook his head "...I have to go talk to, Sam. Why don't you go hang out with the girls." he said, pointing me towards three girls sitting on a beach towel.
"Um, okay I guess." I said, confused.
Jake's POV
Why was I feeling this way? I hadn't imprinted on her or anything, but I felt connected to her. I felt completely comfortable with her and like I could tell her anything. I had to talk to Sam. I felt bad about brushing her off, but I had to straighten this out.
I approached Sam as he came down from the path in the woods.
"Hey man, can I talk to you for a minute?" I asked.
"Sure, Jake. What can I help you with?" he said.
"It's about Brooke actually." I said sheepishly.
Sam sighed.
"Jake, not this again..."
"No, it's different Sam!" I said quickly.
"Did you imprint on her?" he asked.
"Well no, but I feel strangely drawn to her. I feel like we're best friends and like I can tell her anything. I don't know what's wrong with me..." I whispered.
"It's obviously not different then," he said sarcastically.
I simply continued to look at the ground.
Sam sat on the ground next to me.
"Maybe it's not what's wrong with you, Jake. Maybe it's just the effect the Swan girls have on you," he said softly.
"No, this is different then, Bella. It's more, real. I never felt connected to Bella until after the leech left her and we'd been hanging out for a while. With Brooke, it was like as soon as we started talking."
"You're sure you didn't imprint on her?" Sam questioned.
"Positive, there was no gravity trick or any of that nonsense you say imprinting is. I just feel... I feel like I'm meant to be with her though. Does that sound strange?" I said.
"No, but you're imprint will come along eventually, Jake. Maybe you should stop getting hung up on these girls," Sam said cautiously.
"I can't do that, Sam."
"Well then become friends with her, only friends. Maybe that's why you feel this way, you're meant to support her and be her friend." he explained.
"That makes sense," I agreed.
"Just do me a favour and don't tell, Paul. From what I heard, he likes her so far. No need to tell him and get him hating her like he hates, Bella."
"Avoid all conflict, got it," I said, saluting.
Sam punched me in the arm softly.
"Jake, I'll always support you. If you need anything, know that I'm always here. As long as it's not something stupid that is," Sam said.
"Thanks, Sam."
Brooke's POV
So far, I was liking La Push. Emily, Rachel, Kim and I had been sitting on the beach, working on our tan's, and I'd been getting the gossip.
"So Jake is like, in love with my sister?" I asked shocked.
"I don't think he is anymore, I think he's got his eye on somebody else now," Rachel said happily.
"Who?" I demanded, sitting up on my elbows to look at her.
She opened her mouth to reply, when a shadow blocked my sunlight.
"Paul!"
"Jared!"
"Sam!"
All three girls smiled, and got up to make room for their men.
"Where did Jake go?" I asked Sam.
"He's coming, I think he went up on the cliffs with Embry and Quil," Sam replied, smiling slightly at me.
"The cliffs?" I questioned.
"Oh lord, do you people live at all?" Paul asked me.
"I'm not sure what you mean by that, but I'm ignoring you," I said.
"What Paul means is, Bella didn't know about cliff diving either," Emily said, hitting Paul with a plastic shovel. "You be nice to her, we like her!" Emily said to him.
I suppressed a smile.
"So you guys jump off of the cliffs?" I asked.
"Yup," Jared said, not looking up from Kim.
"Do you think I could try it?" I questioned.
All three girls looked at me shocked.
"You mean you actually want to go up there?" Kim asked softly.
"Yeah, isn't that the point of cliff diving?" I said jokingly.
"If you go Brooke, then I'll go. I've always wanted to try it but these two would never go with me," Rachel said.
Paul shot me a dirty look.
"Somebody's over protective," I muttered.
Paul started to shake but stop when Rachel kissed him lightly.
"Please, Paul. You can jump with me, but I really want to go!" she said, her eyes wide.
"Okay," Paul said, pulling her up.
"Yes!" I exclaimed. "Are you guys coming too?"
"No, Sam and I are going to head home so I can start lunch," Emily said.
I didn't even wait for a response from Jared in Kim, they were too caught up in each other.
As we walked away, Rachel whispered in my ear.
"You learn quickly, young one." She gave a pointed look at Jared and Kim.
After all the excitement of cliff diving, and enjoying the rest of the day with everyone at Sam and Emily's, things started to die down.
The boys all went into the living room while the girls helped Emily clean up.
"I was thinking, Brooke. How about you come over tomorrow to hang out?" Emily said.
"Isn't tomorrow the, you know, big thing?" I said nervously.
"Yeah, but the boys will all be gone, so we should all hang out!" Emily chuckled nervously, acting as though it wasn't that big of a deal.
Rachel walked into the room.
"What's going on tomorrow?" she asked angrily.
Emily's eyes widened.
"Paul!" Rachel screamed.
Paul ran into the room quickly, eyes searching.
"Is there something going on tomorrow I should know about?" she questioned, glaring daggers.
Paul sadly led her into the other room, the house went quiet. When Rachel came out again, she gave me a very dirty look, and slammed the door as she left the house, Paul right behind her.
"What was that about?" I asked.
"Apparently Paul didn't tell her about the fight," Emily said distracted.
"So there is a fight!" I exclaimed.
"I'm just going to stop talking..." Emily left the room quietly.
"Why would Rachel be mad at me because of a fight though?" I asked Kim.
"She never really liked you sister, but she got over it. I guess she's mad again because the fight is kind of about your sister..." Kim said, shrugging.
"Well I have nothing to do with that!" I yelled.
"I know, but Bella does, and you're related to Bella. It's silly, and I'm not mad at you, but Rachel is a lot like Paul- quick tempered," Kim explained.
"Thanks, Kim."
We got back to Jake's house late that night.
"Well, I'm tired. I'm going to hit the sack," Jake said yawning.
"It's like 8 o' clock and you're going to bed?" I laughed.
"Yeah, it's been a long day," Jake said.
"I won't see you tomorrow, Brooke but you're going to Sam and Emily's." he said.
"I'm aware."
"Okay, be safe please, I don't want you to get hurt," Jake whispered.
I got that tingling feeling once again.
"You too, Jake." I attempted a smile.
Softly, he shut the door and I went down the hall to my room.
I lie in my bed for a couple minutes when my ears picked up movement in the hall.
"Be careful, son. Protect your pack and your people, keep you eyes open and don't do anything stupid," Billy said.
"I know, dad. Make sure she get's to Sam and Emily's house okay," Jake replied.
"I've only got two jobs Jake, her and Charlie, I think I can manage. Are you sure it's such a good idea to go out there tonight?" Billy said.
"She'll freeze with just the leech. It'd be pointless to fight if she dies tonight," Jake said.
"Be careful, son."
"Sure, sure."
I could hear shuffling, the door closed and Billy's wheels scraped down the hallway.
Why was Jake leaving? What the hell is a 'leech'?
I would get all of my answers tomorrow night, whether they liked it or not.