Still standing, confusion and pride washes over me. I really shouldn't have kissed her, not when I knew she wouldn't approve of it. But somehow she did approve of it and the kiss was no longer one sided was it? Now I'm absolutely convinced that she can't help it. Somehow she still likes, or possibly more, me too. But then she left, without an explanation and now all I have is the memory and an empty door frame through which she left.
I can hear the dishes in the kitchen clanking as they hit the bottom of the sink. Everyone's cleaning up after dinner. I turn to check on Melody, who's now sleeping soundly in her crib. I really don't understand how she can sleep that much. Turning back, after checking the baby monitor, the empty doorway has now been filled with the two very large masses of Embry and Paul.
"So you want to tell us why Claire just made a very quick getaway with Summer and Nick?" Embry asks, looking a little disappointed that Summer had left the party. Stepping into the room, he folds his arms over his chest and leans up against the wall.
I smile stupidly.
Paul takes a few steps in and artfully shuts the door with his foot. "Oh ho! What happened?" Paul asks as if he's alluding to something; pointing at the stretched out cotton of my t-shirt, where Claire's left over hand prints remain from her pulling me into her. "My guess is it was something more than talking and would constitute as you helping her cheat on her boyfriend."
I smile sheepishly and ask, " What exactly constitutes cheating?"
Paul and Embry start antagonizing, "Whoa!"
"We kissed that's all," I admit. I don't want to let my mind run and make it any more that it actually is.
Embry chuckles, "Must have been one hell of a kiss. She didn't look mad at all, just shocked and kinda like she wanted to rush out as quickly as possible."
"Yeah it was one hell of a kiss," I chuckle back, trying in my mind to hold on to the clarity of the recent memory, but then I sigh realizing that although I love this brotherly joking between the three of us, I know that I now have quite a more serious discussion to have with Embry. This kiss solidifies my decision.
"Embry, I'm trying to stop," I say absolutely.
His smile fades as comprehension washes over him. He knows I'm going to try to stop phasing in hope that I can be with Claire. He's seen the thought, or the idea more or less, in my mind before, but he's never witnessed my conviction to carrying out the plan. After twenty years of being twenty five, of hearing each other's thoughts, I'm going to leave the pack.
He clenches his teeth, adverts his eyes away from me and exhales deeply. " Fine." He's absolute. Almost pissed.
"Sorry," I say looking down at the floor.
Paul shifts his weight on the floor uncomfortably.
Embry chuckles suddenly. "You have to make it up to me then," he laughs.
I'm stunned. "How?"
"You have to get Summer over here more often. She's been single for too long and I've gone four years without anyone who'll watch wrestling with me."
His lighthearted joking, I take as his way of accepting that I'm leaving the pack.
"I'll try," I say slugging him on the shoulder.
Together we check to make sure that our conversation has not woken Melody, but I knew it wouldn't. If I sound like Jared, then Paul and Embry must too. Together us talking must sound like him and relax her to sleep. Quietly we creep out of the room and back into the kitchen where Sam and Emily are sitting with Claire's parents drinking coffee at my small kitchen table.
"I have to get going, I told the wife I'd fix the water heater," Paul announces and heads towards the door. "Although in this heat I can't understand why anyone would need hot water," he says exiting through the door.
Embry claps me on the shoulder. "Yeah I better head out too. Emily thank you for dinner as always," Embry says to Emily, in a very gentlemanly tone. Turning back to me he says sarcastically, "It's been lovely, now I got to talk to Mark."
Sam eyes me suspiciously as Embry leaves out the door. Trying to be rid of his stare I make my way into the kitchen and check the fridge. Emily's left food for me on a plate to be warmed up. I take it out and warm it up in the microwave.
Pulling up an extra chair to the table I sit down with my food. I realize that I'm more hungry than I originally thought I was. In fact I try to keep my mouth full at all times, so that Claire's parents, Sam, and Emily can't ask me why Claire obviously left so abruptly. My plan only works for the amount of time that there's food on my plate and the second I take my last bite I know I'm in trouble. In my peripheral I see Emily shake her head, but Sam look in my direction.
"So Quil, can you tell me what that was about?" Sam asks.
"What what was about?" I reply stupidly. There are two possible questions that came out of his mouth, I want to be sure that I answer the right one.
"Let's start with why Embry looks like you just shot him," Sam pushes.
Claire's parents laugh uncomfortably at how Sam addresses me, almost like a father scolding his son. But Sam and I are not as far apart in age as we look, although he seems to act so.
Since there's no one in this room I necessarily have to keep secrets from, I say truthfully, "I'm leaving the pack."
"Ah, I wondered when this was going to happen," Sam ponders. "Now for the question we all want to know," he begins once more leaving the subject of me departure from the pack where it is.
As Sam tries to finish his sentence, Claire's father interrupts him, "why did Claire leave so abruptly?"
A periodic silence ensues as I glace back and forth between Sam, Emily, and Claire's parents. "Umm, not to be rude, but I don't think I should say," I finally manage to say.
"Anything we should be worried about?" Claire's mother asks with a concerned look.
I exhale roughly. "No, it's nothing. We're just trying to get over weirdness so we can work together in the fall," I smile. It's a logical lie. I don't know if Claire would tell her parents what actually happened, but I didn't want to say it if she wouldn't.
"Good, because if you make my daughter cry I will hurt you," Claire's father says sternly and then laughs. "I'm only joking."
After that Claire's parents quietly make their way out, telling Emily that they'll see her soon. I wave goodbye from the front door, while Sam and Emily pack up in the kitchen.
"Since you brought Nick the dick into my house you owe me," I say with a sly smile on my face, turning to Sam and Emily the moment the door is shut. While Claire's parents said their goodbyes I had hatched a plan. If there was any time to act on Claire's feelings for me, now is the time to do it. I've got her defenses down. She's confused. She kissed me back.
"Quil, we didn't know," Emily reasons.
"Would you mind watching Melody for an hour or two?" I ask.
Sam stares me down for a moment and the nods. As I put my hand on the door handle he calls after me, "Don't do anything stupid!"
I run full speed through the humid night air towards the shelter of the forest. Once out of view I undress quickly and breathe in and out. I realize that the speed, and the freedom associated with my werewolf abilities will soon been gone as long as I control myself not to phase. Noting that this could possibly be one of the last times I enjoy the perks of the pack, I phase smoothly feeling the full sensation.
Is this the last time you're going to grace us with your presence? Embry's thoughts ask the moment they hear mine.
Ha, possibly, I reply.
Picking up my pants in my mouth I run full speed towards Claire's house. It takes mere minutes, but for that brief time I enjoy the stretching and contracting in my muscles, the fluidity of the wind flowing over my body, and the soothing rhythm of my paws making contact with the soft ground. Once safely in the forest outside her home, I phase back smoothly to my human form, feeling the heat being suppressed by my mind, and quickly put on my pants. As inconspicuously as possible I creep around to the edge of her house, glancing in the windows, and listen intently. Claire's parents have obviously arrive just moments before I have and are in the kitchen putting away the leftovers in the fridge, and talking about bills. Nick is sitting on the couch, comfortably flipping through channels on the television. I don't see Claire though.
Quietly and carefully, I make my way around the edge of her house over to the tree beneath her bedroom window. The blinds are open, and she's staring out into the forest. Somehow I think she's waiting for me. I step away from the tree out into the yard where it's lit from her window light.
She doesn't seem surprised to see me, like she was completely expecting me, bare chest and all. She holds up one finger, as to tell me to wait exactly where I am. I wait. The light turns off in her bedroom. The darkness is an adjustment to me, and by the time my eyes fully adapt to the new light, I hear footsteps and see Claire approaching, putting on a light sweatshirt.
"Hey," she says and walks right past me into the woods. I follow slightly confused, but then I realize that she must have said that she was taking a walk, and she wanted to be out of view, not needing to risk Nick seeing her with me.
It is darker in the forest. The trees block out most of the moonlight, but some of it escapes down through gaps in tree braches. Claire walks ahead of me; her movement still athletic and graceful. She begins to slow her pace. When she stops, I come to meet her. We stand face to face, about two feet apart, just staring at each other. From practically out of no where her arm retracts and slaps my face.
"What the hell was that?" she asks, her chest still heaving with rage.
My face feels slightly cooler from where her palm made contact with my face, but it doesn't hurt. Somehow this reminds me of the time Jake kissed Bella, except that Bella tried to punch him and broke a knuckle. "I'm sorry, what?"
"Back at you house- what was that for?" she asks.
I smile. "I'm sorry. I really didn't know what came over me," I say running my hand through my hair.
"You can't do that! I'm mean you just can't go around kissing people," she says exasperated. She walks over to sit on a large fallen tree branch. "Quil, what am I supposed to do? I know how you feel about me, and I know how Nick feels about me…"
"But you don't know how you feel about either of us," I finish for her.
"No," she says absolutely. "I love Nick, very much. Quil, come here."
I walk over to her and sit where she pats the branch next to her.
"Quil, I can't tell Nick about this. I'm not going to. That would hurt him too much."
"But you have no problem hurting me," I say darkly. It wasn't exactly the word choice I would have wanted to use, but it fit well with what she had said
"Quil, I wish I could say I'm sorry and that I don't mean to push you away...but I can't. It just comes down to the fact that you're never going to change. You'll always change yourself for me, and you're never yourself."
I sigh, now's the moment to tell her. "But see that's the thing Claire. I'm not going to change anymore. Not in the way you mean it, but in the way that I'm giving up the werewolf thing. I made the decision tonight. I told Embry. I'm done. The super natural's going to be gone from me soon, and I'll start aging again," I explain looking at her shocked face.
"Please don't say you're doing it for me," she says and I see a small bit of water well up in above her bottom eyelid.
Truth washes over me. "Originally I was doing it for you. That's where the idea stemmed from, and so that I could be the same age as you from now on. But now," I pause and exhale roughly. "Now I don't think I'm doing it because of you. It's time. I've been doing this for a little over two decades. I'm ready to move on with my life, whatever and where ever that may be."
She's quiet and contemplative for a moment still determining the honesty of my statement. She turns her head as far away from me as possible, and I realize that she's crying. I get up and kneel down in front of her.
"Claire, why are you crying?" I ask slightly alarmed.
She shakes her head and says, "I am just so confused."
"About what?" I ask reaching forward with my right hand to wipe away a tear falling from her cheek, and leave it resting on her face.
She looks down fumbling with her fingers in her lap. "About kissing you back."
"So I didn't imagine that," I chuckle. Thank God I didn't imagine that!
She chokes a laugh out between her quiet sobs. Turning her head into my hand that's still resting on her cheek, she presses her lips firmly to it. Then, taking her left hand she takes hold of my wrist and that's practically all I need. We both stand up, and she pulls herself into me, wrapping her arms around my neck, and placing a kiss on my bare chest. I let my fingers make their way under the hem of her shirt so that I can pull her in closer to me, pressing my thumbs into her hip bones.
And then our lips meet and I pull my hand up to the back of her neck, feeling the even skin where her tattoo is. I break us away for a second, and ask "When did you get that?"
She places a kiss underneath my chin. "Stupid drunk night, after Nick and I had a fight."
Suddenly she pushes me away. "Shit!" she exclaims and her hands fly up to cover her mouth. "Fuck! Nick!" She begins to run back in the direction of her house, and I run after her.
Too quickly we reach the edge of the forest outside her house.
"Claire wait!" I say slightly exasperated.
With absolute resolution on her face she turns back to me and says, "Quil, we'll figure it out. Come to first beach tomorrow morning around eleven."
And then she's gone within a blink of eye, dashing back into her house.
She's giving a chance. I know that luck has found me, if only for a moment.
A/N:
Sorry for the delay...I had to fix some technical matters of the plot line. And I know there are probably a few errors in this one but I didn't really edit it that much so forgive me.
Next chapter Summer's back...and it's going to be oh so fantastic...but here's the deal:
I would like your opinion regarding this story's future. I've posted a poll on my user page thing (whatever you'd like to call it). Please answer it because it will make me post again sooner. :]
-c.c