Disclaimer: SM owns Twilight

Ch12:Fear Without Losing

Leah knew when she got back to her place and caught a trace of Paul's scent before she opened the door that she was going to be in for a long day. She thought maybe she should turn around and head back to a hotel but that was her apartment, why should she be the one to leave? Especially after she already had kicked him out!

As soon as she got through the door she saw him sitting on the couch twiddling his fingers together until he saw her walk in the door. Then he got up and smiled walking towards her with his arms open.

Leah placed her hand up in the air and he stopped. "Okay. What the hell are you still doing here, Paul? I told you I didn't want to see you ever again. What part of that did you not understand? Did you have extra copies of my keys? I want every single copy, Paul right now!"

Leah glared at her ex taking deep breaths to keep her cool. A part of her was beyond irritated that he had the nerve to be there. The other part of her was glad that he was there. Leaving Blake had been the hardest and most painful thing she had ever had to do, and it was good to have someone around to take it out on.

"I've waited here all week. I came back to try and talk to you last Sunday, thinking that if you had a couple of nights to cool down, you might be ready to listen to reason. But you weren't here, and you never came back." He frowned and she could feel the hurt coming off him in waves. "So I just wanted to be here when you came back…"

Leah moved closer to the closed door. "And why the hell would I want that?" Leah snapped.

"I was hoping that once you had a minute to cool off you would be able to see reason." He repeated.

She made a project of turning her head back and forth then behind her.

"What are you looking around the room for?" Paul asked in an irritated voice.

"I'm looking for Boo Boo the fool, because that's who you must think you're talking to, Paul." Leah shook her head. She couldn't believe the unmitigated gall of him showing up at her place and waiting for her to get back.

Paul sighed and started pacing the floor. "No one said you were a fool, and no one is trying to play you. I was just hoping that you could find it in your heart to forgive me."

Leah moved closer to the door and leaned against it.

"It's not about me forgiving you. It's about the fact that you and I are over. I could forgive you and that would still be the case. In fact, I do forgive you and I still don't want to be with you anymore." Leah huffed.

"Look, it just wasn't meant to be, and you obviously knew that before I did. I should thank you, actually. You weren't the man for me, clearly. I wasn't the woman for you. So could you just leave while I'm still calm?" She tried to talk in a calmer and mask her irritation. Maybe a kinder, more gentle approach would have worked better with him? She doubted it, but she was willing to try anything besides phasing to get him to leave.

"You say that like you've found the man for you or something like that." Paul snapped his words out viciously.

She thought of Jake.

Yeah. She had found the man for her.

Too bad she wasn't the woman for him.

It seemed like the only way she was going to get Paul out of her house was to be blunt and brutally honest.

"I say that because you and I both knew that what we had wasn't mad, passionate love. I can't speak for you but I can speak for myself. And I was just settling with you. And coming home to find you in bed with another woman was a pretty huge wake up call. I don't want to settle anymore." she crossed her arms and waited for him to get a clue.

"And you wonder why I was in bed with another woman? You are one coldhearted bitch, Leah! How can you stand there and say some mess like to me after all we've been to one another? You saying you didn't love me? What the hell? And what the hell is that on your neck, Leah?" Paul was becoming increasingly irritated.

Leah knew he wasn't going to do something stupid like hit her or anything but she didn't want to be there any longer. Her hand immediately went to the mark on her neck that she knew would never heal over. Just touching it caused her to shiver. Jake.

"That's irrelevant." she kept her fingers touching it though as she continued to speak. "Listen it's over Paul. Over! Now I'm going to run to the store and I want you gone when I get back. Just leave the key in the mailbox, okay? Just be gone when I come back or it won't be pretty." Leah turned quickly and left the apartment.

She thought of calling her brother to be there for her just in case but then she remembered that her family were in California until Saturday. If only she had stayed with them, or maybe stayed in Blake until Saturday like she was supposed to…

She decided to call the twenty four hour locksmith instead and have them meet her at her place in an hour. That would give her some time to grab a few groceries, and hopefully Paul would be gone by then.

When Jake got back to the hotel and found that Leah had checked out, he wasn't too upset. He simply assumed that she had done what he had told her to do all along, moved her things to his place. It only after he had gone to his place and found it untouched that he realized she didn't have a key to his place. So she wouldn't have gone there. The only other logical place was his mother's rum shack. And when she wasn't there, it was time for Jake to face the obvious…

Leah had skipped out on him.

Rather than get upset, he just smiled.

She really thought she was getting away with her little ground rules safely intact. Poor girl, she honestly believed that she was going to be the one to get the best of him twice in one lifetime.

It. Wasn't. Gonna. Happen.

He got on his cell phone, made some phone calls and pretty easily got her address and home phone number. She could run, but she couldn't hide.

When he returned to Seattle he fully intended to continue seeing her. She did not get to call all the shots in their relationship when his feelings were involved too.

And his feelings were definitely involved. A lot. A whole lot more than he was willing to admit or analyze, but he certainly wasn't going to let that keep him from full pursuit.

He gave her enough time to make it back to Seattle and get settled before he called her to let her know exactly how he felt about her skipping town.

He waited as the phone rang and debated just how much of his irritation he was going to allow to surface. If she was apologetic enough, he might decide to go easy on her. But if she was till talking all that stuff about ground rules and the like, he would have to take a firm line.

All of his debating went out of the window when a man answered the phone.

"Hello," the male voice snapped.

Taken aback, Jake had to pause for a second before he queried. "Who is this?"

"Who the hell is this? You dialed my number not the other way around."

"I'm looking for Leah Clearwater," Jake just knew he must have dialed the wrong number in his irritated state.

"She stepped out to run errands. This is her boyfriend. And this is?" The other man's voice picked up a healthy dose of bass but even through the phone Jacob could detect the lie.

Not one to be punked, Jake felt his chest puffing out as he asked, "You mean the guy she just broke up with because she caught him in the bed with another woman? Would that be you?"

There was a fair amount of sputtering, and Jake could have sworn he could see the man's indignation through the phone lines.

"Don't you worry about what is going on between me and my girl. You just need to know that she and I will work out any problems we have between us. So, if she gave you any indication while she was mad that she was on the market, sorry partner, you picked the wrong one."

Jake had to laugh at that. He didn't know why he was wasting his time talking to that chump. Even if Leah had suffered a momentary state of insanity and taken the chump back, he would be history as soon as Jake came back to town. Jake would make sure of that.

"Yea, well you just tell her Jacob Black called. And let her know that we will be finishing what we started in Blake when I get back to Seattle in a week." it took him everything in him not to growl into the phone.

"Blake?"

"Yeah, Blake. Where she was all week with me, partner. Tell her she's mine when I get back." Jake hung up the phone.

It was only after he had hung up and his wolf calmed down that he began to question if he had done a smart think by goading Leah's ex or man or whatever the idiot was to her. He really hoped that the guy didn't do anything stupid. Because he knew he would hunt the fool down if he laid a hand on Leah.

He only knew that he was heading to Leah's home as soon as he got off the plane next Saturday. Because ex or no ex, man or no man, Leah Clearwater had started something with him on this island, and he wasn't ready to just let it end because of some silly ground rules. He knew what he felt when he was with her, and he was willing to be she'd run away because she was scared and she didn't want it to end any more than he did.

At least, that's what he was hoping…

When Leah returned to her apartment with her groceries, the twenty four hour locksmith guy was waiting for her. She was surprised to find her living room trashed and the cordless phone smashed and on the floor. She was so happy that she had had the foresight to leave when she noted that Paul was getting more agitated than she had ever seen him.

She considered calling the police. But for the most part the damages to her living room weren't that bad. The hazelnut velvet sofa and loveseat were toppled, and chair pillows and throw pillows were tossed everywhere. The end tables were overturned and the coffee table was broken. The lamps were smashed too.

The cost of a new end table, phone, lamps and locks was a small price to pay to get Paul out of her life. If he came back and continued to be a bother she wouldn't hesitate to show him the other side he never seen of her. He had seen her angry plenty of times before but she had been holding back a lot of the times when they had previous arguments.

After this, she considered going on a male free timeout. If she had to worry about attracting losers like Paul and she couldn't be with the man she had let claim her and had ended up falling head over heels in love with, then she might just as well be man free.

She watched as the man changed her locks and contemplated her new man free status.

She could do it.

She might not be able to do it for as long as it would take her to get over Jake, but she could do it for a little while. At least until the thought of loving someone didn't cause her chest to ache and make her want to cry…

"What's the matter with you? What's with the long face?" Sarah slapped Jake's arm with her cloth.

He thought about not answering her, but he knew that would only earn him another smack with that damn cloth.

"You know, you really shouldn't be hitting people with that little cloth you walk around here wiping stuff down with. It's unsanitary, Ma. You could give a normal person a rash or something." He made a show of rubbing the spot she had just hit.

"You aren't normal boy, and don't change the subject." Sarah held her little cloth weapon in a threatening matter, ready to strike again. "And you still haven't told me about Leah and why she left early. Did the two of you have a fight or something?"

"No, we didn't have a fight. As far as I knew, everything was going fine with Leah and me." Jake gave a half shrug. "But you can best believe when I get back to Seattle I intend to find out why your new best friend got scared and ran. Plus she has to come with me to your wedding." Jake chuckled. "I told dad I would bring her, thinking there was no way in hell you would say yes after all those years of saying no."

She slapped his arm with the cloth. "Stop getting smart, and stop trying to change the subject."

"I'm not trying to change the subject, Ma. It's complicated."

"Please." Sarah sucked her teeth. "How complicated could it be? Either the two of you love one another and want to be together or you don't. It's not rocket science."

"Tell that to dad—Ouch!" This time the cloth stung when she hit him with it.

The first chance he got to hide all of her little terry cloth towels he was going to do it. The woman had to be stopped from terrorizing the world.

"You always were such a smartass." Sarah pointed her finger at him and was reminded immediately of what people said about pointing fingers. His mother had fingers pointing back at her, because he had come by his smart mouth very honestly.

"If I didn't like Leah so much, I might say it serves you right that the one girl you want to get serious with is the one playing hard to get." Sarah tapped her lip in contemplation.

Jake frowned. "Who said I wanted to get serious?"

Sarah pointed to his mark. "Exhibit A." she said pointedly. "And don't get me started on the rest of the cookie. That girl is like you huh?" she looked back and forth before leaning closer to whisper. "A wolf."

Jake moved his hand to his mark and covered it. "What? Ma. No." Jake shook his head.

She narrowed her eyes at him getting ready to raise that stupid cloth again. "Don't you lie to me boy I raised you from birth, she had all the signs that you did." Sarah began using her fingers to point out every detail. "She was warm to the touch, she could hear and smell everything, and she marked you in return. You can't fool me."

Jake sighed. "I just wanted to give us time to explore what we could be. She would rather put a timetable on things and let what we have end on this island because she's too afraid to risk her heart for more than a fling."

"Apparently she isn't the only one who is scared and doesn't want to risk her heart." Sarah gave him a knowing look that made him feel like he was still a kid and he had gotten caught trying to steal an extra cookie.

"You think because you say you want to expand the expiration date of your 'island fling' beyond your time on the island that you are somehow not afraid? What about your desire to win all the time no matter what?" Sarah fired her questions like she was the police or something.

Jake rolled his eyes. Not the you-have-to-win-all-the-time-and-there-is-something-really-wrong-with-that-speech. Please, Ma, anything but that. He knew better than to say that out loud, though because his mother would have smacked him with that cloth hard enough to leave a mark and he would have gotten an even longer speech. And she would have followed that speech with the it-took-me-a-whole-day-of-labor-to-bring-you-into-this-world-so-I-get-a-say-in-your-life-forever speech.

"Sometime you have to risk everything even when you know you might lose. That's when it matters the most. When you know you don't stand a chance, but you go all out anyway because your heart and soul won't let you rest unless you do. That is why I finally said yes to your dad, even though I'm more than comfortable keeping our relationship the same as it has been."

"He's my love and I'm his, and since it wasn't broke, I couldn't see the point in bothering with it. But he kept asking me, all the while expecting that I would turn him down again. He never gave up on me, even though I have him no reason to expect that I would change. Do you see yourself doing that for Leah, as much as you hate to lose? Can you see going all out and pursuing her like a man intent on making her his for real instead of a man looking to continue a fling until it's flung? That's living without fear, my hardheaded stubborn son who I love very dearly. Can you, or do you love Leah like that, without fear of losing?"

Jake squinted his eyes. His mother had laid down some heaviness, and he really had to ponder her words.

Could he lay it all on the line knowing that he didn't stand a chance? He didn't know. He had always approached everything without a care about losing, because he had always won and he didn't expect that to change.

With Leah, he had already seen that he could lose to her when she beat him in college. If she really didn't want him, would have the tenacity to keep trying to make her see that he was the one and only man for her, knowing that she might never see it?

He wasn't sure if he could. But he was damn sure going to try.

:D I love Sarah lol... even though getting hit with a cloth really does hurt lol...

This might be the only story I'm updating today since my dog went into labor and I have to take care of her... :/

Anyways next chapter should be fun!

Review I love your thoughts and ideas!

xoxo