Ok...here it is! Thanks for your patience guys and I hope this is worth the wait!
As always..a huge thank you to my beta cdunbar for making this look pretty and for turning it around so quickly...srsly, the delay in posting is all me!! Not only can you read her awesome stories, you can now hear her on the Temptations Podcast, all about Twilight fanfiction...you can find it on iTunes and when I finally get my act together I will post a link to it on my profile.
A big MWAH goes out to EclipseoftheTwilightMoon, PurdueLiz and Qjmom for listening to me rant on gchat...check out all their stories for they are made of awesome.
To all the ladies and the one gent on my thread at Twilighted...I love you all and I hope you like where this is going.
So, without further ado....
CHAPTER 11
BPOV
The sound of Rose's car pulling into the driveway broke the silence of the room and I made my way to the front door so that I could wait for her on the porch.
It has been suggested that you can tell a lot about a person by the car that they drive. Looking at the cherry red BMW Z4 Roadster convertible that sat in my driveway, I could see the truth behind that theory.
The car was stunning with its sleek lines and flawless metallic paint and I was sure that it turned heads wherever it went. Every other vehicle around it paled in comparison and everyone who saw it probably wanted one for themselves. Beneath its exterior beauty, however, purred a powerful and reliable engine capable of going from zero to sixty in a matter of seconds.
The same could be said for Rosalie Hale. At first glance, Rose could only be described as breathtaking with her silky, flaxen hair falling in soft waves around a face that belonged to an angel; perfectly arched eyebrows above her piercing, ice blue eyes, her nose straight and perfectly proportioned and her lips were full and naturally plump. Add to that a body that any supermodel would kill for, and the result was a woman who caused the self esteem of men and women alike to take a hit, just by entering a room.
Within this shell of physical perfection beat the heart of a pit bull, which, for the few who were fortunate enough to be counted as her friends, was fiercely protective and loyal. Rose was quick to jump to the defense of those closest to her and with her sharp tongue and intimidating looks she was an awesome force to be reckoned with when riled.
Behind the angelic face was a highly intelligent mind that most people never became conscious of because they were unable to get past the stereotypical 'dumb blonde' façade that she played to her advantage time and again. Rose was a master manipulator, using her god given assets to her benefit in order to weed out those unworthy of her time and uncover the minority of the people she came into contact with who were determined to see past the external trappings of her looks to appreciate the real person behind the mask.
She had learned early on, mostly through high school, that her appearance was both a blessing and a curse. Boys would say and do the most outrageous things in order to get close to her, tossing her aside when she was not content to be the mere 'arm candy' they had been hoping for. Girls were spiteful and duplicitous, pretending to be caring to her face and encouraging her to open up, before using any information they could gather to use against her at the first opportunity. Therefore, she had learned how to manipulate most situations in order to get what she wanted without giving away any piece of herself in the process.
She was both the bravest and most vulnerable person I knew.
The Hales had moved into the house next door to Charlie two months after Renee and I had moved to Washington. During my early visits to my father, their house had become a third home to me. Rosanne and Liam Hale looked after me while Charlie worked, and the friendship that sprung up between their only daughter and me was inevitable.
Liam was a real estate agent with a passion for vintage muscle cars, spending his weekends in their driveway slaving over his latest piece of rusted metal until it slowly became a shiny restoration of its former glory. He would then sell it at a huge profit to a fellow collector and purchase his next project with a portion of his spoils, only to start the cycle all over again.
Rosanne was a stay at home mom who doted on her small family. Her hopes of her beautiful daughter becoming a prima ballerina were quashed when Rosalie began blowing off her ballet classes in favor of spending her free time under the hood or chassis of a car, alongside her father.
Shortly after Rose's thirteenth birthday, the Hales' lives changed dramatically. Liam had made the switch to commercial real estate and was making substantially more commission than he had been in the residential market; obtaining success in helping up and coming businesses find their perfect locations. It was also at that time that Rosanne's mother passed away, leaving a considerable inheritance to her daughter and granddaughter.
Suddenly the small, middle class family from the suburbs had more money than they could possibly spend and it seemed as though Rose's already charmed existence was further blessed by the fact that she would never need to worry about money again.
Her parents made the 'rags to riches' adjustment sensibly and somewhat easily. They chose to move to the more affluent area of Winnetka, just north of downtown Chicago, into a larger but not too lavish home. Liam made the decision to continue working, opening his own agency and employing new and eager agents who would benefit from his years of experience. Rosanne busied herself with various volunteer groups and donated hefty sums to what she considered were worthwhile causes.
For Rosalie, however, the addition of financial independence only served to force her to distance herself from strangers further. She saw it as yet another reason to question people's motives when getting to know them, while at the same time, appreciating more fully the value of true friendship.
There were very few people that Rose could completely let her guard down around and I felt privileged to know that I was one of the chosen few who saw the real Rosalie Hale.
As she approached me, a genuine smile spread across her face mirroring my own, her arms outstretched to embrace me in a firm hug after she climbed the few steps to join me on the porch. She was only a couple of inches taller than I was, but wearing her trade marked four inch 'fuck me' heels, she positively towered over me and I had to stand on my toes to return the hug.
"Did you have a good flight?" she asked as I led her into the house.
"It was okay," I sighed. "Tiring, though. I'm glad it's over."
We walked into the kitchen and Rose helped herself to a soda from the fridge while I emptied what was left of the coffee into the sink, swilling out the pot under the hot tap water before we headed into the living room and settled down on the couch.
Rose inhaled deeply before launching her attack. "So, what's going on in Seattle? How's Alice? Are you really thinking of moving back here? If not, how long are you staying? How is work? Do you and Charlie have plans for next weekend? Because Mom and Dad want you come over for dinner next Saturday."
She paused to take in a breath and I interrupted her inquisition with a loud laugh. She pouted indignantly for a moment before she too erupted into very unladylike howls and snorts.
Our uncontrollable laughing fit was just what I needed after the stresses of the day and I could feel some of the sadness that had followed me around since I stepped on the plane this morning begin to dissipate.
After we had finally calmed and caught our breath, we fell into an easy conversation, talking as though it had been days and not years since that last time we'd seen each other.
I filled her in on my relatively mundane existence in Seattle since graduation, which consisted largely of working and living vicariously through Alice. At the mention of Jasper, Rose looked genuinely pleased for our friend when I told her of my suspicion that he might be 'the one' for Alice.
Rose and I had always been somewhat skeptical about the all-consuming love that was found in your typical romance novel. I had seen what 'true love' had done to my father, turning him into a shell of his former self and Rose, having dealt with her many trust issues over the years, just couldn't imagine finding a man that she could fully trust enough to completely give herself over to him. Alice, on the other hand, had always been eternally optimistic about such things and we were both happy to realize that she might have actually found what she'd been looking for, even if we were cynical about finding it for ourselves.
Rose talked about school and what she planned to do with her Mechanical Engineering degree once she graduated next year. She told me what her parents had been doing over the past few years and the many guys she had chewed up and spit out in her quest to find one worthy of any actual affection.
We had been talking non-stop for a couple of hours when I couldn't stifle the loud yawn that escaped my gaping mouth.
"I guess that's my cue to leave," Rose laughed.
"I suppose the trip did take it out of me," I replied guiltily. "I'm sorry, Rose…but we can get together again tomorrow night, right?"
"Oh, I'm working tomorrow night. But you should definitely come and hang out…"
"Wait! What?" I cut her off, surprised by this piece of new information. "You have a job?"
Rose quirked an eyebrow at my shocked expression before her eyes rolled up and she let out an exasperated sigh.
"Dad thought it would be 'good for me' to go out and earn some of my own money this summer." She tried to look indignant but I could see the corners of her lips curling into a smile. "Anyway, he had these clients who had just opened up a bar near the University and they were looking for bar staff. I guess he really likes these guys and suggested I go work for them. Under any other circumstances I think he would have flipped out if I'd told him I was going to be a bartender!" she laughed.
"Wow," I chuckled. "I always kind of pictured you working a bar, not working at a bar," I teased, smirking.
"Hey!" she laughed, punching my shoulder playfully. "That wasn't very nice, but it's so true. So? Would you want to come and see me in action tomorrow?"
"Sure, I'd love to," I said as we walked to the front door.
"Great, I'll pick you up at six?" Rose called over her shoulder as she made her way to her car. "Wear something casual," she stated before shutting her car door and firing up her engine.
"Okay," I snickered to no one in particular, raising my hand to offer a small wave to her as she backed out of the driveway.
Locking the door behind me as I reentered the house, another yawn escaped me. I trudged up the stairs to my room, the exhaustion hitting me as I picked up my cell phone that was charging on the desk and noticed that I had eight missed calls, all from Alice.
Changing into some flannel pajama bottoms and a tank top, I crawled under the covers and settled against my pillows before returning Alice's calls.
"Bella?" she answered frantically before the second ring. "What happened? Where were you? Why didn't you answer your phone?"
"Calm down, Alice," I tried to soothe her. "Everything's fine. I was just charging my phone up and Rose was here."
Just as I had hoped, the mention of Rose immediately shifted Alice's focus and she grilled me on the latest news. I updated her on our conversation before the third yawn of the night interrupted our chat. Alice begrudgingly allowed me to end the call with a promise to keep in touch; I heard her sniff once and her voice cracked slightly as we said goodnight.
I sighed as I flipped the phone shut before placing it on the bedside table and almost instantly sank into a deep and dreamless sleep.
My first week in Chicago passed by in a blur. Charlie and I spent a day at the lake, as promised, reliving old memories and making new ones. We had made the trip to one of the touristy, North Shore beaches where the parking area was surrounded by gift shops and ice cream parlors. Sitting on a bench, overlooking the sandy beach and the vast body of water that was Lake Michigan, we ate our ice cream and talked about similar outings from my childhood. Charlie was surprised when I suddenly rushed to one of the gift stores and purchased a small plastic bucket and shovel, overcome by the sudden need to do something completely childish.
He laughed as he sat on the sand and watched his adult daughter build a ridiculously lopsided sandcastle. As we both tried to add some windows to the structure in order to give it some finishing touches, we agreed that neither of us had any kind of a future in home building or design. Handing my gently used bucket and shovel to the nearest child on the beach, we ended our outing with cheeseburgers from one of the fast food 'shacks' near the parking lot.
My evenings were mostly spent at the bar where Rosalie worked. 'The Lucky Lady' was a typical, no frills, after work/student shot and beer bar. Each night the owners featured a different special in an effort to encourage people to try the new establishment and each night the place was filled to capacity. Their main 'hook', however, was that the entire staff consisted of women, the only exception being the owners themselves, who watched over their staff protectively.
Darren and Rick Taylor were brothers with big plans for their futures. They were both in their mid-twenties and the bar was the first in what they hoped would eventually be a chain of similar businesses, situated near every major University in the country. I had spoken to them a number of times during quiet moments while the girls set up the bar at the beginning of the night, and I could see why Liam had taken them under his wing.
Both men had graduated from Northwestern with degrees in Business Management and spent their evenings working in bars, saving every tip they ever made in order to get their idea off the ground. Now that their dream was finally beginning to come to fruition, their sole focus was on making this first venture a complete success.
Watching Rose work was a sight to behold. She managed to flirt just enough to keep the customers coming back for more while exhibiting the right amount of attitude to make it clear that she was essentially 'off limits'. Her partner in crime behind the bar was a girl named Rachel who was also beautiful and outgoing. Visually, the two couldn't have been more different. Rachel was taller than Rose with long, straight black hair hanging in a smooth, shining sheet past her waist. Her skin was tanned a warm golden brown and her eyes were such a deep shade of brown that they appeared to be black from a distance; between Rose's pale perfection and Rachel's almost Mediterranean beauty, they proved to be an irresistible draw to the bar.
Things at home had settled into a comfortable routine. I busied myself during the day cleaning and cooking for Charlie, making enough food to feed a small army on a regular basis before dividing out the portions and packing the majority into the freezer. In an effort to always make sure that my father had at least one nutritious meal a day. Cooking had never been one of Charlie's strong suits and I worried about how he survived when there wasn't someone here to feed him; I supposed that was the reasoning behind my compulsion to squirrel away meals for his use at a later date.
We had also accepted the Hales' offer of dinner on that first Saturday and, after Rosanne scolded Charlie for not accepting similar offers that had been made over the years, I realized I wasn't the only one attempting to look out for him.
All in all, it had been a busy week and, aside from my daily correspondence from Alice, I really hadn't had much of a chance to think about Seattle.
All that changed when, at the beginning of my second week, I had my first dream about Edward. The dream was innocent enough and not even entirely focused on him. It played out more like a series of memories of my last few weeks in Seattle and also included scenes of Jasper and Alice. At first, I simply wrote it off to homesickness or possibly due to the fact that I had taken to listening to my iPod for an hour or two each night before falling asleep, in order to unwind.
In the following days, however, the dreams continued and it became clear that they were, in fact, dreams centered on Edward in particular. Sometimes it would just be a flash of his intense green eyes as they held me transfixed in his gaze. Other times, I would dream of what might have happened had any one of those suspended moments, which made me question his feelings in the first place, had progressed to something more.
By the middle of the third week, both to my horror and delight, I was having increasingly more erotic dreams of him. The most recent of which had been interrupted by Charlie knocking frantically at my door, wondering if I was okay because he thought he heard moaning. After trying to get my breathing in check, I mumbled something about having cramps, which sent Charlie scurrying downstairs while I buried myself further under the covers and wondered if it was possible to die from embarrassment.
It seemed that Edward had not only invaded my subconscious mind, but my conscious one as well because I soon found myself thinking about him during the day too. Every set of green eyes that looked into mine paled in comparison to the ones in my dreams. Every messy mop of dark hair I saw was never quite messy enough, or had too much or too little red mixed in with the brown.
I was confused and intrigued by this turn of events. We had already been apart longer than we had been together, yet it seemed as though the more time I spent away, the stronger the urge was to see him again.
My phone conversations with Alice were becoming torturous. I found myself desperate for information about him; part of me wanted to hear that he was happily continuing on with his life and barely giving me a second thought, so that I could get over this crazy obsession and get on with my life. But a bigger part of me was afraid to ask, scared that I might hear exactly that.
It was also frustrating not being able to talk out this preoccupation with Edward with my friends. I knew them both well enough to realize that this would be one of the rare occasions that their input would not be helpful. Alice would squeal into the phone and then start gushing about fate and soul mates while Rose would roll her eyes and conclude that I just needed to get laid. Neither reaction was what I needed to hear, so I resigned myself to trying to figure things out on my own.
The time for me to make a decision about my future was fast approaching. With only one week of my official vacation time remaining, I needed to try to make an informed choice while attempting to push aside the Edward induced fog that clouded my brain.
First, I took into consideration what the two cities had to offer me, both now and in the future. Chicago had Charlie and Rose, but not much else. Although the Taylor's had offered me a job at the bar, it had been my only employment prospect thus far.
Rose had made it clear that she had no intention of staying in the area after she graduated next year. She was planning on moving to Europe in the hopes of landing a position with the likes of Ferrari or BMW. Charlie, on the other hand, wasn't going anywhere, but as much as I wanted to believe that he needed me to look after him, the truth was…he didn't. Using him as an excuse to stay would be doing us both a huge disservice.
Seattle, however, was home to a job that I loved and, of course, Alice. Ironically, my whole reason for leaving may end up being the major reason for my return. Every day since I had left Seattle, Alice had all but demanded my return, whether she was begging me over the phone or sending random 'come home' text messages. She was so sure of her imminent success in convincing me to return that she had already found, and moved into, a two-bedroom apartment close to my old one, which she repeatedly told me was just waiting for me to move in.
My lofty idea of separating myself from her in order for her to feel free to make her future plans without me as a consideration had also fallen by the wayside. It appeared that Jasper would be her major concern from now on, so my reasoning at the outset was pretty much moot.
The draw to Seattle was undeniable and my impromptu pro and con list served to solidify my gut reaction to hop on the first plane back. I still felt as though I needed more time with Charlie, so I called my manager at the bookstore and arranged to extend my leave another two weeks. This tentative return date had me arriving in Seattle just before my birthday.
I mentally patted myself on the back for choosing Seattle for reasons other than a man I had known for only two weeks. Because, really, how pathetic would that be? No, I was going back for me, because it was the best choice for my life at this point. The fact that I would see Edward again was just an added bonus.
Right?
My next concern was how to tell Charlie that I had decided to leave him again. I set about making his favorite dinner and I tried to dress up the rickety kitchen table a little in order to make the meal more special. As if placing our plates on a tablecloth would somehow soften the blow.
I was just placing the large wooden salad bowl in the center of the table when I heard the front door close and the rustling sound of Charlie removing his jacket and holster before he walked into the kitchen.
"What's all this about, Bells?" he asked, waving his hand over the arrangement of his finest china, which was basically regular stoneware that just happened to match.
"What?" I said, trying to sound like this was a regular occurrence.
Charlie gave me a look that told me he wasn't buying my innocent act and I immediately caved. This must be how he gets confessions out of criminals.
"I spoke to Julie today," I sighed. "You know, my boss in Seattle."
We both sat down as Charlie looked at me with a knowing smirk on his face, giving me the impression that he'd been expecting this talk all along, while I fought down the nervous butterflies that were fluttering in my chest. I must have looked as anxious as I felt because his expression softened considerably before he spoke again.
"You know I love having you here, don't you?" He smiled and I could only nod in response. "But honestly, Bella, I've been expecting this for a while now. I know that your original intention was to possibly move here and I was thrilled to have you, but you haven't really tried to start a life here, have you?"
"I suppose not," I mumbled, staring at my food.
Charlie reached over and lifted my chin with his fingers, forcing me to make eye contact, before a genuine smile spread across his face.
"It's okay!" he chuckled. "I'm okay. I know you worry about me but really, Bells, I just want you to be happy. And if that happiness is in Seattle, then I'll even book your flight for you."
"Thanks, Dad." I grinned, even though my eyes had begun to water at his words.
"Just promise me one thing, okay?" He quirked an eyebrow at me and I nodded, encouraging him to continue. "Don't wait another three years before coming for a visit next time?"
"I promise," I laughed, relieved at how well the evening had gone.
"So, when are you leaving?" he asked before popping a piece of steak in his mouth.
The rest of the evening passed very much like the previous ones I had spent at home with my father, the awkwardness and nerves forgotten almost immediately as we made small talk during dinner and then settled down in the living room to watch TV.
I waited until I had actually booked my flight for the morning of September 12th before plucking up the courage to tell Alice. Holding the phone a foot away from my ear, I waited for the inevitable squeal to die down before being scolded for only giving her two weeks to prepare for my arrival. I barely said two words during that call, listening instead to my friend babble incessantly about the décor in my new bedroom and all the shopping we needed to catch up on.
Resolving to spend as much quality time as possible with Charlie and Rose during the remainder of my stay, I attempted to push all thoughts of Edward out of my head, at least while I was conscious. My subconscious mind, however, still ran rampant with dreams and possibilities.
Finally, six weeks after my arrival in Chicago, I was once again hugging my father in the middle of the airport. Only this time in farewell.
As I took my seat on the plane, I had a moment of déjà vu when I pulled out my iPod and selected a playlist. Resting my head against the bulkhead, I stared out of the window at the retreating skyline as my fingers found the teardrop pendant hanging from my neck.
Ok...let's see a show of hands...who's ready for some Edward in the next chapter?