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LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.
Chapter 5
The drama continues…
And so it began…
The rest of the afternoon was just as much a test of my strength as the beginning had been; with Angela rising so perfectly to the occasion, it didn't take long for half the people in the house to fall in love with her. The other half was still too young to take notice.
Which, of course, meant that all that afternoon I had to hear about how perfect she and Edward were together, or dodge the looks of pity I got from people who knew—or at least suspected—that I still had feelings for him.
Oh, and did I mention she was the daughter of a minister? Because apparently the disgustingly perfect girlfriend could not get any more perfect than she already was. She just had to be the daughter of a friggin' priest, and not one who took a nosedive into the collection plate every now and then or who'd get caught drooling over the choir boys. Nope, apparently Voldemary's dad was a real standup kind of guy who helped the poor, opened his home to the needy, and also inspired his brood to give something back to the community.
And she was so nice and humble about it too! Laughing at all the appropriate moments and helping Esme out when she seemed to be struggling but, most of all, playing the part of the shy-yet-totally-devoted girlfriend to a T. Even Alice liked her, when only a week ago she'd sworn to me she was going to hate the woman.
But then again, it was almost impossible to hate her. So could I really blame her?
Hell, if she hadn't stolen the one man from me that I could never give up, I might have liked her as well. Being as things were, though, I sank further and further into that festering swamp of jealousy and resentment I did when any woman in my situation would have done: I plastered a smile onto my face, sat my butt down with the rest of the ass-kissing traitors and pretended nothing in the world could hurt me.
Least of all, the very woman who was causing me pain like I couldn't imagine…
Did I mention I hated the bitch with the passion of a thousand burning suns?
Still, I had to be the bigger person and step back, allowing everyone to be happy and move on with their lives. It was time to admit defeat and realize that by waiting to make something of my life—something that would be worthy in the eyes of his dad and, most of all, in my own damn eyes—I had waited too long.
And now he was gone.
Needing some space, I made sure Charlie was being cared for before wandering off into the woods; the same fallen tree Edward and I had sat on when we'd made the decision to keep the baby, serving as the perfect spot to think…clear my head…come to terms with my mistakes. Part of me wanted to scream really loudly—to hell with worrying over who might hear me—or at least destroy some part of the unsuspecting shrubbery, but when I opened my mouth, nothing came out. The shock of how the afternoon had turned out still rendered me completely and utterly useless.
Rose was going to kick my ass when she found out.
Whatever. Like I cared.
It might not have been my party but I could still fucking cry if I wanted to.
"I knew I'd find you here."
Looking up, I saw the last person I wanted to see at that moment.
Okay, maybe the second to last; he was still better than her.
I sighed, trying not to appear too bitter. "Edward."
"Mom wanted me to come get you," he announced, looking every bit as ill-at-ease as I felt. "They are about to cut the cake and…shit! I know this has to be fucking hard for you but I wanted you to know how amazing you are for making sure that meeting went off the way it did."
Pressing my lips into something that might have resembled a smile, I rose up from my mossy seat. "Thanks."
"Fuck, I'm so sorry…I'm an ass for dumping all of this on you. It couldn't have been easy." He sighed, and my not-completely-rational anger spiked as he blocked my escape.
"It wasn't." I snapped, gnashing my teeth to keep myself from lashing out. I'm trying to be the bigger person here, jackass. Don't make this even harder for me!
"She'll never try to replace you, Bella, you have to know that," he insisted, taking a little step closer when all I wanted was for him to be miles away. "There's no one who could ever be her mom, but you."
"Damn straight," I snapped, crossing my arms in front of my chest—both to protect myself from falling apart and because it was colder than I thought out there. "Now, we better get going? As you were saying, they're about to cut the cake."
He sighed, looking like he wasn't done saying whatever the hell he'd come out there to say. "Fine…it's just…what I wanted to ask was..." He scrunched up his face as he ran a hand through his hair. "What I came out here to ask was if it was okay for Charlie to spend next weekend at my place."
It wasn't like I hadn't expected it but still, it came sooner than I had imagined. "In Forks?"
Nodding softly he spoke, "I'm moving on Tuesday, so I'll be all settled in by then and I'd like to spend some time with our girl before work gets too busy again."
"That seems…logical," I answered, my voice thin with anxiety as I barely kept myself from asking the one question burning on my lips. Will she be there?
"Angela will be driving up late on Saturday after she finishes her shift at the shelter," he answered my unspoken question. "She's eager to spend some more time with Charlie as well, even if that's going to be hard with her still stuck in Seattle for the next couple of weeks."
"She's not moving with you?" I asked, trying not to feel relieved until I actually had my confirmation.
Shaking his head he chuckled. "Nah, it's still too early for us to be moving in together and apart from that, her dad probably wouldn't like us sharing a house when we're not married, even if he's kind of relaxed about that whole thing. She'll be heading out here in two weeks, just before she starts her job."
"Oh, great." I wasn't sure whether to be relieved that Voldemary wouldn't be a permanent fixture for a few weeks yet or just feel nauseous at the prospect of my baby girl spending the weekend with that conniving too-damn-nice-to-be-real seductress.
"So you're okay with it?" he asked, his eyes shining with hope and his step bouncing with a little more spring as he walked beside me.
How could I deny him anything when he was looking like that? I mean, he was like freaking Puss in Boots! Sighing, I shrugged. "Yeah, I guess I'm okay with it. It's going to be a busy weekend for me anyway, with the job interviews scheduled on Saturday afternoon on top of all the normal work."
"You're going to do it, then?" he asked; the pride in his eyes making me glow on the inside even in spite of everything else I was feeling. "Get more help at the shop?"
"Yeah, I finally bit the bullet and called Marcus on Monday," I admitted. "It's just too busy right now for me to keep up with everything going on, no matter how much my inner control freak wants to stay in…well, control."
"It will work out," he assured me, his insistence calming me even if it was based on nothing. "I know you, so I know everything will be perfect in the end."
I wishedI had his confidence but then again, how would he have known that the only outcome for me that could ever be called 'perfect' was one where he'd dump Voldemary and would come running back to me.
And somehow I doubted that it was the perfect scenario in his mind at that moment.
The following week dragged. It wasn't for a lack of work to do—because there was plenty—but mostly because I just couldn't get my head out of the funk it had landed itself in. Deep down, I sure as hell knew that I had to move on and even if I didn't, I had all my friends reminding me.
Still, as with so many things, knowing was so much easier than doing.
Edward called on Tuesday night to let me know the move had gone great. So, Wednesday after school, Charlie and I headed over to his new apartment with a houseplant picked out by my darling daughter and his favorite dessert of banoffee éclairs to find out how he'd settled in.
Because that was what friends did, right?
It was awkward to say the least. A couple of weeks ago it would have been a perfect evening; him showing us around the place as he talked excitedly about his work at the hospital and being back in his hometown before settling on the sofa with a cup of coffee and our sticky, yummy treats. And to some extent, it still was. We were still the same people, liking the same stuff and laughing about the same jokes.
Only, things were different.
He wasn't mine anymore; the feminine touches so clearly visible around the apartment hadn't been left by me and in his conversation, she came up so often that by the end of our visit, I wasn't sure I was going to keep my éclair down.
My only comfort was that throughout all of this Charlie was still blissfully unaware. She was so excited to have her daddy back in town where she could visit him whenever she liked that, by the end of the evening, I almost had to pry those two apart with a crowbar or I'd never get her to bed at a decent time.
On our way back she was already counting the days until the weekend—so eager to get to sleep in the new bedroom her dad had decorated for her—that it took hours to get her to sleep.
And before I knew it, it was Friday, and instead of listening for her footsteps rushing up to the back door and her mouth running a mile a minute telling me all about her day, my afternoon went by undisturbed and far too quiet.
Well, about as quiet as it could be with Lauren Mallory picking up the impossible birthday cake for her son—the impossible birthday cake I had managed to craft perfectly with my own two hands, by the way—and complaining about how the balloons were too red and the basket I'd crafted out of woven fondant around a cake base wasn't yellow enough.
Bitch.
My mood lifted slightly when I got a call from Charlie at about seven that night; her happiness over being picked up from school by her dad when he was still in hospital scrubs was so great I had to keep the phone a little bit further away from my ears than usual to keep me from going deaf.
It was great to listen to her voice as she told me all about the plans they'd made that and I was happy she was having a great time with Edward.
But still, the house was too damn quiet.
On Saturday I hardly had time to think, let alone wallow in self-pity. With regular shop sales always higher on the weekends and, on top of that a few orders to fill, I had my work cut out getting everything ready in time for the customers to pick up their sweets. And then, just when I was ready to get a breather, my first job interview walked in.
The first one, a guy named Embry Call, looked good enough on paper: top of the class at culinary school and with a shining recommendation from one of Port Angeles' top pastry chefs. But that was just it. He was cocky. A little too cocky for someone whose only achievement was a successful internship at a local restaurant.
And he was a little too 'looky' as well.
By the end, his slightly demeaning way of referring to my shop—my blood, sweat and tears—as a little cake shop only made it so much easier to let him know not to hold his breath for that call back.
Enter prospect number two: Paul Lahote.
Just like the first one, his resume' made him seem eager to work with me, which was definitely a plus. However, as I set him to the simple task of baking a cupcake, just to see how he was in the kitchen, I soon found out that he had a bit of a temper.
Well, more like he made Gordon Ramsay look like an adorable little kitten.
When he'd smashed one of my favorite mixing bowls into the sink just because it had offended him by not mixing his ingredients perfectly (when actually he hadn't measured out the right flour-to-butter-to-egg ratio, which was why the batter had been too runny to ever amount to a good cupcake) I'd seen enough and sent him packing.
Enter number three: a quiet, shy kid by the name of Quil Ateara.
And boy did he honor his name when he stood in front of me, shaking like a fucking leaf. It didn't exactly do him any good when he had to bake, since the spoon in his hand shook so much that the counter was a mess and there was more batter around the cupcake molds than actually inside. The end product tasted tolerable and he hadn't done anything to offend me so when he left, his resume definitely went on the 'maybe' pile.
Though I did have some doubts about how he'd hold up under the stress of having to bake one of Lauren Mallory's impossible cakes.
Poor boy would probably give himself a concussion from shaking so hard!
I was on the verge of turning into the Goldilocks of pastry chefs when, finally, candidate number four walked in looking refreshingly normal and relaxed.
Emmett McCarty. Let's hope you'll deliver the goods.
His exterior was a little rough around the edges—your typical wrong-side-of-the-tracks kind of look with huge muscles and the tattoos on his arms—but his face was friendly and open and his manners were appealing if Rose's wide smile was anything to go on as she showed him in.
"So, what do you want me to do for you today?" he asked as he sat down. "Because I'm assuming this isn't just a friendly chat about baking."
I chuckled at his eagerness. "Not really, no. I'd like you to create a batch of cupcakes, using your own recipe and any decorations from my stock you'd like to add while I ask you a few questions. Is that okay with you?"
"Fine." He grinned, sitting back as he took stock of my bakery. "That's what I'm here for, isn't it?"
As he set to his job, I noticed his technique was flawless and his balance of ingredients spot on. And while his work was precise, it didn't take so much out of him that he wasn't able to answer questions or joke around about baking and some of the more interesting projects that had come our way.
"I always wanted to be a bricklayer when I was young but then, one day, I walked into the wrong class and here I am." His laughter echoed through the room, almost forcing me to join in with him. "I swear Mrs. Johnson, my sophomore home economics teacher, had a stroke when she saw my ass parked right there on the front bench, but as soon as we got to work, I was sold."
"And you never wanted to touch a brick again," I added, watching as his huge hands proved surprisingly nimble as they added all sorts of dainty decorations to his perfect cupcakes.
"Not unless it's made of cake," he replied, shrugging as he rifled through his portfolio, turning the page to reveal a cake that looked like it was built up out of Lego bricks. "I made that one for an assignment at school where we had to create the kind of cake we would have liked to eat, growing up."
"You have some real skill," I mused, looking at the flawless way the bricks, crafted out of little pieces of fondant, were stacked on top of each other. I knew then, that I'd made my choice and so I went with it, swallowing down the nerves as I continued. "I'd like to take you on for a two-week trial period. If things work out, you'll have a job here. If not—"
"No hard feelings," he chuckled. "Man, Ms. Swan. You move fast!"
"It's the only way to go," I shrugged, a little spark of joy igniting in me when the boy—because he was at least a good five years younger than I was, which totally justified me calling him a boy—started to clean up his own mess without me telling him to do so. I'd picked a good one there.
I took over closing the shop while Rose got him through the paperwork; her happiness at finding out I'd decided to hire Emmett not lost on me. Really, that woman was incorrigible! And while I thought Emmett might be a few years too young for her, I could see the two of them actually working out well, even if it would elevate my best friend to Queen Cougar status.
The rest of my weekend was too quiet, once again.
After closing the shop I spent another restless evening wondering how Charlie was doing with Edward and—barf—Voldemary, followed by a sleepless night in which my mind came up with all sorts of horrible scenarios.
The next day, not even the peace and quiet of uninterrupted baking experiments could lift my spirits and so, when Edward was late dropping Charlie off, my mood soured to toxic levels as I waited for the familiar sounds of his car wheels crunching along the gravel of the back parking lot.
"MOMMY!MOMMY!MOMMY!" Charlie cried, running out towards me as soon as the car had stopped, her eyes wide with excitement and her legs having difficulty keeping up with the rest of her. "You'll never believe what Daddy and Angela got me as an early Christmas present!"
"It's not Christmas for months!" I chuckled, my eyes finding Edward's slightly guilty face and conveying one single message: What. Did. You. Do?
"They got me riding lessons! You know? At the riding school we went to on our field trip?" She squealed, twirling in place in a gesture so uncommonly girly it made me smile in spite of my anger.
"That's so nice, sweetie!" I managed to gnash out, my smile so fake it hurt my cheeks. "Now how about you run upstairs and put your bag in your room and wash your hands? Dinner will be ready in ten minutes."
"I'm sorry, Bella," Edward was quick to apologize the minute our daughter was out of earshot. "I know this isn't exactly the ideal way to go about things, but Angela thought it would be a good way to bond with Charlie and…"
"And you gave her free reign?" I fumed, really trying to stay calm and not go off on him like a mad woman. "What were you thinking, Edward? What happened to talking these things through, as we agreed upon, before springing them on each other?"
"I know, I know." He held up his hands, looking horribly awkward with this situation. It was only in that moment that I realized he'd probably been as surprised with all of this as I had been.
Talk about friendly fire.
"Okay." I sighed, rubbing my face. "There's little we can do about it now, so we'd better make the most of it. What day are the lessons?"
"Wednesdays at five." He cringed, knowing this news would go over just as well as his initial announcement.
"I'm still stuck at the shop at that time," I warned, "and if hospital residencies are anything as dreadful as Grey's Anatomy wants to make us believe, you'll be at work nine times out of ten as well, so how's she going to make it over to the stables?"
"We'll make it work," he promised, meaning he'd probably stick this on his mom or she would be doing the honors.
Shaking my head, I flopped the dish towel I was still holding in my hands over my shoulder, my ears faintly picking up the noise of the cooking timer over the rustling of trees in the wind. "I'm not happy about this, Edward." I bit my lip. My anger and disappointment were hopefully clear enough for him to get the message. "Don't pull a stunt like this again."
"I won't." He hung his head. His demeanor reminded me of that time we'd spray painted our Biology project in the Cullens' garage and accidentally got paint on his dad's new car.
I felt almost sorry for him as he trudged back to his car and drove off; his shoulders were hunched and the grin I loved so much was complete absent as he waved goodbye. Almost felt sorry, but then I remembered it was he who'd made this happen. Him and her.
I growled, slapping the towel at a non-existent enemy as I pounded up the stairs trying to get rid of my anger so that I could be happy and excited when I came face to face with my girl again.
This was all that woman's fault.
She'd only been in town for what? A couple of hours and already she was messing up my life beyond belief.
That bitch was going down.
Thoughts?