Love Notes and Hay Lofts

"Edward, I cannot believe that you still have all of this!" I leafed through the pages in awe.

"Well, I kept them thinking it would be fun to show our kids. I had forgotten all about them until I moved out here and found them in my stuff at home. I kept yours and added some others to it. It'll still make for good stories one day."

When we had finished putting sheets on his bed and found a clean quilt he put the box on the middle of the bed. He was sitting cross legged at the foot of the bed and I was sitting with my back against the head board. He opened the box and dumped out a pile of folded papers.

He had saved almost every letter that I had written to him in high school and my first year of college. There were boutonnieres from two proms, photos that I didn't know existed, and my old engagement ring. I had given it back to him when I broke up with him.

I didn't even get the chance to be embarrassed because the first thing I picked up was a letter from another girl. He kept a lot of stuff from all the girls he had dated. There were napkins with phone numbers, and some other odds and ends that he had picked up from dates along the way.

"Oh my gosh. Look how young we looked. I didn't think we had changed that much." I couldn't get over some of the pictures he had.

"Tell me about it. I haven't looked through this stuff in a long time."

I picked up some of the letters that I had written to him and started reading them out loud. We both laughed at how sappy some of them were. There was one where I must have written 'I love you' at least a hundred times. I even found the one that I had written to him the day after we had slept together for the first time.

"Jesus, I was such a little girl. How did you stand being around me?" I chuckled.

"It wasn't easy. Somebody had to do it."

I threw the letter at him and laughed. "You enjoyed every minute of it. Don't try to pretend you didn't. "

"Yeah, those were the days. Back when I could trick pretty girls in to thinking I was something special."

"You are still something special Edward. That never changed, I did. Plus Tanya seems to think you're pretty special, too."

"Well, what can I say. You find them young enough and they don't look too closely. They're easier to trick."

"Don't tell me that. Jacob is older than me so if he doesn't fall for tricks then he already knows what a flake I am. He's going to be running away from me by noon tomorrow. Watch."

He laughed, "If he's smart he'll leave before you get there."

I kicked at him, "Ha ha."

"Seriously though, Bella, if he doesn't see what he's got in front of him then you shouldn't be wasting time on him anyway."

"Thanks, that's sweet. I tell you what. If I can't find a guy by the time I'm thirty, then you can finally force me down the aisle. If your still single too, that is." I smiled at him.

"Why thirty?"

"Because I don't want to be going on sixty at my kids high school graduation."

He looked down and laughed again. "Okay, deal."

We had been sitting on the bed going through the stuff for a couple of hours and it had gotten dark outside quite some time ago.

"Well, I'd better head back to the house. I have to be up early. I'll take your sheets and try to get all of the chocolate off."

We both slid off the bed. He turned and started putting the stuff back in his box and I went to gather all of our clothes and the sheets. Once I had everything situated so that I could carry it, Edward came to open the door.

"Do you want me to walk you back to the house?"

"No, I think I've got it.

He opened the door and I stepped out in to the cold air. It was starting to turn pretty cold at nights now. Winter wasn't far off.

"Hey, Bella?"

I turned around and he was standing in the doorway.

"Yeah?"

"Even though you dirtied my sheets, broke my shower, and snooped through my stuff, I had a good time tonight."

He was smiling so I knew he was teasing me. It was all true, but he was still teasing.

"I did too. It was nice spending time with you again. I'm glad that you don't hate me anymore."

"Me too."

I smiled at him again and turned to start towards the house. I heard him close the door behind me. It took a little longer, because I kept dropping things, but I finally made it back to the house a few minutes later. I could see my mom inside, cleaning up. Her company must have left by now. Thank goodness. This looked bad enough, I didn't want total strangers thinking my mom had a nut job for a daughter.

It didn't take her long to give me a once over after I got in the door.

"Don't go there. We had a food fight, I just volunteered to clean his stuff because I started it."

"I wasn't going say a thing."

She kept cleaning and I dropped the laundry in the washroom. I was too tired to try and deal with it tonight, so I left it there. I was ready for bed so I gave my mom a hug and a kiss, then went to get in my bed.

As I slowly drifted off I was vaguely aware that I could still smell him, and remembered that I was still wearing his clothes. I was too close to unconsciousness to do anything about it, so I fell asleep with him in the forefront of my dreams.

"I'm glad you came. I didn't know if you were still going to come with it raining." Jacob was sitting beside me at his kitchen table.

It had started raining before I ever left the house. I knew horseback riding was out, and I really wasn't that sad about it. He had made us some tea and we were chatting about our families and friends.

"Well, I promised that I would come see you. I will admit though, if you weren't so funny I probably wouldn't have shown up."

"I'll have to remember that. Funny equals girls. That must have been what I was doing wrong all this time. I thought women wanted serious, romantic guys."

"Well, some combination works best. Funny at times, romantic at others. I think you have it figured out."

Jacob's parents weren't what you could call rich, but the obviously had a good deal of money. Their house was mid-sized and very nicely decorated and furnished. It had a very homey feel to it.

"You're parents house is great."

"Why do you think I still live here? The ladies go crazy for good real estate."

I shook my head at him and grinned. Talking to him was really easy. Not like it had been with all the other guys I had tried to date before. He was relaxed, and that made me relaxed. I sipped some more of my tea.

"So, are we going to hang around here all day?"

"I can take you down to the barn. I'll show you the horses, and the hay loft is good for catching some great views."

"Sure, let's go romp in the hay loft. That's not cliche at all." I winked at him and he smiled at me.

We walked out to his truck. He wanted to drive since it was still raining a little bit. We drove down a bumpy dirt path. I asked why they hadn't had an actual drive put in, and he told me they had. He just wanted to take this way to give me the full farm experience. I would have laughed if I wasn't concentrating so hard on not flying in to the dashboard.

Once we reached the barn the rain had let up, but the sky was still dark. He took me by each of the horse stalls and showed me all of the horses. They had all come back because of the rain. There were a couple of dogs lounging just inside the barn door and I stopped to play with them. I loved dogs and these had to be two of the sweetest ones I had ever seen.

He showed me some tricks that he had taught them. Well, he tried to. Turns out the only trick they knew was to stare at him like he had lost his mind. He said that he hoped they would pretend to know how to do something so he could impress me. It was so stupid it was funny.

He walked me to the back of the barn where there was a set of stairs leading up. We took the stairs, and I followed him back to the other end of the barn. He reached the wall and slid open two huge doors. I gasped.

You could see for miles. It was nothing but pastures and outcroppings of trees. There were cows off in the distance, and the recent rain had made everything glisten. He sat on the edge of the floor, letting his legs dangle in the open air. I sat down beside him.

"So, what do you think? Too classy up here for you?"

"You bet. The smell of old hay and fresh manure is far too nice for a girl like me. On a serious note though, the view is goregous."

"I don't know, I've seen you dressed up before. This is nothing compared to you."

I shook my head at him, but smiled in spite of myself.

"Bella, about the other night, I don't know why I acted like that when I took you home."

"That's okay, you're a man. I wasn't surprised." We were sitting right next to each other so I leaned over and nudged him.

"I was. I shouldn't have kissed you like that. And the whole lick thing, I don' t even know where that came from." I could tell that he was serious, and he was genuinely sorry. "It was partly your fault though, you were too pretty." He was trying to lighten the mood.

"I'll remember that next time we go on a date. Don't look too pretty or the cute boy might kiss me."

"So there's going to be a next time?"

"Oh, sorry I was just joking around. I didn't mean that I think you're gonna ask me out again or anything. " I looked down, embarrassed, and started picking at a damaged piece of wood.

"No I'm glad you said that. Now I don't have to worry about whether or not you'll say yes." He nudged my shoulder.

I decided to change the subject. "I assume your mom is at work, since it's a Monday, but where's your dad?"

"He had to go have a meeting with the people that he sells some of our colts to. Renegotiating prices I guess. He wanted me to come with him, but I wanted to be here."

"You didn't have to that. I could have come any time. Jobless, remember?"

"Yeah. So you said something about living with Edward, that guy from the benefit dinner. How did that come about?"

"Oh, no, I didn't mean that we live together. My mom let him move in to a shop out behind our house. "

"Huh. I hate to ask, but I'm really curious. Did you two ever date?"

"Why?"

"Well men have a way of knowing when there's competition, and I just got a feeling the other night that there was something there."

"Oh, no. I mean, yes, we dated at one point. But that was four years ago. He has a girlfriend, you met her." I didn't want to get in to all the details. I didn't want to scare him off before I got a chance to spend some more time with him.

"Yeah, I met her. I also saw how he pays more attention to you than he does to her. I just want to make sure that I'm not getting in the middle of something here. I'm really starting to like you, a lot, and I don't want to keep doing this if there's no point."

"No, there's nothing to get in the middle of. He doesn't pay that much attention to me. She was just gone off with her friends all night, and my brother and Rosalie weren't much for conversation that night, so I was the only person left for him to talk to. We're good friends now. We talk about our dates and everything." I smiled up at him so that he would know I was serious.

"If you say so."

"So, you're really starting to like me?"

He looked a little embarrassed. "Yeah, you're a really cool girl. I like spending time with you. You're not like a lot of the girls that I've met. You have a sense of humor about yourself."

"Well, it's easy when I'm with you, you are pretty hilarious."

We sat up there and talked for a long time. I hadn't realized how long though until the clouds finally broke apart. The sun was a little too far over for it to still be afternoon. It was getting to be evening.

"Wow, I didn't realize it was getting so late. I should probably head back home, and I'm sure I've kept you from everything you should have done today."

"That's okay, it'll still be here tomorrow."

I knew I should leave, but I wasn't ready to go just yet. He didn't seem to be in a hurry either because he didn't make a move to get up. I was really starting to like him. I hadn't been this comfortable with a guy since, well, since Edward. For some reason I felt a tiny twinge of guilt when I thought about him.

Ugh, what was I doing? Edward had moved on. He was obviously over me. I had no reason to feel guilty about dating. We were friends now, he would want me to be happy.

"Hey, Jake? About the other night, I'm not sorry."

He looked at me, confused, having forgotten about his apology earlier. I leaned in, but didn't have to go far because we were already sitting so close. I pressed my lips to his and let them linger there for a few seconds.

I leaned back and smiled at him. "Mmm, tasty."

He laughed at me. He reached his hand up and started running his fingers through my pony tail. After a few passes, he took my hand and pulled me up. He held my hand as we walked and I was heading for the stairs. I felt him slow down and turned to see what had stopped him.

He was smiling at me, so I smiled back. "I didn't say we were leaving."

He pulled me to him, but not aggressively, more tentatively. He almost looked nervous. This was a far cry different from the guy that dropped me off two nights ago. He was gentle as he wrapped his arms around my waist. He never took his eyes off my face, and that made me blush a little.

He was going slow, giving me the opportunity to stop him if I chose to. I was happy that he seemed so worried about offending me again. I tilted my head a little to the right and kissed him. He was trying very hard to convey how much he liked me without going too far. He pulled back after a minute and smiled again. He took my hand and moved towards the steps. I stood my ground and pulled back on his hand.

"I know I don't live here, but I didn't say we were leaving yet, either."

I started kissing him again, a little more enthusiastically this time. I hadn't really kissed anyone like this in so long that it was making me dizzy. We stopped kissing long enough to go sit on some loose hay. We started kissing again and I was leaned back on to a pile of hay so that my body was inclined. He was somewhat on top of me, but not in a way that would have made me think he wanted to go any further.

We sat up there for a while, just kissing. There was some light, over the clothes touching, but nothing too serious. I was enjoying myself thoroughly. He was good looking, smart, funny, and a really good kisser.

When we finally broke apart I wasn't sure how much time had passed. I knew my mom would be wondering where I had been all day. She was on the night rotation this week, so I had told her I would be back before she left for work.

"I really should be headed back. My mom was expecting me home a while ago."

"I'll let you leave on one condition."

"What's that? "

"You have to promise that we'll go out again soon. I have to go out of town with my parents for week or so, but I'll call you when I get back."

"Deal."

He leaned down and gave me on last soft kiss, then helped me to my feet. I was covered in hay, and had to laugh when he was helping me pick it out of my hair.

We got back to his house and he walked me to my car.

"So, I'll see you in a couple of weeks then." I let go of his hand and reached for my car door.

"You bet. Don't forget about me while I'm gone. I'm gonna be upset if you don't remember me by then."

"I wouldn't do that. Trust me, there are far less things to do with my time than you realize. I don't stay busy enough to forget anyone."

I sat in my car and cranked the engine. I gave him a wave and backed out of my parking spot. As I drove home I realized that I still had a smile plastered on my face, though I had left Jacob five minutes earlier.