Chapter 3 – Baby Steps
Bella
Wednesday found me sprawled across the couch at the Whitlock-Hale's, my sketchbook balanced on my legs and my feet in Rosalie's lap where she was painting my toenails a deep red. Jasper was sitting sideways in the chair next to us reading, his legs over the arm, his feet dangling by my head. We had The Princess Bride playing on the flat screen, but were only giving it a fraction of our attention; we had seen it so many times we could quote it in our sleep.
I was working on a doodle of a Rodent of Unusual Size in a top hat and glasses. I was currently trying to add a Charlie Chaplin mustache, but not having a lot of luck.
"So, it's party at First Beach this weekend." Rose said, as she blew on the fresh polish on my toenail. "Are you cooking for us, little one?"
"Sure. Don't I always? I should probably go shopping tomorrow for that."
"Good. I shudder to think of myself having to eat any of Mike Newton's weenies." She smirked at me as I made a gagging noise in my throat.
"Nasty, Rosalita. I so did not need that graphic in my head."
"I second that sentiment whole-heartedly." Jasper agreed without picking his head up from the book in his lap. But Rose just laughed, ignoring us.
"Did you invite the Cullens?" I asked her. We had gotten the full scoop from her after she had brazenly gone over with our chocolate chunk oatmeal cookies and her tiny bikini barely covered with a strapless cover-up. Dr. Cullen – a bona-fide DILF according to Rosalie – was in fact the new ER supervisor. His beautiful wife Esme was a home decorator. They had three children, Emmett, Alice, and Edward who all seemed to be around our age, despite the fact that Alice was so tiny she looked around 12 from a distance. We didn't get much detail on Alice and Edward other than them both being above average in looks, because Rose couldn't shut up about the motherfucking hotness that apparently was Emmett Cullen.
"No. Should I have?"
"I don't know." I answered honestly. "I was just thinking it would be nice if we invited them to come with us. That way they could meet everyone and maybe make the first day in a new school a little less awkward, you know? I mean, it can't hurt their social status to show up at the party with you and Jazz."
"Yeah. You got that right." She winked at me with a smirk. "Plus, I certainly wouldn't mind seeing that hot piece of ass in nothing but a swimsuit and droplets of water. Yum." She actually licked her lips a little at the thought of it.
I opened my mouth to retort but was really at a loss for words. Rosalie was incorrigible like that. In the end I just shook my head at her and giggled when Jazz made another noise of dissent from his chair.
"Alright, then. Let's go." She pushed my now dry toes off her lap and stood up, stretching her long lean body into a graceful arch.
"Go where?" I asked, confused.
"Next door to invite the new neighbors to the party." She gave me a look that clearly told me she didn't think she should have to explain.
"Go ahead." I responded.
"Um, I don't think so, Bell-bottom. Your idea, you get to give the invite."
"Absolutely not, Rose. I'm watching the movie. And sketching. And you've already met them. They know you now."
She snatched the sketch book out of my hands in a lightning fast move, causing my pencil to leave a dark stripe down the middle of my R.O.U.S.'s belly. Then she grabbed the remote and turned off the TV.
"Now you're not doing anything but sitting on the couch. Might as well head over to the neighbor's with me to extend your invitation."
"Rose- " I started, but she cut me off.
"Don't Rose me. This is a perfect opportunity for you to get yourself into a social situation. Overcome your discomfort and all that." She tilted her chin in that stubborn way she had and I started to feel a little desperate.
"Jasper, help me out here," I implored.
He finally looked up from his book, but from the look on his face I could tell he had been following the exchange. He glanced at his sister for a moment and then held my gaze for awhile as I begged him with my eyes to get me out of this predicament. Then his gaze softened and before he even opened his mouth, I knew I had lost.
"I'll come with you." And he got up and held his hand out to pull me off the couch.
I grasped his hand and took in a deep breath, resigned, but my heart was already starting to pound in my chest. I could feel perspiration starting to form in the valley between my breasts by the time we had made it to the front door.
My reaction to meeting strangers or even talking to anyone who I don't consider family is absolutely horrifying. I've tried to talk myself out of it, but it just doesn't work. The symptoms aren't just mental, they're physical too. I focused hard on my breathing as we made our way down the street to the Cullen's front door, trying to prevent myself from hyperventilating. God, I fucking hate this! It made me feel like such a coward.
We reached the house, and I barely had time to register again how beautiful the house was with all its huge windows and bright, welcoming flowers, before Rose was knocking at the front door.
No one answered right away, and I had a moment to hope for a reprieve. "Shit, looks like nobodies home. We'll have to come back later…"
She turned her head to glare at me, not even wasting a response, and then knocked again. I took my chance to tuck myself in behind her, effectively hiding, and for once I enjoyed the fact that I was so much tinier than her. After another moment without a response, she knocked a third time. I swear she was so determined to have me do this, she'd stand there knocking all day.
"Jesus shits, Rose. Patience is a fucking virtue!" I hissed at her back, but then bit my lip as the door swung open abruptly.
I heard Rose re-introducing herself to the person, apparently Edward, behind the door. I could feel my hands trembling and my breath coming faster at the thought of a stranger right on the other side of Rose. I focused on mimicking her movements to keep myself hidden. Then Jasper was sliding out from next to the door and Rose was introducing him. I knew he did that to give me an extra moment to compose myself, but of course I could have all the time in the world and I still wouldn't be mentally prepared to meet someone new.
Then Rose stepped away from me suddenly, somehow knowing instinctively that I had been hiding behind her and I saw Edward Cullen for the first time. I felt the breath leave my body in a rush and heat like I had never felt spread from the core of my being outward over all of my skin. Holy fuck! I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life, and that was saying something with two best friends like Jasper and Rosalie.
The first thing I noticed was intense, deep green eyes. Eyes the color of a forest bathed in golden sunlight. And behind them a haunting darkness that made me want to reach my hand out and cup his cheek in my palm. I felt like they were seeing straight into my soul. He was slightly shorter than Jazz, broad shouldered, lean wasted. My eyes swept down the tapering line from those shoulders wrapped in a tight, thin black T-shirt to his slim hips encased in faded denim and I had to suppress a shudder. What the hell is wrong with me?
I jerked my eyes back up to his face only to become distracted tracing the strong hard line of his jaw, the full, beautifully defined lushness of his lips, his strong cheekbones, skipping over the eyes and getting lost in the bronze, messy, ridiculous sex-hair sticking out of his head in all directions. I suddenly felt light-headed and realized I hadn't taken a breath in too long a time.
I tried to gasp in enough air to keep from swooning like some ridiculous heroine in a Jane Austin story without drawing attention to the fact that I was acting like one. I met his eyes again and felt a motherfucker of a blush suffuse my cheeks, racing down my neck and across my breasts. Shit on a stick. He was staring at me with his mouth hanging open like he had never seen anything as foreign as the likes of me. Maybe he was contemplating the possibility of extraterrestrial invasion?
"Huh?" he grunted out, and I had a moment of panic, thinking I had actually said something inappropriate out loud during my blatant eye-fuck. Then drowned in relief as Rose repeated her introduction of me, in a voice more irritated than was called for. She leaned in towards me slightly in a posture I recognized: mama bear mode. She must have noticed his disgusted, fly-catcher reaction to me as well.
"Hey" he said in greeting, and his voice was like nothing I'd ever heard. Deep and low and honey and just pure sex, like velvet sliding over my bare skin. I wanted to hear that voice in the darkness of my bedroom with nothing covering my skin but shadows. Where the hell did that thought come from? I could feel my damnable blush intensifying and I silently cursed my traitorous venous system.
He smirked at me, an uneven turning up of his full lips, and something tightened in a region of my body that usually didn't take part in first-time introductions. At least with my hormones more out of whack than a teenage boy on a deserted island filled with porn, I had somehow managed to forget my anxiety over meeting strangers. I managed to say "Hi. Welcome to the neighborhood" almost like a normal human being. Although after that, I became completely tongue-tied and couldn't have managed to string together two syllables if my life depended on it.
Rose saved the day again, asking where the other Cullen kids were, and we followed Edward's truly amazing ass through the house and out the French doors to the backyard. Rose caught me looking, and gave me a lecherous leer as she waggled her eyebrows at me. I responded with a death glare that would have withered daisies, and Jasper gave us both a questioning look. Then, thankfully, we all got distracted by the level of construction going on outside until Edward explained that his parents were putting in a pool.
"Oh! I love swimming. Jazz and I are both on the swim team at school." I exclaimed, and then barely restrained myself from clapping my hand over my mouth in surprise. Me, the girl turned mute in any social situation, suddenly had diarrhea of the mouth. Jesus shits, what is happening to me?
Edward just looked at me, his jaw clenching, before whipping around and hollering at his brother and sister to come over. Apparently he wasn't any more of a fan of my case of oral Hershey squirts than I was.
Then we were surrounded by Cullens, and Edward was introducing the Mike and Ike act as twins, Emmett and Alice. Twins? And in true fashion of my newly discovered, brain filter-lacking self, I blurted out "Twins?" like a fool. But Alice just laughed and assured me it wasn't just me who was caught unawares by this fact with some crazy twin-eating tale as she giggled and rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet. She was tiny, shorter than my 5'3" by a couple of inches, and built like a waif. Her skin was lighter than mine, almost alabaster, in stark contrast to the jet black hair sticking out artfully from her head in little spikes. Her grey eyes sparkled and shone with an inner light. The energy poured off her in waves, but somehow seemed to pull you into her.
I had been so busy observing Alice, that I missed a comment Edward made that I assumed was directed at Emmett, because he just barely managed to evade a swipe of Emmett's massive paw. Had I not been used to the human mountain that was my friend Jake, I may have been intimidated by his size. As it was, it was easy to look past his giant body to the warm brown eyes, huge dimples, and wavy dark hair. He looked like a big teddy bear. You just wanted to cuddle him. And Rose was right, he may not have anything on the magnificence that was Edward, but he was hot.
Then Rosalie cleared her throat and nudged me – hard – effectively shoving me forward towards the siblings. Bitch. I spared her a glance to let her know I was not at all happy with the situation, but then looked back at the small audience now staring at me expectantly. I opened my mouth to invite them to First Beach with us, but my throat closed off and my mouth went dry. Shit. So much for babble-doll Bella.
I hung my head, just to escape looking at them all for a moment, and tried to steady myself by breathing. It wasn't working. Then I felt the warm calm of Jazz beside me a second before his hand slipped into mine, and the panic eased slightly. I took one more deep breath before raising my head, giving him an appreciative smile. I looked at all of them without really looking at any of them, a trick I had learned through the years. I managed to get out what had to be the most confusing ramble of an invitation in the history of spoken language before I snapped my lips closed again, realizing belatedly that I had somehow managed to include my ridiculous reasoning behind the invitation. As if this unnaturally beautiful family would need any help fitting in? Hello Bella, my name is Reality. We've never met, but it is surely wonderful to make your acquaintance now.
"What about you?" Edward asked.
"What?" I responded, confused. Honestly, I wasn't sure exactly what all I had managed to say in my little impromptu speech.
"You said Jasper and Rose are the most popular kids in school and showing up with them would get us started out on top, but what about you? We'll be going with you too, right?"
Ah. The boy was swift. Of course he would see the flaw in my brilliant plan and worry about what it would do to their reputation if they showed up with me in tow. Couldn't say I blamed him, but he didn't realize that I was like Rose and Jasper's shadow. Or maybe a fart one of them squeezed out of their perfect, teenager-worshipped asses. People noticed the unpleasantness, but it was something they were willing to withstand in order to be around greatness. I tried to reassure him. "Oh, um, I'm nobody."
"Bella," Jasper immediately chastised, but I waved him off, realizing I hadn't explained it very well.
"Jazz, you know I don't mean I'm nobody. I just mean in the social food chain, I'm not on top of the pile." I looked back at Edward and shrugged. "Showing up somewhere with me is going to get you jackshit in the scheme of things. I'm just a tag-along."
He looked like he might have something to say to that, but the twirling dervish suddenly bounced forward and hugged me, dancing back again before I could respond, and thanking me as though I had just promised her my first born. I couldn't help but smile at her obvious happiness.
Then there was talking and planning about vehicles and wardrobe and I was wonderfully able of slink back into the outskirts of the conversation where I felt safest, observing rather than participating. We left shortly after, saying goodbye before making our way back through the house and out the way we had come. As soon as we were back on the sidewalk, I slid back into the comfortable skin I wear when I'm with my family with a sigh.
"Well?" Rose demanded.
I looked at her and smirked. "Holy freakishly-hot family, Batman." I said and she laughed, throwing her arm around my shoulders and walking me back towards their house and The Princess Bride. Only instead of Wesley's blue eyes staring out from the TV through the holes in his mask, I was suddenly seeing stunning green ones.