Disclaimer: I own nada Twilight. It's all the big S.M.'s stuff. I own ideas, nothing more...
A/N: Wow. Just... wow. Thank you guys for the positive feedback. I owe you guys this one. That's for sure. Here's the first chapter. Enjoy. :)
Two Months Later:
"So... are you gonna eat that?"
I raised my head to those words, looking into Felix's almost black eyes, which were darting back and forth between me and my blueberry muffin that was getting cold on the napkin in front of me. I had been lost in my thoughts, hung over from the night before, and the stock boy who has been hot on my ass for a date materializes from nowhere, wanting my fucking muffin. No pun intended.
"I plan on it, yes," I said irritably, waving him away as if he were a fruit fly buzzing in my face. "Go make yourself useful. Build a drum set for that display or something."
"Jeez, Bella, what's crawled up your ass?" he scoffed, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest, but not moving from beside the table in the backroom.
"I drank a little too much last night, and I'm not feeling too great." I sighed, pushing my chair back from the table and grabbing my water bottle. "Go ahead. I guess I don't want the thing, after all." I walked away from him and my fucking muffin, pushing open the swinging door that led to the floor.
It was early morning, maybe eight-thirty, and we hadn't even unlocked the doors yet, so it was still quiet, devoid of the background music that played over the speaker system. Jimi Hendrix all day long. A girl could get used to that.
I wasn't the on-duty manager this morning, so the store and its operation weren't my worries for once. It was a Saturday, and I had talked my boss into letting me take clients in the store for guitar lessons. "It's good for business, Aro," I argued with the greasy Italian man, with his overly-friendly, almost-creeper like smile.
It didn't take much to convince him. "Of course, Bella!" Another creepy smile. I found myself wondering if this old man got his rocks off at night thinking about me. The thought made me want to gag.
It was only two days after putting up the sign advertising my services that a guy the size of a line backer came in, bought a junior guitar, and asked for me. He introduced himself as Emmett Cullen, and told me he wanted to pay for three sessions for his nephew for his birthday, he would pay me the cash up front. "That's sweet of you," I'd said to this bear of a man, who grinned a broad grin. "My dad did the same thing for me when I was a kid." I couldn't help but smile back at the guy. He may have been dressed in a Polo collared shirt and khaki slacks with shiny loafers, but he seemed a pretty laid back fella.
"Yeah, it's not every day you turn six years old," he'd replied, and I stopped as I reached for the six twenties he held in his hand. He frowned at my hesitation, and his hand slowly began to draw back, taking my potential electric bill money with him. "Is that a problem?" he asked, and I quickly shook my head.
"Not at all," I said weakly, and he grinned again, handing the money to me. "How about this Saturday morning, about nine-fifteen?"
"Sounds perfect. I can drop him off on my way to the gym, and his mom can pick him up on her way home from her morning yoga class." Oh, a healthy family. Lovely. I wondered if they were vegetarians.
"Can I just get his name and his mother's name?" I asked, pulling up my Notes app on my phone.
"Sure, it's C.J. Whitlock, and his mother's name is Alice."
"Also Whitlock?"
"No," he'd said shortly. "It's Cullen."
I gave a half glance at the defensive tone he took, thinking to myself that this was probably the big brother I had always wanted. "She's your little sister, huh?" I asked knowingly, thinking about how the older sibling always stuck up for the younger. Something told me that Emmett didn't care for C.J.'s father. I finished putting the information in my phone and slid it back in my pocket.
He looked surprised, then confused. "How'd you know that?"
"You're protective, big guy," I laughed, and his face slid back into that easy grin.
"You're right," he agreed with an enthusiastic nod, running a hand through his short dark hair. "I really am."
"Okay, well, I guess I'll see you here bright and early Saturday morning," I said, shaking his hand for the second time.
So now I sat waiting on Emmett and C.J. to show up for C.J.'s first lesson, spinning in a computer chair in the sound proof booth that Aro had erected in the back for people who wanted to test drive the rigs they wanted to purchase. It was perfect for me and one other person to play in, and the horror of the noise a novice can make on strings wouldn't bother any customers... or Aro. I needed this side gig for the moment, just to make up for the four hundred dollars I had to drop for my truck to resurrect from the dead. Stupid transmission.
At nine-fifteen on the dot, there was a knock on the booth door, and I looked up to see Emmett waving through the glass, his large hand on top of a blond head. I waved a hand for him to come on in, and he swung the door open wide, ushering in one of the cutest little kids I'd ever seen. He was so tiny, and his little blond head hung low, but his dark blue eyes looked up shyly, trying to be brave. He was dressed in a blue and white striped button down shirt, and crisp dark blue jeans, with bright white Nikes on his feet. He was very well kept, and I couldn't help but grin at how he blushed when Emmett clapped him on the shoulder and told him to introduce himself to the lady. He looked up at his uncle imploringly, and I chuckled, lessening his strain by beating him to it.
"Hi, you must be C.J. I'm Bella, your uncle told me you would be visiting me today," I said kindly, trying to help him relax. I saw his eyes dart over to the small children's guitar I had borrowed for these lessons, and back to me, licking his lips nervously.
"Hi," he said in a near whisper. Then he looked back up at Emmett with a pleading look. "Do you really have to go? Can't you stay just until Mommy gets here?"
"No, little dude, I have to be at the gym before your Aunt Rose shows up. You know how she gets," Emmett laughed. "You'll be okay, I don't think Bella will bite."
I crossed my heart. "Cross my heart and hope to die," I swore, and he giggled a little.
"Okay. But if you talk to Mommy, tell her not to forget me," he told his uncle, who nodded solemnly with a too-serious look on his face.
"Aye-aye, Captain. Have fun, learn something so you can play it for Aunt Rose later, okay?" Emmett shot me a playful wink. "My wife loves music, Bella. Show him how to blow her socks off."
"Got ya, big man," I assured him, and he left, giving a final wave.
C.J. looked at the door for a moment as if he might sprint after his uncle, but when I cleared my throat, his eyes shifted to me and he blushed guiltily, as if he knew he was caught thinking about it. I let it go and stood up, crossing the room to pick up the guitar I'd chosen for his tiny hands. "Your uncle says your birthday was this week," I said conversationally, still trying to calm him down.
He nodded, his eyes on the instrument in my hands, a longing deep in his pupils. I knew that look. I had it, once. He was going to be a lifer, just like me. And his first lesson was going to be from me. Sweet. "It was Thursday," he said quietly, surprising me. I didn't expect him to really reply. "My party is today, though, at my Grandma and Grandpa's house. There's a moon walk."
"That sounds fun," I said, opening my case and extracting my old acoustic. "What did you ask for, you know, for your birthday?"
"This," he answered simply, motioning to me and the guitar I was holding out to him. He took it from me as if it were made of glass, only he held it upside down. Or maybe...
"Are you right handed or left handed, C.J.?" I asked him, and he looked at me quizzically. I chuckled, with a tiny shake of my head. "Which hand do you write with?" I amended.
"This one," he replied, holding up his left hand. I grinned at the natural way he held the guitar, despite the strings being backwards for him.
"Okay," I sighed, taking the guitar from him, feeling a pang in my chest at the way his face fell.
"I can't play it if I write with this hand?" he asked, and I gave him a reassuring smile.
"Left handed people like you, and right handed people like me play with the strings reversed, because of the way we have to hold the guitar. See?" I showed him how the strings on my guitar and the one he was to play were the same. "This is a right handed guitar. It's called a standard. I'll just have to switch the strings, because I don't think we have a lefty junior guitar."
"Lefty," he murmured thoughtfully. "I'm a lefty?"
I nodded. "You are," I affirmed. He chewed on the inside of his cheek as I went about switching the strings for him.
He was well reserved and quiet for a child his age, and I found myself appreciating it when I thought about my high school friend Angela's little sister when she was that age. What a nightmare, that kid was. But C.J. waited patiently and silently as he watched me switch the strings around, though it took a good twenty minutes to switch them and then re-tune the guitar. These little junior deals were Satan for my long adult fingers, which engulfed nearly the entire neck of the thing, making the frets hopelessly tiny for my professional touch. "Sorry about the wait," I told him when I was finished and presenting him with it once more.
"That was cool," he said, looking at me with a bit of respect in his eyes. "Can you teach me that, too, Bella?"
I smirked, teasing him. "Maybe, if you're good and you can learn a song before we move on to maintenance."
"What song are you going to teach me?"
"What do you want to learn?"
" I want to learn 'Crazy Train', you know, like Ozzy!" he answered without missing a beat.
My mouth fell open. He knew who Ozzy Osbourne is? Wow, not what I would expect from a six year old at all. I quickly recovered, so I wouldn't embarrass him. "Well, technically it was Randy Rhoads, not really Ozzy that played the guitar for 'Crazy Train'," I informed him.
"Mommy said Ozzy does that song," he disagreed, shaking his head.
"Ozzy sings it," I corrected him, and he looked confused.
"I never cared who sings it, I wanted to know who played that guitar. It's my favorite song," he said with a light behind his blue eyes, and I found myself wondering if he would actually be able to learn it so soon. It was a complicated song. But maybe I could tweak it a little, make it somewhat simpler and have it still sound like the real thing.
"Let's try to learn some chords first," I said, choosing not to promise him anything just yet. "We'll talk about that next week, okay?"
"I'm coming back next week?" he asked, his eyes lighting up happily.
"And the week after," I agreed, nodding. "But let's get down to business, I've got to teach you something, or your uncle might unleash his muscles on me."
"Uncle Em won't beat you up," he said, and my mouth dropped open again. He knew what I meant. "I'll protect you," he added proudly. "He's scared of me."
After that, I spent the last hour of his lesson actually showing him things, and having him mimic and try to match my strokes with his pick. He stuck his tongue out of the side of his mouth when he concentrated, and it made me giggle at the intensity on his little face. This kid was special, and I could only imagine that concentration face as it evolved into a full-blown playing face as he grew older. Everything in me told me I was tutoring a future guitar god, and I gave him what I could to help him.
Near the end, I glanced up to the window of the booth, and nearly fell out of my chair with the resulting double take. Oh. My. God. She was beautiful. I lost my breath in the middle of the next inhale I tried to take, and my heart sputtered in my chest for a aplit second beofer going into the Star Wars' version of hyperspeed. You know, when all the stars become white swipes and blurs? Yeah, my heart started beating that fast.
She had deep black hair that spiked stylishly away from her head and her face, with its little pouty mouth and adorable up-turned nose. The way the corners of her mouth pulled, I could tell she was a dimpled little pixie, and I say pixie because she could barely see over the door inside the booth. She was smiling softly, her kind eyes resting solely on the boy in front of me, full of love, and I knew without a doubt that this was Alice, C.J.'s mother. I also knew without a doubt that I had never seen anyone so ceramically beautiful in my life, not even Leah, with her exotic Native American features.
Aphrodite was now knocking softly on the studio door, cracking it open and poking her head around it, cocking her face to one side as she smiled at me (melt at the dimples that indeed caved). "Am I interrupting?"
Her voice was like silk on my ears, and I felt it wrap around my head and felt a heat ignite in my gut before the words she spoke even registered to my brain, which had stopped working properly the moment I'd laid eyes on her. I realized I'd forgotten to breathe as well, as I was becoming somewhat light headed as I sat stock still, my mouth probably hanging wide. Good god, Swan, I scolded myself internally. Close it before you drool, and for fuck's sake, breathe! Answer the woman!
"N-no," I stuttered, stumbling to my feet, setting my guitar aside. "We were just finishing up," I added, a little more steady with my words.
"I'm Alice Cullen," she said with another smile, extending a tiny white hand to me, and I stared at it for a solid two seconds before I took it. I felt tingles rush up my arm and through my chest at the contact, and I could swear I saw her face flicker with a confused look before we released the handshake several seconds later. I looked her up and down, from her pale blue top to the black thigh length skirt, to her sexy calves that ended on petite feet, encased in black heels. She just came from yoga? I wondered vaguely if Emmett knew the difference between a yoga class and a runway. Because that's where it looked like she belonged.
"Bella Swan," I breathed, trying to shake myself out of the haze the handshake brought on.
"Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Ms. Swan," she said politely, but I shook my head at the title.
"Please, it's just Bella," I said. "The last name can belong to my step-mother."
Alice smiled again, all traces of what I had thought I'd seen gone for now. Up close I saw that C.J. had her eyes, her eyes exactly. They were the same shade of midnight blue. And as I stood over her by at least three inches, I saw he had gotten his size from her, as well. But the blond hair had to be his father, as it seemed his mother's side was all brunette. Emmett and Alice were easily brother and sister, they favored heavily enough to be fraternal twins. I felt my heart deflate a little when she turned her gaze from me and to her little boy, who looked between his mother and I with a knitted brow, probably wondering what the hell the little awkward moment was about. I identified. I wondered what the hell that was about, too.
"How was it, honey?" she said as she scooped her son to her and crushed him against her, kissing the top of his head.
"Great! Bella is going to teach me 'Crazy Train' next week!" he told her when she released him, and she looked at me with an eyebrow raised.
"I said we'd talk about it next week," I reminded him, and he shrugged carelessly.
"You'll teach me, I know you will," he said confidently, and I smiled at how comfortable he'd become with me in such a short time. He looked back at Alice with a beaming smile. "Mommy, Bella can play really, really good. She played Pink Floyd for me!"
I found myself blushing as C.J. bragged on me to his mother, the red shade on my cheeks darkening even more when the older set of navy eyes fixed directly on my brown ones. "Oh, yeah?" she said interestedly, raising that eyebrow again (kill me now, that was sexy), biting her lip thoughtfully (oooh god, why me?) as she studied me briefly, then looked back at C.J. with a tiny grin. "What song?" she asked him, and I felt she already knew the answer even before he gave it.
"She played 'Wish You Were Here'. I asked her to, because it's your favorite song."
Alice turned a little pink at the information. Why would she blush about that? "That's really cool, sweetie. Can you be good and go look at the guitars while I talk to Bella just for a minute?" she asked him, sweet as sugar. I nearly fell out at the way my name sounded falling from perfection, in that lilting tone of hers. I imagined her whispering it in my ear, and gave a tiny, pleasurable shudder. The door shutting behind C.J. broke me free of my defining fantasy.
"How was he? Do you think he's genuinely interested in this or is it a phase?" She asked me the two things I'm sure I heard my dad ask my old teacher once.
"He was perfect," I answered honestly, and she looked at me so skeptically that I couldn't help but laugh. Her expressions were priceless. "I mean, he's no Stevie Ray Vaughn, yet. But that's the thing, 'yet' is an operative word here. I think he's met his first love. You should see the way he looked at the guitar when I handed it to him."
Alice nodded, a smile playing on her gorgeous lips, and I watched the tiny pink tip of her tongue peek out to moisten them. I couldn't help but to imagine kissing her. It drove me nuts that I couldn't just take her face in my hands and do just that.
"If he is still enjoying this, and developing, would it be possible to extend his lessons?" she asked me, and I nodded. God, yes.
"I would be more than happy to keep him as a pupil. He has a fire in him, and an intelligence, that isn't common in your every day six year old." I looked out to the floor where C.J. stood in front of the wall of guitars, his hands clasped tightly behind his back, as if straining not to touch one. I made a gesture. "See how much torture it is for him to look at them, but not touch them? I was the same way at that age. But my dad didn't let me learn until I was a little older."
"Is it too soon?" she asked worriedly, glancing at C.J.
"Nah," I said, shaking my head. "He's ready. And I'm ready to teach him."
Alice looked at me for a few seconds, almost as if she wanted to say something, but I suppose she decided against it, as she sighed as she checked the time on the Blackberry clutched in her hand. "Okay, well, I guess we'll see how this goes, then. It was a pleasure meeting you, Bella. I hope I'll see you next week, but I'm not sure who will be bringing him and picking him up."
"I hope to see you again, too. Take care," I said, waving as she left the room, and I watched as she collected C.J. and started for the door. C.J. whipped around to wave energetically at me as his mother led him out, and I returned the wave just as happily. I liked C.J. He was an awesome little kid. My hang over from being out at the bar so late had finally disappeared, and I felt light and happy now, watching the two of them go.
Before she followed her son out, I saw Alice turn and give one last look back at me, and I could have sworn she winked at me before smirking and twinkling her fingers in tiny wave goodbye. I stood still with my acoustic hanging from my hand, staring at the spot where she had walked out. No way. It would be considered flirtatious, if she had indeed done so. Nah, I was seeing things. There was no chance that the beautiful, protected person of Alice Cullen would wink at me... was there?
:P And so my favorite character has made her debut. Do you guys think she really winked at Bella, or perhaps she had an eyelash get in her eye as was leaving, and the smirk Bella thought she saw was really a grimace of pain? haha
Leave the love. I know you guys have it, because you gave it to me all night long last night. I'm still sore. XD j/k but yeah, for real. Y'all did.