Disclaimer: I own it not, but I do own the sugarfree Redbull for tonight at work. :D
A/N: Thanks for the feedback last chapter, guys. Warms my little author's heart. I'm not really sure about this chapter, I think it could have been better, and also its not beta'd, so bear with me and my literary indescretions. Other than that, please enjoy.
My hand squeaked across the glass of the mirror as I wiped the condensation free, the settled water from the steam of my shower re-dampening my palm. I made a face at the sensation and wiped it dry on the back of my boxer shorts, picking up the hairbrush lying on the counter. My hair is lucky it's so pretty, I thought to myself as I pulled the bristles through the wet mess on my head. My hair is forever in my way, an utter nuisance when playing guitar, or eating, or playing video games, or rolling a joint, or... dare I even think it?... having sex. Always getting caught and pulled, and not in the way I liked it pulled. Some days, I thought heavily of shaving it all off. It's a damn wonder I even have any left, the way it seems to shed! I rolled my eyes at the brush in my hand, now once again full of my long dark hair, and I had cleaned it right before I came back into the bathroom with it.
The sound of Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Child" shook me out of my hair-obsessed thought process, and I quickly re-entered the bedroom to grab my phone, hoping for once that it wasn't Alice, or Emmett: a call from one of them would have sent me into a panic attack. I let out the breath I had held as I read "Dad" on the lighted screen. I paused with my finger poised to slide it across the screen, to answer it.
If I took this call, I would have to tell him everything. I know my father. I know how he can be. I know how he would definitely react to the news that I had acquired a stalker. But it would also be worse for me if he found out through the police grapevine.
"Hey, Dad," I sighed, placing my phone to my ear as it connected.
"Don't sound so happy to talk to your old man, Bella, jeez," he said sarcastically, and I could picture the look on his face as he rolled his eyes at me through the phone. "It's not... groovy... cool, whatever... to actually call your folks."
"You're so lame," I yawned, replacing my hairbrush onto the dresser mounted to the wall opposite the giant bed. I studied the bed from this angle, narrowing my eyes. Alice is right... it is pretty big. We should be able to make it through the week without–
"Isabella! Are you even listening to me?"
He'd been talking this whole time, and I was completely checked out with thoughts of Alice and I sharing the same sleeping space. "No, sorry, what did you say?" I turned my back to the bed and instead went to stand at the window to appreciate the view of Seattle at night.
"I said, Leah told us that you called her last night. That was nice of you." I didn't miss the continued sarcasm in his voice.
"Yeah, we talked for a few minutes," I conceded, still staring out of the glass.
"She said you're seeing someone," he went on, and I found myself pulling the phone away from my ear just to make sure it was indeed Charlie Swan on the other end of this call. My love life was not usually a subject that Dear Old Dad liked to breach.
"I am," I confirmed, my brow furrowing with the subject matter.
"What's her name?"
"Alice..."
"Does this Alice have a last name?" he asked casually.
"Cullen... Dad, you never ask me about who I am seeing. Why the questions?"
He made a noise like a grunt. "Leah didn't seem too pleased when she told us. I thought maybe it was someone you had gone to school with..."
"Hoping I'd have a reason to move back to Forks, hmm?" I knew that was why he had jumped to conclusions: he hated me being in the city alone. But it was only until recently I truly appreciated his point of view.
"What?" he said airily. "No, no. I was just asking." He went silent, and I sighed again, knowing this was the moment his peaceful demeanor would shatter.
"Um, I actually have something to tell you, though. But before I do, I want your word that you will not overreact."
"Define 'overreact'," he replied, and I scoffed.
"Dad, please, this is serious... I have a stalker."
"A stalker? What the hell do you mean, a stalker?"
I took a deep breath and sat down at the little table to try to explain the story to him, starting with my trip to La Lune Bleu, meeting James and Victoria, to Alice being the one to take care of me while James escaped her brothers, to the break in at my apartment.
"HE CAME IN YOUR APARTMENT? BELLA, WHAT THE FUCK? WHAT IS YOUR ADDRESS?" he boomed into my ear, and I jerked the phone away, wincing at the stabbing pain deep in my ear canal.
"DAD! Hold on, I'm not done!" I continued on, telling him about how James had never even turned the knob, but told me things through the door, about the rose, about Emmett and Alice saving me, and Alice taking care of me again. "She rented this hotel room to hide me, and Emmett brought files over from the station, and together we I.D.'d him as James Alexander Chatham. Dad, he did this to Alice in high school. She knew him."
"Oh, he better fucking hope I never get to know him! I'm going to the station, and I am pulling this little bastard's file up on the state database, and I am launching my own investigation of this little prick! Why the hell did you not call me the morning after he drugged you? Why didn't these Cullen people not get in touch with your next of kin?" Oh, he was on a roll.
"I was never in a situation that they had to! Alice took care of me at the club that night, and a week went by with no contact from him. He only broke into my place last night... right after Le– I hung up with Leah." I had almost said "after Leah hung up on me", but that was a world of explaining that I couldn't even touch tonight. I went on to explain how Emmett thought that I might be a mere pawn in James' mind, someone to use in his quest for Alice, and that Alice and her son were both now in hiding, as well.
"Emmett Cullen? Is that who I need to talk to when I call the Seattle P.D. and tell them how to do their goddamn jobs?"
"Dad... Emmett is a good guy, and he's on our side. If you talk to him like he's a human being, I am sure he'd tell you everything that he knows." I was positive of that, especially with Dad being an officer as well as my father.
He took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to calm himself down, and I waited for his response, as I knew this one would be his final. Dad had already had all that his heart could take without sending him into cardiac arrest. "Bella, I am coming to Seattle tomorrow, and I am going to meet this Cullen fellow to discuss your case... and you need to come home with me."
"No."
He was deathly quiet, and I knew he wasn't believing his ears. "What?" he finally said, and I cleared my throat.
"No," I annunciated clearly. "I am not letting him scare me off, and I am for damn sure not leaving Alice to deal with this alone. What would that be, knowing how she has been there for me through all of this, even before we knew who was behind it?"
"Bells, I understand that, but you can't place yourself in the line of fire for someone you barely know." He was struggling to keep a calm tone, and I could hear his desperate temper lying just beneath the facade.
"She has," I pointed out. "We care about each other, and we're not going to split up. We're in this together."
"This better be one hell of a good catch, for you to go off being ridiculous and losing every ounce of self-preservation I taught you to have!"
"A good catch?" I said quietly, my eyes sliding over to my guitar case. Love was calling. "No, Dad... she's the catch, and I am reeling my line in and closing the tackle box."
He sighed. "Okay, well, I want to meet her tomorrow, too. I'll be down early, so where will you be?"
"At work," I answered automatically. "I open the store tomorrow morning at nine, and I get off at four. I can meet you somewhere after then."
"Okay... are you safe for the night?"
"Yes, Dad, Emmett has guys all over this place," I assured him, and he grunted in approval.
"Well, good night. I'll see you tomorrow."
"You betcha." I hung up my phone with a relieved sigh, nearly crumpling into a ball on the floor in my light, liquid state. A huge weight had been lifted with Dad gaining the knowledge, and I hadn't even noticed I was that nervous for him to find out. The events that had happened up until this point had only registered in my mind as things that happened to me, in my life, and Dad was a whole other category altogether.
Shaking my head clear of all this, I answered the beckoning that my guitar exuded, flipping up the catches on the old case and lifting its top. There she lay, in all her black lacquered glory; there she lay, my Love. True to form, I ran my fingertips down her strings before wrapping my hand around the neck and lifting her free of her home, slipping her strap over my head and settling her against me as I started to pace the length of the room, strumming random chords with my thumb absentmindedly. Then as I hit a succession of three particular chords, it triggered a memory of childhood for me, a song my father listened to on an old country station. After figuring out the first few bars, I opened my mouth to sing along to the music. "Delta Dawn, what's that flower you have on? Could it be a faded rose from days gone by? And did I hear you say, you were leaving here today? Take you to his mansion in the sky?" I went on happily, for such a sad, somber song about loved ones leaving this world, and did not notice my audience as I closed the song with that very same verse, until I heard clapping from behind me. I jumped and turned around quickly, prepared to use the extra bulk strapped across my torso for extra leverage, had I needed to get past someone.
"Beautiful," she said, and I breathed a sigh as I recognized Alice's sparkling grin.
"Staring into mirrors again, are we?" I teased her about her choice of adjective, and she rolled her eyes and waved a hand at me.
"I'm sorry I didn't get here sooner. I really love that song, it reminds me of childhood because it was one of those songs my mother would sing as she worked in the kitchen, and I sat at the table with my coloring book and crayons," Alice said reminiscently, walking to the dresser and setting down four duffel bags... and none of which were small.
I pointed a finger at her luggage, my mouth open in shock. How the hell did she get those up here?
"What?" she asked blankly, looking from me to her bags, and then back.
"What did you pack? Your whole wardrobe?"
Alice gave me a bewildered look. "No, not by a long shot. I packed the essentials, and even so, I packed lightly."
"Light-ly?" I said in a hushed tone, making it two separate words.
"Yes, lightly," she affirmed with a nod, unzipping one of them. "This one is my night wear, this one is my day wear, this one is my shoes, and this one is my make up." She touched each in turn to specify, and I just slowly shook my head from side to side, wondering at this tiny enigma that was steadily wrapping me around her little finger. If this was only a portion of her clothes, I would hate to see this girl's closet.
"So, are you going to play for me when I get out of the shower?"
This random question snapped me out of my thoughts about house-sized closets and shoe racks, and my eyes focused on her face, which was innocently staring back at me. "Huh? You want me to play for you?"
"Only if it's not any trouble," she replied quickly, as if she were afraid of offending me with her query.
"Well, what would you want to hear?"
"Depends... will you sing for me, too?"
My face turned crimson with the question, and my throat shut tightly in its resolve to not let me speak at all. I opened my mouth and tried to reply, but had to clear my throat of its self-imposed obstruction. "S-sure... What song, and I'll tell you if I know it."
Alice placed a finger on her chin in thought, looking up to the ceiling as if it held all her answers. "Do you know 'Tuesday's Gone'? By Lynyrd Skynyrd?" she finally asked, and as if answering for themselves, my fingers automatically began to play the song. I watched Alice's face split into a wide smile. "Perfect. I won't be long."
She practically snatched clothes from the bag she had opened and sprinted into the bathroom, the door slamming behind her and water beginning to run simultaneously. I tried to swallow a lump of nerves, but discovered my throat was dry when the muscles rubbed together uncomfortably. A bottle of water sat on the table at room temperature from earlier, so I grabbed it and chugged it half down, feeling a little better when I swallowed again and the muscles slid together and apart as they should. Alice wanted me to play for her, sing for her. My hands started to sweat, and I felt a little dizzy, so I perched at the end of the bed and tried to concentrate on the tune in my head as I lightly strummed the strings, humming the lyrics under my breath, making sure I still had the song memorized. It had been years since I'd played this particular song, one of my father's favorites that I had learned and played for him on one of his birthdays.
I played through the entire song softly, finally satisfied that I wouldn't fuck up too badly, especially with the riff towards the end. Smiling to myself, I took a deep breath when I noticed the absence of the shower running from behind the still-closed bathroom door, and tried not picture Alice standing in there naked and dripping wet. I rubbed my eyes to try to dislodge the image I had burned into my retinas of her, my mind's eye watching her dragging the fluffy white towel over her skin slowly, absorbing the drops of moisture between her breasts, and the ones that rolled down her tight belly to the shadowy place at the apex of her thighs... god, how I wished I could be a drop of water on her body. The drops from her wet hair would take the exact path that my lips were dying to taste... down her neck, perhaps pooling in the hollow of her collarbone until she shifted, then pulling slowly down her torso... I shuddered and bit back the sigh of pleasure at the thought.
One day, I told myself, you can follow that path.
The sound of the door opening brought me back to reality, reality being that Alice was emerging into the room still rubbing a towel through her inky hair, but fully dressed in a matching light blue silk pajama set. The top was button down, and she had only buttoned it in the middle, leaving the top open enough to catch just the slightest hint of the sexy bust beneath it, and the bottom fell open to show her little silver barbell impaled through the top of her bellybutton. The bottoms of the set were tiny shorts, ones that showed the round cheeks of her ass set high on beautiful thighs. My hands twitched at my sides, wanting to grab her right there, filling my palms with that same roundness, and use them as leverage when I thrusted against her. Shuddering at the thought, I felt my mouth water, and I swallowed hard, looking away just as she looked at me, catching me in mid eye-fuck. Her giggle sent my blush roaring through my face.
"Like something?" she asked playfully, giving me a wink when I looked up at her guiltily, my apology on the tip of my tongue. "Don't apologize," she reprimanded me, reading the expression on my face. "I don't mind it when you look at me, Bella. You know that."
I wondered briefly if she would mind the images I had in my head moments before she appeared from that bathroom looking like a sex goddess in what I was sure was the most modest set of nightwear she owned. I wondered if she would mind the fact that my entire being was pounding with her name.
I watched in complete awe as she came over to the bed and sat beside me, crossing her legs and looking at me pointedly for a second, until I remembered what I was supposed to be doing. "Oh! Now?" I asked, feeling my heart begin to pound harder with the thought that I was about to actually sing and play a song for a girl I had never wanted so badly as I did at that moment.
"Please?" My eyes slowly slid up from Love and settled on her dark blues eyes at her soft pleading, feeling a thrill run through me at the tone of her request, my mind automatically turning it into a fantasy of her breathing that very word into my ear in a very different situation.
Wordlessly, I began to strum the notes, unable to break my gaze from hers, until she looked down at my hands as I played the intro to the song, and she kept her gaze locked onto them until I started to sing the first verse. "Train roll on, on down the line. Won't you please take me far away? Now I feel the wind blow outside my door, meantime I leave my woman at home, Lord and– Tuesday's gone with the wind... Oh, my baby's gone with the wind..." I played her song for her, and she was looking at me with an unidentifiable emotion by the time I reached the closing verse: "Train roll on... Ahh on... 'Cause my baby's gone. I'm riding my blues away, trying to ride my blues away... Ride on train... Ride on train... Goodbye Tuesday, goodbye Tuesday... Ahh train..."
I let my voice die out with the last note, and braved a glance up at Alice as I slid Love's strap over my head and set her off to one side. She was staring at me with her eyes darkened in some semblance of lust, and my heart, which had calmed to a mere normal pulse, sped right back up at what I was reading in her expression. "Alice?" I said uncertainly, and it seemed that hearing her name brought her back from where she had been, and her eyes cleared somewhat.
"Sorry," she mumbled, a faint blush rising in her face. "I just... that was perfect, Bella. Like, I want it on a CD so I can listen to it whenever I want," she told me, moving closer to me now that Love was resting on my other side. "I love your voice and the sound of your guitar... its like you're caressing me all over, and it makes me want to..." She leaned forward and pressed her lips against mine sweetly, making my heart sputter to a stop in my chest, then return with a deafening thud in my ears when she tasted my bottom lip with the tip of her tongue.
Somehow, she straddled my lap, and my hands found their way to the back of those very same thighs they had itched to touch earlier, and I pulled into me, making her gasp into my mouth as her center rested flush against my stomach. Her fingers tangled themselves in my still-damp hair and pulled just how I liked, and I couldn't stop the pathetic whimper that escaped my throat as she pushed herself against me.
I could already feel how wet I was getting, the evidence being the slick feeling as I rolled us over so that I hovered over her, moving my mouth to her neck, catching her flesh between my teeth and pulling lightly. She turned her face to the right, leaving more room for me to kiss and nibble, and her thighs locked onto my hips as they gave an involuntary roll against her, and she moaned into my shoulder, biting through my shirt, as her hands traveled down my back and rested on the top of my ass, pulling me further into her for friction.
She tasted like she smelled, like the sweet, tangy flavor of a perfectly ripened strawberry, and as I crashed my mouth back down on hers, I couldn't help but notice how strawberry red her lips were tinted as they rested, slightly open as she panted in her arousal. Everyone who knows me, knows that I have been obsessed with strawberries all my life.
I had told myself that I would not jump into this with her at the first given chance, and just look at me. My hands were running across her exposed stomach between us, flicking and pulling at the piercing in her navel, and her hands were up the back of my shirt, her nails embedded in the skin of my shoulder blades. I'd been in this very position with girls I had only met that same night, and even with one that I had known my entire life, yet I had never felt the emotion running through me before as I felt it now. This was more than just what my body wanted; it was what my heart craved, to be this close to her, to be this intimate with the one it recognized as its other half. The feeling of arousal in my boxers paled in comparison with this defining heat in my chest, this... feeling... that only Alice had ever invoked in me.
But I didn't want it to be like this. I wanted to prove to her that I wanted more from her than this.
But how to stop? How, when my hips rolled against my will, and my thumbs circled closer and closer to the underside of her breast? How, when she was holding onto me so tightly that it was a wonder that I could breathe? And dear God, how, when she put her hot mouth against my ear and breathed those words: "Bella, please."?
How?
Without a frustrated growl, I pushed myself off of her and flung myself to the top of the bed. "Alice... I want you," I panted, blinking rapidly, and running my fingers through my hair to pull it from my face.
"Have me," she answered simply, breathlessly, her chest heaving with every breath she took.
I shook my head. That wasn't what I meant, though I indeed wanted her like that, as well. It just wasn't happening tonight.
"No, not like that, not tonight," I said softly, and I saw a flash of hurt run through her eyes, and I patted the bed next to me so that she would come up and sit with me. She crawled up the length of the bed and flopped down next to me, but I noticed she left a significant amount of space between us. I frowned, not liking that implication at all, and pulled her against me, where she stiffened at first, but then slowly relaxed into me as I began to run my fingers through her hair. "I meant that I want you. I want the title, the responsibility, the rights... I want to be your girlfriend."
"Bella..." She turned her face into my neck and placed a light kiss there that made me shiver and smile. "Sometimes, things happen in a way that those titles don't need to be acknowledged. Rosalie kind of made me realize that this morning when she referred to you as my girlfriend. So I think it goes without saying, that's what you are... we are together."
I was silent, stroking her hair idly for quite some time before I realized that my Alice had fallen asleep right there on my chest, breathing slowly against me with her arm curled around my waist. I slid down onto my back without jostling her too much, and she sighed in her sleep and snuggled further down into me, her arm tightening just a smidgen. I closed my eyes with a contented smile, thinking that the night couldn't have been more perfect, even if we had crossed that line. The knowledge that she was mine was more than enough fuel for sweet dreams.
"Delta Dawn" music and lyrics are Tanya Tucker's, not mine. "Tuesday's Gone" music and lyrics... well, if you don't know that song, something is wrong with you :P jk it's Lynyrd Skynyrd, the best southern rock band ever... well, besides Bad Company. But I digress.
I chose "Delta Dawn" as a tribute to my aunt, who passed away Friday, August 5th. She was special to me in the way that it was she who I told that I am gay, and expressed to her my doubts about telling her mother (RIP MawMaw), and her younger sister. It was my Aunt Becca that looked at me and told me at fifteen years old: "Baby girl, I love you no matter who you love. Your MawMaw and your Aunt Deba love you just the same... and besides, your MawMaw called it out when you were only two." She was a balance in my life that is no longer there, and I took it hard.
I dedicate this chapter to my Aunt, Rebecca Dawn Bransford Sloan. I miss you, we miss you.