Disclaimer: SM is the boss.
Author: Went over the deadline I put for myself. Sorry. I started a new job and this chapter wasn't the easiest for me to write, I wrote more into the future and the transition was harder that I thought
Chapter 4: Free me - Joss Stone
I cursed pushing what was then the used filter of my cigarette into the ashtray. I tucked my chin deeper into my scarf, it was one of the few times I wish I didn't need to cure my hangover with a cigarette and be able to enjoy just a coffee inside like normal people.
I had just order a large coffee and finished my cigarette when I saw Jasper appearing a few blocks in front of me, his eyes landed on me and he smiled, I returned his as I watched him walk bit faster towards me.
The waitress came back put the take away cup of coffee in front of me, I brought it too quickly to my lips, groaned after taking the first sip, without a word to her, It was too early, and I was too hangover to even think. My head was pouring, like my brain was slowing trying to reach out through my ears. I missed the days where I would wake up after a college party and a cup of water will do it, now my hangovers lasts the whole weekend.
Jasper sat down and smiled once more, he turned his head and waved to the waitress. I was watching his face closely. His nose was reddish from the cold of this Saturday morning, his blue eyes were glassier than usual, his lips however even with the cold were still soft and pink.
An awkward silence settled after the waitress left I looked at him and smiled letting him know that under my sunglasses I'm looking at him. I wished that morning when I got his text asking if I was awake that last night has been only a dream or a drunk hallucination.
"Let's talk about this tomorrow, when we're fresh not with a whole bar in our system" His hands on my arms, his eyes looking for mine.
My eyes were fixed on his shoes, I was flushed. I read it all wrong.
"So Rose was right" I stated looking for his eyes
He shook his head "Rose thinks like any other male I just wanna get you in bed"
"So what it is it?"
He shrugged. And then a long pause.
I looked around me, nobody was sitting in the terrace of that cafe, I'm absolutely sure that the waitress hated my guts, since I was the only reason the cold hit her face every time we raised our hands calling for her.
I didn't know what kind of awkwardness that was, I wasn't afraid of what he was trying to say, I wasn't afraid of him avoiding my eyes. I was mostly afraid of whenever I look at his face my stomach tingled.
My lips locked to his, for a second I froze before bringing my hand to the back of his neck pushing him more to me and starting kissing him. I was battling alone before he gave in, his hands grabbed my hips and kissed me back. His tongue tasted like liquor, he was so warm, and his kiss was so soft although his hands were grabbing my hips hard.
I let out one moan and he pushed me away. His hands still on my hips, he looked at me with shock "No, not like this"
"Look I'm not some kind of martyr who has been suffering years in his shell" He suddenly said
"Then why didn't you say something?"
"Because I'm not sure what I feel, and I wasn't going to ruin or freak you out with confusion. I don't know what love is, and I cannot tell you that this is it, I have episodes where I think we will be good together, but i don't even know if I wanna be together with anyone, or if we will be good for each other"
"So you like the idea of me?" I pushed.
"I honestly don't know. I never dealt with something similar, I just promised to myself that until I was sure enough of what this is, I wouldn't tell you"
My hands went to my face, I rubbed my thumbs on my forehead. I had so many questions, thinking of which one to ask weighted on my hangover even more.
I looked at his face, his blue eyes were lighter in the day light and his gaze was sad. I remembered the first day we met, his smiles and laughters and how we immediately got along. I remembered all the parties, the late nights, the coffees and drinks. I remembered the beautiful person he was, how he always stood by me and been there for me.
"Stop that" I raised an eyebrow at his remark "Don't overanalyse this … I mean there is nothing to freak out about" He added.
I opened my mouth to disagree, was this not a big deal? Then it hit me, he was right, I was overanalysing, I was so on protecting our friendship that at that moment I was slowly looking for tiny details to see the bad in it.
Jasper was not on one knee asking me to marry him, he didn't even know what he was feeling and I was nobody to pressure him to find out or make it even harder by being awkward.
This was Jasper, my Jasper and we can deal with anything.
"Are we ok?" He asked, his eyes full of fear blinking at me.
I moved my arms from my laps and hold his hands, a small smile slowly formed on his lips. I removed my sunglasses to put them on my head and gave him a big smile.
"You know I can't hold anything against a good kisser" I winked at him, before sharing a laugh with him.
The awkwardness slowly moving away with the wind.
We stayed some more time in the cafe, ordering more coffee for the bad sake of the waitress who kept looking madly at us.
Rose called a couple of days later to let me know of a date, with a shocked face I wished her good luck, she never in the years we've known each other told me something similar even the game with Emmett I had to learn from him, so I knew that was her way of telling me the crisis of Friday night was a drunken one. I let it pass…
Jasper's mid finals had the worst timing ever, a couple of days after our little scene he disappeared like he always does in his exam period. However I took it badly this time, I didn't know if the mid finals were the true reason or was he low key ignoring my existence.
The little insecurity inside of me took over. He was a straight As students, when the exam period comes along he turns into a cute nerd, I just wished it come later until I have solid proof that he's still the same
I received one text from him 'I miss you too' after I tagged him on thousands of instagram post. It made me smile
Tanya for the first time since ever was not at work, for my bad sake she was bitching about the 'mess that used to be her beautiful living room', she started picking up my clothes and folding them before she started shoving them in files on top of my bags, finally at the end she just gave up and cursed narrowing her eyes at me every time she stepped on something.
I offered to roll her a perfect joint to relax her nerves, she responding with horrific expression.
"Or would you rather pick something from your medicine cabinet" I said nonchalantly eyes fixed on the tv.
I could feel her tense on my side, her mouth opened once or twice. She probably thought her collection of little orange bottles spot wasn't too obvious.
I looked at her and raised my eyebrows still expecting an answer.
"I'm not commenting when you sip bottles of wines for breakfast" She attacked. Wine? Worst metaphor ever.
"Touché"
We turned back to the tv, she finally let the whole mess drama go. We were ghost watching one police tv show after another. I never actually followed any of the plot, but it was peaceful.
"By the way, thank you for putting in a good word for me with Edward"
She hummed in response, I looked at her, her eyes were still on the tv. I was dying to ask her if they were still seeing each other, if she has heard from him and if we could talk about it.
I didn't realise I was still looking at her until she excused herself to the bathroom. I wanted to ask her if she was okay with it, but the possibility of her saying yes scared me. So I did not.
My phone buzzed on the glass coffee table lighting up the dark living room. I reached out for it and a sudden warm feeling took place, I saw it a text image from Edward.
I opened the message only to see a photo of a girl with her back covered in a huge gothic tattoo. I frowned typing a question mark before I received another text message
'Is this what your mystery tattoo looks like?"
I laughed at his dorky attempt of texting before replying
"Got you intrigued, didn't it?"
"Never been this creative"
I smiled the blush clearly still on my cheeks. I put my phone down next to me and focused my attention back on the show. I looked at my phone, once, twice and picked it up at the third time. I tapped on the phone case thinking to topics to start a conversation, and laughed at how childish I felt.
"Now, I'm afraid to disappoint" I texted back
"Does that mean i'll be seeing it?" His reply came quickly and my face burn harder.
He was totally flirting.
"T ! You will be the worst cop ever, it was totally the brother" I shouted when the brother was arrested the killer.
A flush later, Tanya came back to the living shaking her head, still defending that her theory made more sense that the show's. She let herself down on an arm chair near the sofa and smiled at the scene where they opened up a champagne bottle.
"Man, it's been forever since I went out" She said nostalgically
"Well let's" I cheerfully stood up from the sofa clapping my hands.
She looked up and shook her head smiling.
"Come on T, when was the last time you had fun? When was the last time we went out together?"
"Bella, it's Thursday…"
"And your point is? It's not like you actually have weekends" I pulled on her arm.
She rolled her eyes and pulled her arm back on her leg "Jasper is mad at you or something? Is that why you're insisting this much?"
"I miss us." I kneeled down levelling her gaze, I gave her my best charming smile and when she heavily sighed and clapped my hands together.
"But far away from your hipster bars, and we're dressing up" She let out before closing her bedroom door.
I was secretly happy, I didn't have plenty of opportunities to dress up for a girls night, since well Jasper wasn't one and Rose hated all the fuss of it.
The bar was exactly what I would imagine Tanya choosing. Typical Manhattan places were exactly her scene, the bar was dark and lighted up with candles, waiters were wearing nice shirts with bowties. I smiled at all of them imagining Emmett with one of those. The table we were directed to had two leather arm chairs, and some candles.
It turns out Tanya needed a couple of Martinis to completely relax, she kept flashing her hair and free drinks kept on coming, she found that funny and flattering. I tried to recall the last time we hang out in a bar but all the flashbacks were about a serious talk or rushed one. It felt nice.
The third Martini imposed a bathroom break for me. When I stood up, Tanya was ordering some more drinks, I giggled, adjusted my dress and looked for the ladies room.
After washing my hands, I adjusted my dress once again, choosing cleavage over showing my ass to the world. I've put on my lipsticks and opened the door heading back to my table.
My heart nearly stopped when I saw him, leaning on the wall in front of the ladies room door.
The sound of the door closing behind me alerted him and he stood straight and smiled at me "If I didn't know better I'd say you were stalking me"
"You mean romantically like those new chick movies?" He smiled and my heart stopped "I'm here for my friend's birthday, you passed by us and I had to say hello"
"Hello, then" I grinned putting my hair behind my ears "So is this like the new Upper east side people meeting place?"
"I never pictured you for a Upper east side person or wanna be person"
"Fuck no ! I mean no offence but this is not the type of places I choose for my nights outs" He raised an eyebrow at me silently asking for more explanations "Tanya brought me here"
"Oh Tanya is here?"
"That's what I just said" I smiled.
I wasn't sure if he felt awkward, scared of indifferent to that new information. I could't read his expression. Also since I didn't have the courage to ask Tanya about them two, I wasn't sure if this wasn't awkward for me too.
"What don't you join us? You and Tanya of course" He offered
I suddenly felt fear, fear of them seeing each other and being all over each other, they did like each other, or still do … They found each other once, and possibly still have each other. I was tempted to decline and making up an excuse and never mentioning this to Tanya, but his green eyes were so intense and I didn't want to leave them so I nodded.
Tanya and Edward hugged like they haven't seen each other for a while, their proximity and their smiles made me so uncomfortable but then he directed us to their table with his hand went to my lower back.
Garrett, the birthday boy was in the center of their table and who I learned to be his girlfriend Kate on his side. They were typical cute couple, that you felt jealous of and nauseous at the same time. They were quite friendly, they both gave us hugs like we haven't just met, or may be they were drunk huggers, either way they were friendly. Edward continued introducing us to his friends, Garrett's sister Irina that could easily pass for Tanya stunt double, Liam and Stephan were psyched about having two more girls joining the table.
"And you remember my sister, Alice" He finished with a smile.
His hand still on my back, something that Alice didn't fail to notice, when Edward said her name we turned to look at her and her eyes quickly went from my back to our faces. She smiled at Tanya …
We sat down, all around one table, Tanya at my left and Edward at my right. His hand sadly left my back, but since he was sitting so close, his knee was touching mine, something that could pass unintentionally if he didn't put some pressure on it.
Conversation flowed from one person to the other, even when they spoke about some inside stories or jokes, Edward or Liam would turn and summed it up for me and Tanya, we would laugh a couple of seconds later but we felt welcomed.
"So how did you guys meet" Liam asked referring to us and Edward.
"We all went to the same high school just outside of NYC, and we got in touch a couple of weeks ago with Edward" Tanya replied looking and smiling at us.
"Awesome" Liam said with a huge smile
"What's awesome is that Bella thinks we are finally worthy of her time" Alice snapped.
Her voice wiped out all our smiles, we all looked at her, and her face was full of anger, one eyebrow crooked at me, like she was challenging me.
"Alice" Edward groaned.
Everyone was quiet, I looked back at her but her expression was the same. I looked at Tanya looking for answers but she was looking down.
"Bella, queen B of high school. Coolest plot ever ! Was it like the cliche high school drama with the popular cheerleader?" Garrett finally spoke breaking the awkward silence
Tanya embarrassedly laughed and said "The cheerleader part would be me, Bella didn't even had to try. She was barely at school, people worshiped her" She joked.
"Worship is a big word" I interrupted her.
It felt awkward to speak about my high school experience, for some reason Alice hated it and wasn't stopping to bring it up. I didn't want to lay my laundry in front of people I've just met about high school. I learned from the past that people either hated high school and weren't making exceptions if you didn't feel the same, or loved it because they were, like in Tanya's case, with a title of popularity.
For me it was neither, don't get me wrong I had a blast, but for some reason never felt the need to label where I belonged, I might add that Tanya was the only person I cared about in that school and I cut a lot of classes, hang out with people from outside of the school, and let's say my parents were non stuck ups on the outfits department for some reason that made the Badass cool girl. A title I didn't understand but never turned down, made things easier …
The rest of the night went on, everyone focused back on Garrett who was getting hilariously drunk. I've noticed that Liam started getting closer and closer to Tanya, something that must've skipped her attention.
One by one everyone starting saying goodbye and I found myself with Edward, Tanya and Liam, who was still trying to be noticed. When I ordered one more drink Tanya gave me that look where she silently says a whole lecture, I ignored it and then she put her hand on my arm "Bella, we should go. I'm tired"
"You go, I'm having fun and it's early" I said taking another sip from my drink.
Liam then offered to walk her out and share a cab, so she doesn't go alone. Something I totally supported "Listen to the man, T"
Tanya finally gave up, sighed and agreed to Liam's proposal. He smiled and helped her put on her coat. Tanya gave me a kiss on the cheek and put her arm on Edward shoulder "Will you make sure she gets in a cab and gives the right address" He nodded.
I found myself alone with Edward and he looked delicious, his cheeks were a bit flushed from the alcohol, his green eyes had this intense look.
"So … You and Tanya that's awkward" I let out smiling at him
"It is not! We're cool"
"Are you just saying that to convince yourself or me that hooking up it's not wrong" I whispered the last part and took another sip. Man, these cocktails weren't a joke
"You think I wanna hook up with you?" He leaned on the sofa, his eyes still on mine
My eyes went to his lips and he slowly licked them, I smiled and got closer "I don't think so, I know so" Still whispering but my eyes fixed to his.
Edward took his eyes off mine and called the waiter to order more drinks, to which the waiter apologised saying that they were closing. I pouted and whined at the waiter and he politely smiled and said there was nothing he could do. I smiled shyly at Edward when the waiter left our table.
"You're still at Tanya's? May be we can take the same cab" He said once we were outside of the bar, he was still zipping his jacket.
I approached him, removed his hand and zipped him up. My hands stayed on his jacket and I looked up. He swallowed loudly, his eyes went back and forth from my eyes to my mouth. His hands stroked my arm until they reached my neck, he cupped my face and closed my eyes focusing on his touch. His breath was so close and liquorish, I felt his lips on my cheek and he made his way to the corner of my mouth and he pulled away.
My eyes opened and silently asked him why did he pulled away. He grinned at me, knowing exactly what he made me feel. My left hand went to the back of his neck and pulled him into me crushing my lips to his. The minute our lips locked I moaned, he responded to it by grabbing my hips and pulling me closer.
My face turned giving us more space to deepen the kiss and my hand went immediately to grab his hair, our tongues met and it tastes just like him. Delicious.
We broke the kiss, and I wished at that moment that oxygen wasn't essential. I met his eyes and smiled, he chuckled and gave me a peck on the lips.
"Better than I imagined" He said against my lips.
Let me know what you guys think, I know deep down this wasn't the best work so far ...
The story has many plots coming after this
