AN: SORRY! I know, I normally update around midnight, but last night it wasn't ready and I had to sleep, so I had to finish it this morning. I hope you all like. The end bit took me a while to write. This is now my biggest story and it only took about two months. That's fast. I hope you all enjoy this chapter and please keep reading, I do it for you!
Chapter Twenty-Three
A Day At The Shop
After a day with Nessie, Jacob and Quil I was much calmer than I had been for a while. I was finally beginning to understand everything and I still felt like this was my home, not some little town with a conglomerate of mythical creatures. It was actually kind of nice to know that I knew something millions of others didn't, if I were a meaner person I would do evil things with my knowledge, but I won't… For now.
When I talked to Natalie that night on the house phone she wanted to know about everything. I knew I couldn't tell her the truth so I told her the only thing that could state her thirst for gossip. I told her I had a crush on Quil. The squeal emitted from the phone could probably be heard from all the phone lines from here to Moscow. She was ridiculously excited because I never really had a crush on a guy. I would think they were cute, or sweet, but I would never blush when they smiled at me really only when they complimented me. She demanded to know everything I knew about Quil and I spent the next hour explaining him to her. At the end of the call she told me she was going to convince her dad to come out to Forks to do a special on rainy cities. She hung up quickly to try and convince him and I had a feeling it was going to take a while.
I almost had another day to myself when Quil popped in to tell me Jacob's shop was packed and he needed as much help as he could get. A large part of me didn't want to stay home alone and was really curious about seeing more of Forks.
"Can I come with you?" I asked hopefully.
"Can you be ready in five minutes?" He asked with a raised brow.
I nodded. "Yup," I said as I hurled myself off the couch and ran up stairs.
Four minutes and forty five seconds later I was dressed, my hair was brushed back into a ponytail and my teeth were brushed. I wore a pair of jeans tucked into rain boots and one of my more form fitting zip-up hoodie's over a new red tee-shirt. I bounced down the stairs to Quil and smiled.
"Done," I said smirking.
"Damn, I'm impressed." He muttered astonished, looking me up and down.
"I know, I'm awesome." I sighed arrogantly.
He rolled his eyes. "Let's go." He said taking my arm and leading me out to the truck. I locked the door behind me and climbed into the truck happily. It was nice to do things with Quil especially when what we were doing was slightly normal and didn't involve too many deadly creatures.
Quil pulled out onto the road and started for Forks.
"You do know that there will be nothing to do while your there, right?" He asked me as the truck turned onto the main road to Forks.
I shrugged. "I can manage. There wasn't much to do at home either, I can't watch any more TV and I left all of my comic books with my mom." I said frowning. I was really starting to miss my comic books.
"Comic books?" He asked amused, trying seriously hard not to laugh.
"Yeah, it's my guilty pleasure." I muttered under my breath. Quil started chuckling lowly and I almost hit him. It isn't so strange for a girl to like shopping and comics… Okay, maybe it is… "What's so funny?" I asked aggravated.
He shook his head. "You hated reading when you were little, you would let people read to you for about twenty minutes and then you were gone." He explained, making a 'whoosh' motion to help show how quickly I was gone.
"Well, Little Claire didn't have anything better to do while she was riding along in a truck with no television." I noted irritated.
"Do you always refer to your younger self as 'Little Claire'?" He asked with mock fascination.
"Claire-bear only fits when I was being cute." I answered innocently.
"Or manipulative." He muttered under his breath.
"Hey! It's not my fault I was a smart child." I said grinning.
"It's a good thing you don't remember anything." He said almost fearfully.
"Why?" I asked slightly offended.
"Because, you knew how to get everyone to do anything for you." He answered sternly.
I giggled. "Hmm, I wonder if I can get Nessie to show me more of my childhood." I said slyly with waggling brows.
"That's cheating." He said seriously.
"Nuh-uh!" I cried childishly. Quil snorted a laugh. "Who else is helping Jake?" I asked changing the subject from when I was younger, as it always ends up leading Quil to pain in some way.
"Embry works with him, Jared is probably going to be there and if it's really bad, Paul will show up." He answered knowingly.
"What do Jared, Paul and Seth do?" I asked curiously, settling in the crook of the door and back of the seat to watch Quil as he drove.
"Jared and Seth work on the Rez, they help run everything and Paul works with a construction company most of the time. Then we all double as handymen for everyone on the Rez." He explained tiringly.
"How do you guard the Rez?" I asked confused. If they all had so many jobs to do, not to mention girlfriends, wives and fiancée's.
He took in a deep breath and enlightened me. "There are usually two of us running patrol at all times, we have four shifts and switch out every six hours." He answered.
"That sounds exhausting." I said frowning.
"Not really, we each only end up having about four shifts a week." He said casually. That still sounded like a lot on top of everything else they do. No wonder Quil always looks like he never sleeps. "There are a lot of us." He reassured.
"How many?" I asked excitedly. I was kind of getting used to this whole werewolf, vampire thing.
"I'm not allowed to give out specifics." He said with a pained look.
"Oh," I mumbled with a frown. It wasn't like I was dying to know, I just thought I was done with secrets being kept from me.
"It's nothing personal, just the rules. Jacob still can't tell Nessie how many there are." He rushed with a frown of his own. I could tell he didn't want to keep it from me, so I let it go.
"Have I met them all?" I asked with a little more trepidation.
"No," He chuckled shaking his head. I looked at him with knitted brows, I could have sworn I met everyone on the Rez. "A lot are younger and have lives." He added dryly.
"You old fogey's don't have lives?" I asked teasingly.
He turned to look at me with a wistful smile. "Not so much," He murmured honestly.
There was only a silence between us for a moment before we were at a newish looking garage with cars lined around it and people running around franticly. Quil had to park two blocks away and we had to walk back to the garage were many people were waiting. The garage itself was long with three open doors, filled already with cars, while the office was much smaller with a line of about fifteen people inside.
"Jake is popular." I muttered as I watched him run past Embry to the car at the end of the garage.
"Yeah," Quil grumbled.
Jared was there and saw us as we watched cautiously. "QUIL! Hurry your ass up!" He yelled before disappearing under a red mini van.
Quil sighed and turned to look down at me. "Ness should be in the office with Kim. It would be better if you stay in there, cars usually don't drive over people when they're in the office." He said throwing a look to the people around the garage.
I reached out and touched his muscled arm gently. "I'll be fine." I said soothingly.
"QUIL!" Paul yelled as he walked into the office.
"Go!" I ordered, pushing him toward the garage.
He didn't look too happy about leaving me on the other side of the garage so he walked with me to the office then broke off to the garage. I would have been angry at how child-like it made me feel being walked across a parking lot until an old lady almost took out my legs. I rushed into the office and Nessie was running between filing cabinets while Kim was helping the customers. I walked up to the counter.
Nessie noticed me first and smiled brightly. "Hey Claire!" She called out, waving me behind the counter.
I walked around the line of people and behind the counter looking at the mess of papers. "Need some help?" I asked cautiously.
"Yes!" Kim called out desperately.
Turns out I'm really good with organizing, a lot better than I thought. I was able to help Nessie and Kim get all the paper work done quickly while Jake, Embry, Paul and Jared got the cars out of the garage. Quil stopped checking in on me after I started filing the papers away. We passed lunch without anyone noticing but the customers seemed to start to thin out the farther past lunch it became.
Soon, there was only an old man and his old diesel truck being fixed up by Paul, who was determined to master the twisted axel, just before it was about to become four o'clock. Quil, Jake, Embry and Jared came into the office and fell into the waiting room chairs.
"I think every car in Forks decided to break today." Jake groaned.
Nessie giggled as Jacob pulled her into his lap and buried his face into her neck. "And they all came here for your smiling face." Embry said rolling his eyes.
Jake popped his head out from Nessie's neck and smiled. "Hey, at least I made a killing." He said smugly.
"What's our cut?" Jared asked while Kim massaged his shoulders.
"Hey, you laze around my house, eat my food, and play my games, this was payback!" Jake said sternly.
I sighed and slumped against the wall next to the chair Quil had melted into, my stomach rumbling as I did. "I'm hungry." I pouted.
"Ditto," Quil sighed. "I say we go intrude on Emily." He offered with a devilish grin.
"That sounds good." Jake said with a shrug.
Jared moaned and hauled himself to his feet. "We have to go home, babysitter is probably already pissed." He said fearfully.
"It was nice to work with you Claire." Kim said smiling at me.
"You too Kim." I said genuinely smiling back at her. Jared escorted Kim out of the office, with his arm slung around her shoulders, whispering something in her ear that made her giggle.
I looked to Embry expectantly. "Lena is picking me up soon." He said nodding to the door behind him. A loud car horn rung through the office a moment later and Embry jumped out of the seat with a bright smile. "Speak of that devil." He cooed before running out of the store.
We all turned to Paul and waited for his excuse to leave. "Hey, Rachel's working, I'm all for some of Emily's food." He said grinning.
Jake kissed Nessie chastely before smacking her thigh. She left his lap and he stood. "Help me close up." He said to Paul, nodding to the back.
"I'll wait for you in the car." Nessie said as she walked for the Bronco.
"We'll meet you guys there." Quil said with a slight wave.
Quil walked with me out of the garage and back toward the parking spot two blocks away.
"Did you have fun?" I asked teasingly.
"Yeah, loads, nothing like people to yell at me for doing something they believe is wrong." He said blankly.
"Hey, you accepted." I chuckled.
"Don't let me do that again." He said shaking his head.
"Maybe, if you're lucky." I said sneakily.
He grumbled something as we passed our first block. "What about you? You got the garage running in tip top shape." He said nudging my shoulder.
"Someone needed to do it and I was bored." I said simply with a shrug.
"Jake doesn't really have any organizing skills." He said shaking his head.
"I saw that, I was a little surprised Nessie didn't already have it all squared away." I said confused. She did seem like the type to keep everything running as it should.
"Nessie organizes furniture, books and clothes. Not so much paperwork." He explained.
"Good to know I'm cut out for the nine-to-five work force." I said with dry enthusiasm.
"Nah, you're too sarcastic, you'd get fired." He said teasingly.
"So where am I supposed to work?" I asked as we finally found the truck.
"You look for the jobs and I tell you how long you'll survive there before you kill someone." He said grinning.
"Pet store?" I asked hopefully. I like animals.
"Birds would be sacrificed to the snakes on the second day." He answered knowingly.
"Pizza place?" I asked with narrowed eyes.
"You'd get fired for eating all the pizza." He said quickly.
"I would not!" I called out, smacking him. He laughed. "The breadsticks maybe." I muttered as we stopped at the driver's side door of his truck.
"See, I know what I'm talking about." He said with cocky attitude.
"How did you come to know all this information, oh great one?" I asked sardonically.
"I'm just that good." He answered smugly.
"Yeah, I'm sure." I snorted.
We were walking around the front truck when a car came speeding out of nowhere and nearly took us out along with the front end of the truck but Quil literally picked me up and spun out of the way and used the passenger door of the truck to protect us. I heard some catcalls from idiot teenagers and Quil let out a low growl and tried to jump to his feet but I gripped the front of his shirt and kept him on the ground with me. I should have just let him stand.
He looked at me with his eyes mixed with anger and concern, I could clearly figure out which emotion was for whom, and I was forced to stare at his perfect face because of his proximity. His nose had a slight bump toward the top of the bridge of his nose, his cheekbones weren't too high just perfect, and his chin had a hint of a cleft and his lips. Good God, his lips. They were that shade of dark pink everyone's lips turn after a good make out session. I swallowed and tried to look away, but I couldn't.
This was when I should get that puking feeling in my gut, when that endless abyss of loneliness would open up. But it didn't happen. I was just more and more enthralled with my closeness to him. It wasn't scaring me so much as I was afraid of what I would do. This is the first guy I've ever known that didn't make me feel guilty for being this close to him, I'm bound to do something stupid. I tried to move, but I was pinned to the door and Quil seemed just as lost as I was. I tried to speak but nothing came out. I was stuck. Oh, what the hell?
I tilted my head and leaned into his lips. His hands that were once on the ground now held my face and hip as he responded to my kiss. I gripped his shirt tighter out of sheer nervousness and waited with my lips against his. He pulled away with a somewhat guilty look and I started to gnaw on my bottom lip. I was about to sputter my apologizes he stood and helped me stand as well, opening the door for me and letting me slid in. Just as I thought he was going to close the door and bent down and brushed a light kiss on my lips. I could get used to that…
AN: Two kisses! HA! Oh, review!