6 - A walk through the woods
Getting rid of Sam was much easier, last time he might have been slightly justified in his need to check up on me - I had hopped on a bike with a perfect stranger - this time though my mother had approved. Not only was his checking up on me completely unnecessary but his two stooges had almost managed to be seen.
As I quietly stepped inside the house a small lamp and the TV illuminated my mother's sleeping face, this late in the night the only things on TV were old eighties shows or infomercials - apparently there were knives out there that could cut through a tire. Why would anyone want a knife to do that? Though there was Sam's truck, it had tires. I shook my head at my evil thoughts and turned back to take care of mother. She must have been really tired because she allowed me to move her to bed without even waking up. Circling the house to make sure that everything was locked up and turned off I looked in on Seth's sleeping form.
Seth looks so angelic asleep, almost like the little boy he truly was inside of that abnormally mature body. This past spring Sam had tried to keep him out of the line of fire by giving him "cell phone" duty but Seth still managed to get in trouble. I might hate Bella's guts but there was one thing she did right, when Seth was having to fight that newborn vampire all by himself Bella tried to distract the leech in order to help Seth. I cannot imagine what would have happened to him if that bloodsucker got his hands on my little brother. Probably something along the lines of what happened to Jake, all his bones broken on one side of his body.
I looked down at my brother, he had fallen asleep on top of textbooks and unfinished homework. As I watched he growled under his breath and started moving like he was running on all fours. I smiled down at him and picked up his books and papers, stacking them neatly on top of his desk. Pulling off his headphones I turned off the cd player, we were going to have to talk about his lack of taste in music. Gangster rap was not all that appropriate for a kid his age, I considered which wolf's ass I was going to have to kick for giving him this crap. Paul, that asshole was the most likely to blame.
My small family taken care of I too headed to bed, as I pulled off my borrowed clothes, including the sweatshirt that Phil had loaned me I noticed something out of place. A small feather had gotten tangled up in my sheared hair, maybe I had been looking at my escape plan all wrong. I could shift into a wolf, if I thought about it hard enough I might be able to shift into a bird and fly away from here. Smiling at my own lame joke, I place the feather on my nightstand before getting into bed. Despite my nap earlier I was asleep before my head even hit the pillow.
Mother took my offer to work for her seriously, the sky was still dark outside when she came into my room to wake me. Being awakened that early in the morning was slightly disorienting considering this was usually the time I went to sleep. As mother made us breakfast we discussed what she wanted me to do at the shop. Much to my amazement she did not ask any questions about Phil.
"You can do the odds and ends around the place, you know there is always something to do." She was cracking some eggs over the hot frying pan as she gave me her instructions. This was not the first time I had worked in the small boat rental place, I had been helping there in some capacity since the age of five - though back then I think it involved a box of crayons and making the walls "pretty".
"That sounds fine mom, and if I ever run out of things to do I can always work on making the stuff with my beads." It might not be a glamorous job but it will help both my mother and me.
"You never know Leah, someone might call with a job offer," I could hear the doubt in mother's voice but I did not call her out on the bullshit. I would take what was given to me, beggars could not be choosers.
"Now I know you like to make the more elaborate pieces, but I need you to do some simple ones too, those sell faster," she instructed me as she put the toast on my plate.
"I know mom, stupid friendship bracelet production coming up." I tried not to roll my eyes, it was really freaking boring to do those types of bracelets. There was absolutely no creativity involved, just stringing beads of various colors together in a simple pattern. I could do friendship bracelets in my sleep, and most of the time it was such monotonous work that I was doing it half asleep.
Even though she knew I was right my mother still admonished me. "You know the rules, the customer is always right."
"That does not mean they have good taste in jewelry," I added under my breath.
It was less than a five minute drive to the store, the time it took to get in and out of the car I could have walked. I moved to unload mother's things while she unlocked the back door.
It was best that I not interact with the customers until I got some decent clothes again. The dress code for the store was not strict, the problem was that all my regular looking clothes were now too small for me - and cutoff jeans and old T-shirts were a little too casual. My mother wore her usual jeans and thick plaid button up shirt, she looked a little chilly in the morning air. I guess it was getting colder since it was starting to be late September, not that it ever really got all that cold around here - the Pacific Ocean made sure that this place stayed fairly temperate, not too cold in the winter and not too hot in the summer.
The sky was starting to brighten when we unlocked the front door and flipped the sign to indicate we were officially open, my mom had a few customers that had rented boats for the day so those would have to be ready before six; Jon had already made sure they were clean the night before so all I had to do was go over them once more.
I stood on the deck of one of the larger boats we owned, there was just something about that rocking of the boat I found comforting. The clouds, they were getting pretty thick in the west. I hope the fishermen had remembered their rain jackets, but if you plan on spending any amount of time outdoors in this area you should expect to get rained on. It was amazing how many people were upset over the fact that their fishing expedition got rained on - did they not know where they were coming? In the entire continental US this place got the most rain, that did not happen because we tended to have clear, sunny skies everyday.
"I found some tangled fishing line but that was about it." I explained to my mom when I went back in the store.
"I know this is going to get really messy and it will take you several days but would you spend some time cleaning out the back room. We have not done it for over a year, your father kept promising he would do it this summer, but well..." my mom did not finish, the look on my face prevented her from going further in her explanation. Instead she gave a small wave of her hand almost like she was sweeping my father's death out of sight. I tried to hide my cringe, but it was probably very obvious.
In accordance with the plan, I spent most of the day clearing out the storage room. I gathered up old dried up cans of paint, empty boxes, and all sorts of trash. I had to borrow a neighbor's truck to haul it all to the dump. It took me several trips to haul away all the junk, so it was late afternoon by the time I finished. I tried not to think too much about anything, I concentrated on the task of deciding what to keep and what to toss - the answer was usually to get rid of it. It was cowardly to push all my worries away but yesterday had been a good day and I wanted to hold onto the feeling as long as possible.
I found my mother examining my work when I walked back to the store having returned the borrowed truck to the owner.
"I promised Joe one of your casseroles for letting me borrow the truck." I explained to my mother as I walked to stand beside her in the back room.
"I have not seen this place this level of clean in since your grandmother ran it, she always made the rest of us look like idle slugs." She told me, I guess she was not surprised by my promising to take some food over. Casseroles were my mother's favorite currency, she got a lot of favors for them.
Since there was nothing urgent for me to do around the place my mom gave me some money and suggested I go get some clothes. She was very impressed with all that I had done, and the speed with which I had accomplished it. Wolf strength really helped - I could lift huge boxes like they were nothing more than a box of kleenex. Her change in attitude towards me was a nice, but I guess my more friendly mood might have helped. I had been too busy to be bitter today, but the day was not over yet so there was plenty more time to let my inner bitch out.
"Leah you really need to get some more clothes, at least a couple of pairs of jeans. You also have to go through your closet and find everything that does not fit. I will take it over to the Rec center, maybe someone could use your old clothes." It would not take me long to go through my closet and pick out what did not fit; it was not like I didn't have any clothes. I was a teenage girl so of course I had clothes, the reason it would be so easy to sort through my clothes was that nothing fit anymore.
I was back in Forks for the fourth day in a row, this time it should be a little less frustrating since I was looking for clothes and not a job. I had gone to the Newton's store, it would have been cheaper for me to go to one of the department stores in Port Arthur but it would have taken too long. This late in the afternoon I might not make it before the stores closed. It would be easy enough to get jeans here and I would save up my money for a real shopping trip to the mall in Port Arthur.
My mother kindly let me borrow the car again, I decided to go shopping alone for several reasons. The main one was the fear that even if I were to invite one of my friends they might say no. I was not certain who was still willing to put up with me, and at this point even the smallest rejection might put me over the edge. At first my friends had made allowances for the fact that Sam broke up with me but soon I had successfully alienated most of my friends - there is only so much bitterness they could take before they gave up on me. I could not blame them really, since I had given up on me, but at the same time it kind of hurt. If there was an olympic event in losing friends I would definitely have qualified for the top ten.
So I was standing in front of the mirror, in men's jeans, because nothing was long enough in the girls section without it being far too wide. I might have possibly been feeling a little sorry for myself - ok so I was having a pity party all by myself. How did that old song go: It's my party I can cry if I want to. Gee what was with me and quoting lyrics of songs, if I started to repeat words from country music I would just give it up and slit my wrists.
"I think those jeans make your ass look big," I heard his voice behind me. I looked up in the mirror trying to meet Phil's gaze but he was too busy staring at my ass, and from the look on his face he was appreciating the view.
"What, are you stalking me now?" I accused him, he always seemed to be popping up where I was.
"Yeah you figured me out," he told me in a mock serious tone, "I already found and killed my first target and now I have moved onto my second choice prey."
"What are you doing here?" my suspicion still not completely abated. In the past week he had popped up without being invited in three different places.
"Hmmm well hanging out in the men's section of a store? Yeah it looks very suspicious." His face took on a serious look as he scanned the area in an exaggerated attempt to make sure we were alone. He leaned closer to whisper, "if you must know I am doing secret ninja stuff."
I looked down in his hands, he had a pack of underwear, and some wool socks. I had no choice but to laugh, "yeah, I guess ninjas need clean underwear."
"That is the most important part of the outfit, comfort is the number one priority," the authoritarian tone was undermined by the fact that his lips were curling up into a smile.
"According to most commercials I have seen, comfort is very important." I had worn enough sexy girl underwear to value comfort.
"By the way you jerk, my ass is not big," finally reacting to his greeting. My butt was really nice looking even if I was the only one who said so, and my legs looked super long. I could not stop my self-satisfied smile while looking at myself in the mirror, long legs seemed to go along with the wolf genes.
"Your ass is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me," he sounded absolutely serious, I had learned to recognize the slight twitch of the corners of his mouth when he was teasing me. He must think teasing "Princess" was a great deal of fun, and for some unfathomable reason I was going to let him do it.
"I think you are misquoting Mr Darcy. I don't remember him using the word ass." I recognized the quote, but I did not see Phil as a Jane Austen fan. But then Phil was starting to get a little annoying, every time I had him pegged in a nice little stereotype he would change on me.
"Yeah but you know he wanted to, in the back of his mind that is what he really meant. That is pretty much what most guys think about," his eyes dared me to disagree with him.
"I do not really see you enjoying Pride and Prejudice," I told him honestly, it was best to change topics since I agreed with him over what men thought about. Having been part of the pack mind I knew exactly how many times guys actually though about sex, in the past I had thought those girl magazines were exaggerating but now I had learned that it was actually an understatement. That was just the sex portion now if you threw in Sam and Jared thinking about their imprints it was an all out gagfest on my part. I was so glad Jake had imprinted on Nessie, his feelings for Bella had been so strong that I was starting to get the hots for her.
"It is an ok book, there are some better authors of the time. In terms of that genre I think I enjoyed Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South more," he explained while waving his underwear around.
"I don't think I have heard about that one. How is it that you can quote Jane Austen if you don't like her that much?" All right, so not to be prejudiced or anything but construction worker was definitely off the list of possible occupations for Phil. Could he be some sort of teacher? Is that why he could quote classic literature? But for some reason I did not see him as a teacher, quite frankly there was no way in hell he could get a body like that while spending all his time behind a desk or grading papers - even if he did hit the gym all the time. His long muscular legs were incased in another pair of jeans today, I did not think that they were meant to be tight but his large thighs stretched the fabric to the point that I could see the outline of several large muscles. I averted my eyes before the drool started to pool in my mouth, there was something absolutely sexy about the way he just causally leaned against the wall.
He gave a deep sigh of suffering, "my best friend absolutely adores Pride and Prejudice, and if you ever meet her make sure you never say anything bad about Colin Firth. He is the one and only Mr. Darcy, and Phila is willing to fight anyone who says otherwise."
"Phila?" That sounded like a strange name. Phil and Phila, it was kind of funny.
"Yeah, her name is Ophelia, but no one ever calls her that. Not unless you want a broken nose or a bruised shin." He smiled a little, like he was remembering a specific incident.
"She sounds kind of fun to be around," I said dubiously.
"We all have our quirks, Phila is willing to expend the extra effort to remind you of hers." He shrugged, it was the way things were - he was not going to worry about it.
One of the kids who worked in the store came over to see if everything was all right. It was then that I realized I was still wearing the jeans.You had better not be getting these jeans just so you could see him staring at your ass again. Ok so maybe that was one of the reasons I had decided to get the jeans. In some ways I was still a girl, I liked to be admired for my assets as well as my cheerful personality.
Phil move towards the front of the store to pay for his socks and I went to change back into my shorts. I could not help but smile, my pity party forgotten for the moment.
The next morning I woke up before anyone else, it was too early to begin the day but with patrols and living homeless for a while my sleep schedule was completely screwed up.
While I was being honest with myself I could not blame my inability to go back to sleep solely on my patrol duties - part of it was the fact that I was going to get to see Phil. I was actually looking forward to the day, that had not happened in a long time. I could not pinpoint exactly why this was the case, Phil was somewhat annoying at times. Under normal circumstances I would have ripped his head off for teasing me, but for some reason I liked it. Not that I would ever admit that to him, being tortured by a gang of newborn vampires would have been preferable to confessing my enjoyment of being called Princess.
Part of his appeal was that he kept changing on me, my initial impression of him being a manual laborer had quickly been dismissed. His lean and muscular body might fit, as well as the steel toed boots but then his words did fit. Things just did not add up, the motorcycle and his general air of mischief gave me the impression he was a bad boy. Especially the speed with which he rode the bike, but at the same time he made sure that we both wore helmets and he obviously had a great deal of experience. As the saying went this was not his first rodeo, he might have taken those turns at high speeds but he never once lost control.
I had nothing against bad boys, in fact at this point I was willing to give a bad boy a chance seeing how well it had worked out with the good guy. I was a girl therefore deep down I was a tiny bit attracted to a hint of danger. Motorcycles aside he had gone out of his way to not only return my jacket but to make sure I stayed warm the other night. The other glaringly obvious discrepancy was that he had somehow appeased my mother. Sue Clearwater was born on a Tuesday but it was not last Tuesday, she was not easily fooled - it made me curious, what had he told her? Had he really given her his social to make running a background check on him easier?
So he could not be bad and get past my mother but he did not give me the impression of being a white picket fences, the golden retriever, and the 2.2 kids type of guy. That is not a bad thing Leah, a little bit of bad makes it so much sweeter - the little voice in the back of my head purred. I tried to ignore that pesky voice, no matter how sexy he might be I was willing to admit to myself that my life was currently way to messed up to add a new boyfriend into the mix.
Regardless of all that, we had a temporary deal and he would be gone in January - it was not like he was my soulmate or anything. I would have imprinted on him if we were meant to be together forever. For now I would enjoy the company of a relatively 'normal' guy and pretend that I was just as human as he was. So that was the plan, and I was sticking to it.
Since there was no way I was going back to sleep I attempted to make some scrambled eggs, it did not look that hard when I watched my mother do it the other day. I was on my third try when my mother came rushing in the kitchen, she must have smelled the smoke or something.
"Leah what are you doing?" she asked, like it was not perfectly obvious. She quickly pushed me aside as she tried to save the last of the eggs. I watched in wonder as she turned what was probably going to be third failed attempt turned into scrambled eggs. She scraped the pan with a spatula, turned knobs to reduce the heat and pulled out some oil. Darn it I knew I had forgotten something, oil, that would have helped.
"Leah you know you are not supposed to cooking," my mother said with a laugh. It was kind of a family joke, I could not cook to save my life. If I ever had to live on my own I would probably starve, or have to eat out a most of my meals.
"We are going to have to cross our fingers and hope she imprints on a nice house-husband." Seth said as he came into the kitchen, he was still in an old pair of underwear.
"Eeew clothes would be nice Seth?" I told him, lightly punching him on the arm.
"If you two are going to fight I would appreciate it if you would take it outside, where there is not a hot stove or all sorts of breakable things." My mother calmly told us, she was used to how much more physical we had become over the past few months.
"Sorry mom," we mumbled almost in unison. I stuck my tongue out at Seth, making sure my mom was not watching first.
"Grow up Leah," Seth said but I noticed that he had crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue right back at me.
Seth and I kept up the teasing conversation through breakfast; there were not enough eggs left so Seth and I had supplemented our meal with cereal. As I anticipated Phil showing up it occurred to me that my mother had not asked about my dinner with him the other night, when I requested the day off to go hiking with him she had amazed me by agreeing to the holiday with very little protest. I did promise to help clean the boats this weekend as an alternative to working today, but I was still suspicious. What spell had Phil weaved that made my mother so cooperative?
I heard the truck pull up in front of the house a few minutes past seven, I could add punctuality to the short list of things I knew about Phil. The truck was the same one he had used the other day, I quickly ran outside. Call me paranoid but I did not want him interacting with my mother too long, he had the tendency to say some strange things; I did not want to test the strength of whatever spell he had cast on her the other day.
"Bye mom," I said heading out the door to intercept Phil. He looked like he was getting out of the truck, I tried to hurry at a human pace.
"Morning Princess," he told me with a quirk to his lips. Did this guy ever loose the smile?
My attempts to avoid my mother were to no avail, Phil chose to ignore my less than subtle hints. He not only went in to say hello to my mother but he sat down and talked to her for a few minutes about our plans.
Of course to my mortification he noticed the burnt smell, my mother was happy to explain to him why breakfast had been burned.
Phil gave me a perplexed look, "how can you mess up scrambled eggs?"
"Hey Phil can you cook?" Seth asked coming in, thank goodness he had actually put some clothes on.
"Of course, it was either learn to cook or starve." He said it casually, his tone implied that anyone could learn how to cook if they only put in a little effort.
Seth started to hum the wedding march under his breath, fortunately I was the only one who heard him. My soon to be maimed and dismembered brother chose to ignore the glare I sent in his direction. Next time I would not move his homework off the bed, let us just see how well he slept with an Algebra book for a pillow.
I hinted yet again it was time to leave. This time Phil actually listened to me, standing up from the couch; Phil asked permission to leave the truck in my mother's yard, she said yes of course.
The air was colder outside, Phil reminded me yet again about my coat, I turned away from him to roll my eyes. I went back in the house and got both my coat and his sweatshirt.
While I had been busy in the house he had put on the biggest backpack I had ever seen in my life.
"How long are you planning on being out?" I wondered maybe I should have taken a backpack. "What do you have in there? the kitchen sink?"
"Laugh it up now, but you are going to get hungry sooner than later. I will be one with the food." He scolded me for a moment, but then back came the half smile. He had not smiled much the first time I had seen him in the diner but since giving me a ride when Sam was harassing me his smile was always there under the surface. It would be nice if he shared some of his secret, but in a way he did - that smile of his was somewhat contagious even when he was teasing me.
We headed east through the reservation, he did not bother sharing our final destination with me. I was not worried, I could find my way back home no problem.
"You know you look like a total tourist when you keep pulling out your map like that," I teased him as he pulled out his map once again to look at it with a great deal of concentration.
"Guess what Princess...I am a tourist," his laughter undermined my attempts to harass him.
I looked around us as he checked his map, it had been a while since I had slowed down long enough to look at where I was - usually it was running patrols while things rushed past me. It was easy to forget the beauty of the place surrounding you, my problems were small compared to the vastness of mother nature. She was quickly changing her clothes, preparing the land for winter.
As we walked through the woods Phil questioned me about my tribe, he spent most of the morning asking about our stories.
He kept asking questions and seemed surprised at the detail with which I could answer. What did he think I knew nothing of my people? Not that I would ever admit it to him but I was somewhat surprised at how much I enjoyed sharing the stories of my tribe.
I noticed he was very vague about the answers he was giving me, he shared things but there were few details. He was much better than I was at changing the topic when I started asking for details.
One happy point in the morning was when I finally managed to ruffle his feathers, we had gotten near a stream and I had bend down to get a drink. It was then that I received the lecture on all the pathogens that could be found in unprocessed water. I could not point out that I was a wolf and so was immune to most of those, I finally shut him up by taking the water bottle he offered and just walking away from him - but not before I took note of the fact that he could name several diseases that came from drinking untreated water.
We stopped for lunch around eleven, I finally figured out why he had such a big backpack. But between both of us eating like wolves we managed to put a dent in it. I had to admit, Phil seemed less of a city slicker than I had originally thought - despite his reliance on the map. He kept up a steady pace with his long legs, a few months ago I would have been hard pressed to keep up with him.
"So what exactly do you do for a living?" I asked outright, trying to figure him out.
"You will never guess and I don't think I will tell you today," he gave me a mischievous smile as we walked along. "Anyway, I am on vacation so I am trying not to think about work."
"What kind of a job lets you take off for months at a time?" I asked suspiciously, wondering why the hell he would not tell me.
"Maybe I am a trust fund kid, and live off the hard work of my parents." He made the suggestion with a smile and a happy twinkle in his eye before he picked up the pace.
There were a few advantages to being a wolf, seeing the confusion on Phil's face when he kept looking back to make sure I was keeping up with his quick pace was one of the few perks. I could see he was somewhat competitive and I felt him increase speed as he noticed I was keeping up. The other advantage was that walking through the woods was second nature to me so I did not have to concentrate that hard on not tripping over something and could spend my time doing other things - such as staring at Phil's ass. I really hated it when guys had no ass, Sam had been one of those people who had to wear a belt because there was nothing to stop his pants from falling down. Not Phil, his round compact rear end would make sure that his pants stayed up. Fortunately the backpack did not block my view, that would have been very disappointing. I might not have been interested in him as a boyfriend but that did not mean I could not appreciate the view.
After we stopped to eat Phil's questions became less frequent. That was a good thing, I had exhausted all my non-wolf tribe history. I was not about to tell him those legends, Bella had been told those stories and it had not taken her long to figure out what Jake was. So the wolf stories would not be brought out today, or any day for that matter.
I smelt it before we got to the carcass, I even tried casually to lead Phil so we would not have to cross its path. Phil was almost as stubborn as I was and he was not going to be moved from the small hiking trail he had chosen to follow.
"What the hell?" Phil said, his sunny smile disappearing. "That is so disgusting."
"It is no different than the bacon you eat in the morning." I pointed out to him. Though I kind of agreed with him, I liked my meat already cooked before seeing it.
"I know it is like bacon, that is not what bothers me. People just killing an animal and wasting it is what bothers me." Phil said with an aggravated tone.
"Oh I see," I could not say much more, it was then I had noticed the scent. I don't know how I had missed it before, Vampire. It had been one of the Cullens, Bella if I got the scent right. Holy crap, I had a human in the middle of the vampires' hunting grounds. How had we gotten this far, and how had I not noticed where we were. You were too busy talking and starring at his ass. Neither the scent or the deer were fresh so there was a chance they might not be out anymore, but I still had to make sure.
It was beyond frustrating, could I not be allowed one day without the reminder that I was not quite human anymore? Worse, I now would have to find a way to tell the Cullens they had a human in their territory without rousing that human's suspicious.
I had to warn the Cullens; well more like ask them if one of them was still hunting. I gave a big sigh before giving into the inevitable, and did what I really did not want to do.
"Hey do you still have that cell phone of yours?" I asked Phil, though it was more like demanding since I immediately put my hand out for it. Allowances had to be made considering I was doing this to keep him safe.
"Sure, do you need it for something?" I watched as he pulled it out of one of his pockets and handed it over to me.
The small silver rectangle had no buttons to push, so instead of doing something stupid and wrecking what looked like a very expensive phone I handed it back to him.
Phil cracked a smile as he watched the confusion on my face, "here just tell me the number."
He dialed while I told him, don't ask me why but somehow I knew the vampire's home phone number. Phil handed me the phone so that I could talk to them.
Esme answered the phone, that was a good thing because of all the vampires the mother hen was the most easily tolerated. "Hello?" She sounded confused, I guess there was some strange number on the caller ID.
"Hi Esme this is Leah Clearwater, I was calling to tell you something." This is where it would get tricky. I looked up to see that I had Phil's full attention. I guess he was not going to wander off politely so that I could have a private conversation. That would be too much to hope for.
"Hello, Leah, how may I help you? Do you want to speak to Jake? I think he is outside playing with Nessie right now." Identifying myself seemed to not have cleared up much of the confusion in her voice. I had never made any attempts to hide the fact that I hated their guts, she must be wondering why I sounded so polite. Too bad Phil would never appreciate the lengths I would go through to protect his cute ass.
"A friend and I are hiking in the woods around your house and we found a deer carcass. I was wondering if the hunters in the area were still around, we would not want to run into them. Phil is pretty upset at them for leaving the deer." You would think the vampires would clean up after themselves, it should not be that hard to burry the deer or something.
"Phil, is he a human?" I had to hand it to them, all the vampires were quick.
"Yes, he is." I was relieved that she understood my message.
"Well I don't think anyone is going out hunting right now, but Bella will after Nessie goes to sleep. I would suggest that you take your human out of the woods by then. We try, but accidents can happen, though with Bella you never know." Yeah Bella the super control girl, she did not act anything like the newborns we had encountered earlier this spring. I don't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I guess it was a good thing, especially since Jake had set himself up as her guinea pig to test her control. I was still furious with her for hurting Seth, Bella might have super control but she also had a bad temper - not that I was one to talk.
"You know there are places you can donate the carcass, they process it for free and give it to food banks." Phil butted in, interrupting my conversation.
"Thank you, if you see any hunters pass by your house I would like you to warn them to take their kills away." I told Esme, trying to end the awkward conversation.
"Of course, Leah. Have a nice hike, it is a beautiful day outside." Esme was being polite as usual, she always had impeccable manners, despite the fact that I had been rude to her every time we met. It was her super politeness that tended to make me even more rude, Esme had that mom skill of making you feel guilty with little to no effort. It was very nice of her not to point out how stupid I had been to bring a human into their hunting territory.
"Have a nice day," I tried to return the goodbye politely. I nearly had to bite my tongue to keep me from growling at her but the alternative was worse. How could I possibly explain to Phil why I hated Esme. I turned off the phone, at least I hope that is what I did, and handed it back to Phil.
This collision of my supernatural life with my time with Phil suddenly soured my mood. My imagination was far too good at coming up with other scenarios, ones in which it was not a deer the vampires killed.
"I had not heard about donating the deer to charity. That is kind of cool." I tried my best to distract Phil and more importantly myself from the thoughts of what could happen in these woods.
"I had assumed you would know a great deal about it, is this not a big area for hunting?" Phil said casually, to my utter relief he shook his head once more at the deer before he walked on. He had not noticed that the deer had not been killed in the conventional method, it was fairly obvious that this deer had not been killed with a gun. The first clue was the fact that there was no obvious bullet her and the second more glaring clue was the ripped open throat. Vampires were seriously messy eaters, I did not want to imagine what the human drinkers did to their victim's bodies.
"There is some hunting done in the surrounding areas, why do you ask? do you hunt?" I finally answered his question after stepping past the deer.
"I don't really care for guns," Phil said picking up the pace again.
I noticed that he did not say that he did not hunt, just that he did not care for guns. It was the typical way he answered questions. "What is wrong with guns?"
"They kill people," he shrugged casually but by the sudden stiffness of his shoulders I knew there was more to it than he was telling me.
"Guns don't kill people, people kill people." I reminded him of the stupid slogan gun advocates like to repeat.
He looked back at me and opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, but he didn't. Instead he slowed down and waited for me to catch up.
The next few hours were somewhat quiet, Phil would point out the occasional insect or one of the flowers that was still blooming this late in the season interspersed with a few remaining questions regarding my tribe. Phil must have noticed my darker mood because he stopped trying to keep up the conversation, concentrating on his map instead.
I kind of missed our earlier conversation, though I probably missed the illusion of normalcy more than anything else. With Phil I could pretend I was nothing more than a human girl out for a hike on a pleasant day. That bubble had burst, I am surprised it had lasted this long. It was a good thing he did not ask me too many more questions, at this point my concentration was so poor that I would have probably blurted out something about the wolves.
Currently I was distracted by the thoughts running through my head, my world colliding with Phil was not a consequence I had considered before this time - what could happen to Phil if I brought him into my chaotic supernatural life? The obvious answer was that I could get him killed, I had done enough wrong in the past few months but most of it involved pissing people off. This was a little more serious, I did not need this man's blood on my hands. If I did bring him into my world, even if I kept it secret from him, there was a risk that he could be harmed.
On the bright side at least I seemed to be getting better, I had reached a point in my misery where I could consider someone else. I wondered if his ignorance would be enough to protect him, or if it would cause more harm than good - not that I had the choice to tell him anything, both the tribal elders and Sam had forbidden me from saying anything about being a wolf. It was not a bad rule, it would protect all of us from becoming a test subject in some government lab.
The more selfish side of me feared that he would figure it out - the fact that I was a wolf. Would he be as accepting as Bella had been of Jake? I somehow doubted that, Bella had needed Jake as a crutch to survive long enough for her Edward to come back to her.
Was that what I wanted from Phil? to be my crutch until something better came along? That would be unfair to the man if I was starting a relationship but so long as I kept us casual, friends only, it should be all right. I had been in Jake's head long enough to know I would not use Phil the same way Bella had used Jake, therefore if Phil wanted to take this further than friendship I would not allow that to happen. Phil had been giving me mixed signals in that regard. He took me on what could be interpreted as a romantic picnic in a secluded spot but then he gave me mace instead of the usual flowers or candy gift. The next day he admired my ass but the today he had made not attempts at flirting, instead he asked me about neutral topics like my tribe.
Things were getting to be confusing and I did not need that right now - he would be my friend. Your rebound friend with privileges? That little voice in the back of my head asked. Hell, at this point any type of friend would be nice. Sometime in the past few months I had alienated every single one of my friends, it would be amazing to have just one. I could try to go rekindle my old friendships but they might expect me to be that happy Leah again, Phil had not known me back then so he would not expect me to be all chipper and optimistic.
If things did not work out he would be going back to his real life in January so at most I would lose him a couple of months early - it was not like he was going to be a permanent fixture in my life. Plus he has a really yummy looking ass, the little perverted voice in the back of my mind pointed out. That voice had been making several comments regarding Phil, usually very lewd and suggestive comments.
Here was an opportunity to hang out with someone who knew nothing about me, or about the baggage that I carried around with me. Around Phil it was almost easy to pretend that my life was normal. This friendship could never be fully open, I would have to always be careful to make sure he never found out the truth about me. He would most certainly freak out if he ever figure out I could change into a bear sized wolf, my mouth twisted into a smile as I tried to picture Phil screaming like a little girl. My mind refused to go in that direction, instead it kept trying imagine what he looked like without those jeans. The underwear he had bought yesterday were boxer briefs, that would mean they would hug every curve of that tight ass.
I had been so consumed with my own thoughts that at first I did not notice the change in Phil's usual behavior.
"Do you know where you are going?" I watched him consult the map once again. He had been doing that more frequently as we headed into the afternoon. We were still in the woods, but we had left anything that could constitute a trail a couple of hours ago.
"Next you are going to tell me we should stop and ask for directions." he said with a smile, but I could detect the stubbornness in his voice. Typical male, I don't know why I thought he might be different. In him it was kind of cute, it might just have been because he was acting like regular human. Spending all my time around the supernatural made the quirks of normal people seem almost endearing.
"You must be fun on road trips." I told him, the sarcasm thick in my tone.
"Why?" This seemed to genuinely confused. "I am always fun to be around." His innocent tone did not fool me, it sounded a little too genuine.
"You are certainly happy, way too happy." Like what drugs are you taking happy? and more importantly, are you willing to share?
The smile had rarely left his face since he came to my house this morning, even when I had made snarky comments the smile remained. There must be something wrong with his brain, like the fact that he always called me Leah when my mother was around but as soon as she was out of earshot I was back to Princess. Maybe he was not as normal as I originally thought, the circumstances that would make others angry made him more jubilant - though I had got under his skin when I tried to drink from that stream.
"All right boy scout gimme the map and tell me where you want to go." I waited for him to hand me the map. Instead he opened it up again to look at it. I rolled my eyes, again. Why does he have to be so stubborn?
"Hey, don't you know that trying to tell a man where he should go is a very dangerous move." His happy smile appeared again, "by the way I was never a boy scout, my family is not really into that sort of stuff." He pointed out without looking up from the map.
"What is your family into?" I asked trying to get some details, maybe he would let something slip while he was distracted. I had noticed that he did not say much about himself or where he came from - he spent most of his time interrogating me, though he mentioned his family quite often.
"You don't want to know," his cryptic answer was delivered with another brilliant smile. He switched directions, and started walking through the shrubbery. I bit my tongue to prevent myself from making a snarky remark; now that I was aware of the fact he was lost I was pretty sure we had passed by this tree about half an hour ago. I considered laying down an ultimatum: either he lets me lead or I was going to leave him in the middle of the woods. Unfortunately I would be part of the search party that would have to come looking for him. I was also afraid to leave him in the woods with the bloodsuckers roaming.
"Aha, found it," he seemed pleased with himself. We had found a empty river bed, well actually the stream version. I was somewhat surprised to find it dry, not many streams were dry in this area. He jumped down onto the rocks, an extra spring in his steps as he headed down the slope.
"Nice cabin, don't you think so?" Phil said suddenly. I followed his gaze to see what he was looking at.
Phil and I had a completely different definition of what constituted a cabin. The house we approached looked like was made of wood like a cabin, but that was where the similarity ended.
The entire house was on an elevated wooden structure. The stream of rocks we had been following had been diverted to circle around the house, I could not see where it eventually ended up since it disappeared into the extensive landscaping. The shrubs and flowers were made to look as if they matched the surrounding woods but their placement was much too formal to have gotten there naturally. I could see the paths lined with white rocks outlining different plant beds, anyone would have to admit that the place was very beautiful.
I walked towards the gardens to get a closer look, someone had spent a great deal of money to to do this, and the fool was probably spending a great deal more trying to keep it that way. I smiled to myself, they would eventually give up, then nature would take this place back.
"Is that a zen garden?" I asked recognizing the strange placement of stones and the combed looking sand or maybe it was pebbles. It finally hit me, what this style reminded me of. The place looked like the houses I had seen in the Samurai movies my brother preferred to watch.
The deep eaves had small lanterns hanging on them. I could see that someone liked windows. The sides of the house that I could see were mostly made up of windows, maybe it was vampires who lived here - I had noticed that the Cullens liked glass a great deal.
"It is kind of cool looking, isn't it?" Phil interrupted my perusal of the house. There was a strange glint of humor in his dark brown eyes. "Hey do you want to sneak in and see what it looks like on the inside?"
"What? You do know my mother is good friends with the Police Chief of Forks." Speeding I could live with, breaking in and entering was where I drew the line.
Phil hopped up the small steps that led to the platform that stood in place of a back porch. There were a few utilitarian pieces of wooden furniture placed next to a small grill, nothing else. I guess whoever lived here like to be a minimalist.
The kitchen was visible beyond the wooden sliding doors, so maybe they were not minimalists. As far as I could tell they owned every gadget known to kitchens, various shinny appliances were neatly line up along the counter.
"Oh come on don't be a wuss, where is your sense of adventure?" Phil said heading closer to the sliding doors.
"I would rather be adventurous outside of a jail cell." I watched as Phil pulled on the door and started to slide it open.
"Stop it," I had started whispering at him. I was looking around waiting for the homeowner to jump out at us. I don't know if he would be brandishing a sword or a shotgun, my luck it was going to be some ninja wannabe.
"Hey they left it unlocked, they must want us to go in." I watched as Phil stepped into the house, he did not hesitate even for a second.
A/N: There you go girls, another chapter. I kind of cut this one short since it was getting to be too long. Plus I thought a tiny cliffhanger would be fun right about now.
It took me longer than I would have liked to fix this chapter but it did not help that I kept getting interrupted.
My husband wanted to know why I was looking at men in their underwear on the internet - I told him it was research. It was legit, I could not remember what boxer briefs were technically called. :D I have to admit some of those male underwear models are either very lucky or they stuff because...well you get the picture.
ABarbieStory: Shame on you, switching over to my story when you saw that it was updated. Kidding, kidding :D I am glad you like it. Hopefully you liked Phil and Leah's little hike. You wanted to know if the ending was Phil or not... you will have to wait a little bit to figure it out.
Connect2jtb: Glad you like the rewrite, I am actually putting off other projects to do it. But I like Phil and Leah, they come alive in my head and it is fun to see them duke it out. The later chapters should be even more fun.
Twilighter: Thanks for the pep talk, sometimes it gets depressing writing some of these stories and no one give me some love. Ok I lie, people give me love but I want more... yeah, yeah I am greedy like that. Still thinking about jailbait's date, but what is going to be more fun is that he is supposed to turn eighteen in a couple of chapters ... I already have his bday present all picked out. I really hate it when I have all the other chapters planned out and I get stuck on one.