It had been a couple of weeks since the tribal gathering, but Grace had been slammed with finals prep before the winter break. There was at least one downside to stacking all of those AP classes and that was the massive amount of work it took to pass her finals and finish her term papers in time.
Jacob had tried to call her a few times over the first week, but she had been so swamped that she had had to decline the calls that Charlie had answered while she was hunkered down in her bedroom sifting through notes and furiously typing on the desktop. Bella was making her way through a load of work she hadn't gotten to since the incident, but she was by no means rushing. All of the air had gone out from her, and in her deflated state, school work was the last of her worries. She'd been putting in more hours at Newton's store lately, probably to stay out of the house and out from under Charlie's worried stare.
Grace pulled Bella into her study circle so they could bounce productively off one another and they spent most days after school in the library or upstairs in their room together.
Two weeks after the tribal council meeting, Charlie knocked on their partially opened bedroom door, holding the cordless phone in his hand with a sigh. It was Sunday night and Grace was in the study zone. She glanced up quickly before turning her eyes back to the computer. Her hair was held up by a single pencil in a loose, curled bun. She was wearing wide black framed glasses and a dark green Westmoore High sweatshirt and thick white sweatpants. She had layered the necklace elder Ti'hal had given her the night of the tribal council meeting so that it ringed three strands around her neck and held the black stone just at her collarbone. Jacob's bracelet was wrapped firmly around her wrist and she played with the loose ends every now and then.
"Tell him I'll call him back," she said softly, pouring over a textbook next to her. Charlie held the receiver to his ear.
"Jake, she-" he paused for a minute, "Alright, hold on." he turned back to Grace, "He says you said that last time and the time before that and the time before that. He's not taking no for an answer."
Grace sighed, irritated and held her hand out. Charlie stepped forward and handed it over with a sigh of relief.
"No." Grace said into the receiver. Charlie did a double take and turned to look at her. She held the phone back out to Charlie. She could hear loud protesting from Jake and stifled a giggle. She wasn't trying to make him mad or stress him out, but at this moment, school came first.
Grace shook the receiver at Charlie who grabbed it back with a grumble and held the phone to his ear. In the background, Bella let out a chuckle. Charlie's eyes lit up with surprise at the tinkling sound coming from Bella. She shook her head smiling and turned back to her work.
"Yeah, Jake, no. She'll have to call you back." Charlie said over the protest. "It's finals Jake, they'll be done in a week. Okay, okay. Yeah, okay." Charlie trailed off down the hallway trying to talk Jake down and Grace fell back into her work. She could hear a muffled conversation going on downstairs for the next couple of minutes but paid no mind.
The next few days it was quiet from Jacob. Maybe he had gotten the message finally. She was enjoying spending some time with Bella. While she wasn't her normal self by any means, her quiet company was comforting to Grace and allowed her to focus.
On Wednesday, Bella skipped out early on their study session for her shift at Newton's, leaving Grace on her own to study under the warm glow of her desk lamp. She put her over ear headphones on and listened to her tried and true study playlist, making headway. She lost all track of time but the early descending darkness was deceiving. It must have been no later than 7pm, but the sky made it look like it was midnight.
It was then that Grace was startled and let out a gasp as she saw a hoodie-clad Jake climbing clumsily through her window and knocking over the huge stack of books on her nightstand. He was already through the window and standing up when Grace hurriedly whispered "Jake what the hell!"
"Grace?" Charlie called from downstairs. Always the in-tune police chief.
"I'm fine! Just knocked over some books." She called out her door before quietly shutting it. While this was still just Jacob, she was pretty sure he wasn't supposed to be climbing through her window on a school night in the pitch black.
"Sorry," Jake whispered with a jerking shrug of his shoulders. He bent to scoop up the books with his broad hands and placed them haphazardly back on her nightstand. He turned to look at her and her face was still one of shock, mouth hanging open, speechless.
"What was I supposed to do?! You haven't been returning my calls, you haven't been down to the rez-" Jacob said hurriedly above a whisper.
"SHHH!" Grace's eyes widened as she rushed up to him and clamped a small hand over his mouth. His skin was extraordinarily warm. Had he gotten taller? He was a good half a foot taller than her at her admirable 5'8", but still. Even the cut of his jaw felt stronger. She blushed ever so slightly.
"Do you want me to get in trouble? I'm like 1000% sure you're not supposed to be in here right now." She looked at him expectantly to answer, but realized after he raised his eyebrows and pointed at his still covered mouth that he couldn't. She lowered her hand but had it at the ready.
"I'm sorry, I was just worried and it's Charlie. He's not going to care." Jacob whispered.
"Okay, there's a big difference between Jacob, downstairs, in the light of day, and a boy with mysterious motives in my bedroom at night behind a closed door," Grace hissed.
"To be fair, you closed the door," Jacob countered. Grace groaned.
"Jacob!"
"What does he think we're going to do!?" Jacob shot back. A tense, awkward silence fell between them and all at once Grace didn't want to answer that question. She blushed profusely and saw a little color rise to Jacob's face as well. She took a step back from him and returned to her chair.
"Jacob, you should go. I really am studying. I have two term papers due this Friday, an exam tomorrow, and three more next week. Then I'm done and we can hang out over winter break. I promise." She pulled her leg up under her and propped herself up over her books. Jacob sunk to her bed and leaned back against it, discarding his shoes. "Okay, that's the opposite of leaving."
"We can hang out now, I won't bother you, I'll just read one of these intensely thick books and stay quiet and you can just...do your thing." He shrugged and grabbed "A Picture of Dorian Gray" from the stack and cracked it open. Grace let out a huff and turned back to her work.
He kept his word. For the next hour as Grace meticulously wrote out additional flash cards and flipped through notes and highlighted extra snippets of information, he stayed quiet. His soft breathing became her background and she relied on it's even, steady rhythm to guide her. She felt warm. She felt happy.
After the hour, she gathered her flashcards up and climbed out of her chair and onto the end of the bed pushing Jake's legs aside.
"Okay, quiz me." she set the flash cards before him and he sat up eager to please, pulling the cards toward him and discarding the book.
"Okay, Grace Study-hard Alo-"
"Not my middle name, but okay," she interjected.
"Let's see what you got." He cleared his throat and Grace laughed. "What was the Enlightenment?" His voice took on the lilt of poorly practiced game show host.
"The rebirth of intellectual thought and philosophy and it complemented the Scientific Revolution that focused on the hard sciences."
"Very good, extra credit."
"That's not-"
"Next question! How were the works of Ancient Greece and Rome preserved?"
"Monks made dedicated copies that they created by hand. However, in hand copying, there could be altering of ideas, thoughts, and practices."
"That would suck to have to write that all by hand."
"Jake," Grace protested.
"Okay okay!" he cleared his throat again.
As they worked through the entirety of her flashcards, Jake cracked jokes that made Grace peal with laughter despite her best efforts to stay serious. She got most of them right and once they finished, Jacob gave out an exaggerated breath of exhaustion and flopped back onto the bed. Grace sat up next to him at the top of her bed, while he relaxed on her pillows, one arm up under his head. He peered up at her as she worked her way through the cards she didn't remember and made some edits.
"How do you remember all this stuff?" Jacob asked curiously. At this point Charlie had probably gone to bed and Bella would be home soon. Grace wasn't worried about speaking in a whisper now.
She shrugged. "I don't know, it's just weird information that gets stuck there. It's on a need to know basis, I guess. And I need to know this stuff right now, so it just stays there."
"You're gonna do great," Jacob said, yawning some and letting his eyes close. Grace yawned in return and slumped down a little on her bed next to him so that she was half sitting, half laying down.
Grace spoke under breath, quizzing herself as Jacob's even breath slowed. Grace hadn't realized that she too fell asleep until low light creeped through her window in the early morning hours. She stirred some and realized her desk lamp had been turned off. She looked over at Bella's bed and saw her sleeping there peacefully, for once. When Grace turned over, she softly gasped as she came face to face with Jacob's sleeping form.
He was facing her, an arm draped over her waist and a slice of black hair fell over his sleeping face. As he exhaled softly, she could see his lips parted ever so slightly. She felt a squeeze in her heart as she brushed the swath of hair away from his face. Grace let herself stare at him peaceful like this for just a moment longer before she sat up and gently shook his shoulder.
"Jake...Jake wake up," he groaned softly and pulled at her waist trying to bring her back down and press her to him but she pried his hand off from around her and shook him harder. "Jake wake up. We fell asleep, Billy's probably worried sick about you."
Jacob's dark eyes opened, and Grace didn't think she'd ever seen anything so beautiful before in her life. "Grace?" he yawned. "What time is it?"
"It's like 5:30 in the morning. You should go." She shot a look over to Bella's stirring form.
"Okay." he whispered back and slowly hauled himself from her bed and put on his boots.
"You're not climbing back out the window, come on." Once he was upright, she crawled out of her bed, took his hand and guided him to the door. She cracked it open and peered out and around to check that the coast was clear. Jacob stood half awake behind her, but was seemingly awake enough to interlace his fingers with her, a way of bringing her closer. She gently pulled him out into hall once she was satisfied with the silence and padded softly down the stairs and to the front the door. When she pulled it open, the cold air rushed over her and Jacob quickly perked up, he crossed the threshold still holding her hand and let it go only at the last moment when he said,
"Good luck on your test today. I'll see you soon?" He gave her a soft, teasing smile.
"Yes, very soon, I promise. But Jacob, you can't sleep over like that again, we're gonna get in trouble." Grace warned, crossing her arms tightly in front of her to keep warm.
Jake let out a guffaw nodded, and stepped toward her, taking her off guard before quickly kissing the top of her head. Before she realized what had happened, he was jogging down the front steps and off toward the Rabbit. Grace stood planted in place, glued to the spot by the effortless affection bestowed upon her. What was that? Jacob was her best friend, but did this mean something different?
Suddenly, she was overcome with exhaustion and closed the door quietly before bolting quietly up to her room and under the covers. The sheets still held onto his soft, warm, scent that was a mix of fir trees, spice, and crisp sea air. She fell asleep, crushing the pillow he had slept on to her and woke up an hour later to bright sunshine. When she sat up and felt the bed around her, it dawned on her that she had had a boy in her bed. Not just any boy, but Jacob Black. She put her face in her hands and shook her head back and forth, not sure how to feel.
Bella was up, but hadn't crawled out of bed and was peering out at the sun with eyes clouded in gloom. Sunny days were two parts hard, one part easy for Bella. It was the most realistic day that she would have spent without Edward normally and that brought her comfort. But on the other hand it only accentuated his absence.
"Bella?" Grace called from her bed. Bella slowly turned to her and gave her a smile.
"Was Jake here last night?" she asked nonchalantly as if she had a boy in her room at night all the time like it was no big deal.
"Uh, yeah." Grace squirmed, "He barged in and then stayed to help me study and we kind of fell asleep." Bella just nodded her head appreciatively and got up to go to the bathroom. Before she left the room, Grace said hurriedly:
"Don't tell Charlie."
"Of course." Bella confirmed as if this was the most obvious answer in the world.
