Moonlight in Forks
Disclaimer: all characters and copyright belong to SM.
Confrontation in the Parking Lot
Bella kept her eyes closed in a vain attempt to fool Edward into thinking she was asleep. Her mind was buzzing, full of questions, wondering why Jacob had suddenly decided to break his long streak of silence to contact her.
"What's wrong, Bella?" Edward whispered gently in her ear.
So, he wasn't fooled after all.
Bella opened her eyes slowly and gazed up at him. As always, she immediately became breathless from his sheer physical beauty. She didn't ever think she would lose that reaction upon seeing his handsome face. She shook her head briefly, feeling slightly dazed.
"Bella?" Edward asked again, he was truly anxious now.
Bella sighed, not really wanting to admit to Edward what-or rather who-she had been thinking about. She knew as soon as she mentioned Jacob's name, that his expression would immediately change from one of concern to one of annoyance.
"You can talk to me about anything." Edward urged, his voice like velvet.
Bella finally plucked up the courage to share with him what was on her mind. "I was just wondering about Jacob."
Edward stiffened, his brow immediately furrowing. He refrained from interrupting though.
"I think…I think he was checking." She said in a rush. "Checking to make sure. That I'm human I mean. It's the only reason I can think of why he would contact me out of the blue like that…. after ignoring me for so long."
Edward's eyes were tight. He embraced Bella carefully, as if she was made of fine porcelain. It was so different to the way Jacob hugged her. She couldn't help but compare. Jacob would have been hugging the life out of her, his strong, warm arms wrapped around her completely, squeezing and holding on tight. Edward was always so careful, reserved, as if worried she would break if he applied even the slightest pressure. They really were opposites in every way.
"Don't concern yourself anymore about Jacob Black, my love." Edward's tone was strained. "You're tired. You need to rest. I'm sure its nothing."
Bella knew that was the end of the discussion. She sighed again, laying down, she closed her eyes. She felt Edward move the duvet over her, tucking it gently around her to make sure that she was fully protected from his icy skin as he lay down beside her.
Jacob Black was pacing back and forth in the school parking lot. As usual he was attracting a lot of attention. Just his sheer size alone was enough to make him stand out in a crowd-throw in his good looks, and muscular physique into the mix-everyone's eyes couldn't help but be drawn to him.
He did another short circuit, his dark eyes showing his impatience. He was beginning to wonder if Bella was going to turn up at school. Maybe the leech had discovered his plan, and was deliberately keeping her away. That wouldn't surprise him in the least. He had been hoping to catch Cullen off guard-maybe one of the other members of the coven had spied him and reported his presence. He knew he shouldn't have come so early, but he was just so eager to see Bella. To see with his own eyes that she remained unchanged, that she was still human. He had been so afraid when he had learned that Cullen had swept her away for the weekend. The waiting had nearly killed him. The wait now was killing him….
Then he saw Cullen's pretentious Volvo pull into the parking lot.
"If I asked you to do something, would you trust me?" Edward asked, an edge to his soft voice.
Bella looked at him sharply. They had just pulled into the school parking lot; he had been relaxed and joking a moment ago. Now his fists were clenched in his lap.
"Why?"
"Can you just stay in the car for a moment?" Edward sounded weary; his head was slightly cocked as if he was listening to distant voices.
Bella studied his tense expression, knowing by now only one person who could invoke that reaction. "It's Jacob, isn't it?" She guessed. "He's here." Her pulse sped up at the thought of seeing her erstwhile best friend after so long.
Edward turned his head to look at her, his eyes begging. "Please stay in the car." He coaxed gently." He turned off the engine as he spoke. "Wait here until I come back for you."
"No!" Bella's answer came out more fiercely and bluntly than she intended. She knew something was up by the flash of guilt she caught in Edward's eyes. He was hiding something from her again, she was sure of it. She pulled her gaze away from his and looked out of the windscreen.
That's when she saw Jacob. He would be hard to miss, towering over the other students the way he did, even if he hadn't been leaning against his black motorcycle, the motorcycle they had fixed up together. Nostalgia overwhelmed Bella as she stared at the two wheeled machine, and as she stared at him.
"I'm not staying in the car." Bella told Edward. She was already opening her door. She saw pain cross his face, but refused to feel guilty.
"Bella." Edward tried again. "You jumped to the wrong conclusion last night. He asked about school because he knew I would be where you were. He was looking for a safe place to talk to me. A place with witnesses."
Bella paused with her hand on the doorhandle. She regarded Edward through narrowed eyes. She knew he was lying, or at least not telling her the whole truth. Maybe that was part of the reason, but he seemed to forget that she knew Jacob, she knew how his mind worked. He didn't come here just for that. He came to see her, he had something to say, to reveal, she was very certain about that.
"I'm going to talk to him." Bella said curtly.
Edward groaned quietly in defeat. "Of course not. Let's get this over with."
Jacob's face hardened as soon as they approached, his dark eyes brooding as he zeroed in on their linked hands. He had a strong urge to step forward and pull Bella's hand out of Cullen's icy grasp. It took all his self-control to maintain his emotionless mask. He had been taking tips from Sam. But still he hadn't quite fully achieved the Alpha wolf's serenity that he always exuded.
A crowd was beginning to gather, as if the other students realized that a confrontation was about to take place. Jacob ignored them. He stood tall, straightening up to his full height of six foot seven inches, muscled up the way no normal sixteen-and-a-half-year-old had ever been. The girls among the crowd were raking their eyes over his tight black t-shirt-short sleeved, though the day was unreasonably cool-his ragged, grease smeared jeans, and the glossy black bike. He was the epitome of cool.
But Jacob wasn't interested in their reaction, only Bella's. He saw her chocolate brown eyes widen slightly, the way her lips parted as she licked them, her gaze taking all of him in. He couldn't help a flicker of a smug smile at that, Cullen had noticed her reaction too, and it clearly bothered him, as he tightened his hold on her hand.
Edward stopped a few yards away from Jacob, drawing his hand back slightly, pulling Bella halfway behind his body, acting as a shield. She made an annoyed sound in the back of her throat. She knew he regarded Jacob as dangerous-which in her mind was ridiculous. She had been around the wolves for months and had not stubbed so much as a toe.
"You could have called us." Edward was saying as Bella tried to focus her attention on the actual words. She was finding it a bit difficult with Jacob's dark eyes trained on her face. She felt heat rising in her cheeks and suddenly realized she was blushing.
What the hell?
Jacob let out a derisive snort. "I don't have leeches on speed dial."
"You could have reached me at Bella's house, of course." Edward continued in a steel hard voice.
Jacob ignored that; his gaze still fixed on Bella's face. "What makes you think I came here to talk to you?"
"You forget I can tell what you're thinking." Edward reminded him.
"Only what I'm thinking in the moment." Jacob countered, a slight sneer crossing his face.
Edward appeared a little non-plussed at that. He paused for a few seconds, as if gathering his thoughts. "This is hardly the place, Jacob. Could we discuss this later?"
Jacob finally tore his eyes away from Bella and moved to Edward. "Oh, you would have loved that, I'm sure. I could just stop by your crypt after school." He spat sarcastically. "What's wrong with now?"
Edward looked toward the crowd pointedly, his eyes resting on the witnesses who were barely out of hearing range. The sidewalk was getting more and more crowded as others joined the throng.
"I already know what you came to say. Consider your message delivered."
Edward glanced down at Bella with worried eyes, clearly uneasy about what she was making of all this.
Bella stared back at him critically. "Warned?"
"He didn't tell you." Jacob surmised, his eyes returning to her at once. "But then what else do you expect, Bella."
Bella felt her heart lurch at the idea that Edward had concealed something important from her again, after all his promises not to leave her out of the loop. "Edward? What don't I know?"
Edward didn't immediately reply. He was glaring at Jacob malevolently, as if he would very much like to rip his head off. "Did you come here deliberately to hurt her?"
Jacob was unmoved. "You are the one hurting her. Keeping things from her. You don't have the right."
"I'm protecting her!" Edward fumed.
"You're just protecting yourself." Jacob retorted.
"Will someone please tell me what this is all about?" Bella demanded. "Edward?"
Edward didn't answer.
"Jake?"
Jacob raised his eyebrows at her stern tone. Her brown eyes were like polished amber in the first rays of dawn, as she waited impatiently for his answer. "I think you know." He said huskily.
In the dead silence, as Bella's brain slowly began to work through the details, she finally put two and two together. It was so obvious; she should have seen it straight away.
-Something Edward didn't want her to know.
-Something that Jacob would never have kept from her.
-Something that would cause Edward to insist that she fly across the country.
-Something that Alice had seen in a vision last week-a vision Edward had lied to her about again.
-Something she knew was coming anyway.
"Victoria." Bella said dully, her eyes never leaving Jacob's.
"Yes."
"She came back for me?"
"Yes." Jacob said again.
Bella shivered slightly as the cool breeze lifted her hair off her hot neck. She suddenly felt Edward's arms surround her, pulling her tightly into his side, angling his body so that he was still between her and Jacob. He stroked her face with anxious cold hands, making her tremble even more.
"Its fine." He whispered. "I'll never let her get close to you."
Bella looked up at him incredulously. "That's what you choose to focus on? You lied to me, Edward."
"Bella…."
"After all of your promises." Bella cut in before he could make his usual excuses.
"I know you are upset and frightened, Bella." Edward said in a low voice. "This is the reaction I was worried about."
"I am upset but not because I'm frightened. I'm upset because I'm angry that you kept this from me." Bella argued.
Edward kept his voice muted, still worried by the crowd. He glared over at Jacob. "Happy now, mongrel? This is the last thing she needs."
"She had a right to know." Jacob challenged. "Its her life. She should be in control of it."
"I was protecting her. I didn't want her to be frightened unnecessarily when she was never in danger."
"Better frightened than lied to. Anyway, Bella is stronger than you think. You really don't know her at all, do you?" Jacob sneered.
"I am here you know." Bella interrupted icily.
"I'm sorry, Bella." Edward apologized. "Now don't you see why I kept it from you? I was afraid that this would happen, that he would take advantage of the situation and twist things around to make me look like the bad guy."
Bella shot him an annoyed look, very rare coming from her. It wasn't often she allowed her irritation with him to show. Renee had been right when she had pointed out that her daughter often hid how she was truly feeling because she was afraid of his reaction.
This time was different, however. With Jacob there looking on, she felt a rare instance of boldness. "Don't try and make excuses, Edward." She warned. She then turned her ire onto Jacob. "And you…you were supposed to sell the bike. You promised Charlie you would."
She recalled begging Charlie on Jake's behalf-after all, he'd put weeks of labor into both motorcycles, and deserved some kind of payback-Charlie would have thrown her bike in a dumpster. And possibly set that dumpster on fire.
"Yeah, right. Like I would do that. It belongs to you, not me. Anyway, I'll hold onto it until you want it back." A tiny hint of a smile was suddenly playing around the edge of his lips. He knew once she started attacking him verbally that things were on the mend between them. She only did this out of frustration. She wasn't so much mad at him, but at the situation and Cullen.
"Jake…"
"Yes?"
Bella was vividly conscious of Edward, his arms like steel traps around her, preventing her from moving. She stared up at him. "Let me go."
"Bella, I don't think…" Edward began.
"I said let me go." Bella's voice was like steel.
With the crowd watching, Edward had no choice but to obey.
Jacob was practically vibrating with laughter. This was the Bella he knew and loved-not the submissive introvert that Cullen turned her into. He watched in amusement as she moved toward him, edging closer to the shining black motorcycle. He knew there was a reason he had brought the helmet. And the best part was there was nothing Cullen could do to stop her.
"You know I think I might have been wrong before, Bells." Jacob said to her as she reached his side. "About not being able to be friends. Maybe we could do it, on my side of the line."
"Really?" Bella said patronizingly as she took another step closer to the bike.
The amusement faded from Jacob's eyes as he regarded her with a serious expression. He ignored Edward completely, almost seeming to forget he was there. "I miss you every day, Bella. It's not the same without you."
"Uh huh." Bella replied non-committingly. She reached for the helmet and placed it over her head, clicking the chin strap together, she quickly mounted the bike.
"Bella, what do you think you're doing?" Edward called to her, his face registering disbelief. "Get off that thing-its dangerous."
Jacob was enjoying Edward's discomfiture. He grinned over at Bella, getting ready to get on the bike with her. She had already kickstarted the engine on the first try, just like he had taught her so long ago. Seeing Bella so in control of the machine brought back warm memories of all their past riding expeditions. With practice, and after several hospital visits, she had become a skilled rider. He had no worries that she could hold her own, even on his machine. Cullen, on the other hand, was fretting that she might injure herself, even though she was only sitting astride the bike at this point.
"Chill leech." Jacob sniggered as he took a step closer toward Bella.
But even he wasn't prepared for what she did next. Before he had a chance to join her on the bike, Bella took off at speed, completely scattering the crowd, which quickly cleared a path for her as she headed out of the parking lot and away.
A/N-thanks for reading!