A/N: This chapter marks one million words stored in my FFN account, which is pretty cool. Even cooler, one of my closest friends will be staying over, and while I can keep up with weekly updates, you might get a few shorties.
Thank you all for being here :) Adore your thoughts!
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Scheduled for Friday
by Anton M.
29: Cheek Kisses
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Saturday, January 28 (cont.)
I face-planted and groaned into our lumpy couch after Edward had left.
"What happened, honey?" dad asked, sitting by my feet and squeezing my ankle.
"I kissed Edward on the cheek."
"Oh no," dad gasped. He raised his voice. "Renee, you will not believe this!"
"Shut up, dad."
Mom, looking beautifully put-together in human clothes, came back from the bathroom and sat in the armchair. "What happened?"
"Bella kissed Edward on the cheek. Can you imagine?!"
"Aw," mom cooed. "That's sweet."
"It's not sweet. It's lame."
"Why is it lame?"
"It's what parents do to their children," I replied, sighing into the throw pillow under my head. "And he's just so cool. I should've been braver. Done something sexier. He must think I'm a moron now."
My parents didn't reply, and when I peeked at them, mom leaned forward. "You're right," she said, shaking her head. She rested her jaw on her palm. "I'm sure the boy already bought tickets to Mexico, just to avoid you." She paused, eyes lighting up. "Charlie, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"No—" I started, but it was too late.
My parents practically lunged at me, covering my cheek and my hair in kisses. I grimaced, laughing, hiding my face in the pillow but they kept coming at me on the sides. "Oh my God, guys, stop!"
"Not until you admit that cheek kisses are the cutest and only the coolest people give them," dad replied before his attack resumed, and I groan-whined with the most unflattering sound before they started tickling me.
"Domestic violence!" I panted, writhing under them, almost in tears from laughter.
"Domestic cuteness," mom replied, continuing to tickle me until I wriggled away and gasped for mercy.
"Fine! Fine. Cheek kisses are the cutest," I agreed reluctantly.
"And…?"
I had no control over the grin on my face even if I was dying inside. "And only the coolest people give them."
"See, that wasn't so hard now, was it?" dad replied as my mom and dad purposefully plopped down behind me on the couch, covering my legs with theirs. I huffed but didn't move, and I could hear the teasing in dad's voice when he added, "I'm surprised only cheeks were involved given how I found you in the garage."
I hid my face when it burned. Dad updated mom on accidentally (or so he claimed!) walking in on Edward and me in each other's arms on the floor, but a lifetime's worth of teasing was interrupted by my phone when it dinged with a message. I picked it up from the side table.
My heart nearly gave out when I read Edward's text.
'Safely home. Sweet dreams.'
Still in disbelief that tonight had happened and that Edward had willingly held me in his arms, I couldn't have kept the smile from my face even if I tried. Ignoring my parents' eyes on me, I typed my reply before I could chicken out.
'They are now. Sweet dreams :)'
Holding my breath, I began to regret my bold words before I saw a tiny heart appear in response to my text.
He hearted my message.
He hearted it.
We'd shared the simplest little texts without emojis, and yet my chest was so full of Edward and memories of his breath on my face that his little heart helped me float through most of Sunday. Did he heart messages often? Was this just one of many, and therefore didn't mean all the little things I wanted it to mean?
I wasn't in the mood to care. His little heart made my chest feel all mushy and sweet inside.
My parents and I spent our Sunday in our new house in Smyrna with some of our contractors, fixing and cutting and measuring and talking. It took so long that I did my homework on the (totally empty) living room floor, struggling to focus not because of the noise around me but because I couldn't stop going back to see Edward's little heart next to my last message. (Yes, I was pathetic, but what else was new.)
I posted a new video of Jake on my TikTok. I messaged with Alice. I read a few chapters of The Gift of Fear but googled the guy and listened to multiple videos and podcasts starring him. Emmett had been so annoying with his insistence that I read it, but… the book was actually pretty easy to read and seemed useful, even if it made me a bit more alarmed by the man who'd (probably) taken photos of me that Saturday night before he disappeared.
Mom took my measurements for clothes because I literally did not have an evening to spend on shopping, and we agreed on a reasonable number of pants, tops, sweaters and skirts I should've owned. If she had time, she was going to browse through some of the thrift stores in high-income areas (I kept my fingers crossed because my mom was the best at that), but if she did not, she was going to order me clothes from websites she'd used before whose measurements she trusted. It would've been amazing to have the time to go shopping with Alice and my mom, they both would've adored it too much for words, but I simply did not have the bandwidth to spend in stores even if I wasn't mind-blowingly booked like a little termite.
I wore mom's high-waisted white jeans, a dark green long-sleeved crop-top, and my favorite dog-eared Chelsea boots to school on Monday. It was raining. Dad did my (damp, moisturized) hair in a side French braid, loose enough to accommodate my curls (oh yes, he'd learned how to do my hair when I was eight), and I stepped out of Emmett's truck not even pretending that my eyes did not immediately lock on Edward's bike (parked already).
Entering the school, I failed to contain the flutter in my chest, hoping and dreading seeing Edward because I wondered if he'd behave differently around me.
A part of me thought that Peter would've arranged a morning of tomato-throwing in my direction, especially given that his locker was a single locker away from mine, but when I saw him with his friend group, we just nodded at each other with a polite smile.
My brain had been so full of Edward that I hadn't realized (and I should've) that this was the first time for Alice to meet me after our call. She lit up like the artificial sunrise in Truman Show, because, of course, Nala. I wished I could've read her mind because I could see a thousand emotions in her eyes before she fell into my arms.
Hugging me, swaying, she didn't let go for a dozen seconds until she pulled back, squeezed my shoulders, tilted her head on the side and looked at me with the most awe-filled expression of bittersweetness, knowing she couldn't say anything. Then, she hugged me again before, finally, she let go of me, her amber eyes shimmering, looking like she wanted to jump out of her tiny body and cry, all at once. She settled back against Jasper, sliding her hand in his.
Jasper's eyes flickered between us.
"What was that?" he asked.
"Nothing," Alice replied, her voice pitched just a little high as she pretended to be nonchalant. "I just missed Bella. We always hug like this when we haven't seen each other for a while."
Jasper assessed us, clearly wanting to call bullshit, and Alice gave me a sheepish grimace as if to say 'I didn't say anything,' but fortunately for both of us, Jasper's attention was caught by Edward.
My heart started beating just a little bit quicker at the sight of him. Edward's ripped gray jeans, damp from rain, clung to his legs, and I'd missed the ragged sleeve ends of his black hoodie. He didn't seem to have slept much. The silver barbell on his eyebrow gave a layer of intimidation to his face, especially with the shorter buzz cut he was sporting today. His hair was trimmed from nearly half an inch to a quarter, and I kind of… I missed his hair growing out of its buzz cut. Why did he have to keep cutting it?
I couldn't interpret the emotion in his eyes when our eyes locked, but it made me feel like a thousand little butterflies were struggling to escape my ribcage.
Edward gave me a nod but approached Jasper. He pressed his lips together, narrowing his eyes, stepping closer, and closer, cracking his neck, almost like preparing for a fight. His expression was a weird combination of threat and amusement. He stepped closer, still, nearly flush against Jasper's chest before Jasper was forced to step back.
"You owe me," Edward said.
Jasper looked like the cat that ate the canary as his eyes, all too briefly, landed on me. "Oh but I think you owe me."
Edward flicked his finger against the centre of Jasper's chest, twice. "You are so lucky they're here."
"My guardian angels," Jasper replied, eyes full of laughter. He did not react to the way Edward flicked his chest or explain what it meant. Alice and I looked at each other, equally mystified.
"What was that?" Alice asked Jasper, echoing his words from before.
Edward and Jasper looked at each other before both said, "Nothing," shrugging us off, and it was clear as day that the best friends probably knew just as much (if not more) about each other as Alice and I did about each other.
"Hmm," Alice replied, probably already plotting a way to find out. I, too, was eager to be involved in that plotting but Jasper diverted Alice's attention with a question, and mine was drawn by a gentle but unmistakeable hand on my elbow. It was silly to be hyper aware of Edward's touch but I felt it so deep in my bones he may as well have kissed me.
"Who's your first class?" Edward asked, as if his touch wasn't wreaking havoc in my heart.
"Mrs. Alston. Yours?"
"Needham," he replied. We left Alice and Jasper to walk in the opposite direction.
"But Needham is on the second floor on the other side of the courtyard," I argued.
Edward lifted his shoulder, pulling his bottom lip in his mouth as he assessed me with silent warmth in his eyes.
"I know," he replied quietly.
Swallowing my excited giddiness over the fact that my crush was walking me to class (no boy had ever done that before), I gave him a small smile. If I showed him the full force of how happy this gesture made me, he would've been first in line for a restraining order.
"How was your Sunday?" I asked, desperately casual.
"Good," he answered. "Played some chess, looked after Riley, cut off my hair, the usual. What about yours?"
His forearm brushed my arm as we walked side by side, and I swooned when he gripped my elbow to keep me out of the way of a group of freshmen running past us.
"Good. Busy," I replied, hesitating, trying to figure out if this was the right moment to tell him we were moving to Smyrna. "Why'd you cut off your hair?"
Edward stifled his smile. "Because… it grows?"
"You shock me." I laughed. "I mean—why do you have it in a buzz cut?"
"It's cheap."
Okay, I should've guessed that. "Do you do it yourself?"
"Nowadays, yeah. Dad used to do mine and I used to do his but he couldn't do it yesterday and I've done it myself a few times before."
I stopped him, lifting my hands to his hair and pulling his head down. Smiling, Edward complied, bending and leaning forward as I brushed my fingers over his buzz cut. It might've not been my favorite length on him but the way his short hair felt against my fingertips, all tingly tickling, felt amazing. I could've easily spent a day running my fingers over his hair.
Edward had the strangest guarded look in his eyes when I let go. We continued walking.
"So," he said, voice a bit rough and all the more attractive for it. "What's the verdict?"
"You did a great job."
I felt goosebumps on my neck at the way he was looking at me. "But…?"
"It makes you look crazy intimidating."
Taken aback, Edward focused his gaze on me. "The hair?"
"Yeah," I admitted. "You're more approachable when you let it grow."
We stopped next to my classroom, World Literature and Composition, and I waved at Jane and Skylar before turning to look up at Edward again. He stepped into my personal space, frowning down at me, close enough that I could feel his breath on my forehead.
"Do you find me intimidating?" he asked, quietly.
"Sometimes," I answered, breathless in his proximity but determined to ignore it. "Sometimes I do. Less now that I've gotten to know you, though. I think you can give off a bit of an… army vibe. My parents asked me if you come from a military family."
"My dad was in the army, way back, before I was born. He's all about authority and unquestioning compliance. It can be," Edward let out a slow breath, "...difficult."
It also explained how directly and calmly he carried himself around adults. His dad had probably beat him into those habits, although hopefully not literally.
"I'm sorry," I replied, not knowing what else to say. "Is he strict?"
"He used to be. Now… after mom passed away, he's mostly indifferent, which feels worse. He only cares about when I come and go. Unless I do something wrong, in which case… yeah, he's pretty strict, especially when—"
Edward stopped talking, glancing around, as if only now realizing we weren't alone. As curious as I was about what he was about to say, I didn't want to push him for answers in school. "I'm sure he's crazy proud of you."
He shrugged, giving me a faux-nonchalant smile, clearly disagreeing with me. A moment later, he narrowed his surprisingly playful eyes and nudged me. "Why is it that I just tell you everything about my life when I talk to you?"
"It keeps the hair curly." I grinned. Edward's eyes softened as his eyes ran over my hairdo, but when he discovered it was two minutes to the bell, he grazed my cheek with his knuckles and pressed a feather-light kiss against my hairline, causing a flurry of goosebumps to rise on my neck.
He walked upstairs.
I floated to class, dizzy with the knowledge that not only had the cool, intimidating Edward walked me to class, he'd kissed my temple.
Maybe the coolest people did give cheek kisses.
…
