A/N: Thanks so much for all your wonderful thoughts while I've been on hiatus.
I wanted to end the year with a small update, at least. :)
Most characters belong to S. Meyer. The rest belong to me. All mistakes are mine.
Chapter 10 – Holiday Twist
Bella:
Rosalie Hale left a couple of hours later, with a jolly skip in her steps while whistling a jingle, all the way down the snow-blanketed porch and straight into her Christmas-wagon-colored Tesla Model X. She sped off, her tires etching broad zig-zag patterns over the thin layer of snow coating the driveway as if she were hanging festive boughs of garland.
Flanking opposite sides of the left foyer window, Edward and I observed Rosalie's departure with differing expressions. I smirked at her shameless delight in getting me to part with yet more of Aunt Gigi's bequeathal. Edward expelled a long breath through his nostrils. Its warmth skimmed my neck, even from the other side of the window. Or, maybe I imagined it did. Either way, I remained still as the fine hairs on my nape stood in salute.
How a ghost elicited such a reaction from a human was a mystery – in more ways than one. Regardless, it was a mystery I couldn't attempt to solve while the spectral enigma at its root stood so near. Neither could I pause to puzzle out the strange incidents – where perhaps phenomena was a better word – that occurred twice in one morning. Two times, I'd reached for two separate doorknobs; twice, it looked and felt as if my hand slipped through the objects.
With an imperceptible head shake, I nudged the thought and its accompanying misgivings to the back of my mind. Doubtless, it was another case of my imagination on overdrive. Why it would conjure such strange notions was something else I'd riddle out later when alone.
Instead, I pivoted from the window and toward Edward, who crossed his arms against his chest and knitted his brows. His gaze appeared caught by the wintry landscape on the other side of the frosted pane, and I couldn't blame his absorption. The view was a powdery sort of translucence that made me feel what living inside a snow globe must be like.
"Well, Miss Rosalie Hale left in a much more gregarious state than when she arrived at our doorstep."
An inward thrill rushed through me at the transition, when just a few days ago, Edward played supernatural tricks on me while shouting out "my house!" around every bend. Now, we were friends who stood together in breezy conversation while he said things like, "our doorstep." But, though inwardly I enjoyed the change, I had no plans to congratulate him for it. After all, he was merely acknowledging a fact. Outwardly, I snorted and said,
"Can you blame her? She just set eyes on a trove of 1920s-era furnishings so well crafted that, despite time and age, most pieces can still be refurbished. It's a furniture restorer's heaven."
Edward's reply was barely a grunt, making me chuckle.
"Ed, it's almost Christmas, and Rosalie Hale is only the latest in a long line of Forksters whose holiday shopping will now be financed by yours truly. At this point, Forks should just rename itself Bellaville." Laughing, I repeated that last word I'd invented. "Bellaville. I like the sound of that."
Still unresponsive, Edward's expression remained unamused. I frowned, wondering why he wasn't more diverted by my quips. They were good quips. Even more, they were accurate. Despite the distracting image he might have presented, had I been focused on how his biceps strained against his shirt sleeves, I wasn't one to be flustered into spouting hyperbole. Well, the last part about Forks renaming itself Bellaville in my honor may have been a bit of muscle-sidetracked twaddle, but the rest was fact. Throughout our tour of the house, Rosalie gushed, beamed, clapped, and, on occasion, shrieked like an elf at the Christmas night afterparty as she took in the furniture and fixtures. She requested background information as if I'd been there with a hammer and chisel when each piece was crafted. Luckily, the artisan's ghost stood by to answer all inquiries, which I then passed on as my own answers.
Other than these tidbits, though, Edward remained well-behaved throughout Rosalie's visit, neither mysteriously breaking attic windows nor levitating heavy pieces of furniture. I assumed his restraint was due to a realization that his initial apprehension regarding Rosalie sentencing his handiwork to the junk pile was unfounded, as was his fear that I'd sanction her judgments. Even the few pieces she'd deemed ineligible for restoration hadn't been assessed garbage.
But now, Edward slowly angled his lean frame toward me while maintaining the necessary distance between us. I knew he meant to ensure I wasn't caught in the intricate core of the puzzlingly mesmerizing, dizzyingly compulsive, and bewilderingly intoxicating web he weaved. That invisible force tended to floor me without him knowing how he did so. So, obviously, I was grateful for his chivalrous consideration. I was especially grateful for the distance when his eyes met mine. Between the enthralling web and the depth of those sea-green eyes, I may have been in a slight bit of trouble.
As it was, my brows rose to my forehead at the shadow of unease lingering in his gaze, though his features remained inscrutable.
"Edward? Are you worried about the pieces Rosalie said can't be restored? Because I thought her suggestion that we consider donating those to the town's historical society was an interesting one-"
"Bella-"
"-but by no means is it something we have to do. I know your heart and soul went into crafting this house and everything in it, and well, I won't ask you to part with any of it. We have a big house, and we can either store some pieces in the attic or leave them right where they are."
Before taking the walk-through with Rosalie, Edward had rushed me through an explanation of what the work he'd done to and in this house meant to him. He compared his artisanship to mine and pointed out that the handcrafted pieces and the house were his heart and soul, much as the book I was writing was my heart and soul.
However, as Rosalie and I wandered through the house with an invisible Edward trudging as close beside me as safely possible and providing context, it struck me that there was another layer of connection between Edward and this home.
To Edward, the pieces he'd constructed weren't merely furniture in various states of time-worn fade and disrepair. This house and its furnishings once represented Edward's future and the whole mortal life he'd envisioned for himself and…and his family, for his fiancée and the child they expected. The pieces were tangible reproductions of Edward Masen, not the bootlegging, stash-of-cash hiding, quasi-gangster in life, house-haunter in death everyone nowadays believed him. Rather, the pieces epitomized the man who no one still alive, except possibly me, seemed to know had ever existed: Edward Masen the craftsman, the artisan, the loving and doting son, the custodian to his kin, the man with a wonderfully dry sense of humor, the man with a great head for business, the man not averse to a relationship with a strong woman at a time when strong women were considered shocking, and the man who happily anticipated fatherhood.
I offered him a soft smile meant to allay any remaining concerns. If I could've reached across space and time and restored him to the existence he was cheated of, I would've. Unfortunately, I couldn't even reach out and touch him without falling – again, falling in more ways than one. All I could do was restore his furniture. Which was why his following words confounded me all the more.
"Bella, I'm not worried about the furniture. Not anymore. You gave me your word you'd make no decisions on their fate without me, and I believe you."
"Oh." I tilted my head. "Then, what's the problem?"
He sighed, his broad shoulders rising and falling in my periphery while I held his gaze.
"The problem is the numbers that flew back and forth between you and Miss Hale, and even more so, the number on which you both settled before you got on your…cell phone," he said, after working for a second to recall the object's name, "and pressed some buttons that made her grin and rush out of here like a rum runner reading the weather forecast on a clear night."
"You don't like the deposit I paid her?"
"The dep-" Edward recoiled and uncrossed arms, bouncing his fingertips against a palm in a time-out gesture. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Come again? How was that massive amount merely a deposit?"
"That was to retain her services once she deemed the project worth her time. Now, she'll go back and prepare an estimate based on all she saw today. In a few days, I'll meet with her at her office, and we'll go over the estimate piece by piece."
As I spoke, Edward paced the floor, the soles of his patent leather shoes clacking out a heavy yet even beat around the landing. Back and forth he went, raking his fingers through his hair as he paced forward, then returning with that hair gripped by its roots. Meanwhile, I soldiered on with my verbal flowchart, hoping I'd hit on whatever step of the process had him flustered before he wore off the refinishing on our wooden floors.
"Of course, I'll bring her proposal home first so you and I can decide everything together. Either way, her work will likely take weeks, if not months, so there will be plenty of time to revise and revisit if necessary. Only once all work is complete will we know the final cost, and Venmo will take care of that-"
He stopped with his hand buried in his scalp. "Perhaps this is neither here nor there, but who in the world is Ven Mo, and what does he have to do with this?"
I pressed my lips together for two quick seconds to avoid bursting into laughter. "Venmo isn't a person; it's a cash app. That is, it's an- just think of it as a money wire," I summarized, "by which Party A transfers funds to Party B."
If possible, Edward's expression downgraded. "Bella, are you sure you know what you're doing? Because it looks to me like Miss Hale is taking advantage of your naivete with money and is taking you for all you're worth."
Somehow, I managed to swallow back the curses bouncing like Olympic divers on the tip of my tongue. Drawing a deep breath, I replied with as much patience as I could.
"So that's your problem here: my female naivete with money."
"Bella-"
"Edward, I don't mean to sound caustic or facetious, but you realize that it's been about a hundred years since you paid any bills, right? Perhaps you're the one with little understanding of the current value of money and cost of business?"
His only reply was to recross his arms and lift his right eyebrow.
"I know I just made that whole crack about financing half of the Forks residents' Christmas shopping. And I won't lie," I snickered, "collectively, they're making a killing off me. But I'm also having a hell of a lot of work done here during the holidays," I added, ticking off each point by raising a finger, "and requesting quick turnarounds for certain services, such as heat and electricity 'cause Lord knows lately I need to Netflix and chill with myself if with no one else."
Edward scratched his head and frowned. "Netflix…and…?"
"Never- never mind that," I stuttered. "The point is, all things considered, most of the people I've dealt with over the past couple of weeks have been fair, such as Emmett McCarty."
To this, Edward agreed with a quick nod. "Emmett is a good guy, yes. He's been in this house several times, yet he's never tried to find my stash."
"And I think we can place Alice the Realtor, and Rosalie Hale, Furniture Restorer in similar categories. For all Alice's frustrating quirks, she tried to sell me a house to make her commission. Nothing more. As for Rose, her initial estimates were fair, Edward, and though she's heard of the stories regarding your stash, she had eyes and ears for nothing but what you built with your hands. Mike, the HVAC guy, however, we have to exclude from that list," I said. "That sneaky bastard definitely snuck in here to search around, and he charged me for that time. Nervy bastard!"
Mike's audacity and a mental recollection of how his latest attempt to sneak into the house and find Edward's stash-of-cash ended, with him buried under a thick mound of snow, made me chuckle. In contrast, Edward's top lip curled, and his jaw snapped into a rigid angle.
"Do you see what I mean? That bastard has been after my stash for years. In the past, I've let him off with a scare here and a few scrapes there, but you're living here now. I won't have him scaring you or imposing on you."
"Scaring or imposing on me?" I scoffed, but Edward continued ranting over me.
"And you're telling me now that he overcharged you?" He shook his head, scowling. "The next time he steps foot in this house, I'm splitting him in two."
"Ouch. That sounds gory. And a tad bit overreactive, Edward." I winked at him, trying and failing to coax a smile. "Either way, overcharging, sneaky bastards who better keep out lest they end up split sideways-"
"Lengthwise."
"Sorry, lengthwise. All that notwithstanding, my point is that this sweet Victorian has sat empty and neglected for…a while, as you know. And I knew coming into this that the house would cost me, and I'm good with it." I tempered this with a smile and a shrugged shoulder meant to convey how unbothered I was.
The money topic should've ended there. However, Edward remained adamant and unappeased. It was a lethal combination in the incorporeal body of a man whose notions of chivalry and gentlemanly behavior hadn't seen an update since the 1920s.
"Well, I'm not good with it," he spat, taking two quick strides toward me.
Perhaps he expected me to recoil or take an equal amount of steps back. After all, he was accustomed to striking fear in people's hearts. More likely, he wasn't trying to intimidate me as much as he expected me to be the one to maintain the distance we tended to keep between one another due to my reaction to his preternatural force. So, when I held my ground, Edward hesitated, rocking back on his heels as if debating whether he should give back those steps. In the end, his agitation must've been too grand. He leaned in and blurted,
"Bella, that's not how a real man did things in my day."
He was treading on a layer of ice as thin as the one covering the streams at the end of our property. And perhaps I should've warned him. But I chose to bite my tongue against the almost overpowering urge to remind him that he was, in fact, no longer a real man. Not in the strictest definition of real when defined as something tangible. Unfortunately, Edward took my immediate silence as a sign that continuing with this train of thought was acceptable.
"In my day, when a man and a woman shared a living space, regardless of the state of their relationship – whether they were mother and son, brother and sister, husband and wife, fff-friend," he said, tripping over his tongue, "and friend, the woman knew she would be taken care of and that living expenses would never all fall to her."
"What did you say?"
He spoke louder. "I said-"
"I heard what you said," I snapped, crossing my own arms. "I just can't believe you said it. Though, I guess I shouldn't be surprised, considering the era you're from."
"No, you shouldn't be surprised," he concurred with a smug, lopsided grin, "and it gratifies me to know that you know me well enough by now to understand why I can't let you do this. I can't let you pay the bills – at least not by yourself. So, let me tell you where my stash-"
"I don't give a flying reindeer's ass where your stash of cash is, Edward," I hissed through clenched teeth, then pointed my forefinger at him as if it were a loaded object, "and you'd better not even try to tell-"
"I stashed it in-"
My palms flew to my ears, where I applied generous pressure, shut my eyes, and then screamed bloody murder.
"AAAAAAAAH! AAAAH! AAAAH!"
About a half-minute later, I stopped screaming. Reopening my eyes, I found Edward watching me, with his usually stoic jaw agape.
"The devil was that?" he finally managed.
"I don't want to hear it."
"Bella," he growled.
Now, this was supposed to be his form of intimidation. Only, I'd always found his attempts to make me cower much less threatening and much more…provoking. My scalp prickled, especially as he stretched out an arm as if he meant to throw caution to the wind. Did he mean to brace a hand around my shoulder or grip my forearm? Or was it an attempt to gently cradle my cheek or curve a hand around my waist? I held my breath, but in the next moment, Edward sighed and forewent touching me in favor of pulling his own hair.
"Let me just tell you where-"
Again, I shut my eyes and covered my ears. "LA, LA, LA, LA, LA! FA, LA, LA, LA, LAAAA, LA, LA, LA, LAAAA!"
When I stopped and reopened my eyes, Edward stood, observing me with the sort of cautious, levelheaded calm one keeps while observing a simmering volcano.
"Have you lost your mind?" he asked with the same tone.
"Have you lost your mind?" I shouted. "Have you lost your mind? Have you completely lost your mind?"
"Stop repeating yourself."
"Then stop trying to tell me where your stash is!"
"You have to let me tell you!" he shouted back now. "We are a man and a woman living together!"
"Holy…"
"Therefore, you have to let me be the man of the house and-"
"I swear to Santa Claus and all his elves," I said, fisting my hair, "you finish that sexist sentence, and I will call Mike the HVAC guy back to this house and personally invite him to rummage to his heart's content!"
"You wouldn't dare," he fumed.
"Watch me!"
Edward leaned in and leveled me with a glare. "Only if you want to watch me split him lengthwise."
He spat the words through his teeth. Yet despite the quieter form of seething, the window between us gave a preternatural rattle, knocking soft mounds of snow off its outer sill. This infuriated me even more, that even now, he'd attempt to frighten me with his preternatural powers. Edward straightened when I advanced on him, his eyes widening in surprise as I kept moving forward.
"You can draw and quarter him a la Middle Ages England for all I care."
"Bella…" he warned, retreating backward.
"Chop him up into tiny pieces before scattering his chunks to the four winds," I pushed on, fluttering my fingers all around me as if dispersing confetti. The furniture around us shook.
"Quarter him, chop him, and scatter him? Jesus. And you call me gory. The Capones and Dennisons of my day had nothing on you," Edward breathed. His steps continued receding, his head pivoting. He shot glances around the perimeter and over his shoulder at the wall behind him, growing closer.
"I keep trying to tell you that times have changed. Women can be just as threatening as men."
"So I see."
"You know what you need, Edward?"
His smirk infuriated me all the more. "I have no confidence you'll hit on it, but what do you think I need, Bella?"
"You need to get on Google, Safari, Bing, Yahoo, or whatever search engine you prefer, and do some serious research!"
"There you go. You swung too wide. What's more, I have no clue what any of what you just said means."
"Oh, but you're the all-knowing wraith," I mocked. "What do you mean you don't know what any of that means?"
Once again, he rapidly peeked over his shoulder. "Bella, stop. You're getting too-"
"And you know what else? Since you're so anxious to have someone know where your stash of cash is, how about I go stand in the middle of Forks' Main Street and shout out to everyone who'll listen that it's indeed true that there's a stash of cash hidden somewhere in this house?"
"You wouldn't do that," he said dryly as if the intimation that I'd reveal the secret he'd carried to the grave was now more of a secondary concern. "Now stop," he said with more feeling. "You know what can happen if we come too close-"
"Pfft. If only I knew. Then maybe I'd get a good night's sleep without Netflix."
"What?"
"Nothing! Stop trying to distract me! And stop levitating things!"
"I'm not-"
"I'll invite 'em all over for a holiday Search-the-House party!" I yelled. "I swear I will!"
Edward's back brushed against the wall, and the space between us shrank to barely enough to squeeze a basketball between. Yet I kept drawing nearer.
"Okay, enough, Bella. You've made your point. Now stop."
"Just who do you think you are, Ed? 'Okay, enough, Bella'? This isn't the 1920s! You don't tell a woman when she's had enough, or it's time to stop! The woman tells you when she's had enough and when she wants to stop!"
"What are we talking about here?"
"We're talking about the big package you've got stashed! The one you want to give me!"
His eyes popped, then narrowed as if my reply confused him more. He then gave his head a brisk shake as if to clear it.
"Keep playing-" I said.
"I'm not."
"-and this house will be teeming with individuals who'll happily watch you show them your huge-"
"Bella-"
"-substantially thick-"
"Bella, stop," he whispered softly, his gaze still intense but wistful. "You're not thinking straight."
I chuckled humorlessly. "Ah, now it's the 'not thinking straight' argument."
When my chest came into contact with his, both our breaths hitched. Angling my head sharply, I held Edward's intent gaze. His chest heaved, his jaw squared, and his nostrils flared. This strong, sharp, and potent man…this powerful, otherworldly presence suddenly looked like a deer trapped in headlights, with no clue how to escape them, where I was the mighty semi who held him in awestruck petrification. My entire system thrummed.
He cradled my cheek in one hand, and I pressed my face against his palm, amazed by the warmth of a spectral hand.
"Bella, you don't understand…"
I fisted the smooth vest he always wore over a white button-down shirt. It was his perpetual outfit – vest, shirt, slacks, and patent leather shoes. I'd never asked, but I was sure they were the clothes he wore the night he was killed. Why he was so dressed up that night on a rum-runner boat was something else I hadn't asked. But it was Christmas Eve, and I knew he'd meant to go see his pregnant girlfriend, Charlotte, right afterward. Yet, despite the horrible way he'd died, Edward's clothes were always pristine, always perfectly starched, his shirt almost glowing ivory, and his pants and vest a gray as smooth as the surface of a precious stone.
"What don't I understand?"
And abruptly, I was in the midst of a crimson mist. I danced at the core of a fiery flame. The flame scorched me without charring me. It consumed me without baking me. The flame urged me to shut my eyes and use Edward's fisted garment as a lever to lift myself on my tiptoes…
"The last thing in the world I will ever do now…"
"Edward…" I breathed.
"…the last thing I'll ever risk…"
A spiny breeze crept up my back, whipping my hair around my face. My hands suddenly felt empty. I opened my eyes, blinking several times, and found the soft material between my fingers no longer there. Neither was Edward there. I faced the freshly painted wall with nothing and no one between it and me.
"…is hurting you." His voice wafted in the air, carried from no clear direction.
My fisted hands unfurled and fell to my sides, and I stared blankly at the wall, snorting before I spoke to it.
"Edward Cullen, for all your quasi-gangster ways, for your rattling snowy windows and levitating furniture to scare me, you're the one behaving just a tad bit fainthearted right now."
There was a beat of silence. Finally, I turned away from the wall, believing he meant not to answer. Again, I heard his voice floating around me:
"Perhaps some…things do scare me. But Bella, I wasn't the one rattling windows and levitating furniture this time."
A/N: Thoughts?
2024 Resolution: I WILL try to finish this, as well as the rest of my WIPs, this coming year.
Happy and Peaceful 2024 to all of you. 3
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