When Brian told her that she had a visitor, she half expected that it was Jacob being his usually pushy self; picking her up, making sure that she’ll do exactly what he ask her to do.
She was ready to be irritated, worlds like ‘damn, pushy Alpha’ tingling on her tongue, a massive frown ready to decorate her face in a moment’s notice.
Instead, her eyes blinked on Caleb’s grinning face and Mercy’s mildly interested ones. Before she could open her mouth, Caleb lifted a toolbox with his left hand, the other lifting one of Mercy’s that was also holding onto a toolbox.
“We’ve come to repent.” He announced in a cheerful and almost proud tone. Mercy scowled at him before twisting her hand out of his grasp.
Bella slid her eyes to Mercy and noticed that she was taking in her surroundings and tucking it inside her head. Looking at the gleam in the younger girl’s eyes, she had a sudden feeling of self consciousness, her eyes dropped to the mismatched tables and bookshelves and chairs that she hunted down in garage sales and flea markets which she and her staff then sanded and fixed and repainted themselves. Tina and Misha’s favorite past time was haggling, Lulu was great with a needle and flowers, Brian was handy with a hammer and one of Damian’s great loves was painting. The shop was a product of all their hard work, each knick knack, colorful pillow and artwork was a collage of all their tastes. She tried the clean and fluid style on her earlier months but decided she liked the homey and cluttered look more and her customers certainly thought it was charming but with the brisk and efficient way Mercy was looking around, Bella was afraid that her store looked…tacky.
It was ridiculous of her to feel so intimidated by a sixteen year old teenager with pigtails and frayed jeans but she was. When Mercy’s black eyes focused on her face, Bella fought the urge to babble.
She frowned and again, before she could say anything, Caleb gave her a knowing smile then handed her a note. Caleb snickered at the wary look she gave the note before opening it.
The note was short but succinct and the handwriting was unmistakably Jacob’s.
A sudden flashback of the many notes Jacob and she had exchanged played in her mind and she smiled at both the familiarity of the handwriting and what was written.
She lifted her eyes to Caleb whose eyes were distracted by the selection of pastries. “Are you sure I can’t offer any payment?”
He dragged his eyes from a tray of éclairs covered with melted chocolate. “No worries. Ja—“ He let out a small grunt and Bella sneaked a glance to the girl who stood beside him with a far too innocent look on her face.
“What did Jake say on the note?” She asked politely.
“That I should just feed you.”
She beamed at her and Bella suppressed the overwhelming urge to bask in her approval. “I’ll have one of those éclairs.”
“Me, too.” Caleb chimed in.
“If you’re sure.” Bella couldn’t help but feel a little uneasy at the smile and weighing look in Mercy’s eyes.
“Well, a slice of your peach pie would be nice, they say it’s good.”
Caleb’s dark eyes smiled at her. “I’d like one, too.”
Bella stared at both of their faces in bemusement. “All right. Do you want anything to drink?”
Both of them shrugged simultaneously although only Caleb answered, “Soda will be fine.” Mercy checked out the display mugs of all sizes and colors and shapes that cluttered the racks that hung on the wall behind the cashier where Lulu was observing them without blinking. Bella watched as Mercy caught Lulu’s eyes and both of them stared at each other before exchanging a smile. When Mercy turned back to Caleb, Lulu met Bella’s eyes and raised an eyebrow at her. Bella grimaced.
“So, you’re apartment upstairs right?” Caleb asked her.
“Uh, yeah.” She turned and led them to the stairs that led to her rooms. “The door’s not locked—“
“You don’t lock your doors?”
She gave him a look. “You sound like Jacob.”
He merely grinned, unrepentant. “We’ll be upstairs then.”
“Do you guys need me or—“
Caleb clambered up the stair behind Mercy. “Jacob made a list.”
“He made a list? Do I want to know how long it is?”
Caleb grinned at her from over his shoulder, probably heard the note of embarrassment in her voice. “No, you don’t.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine, well, if you have questions—“
He waved at her. “We won’t.”
“—I’ll be downstairs and if you want something else, feel free to get anything from the fridge, there are sodas in there and—“ Her voice trailed off when Caleb snapped his fingers, threw his tool box to an annoyed Mercy before running down two steps at a time. She half expected Mercy to lose her balance and topple off the stairs but she was stronger than she looked.
Bella looked on as Caleb dug through the many pockets of his cargo pants. With a triumphant sound, he held up another piece of paper. “I forgot, here.”
She flipped it open and almost gawked at the content.
“They’ll make themselves sick.”
Caleb merely handed her a 100 dollar bill and shrugged. “Anyway, don’t worry about us. You’ll have your hands full as it is.” He shooed her and climbed back up. “So, Merce. Ready to rack up some karma points?”
She smiled when she heard a dull thud and a muffled curse, she skimmed the list of orders and calculated the time she had left, she had no problem with the éclairs and cookies and the cream puffs but the pies and Embry’s macaroni scuttle, well, she had to make those from scratch. Bella rolled her shoulders before gathering her hair into a ponytail and headed to kitchen, one thing she learned these last four years was to roll with the punches and to love challenges as they come her way.
****
She tried, she really did. But one thing about Damian, was that he was really good at needling her without actually saying a word. She kept her eyes on the dough she was kneading and ignored the prickly feeling of his eyes on her. She sprinkled more flour on her dough and focused on her kneading.
She lasted less than a minute. “What?” She snapped at him.
Damian’s dark eyes met hers with a kind of hurt innocence that she didn’t believe one bit. “Why, mia piccolo, what’s the matter?”
She glared at him. “Don’t you mia piccolo me, Dami.”
Damian lifted both of his flour covered hands in surrender. “I didn’t say anything.” He gave her a look that melted females and gay males everywhere.
Bella stared at him until he sighed. Heavily. “I don’t know why you guys always blame me for everything, even when I didn’t do anything.”
Again, Bella merely stared and Damian stared back. Then fluttered his sinfully long eye lashes.
This time, it was Bella who sighed heavily, even if to hide a smile. Damian was incorrigible enough without the encouragement.
“So, the one you called. That’s the famous Jacob, huh?”
Bella glanced wearily at the smile on Damian’s face. “Yeah, so?”
He shrugged. “Just curious. I haven’t met him.”
Bella kept her eyes on his face. Lulu described him as pretty and he was. Seriously pretty. An interesting hybrid of Italian and Japanese, Damian was blessed with dense black hair that curled along the collar of his blue T shirt, deep dark eyes that slanted at the edges, high cheek bones, a straight patrician nose, an a fully curved mouth. He had the long and lanky body of his Japanese father and the bronze skin color of his Italian mother. If not for the solid square jaw and the breadth of his shoulders, Damian would be too pretty. Bella suspected that he got a lot of crap about his looks when he was a boy, hence the sometimes twisted sense of humor and ruthless streak. He liked to play the flamboyant, temperamental Italian with the customers especially female ones, his perfect English would immediately be traded in for fiery and intense Italian where he threw tantrums over his artistic creations or over some imagined slight. It had made one too many boring nights into a farce of epic proportions.
When he flashed a wide, brilliant grin—his white teeth contrasting sharply with his dusky skin tone—a passing thought stopped her hands and widen her eyes on his face.
It was with dismay that she realized and admitted why she was most comfortable with Damian than her other staffs, why she spent many a day content in working or sitting in one corner of the kitchen while Damien worked his magic… just like she had felt content and comfortable underneath the plastic roof top of a so called garage, once upon a time.
He reminded her of Jacob.
“Do I want to know what you’re thinking?”
She jolted and the dough that she had in her hands flopped to the table with a loud splat. She blinked at the man who looked at her inquisitively from across the wide, long wooden table they were working on. “What do you mean?”
“You look like I just conked you over the head with a rolling pin.” He replied.
“I just—“ Bella shook her head, dismayed with the new found realization. “I just realized who you remind me of.”
He raised a dark eyebrow. “Jacob?”
She nodded, her brow furrowed.
“How so? Do we look alike?”
She tilted her head and observed him. “No, it’s not looks, though you share some of his coloring, mainly it’s…vague really.”
He looked expectant.
“It’s how you smile and carry yourself I guess. Innate confidence and how you’re so comfortable in your own skin. How you’re just…you.” She admitted, feeling embarrassed and uncomfortable with the sudden revelation.
Damian nodded slowly, thoughtful before he returned his eyes to hers and tipped a bottle of olive oil onto the dough he was kneading. “Is he the reason then? Why you mope around like you’re doing punishment?”
“I don’t mope—“ She bit off a sigh. “He’s one of them.”
“The other being the red haired guy that sometime visits you?”
Her head snapped up. “How..?” She paused. She forgot that Damien once saw Edward when she first opened the store and a couple of times after that. She nodded absently, wondering whether she should mention about Edward’s visit to Jacob. Not that it mattered, after all, the Cullens had stopped contacting her, probably at Edward’s insistence. She shifted her feet at the sharp twinge in her heart.
“Well, from what I hear of this Jake guy, I like the sound of him. The other dude creeped me out.”
“Dami.” She chided him. Every slight against Edward was still a personal offense.
“What? He did. He’s just so…quiet. It bugged me.” He slanted his eyes at her. “Has he been back?”
She squeezed the dough until it came out between her fingers. “No.”
“So, this Jacob dude, why is he just coming around now?”
She winced and pointed to the rolling pin at his elbow. He gave it to her but held on to it when she didn’t answer.
“He only found out two months ago that I’m here.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not.” She pulled at the rolling pin but he held fast.
“You know him for how long?”
“Since high school.”
“You’re good friends?”
“Yes.”
“Very good friends?”
“He’s…Jacob was…is…” Bella sighed. “He’s my best friend. He was there when I was going through a hard time. You can say that…he pulled me back.” She didn’t want to tell him more than that, besides, she suspected that he already knew more than he ought to.
“So, you owe him.” He finally let go of the rolling pin.
“Yes.” She frowned. “Not…I don’t…Yes, I owe him a lot of things but it’s not…that’s not why…”
She cast him a grumpy look when he laughed at her.
“You make it sound so complicated, Bella.”
She flicked her dough covered fingers at him. “That’s because it is.”
“Do you love him?”
She looked down and rolled the rolling pin over her dough. She waited a few seconds before she finally managed to glance at him and gave up when she saw him focused at her. “Yes.”
“Does he love you?”
Her hands paused as Jacob’s face flitted over her eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, he does.” She didn’t hear the warm and slightly awed tone in her voice, but Damian did.
“Then what’s the problem?”
Bella blinked and was stumped. Not knowing what to say, she returned to her rolling pin.
Damian shaped the dough he was working on into a ball and put it in a bowl than covered it with a towel. “It seems to me that the only problems that you have are only in your head.”
When she aimed a surly glance at him, he grinned, bright and cheerful, just like Jacob would’ve done. She set aside the rolling pin, picked up the flatten dough and covered the apple fillings of her apple pie. She cut away the edges and popped it in the oven before cleaning her side of the table.
She was washing her hands when Caleb stepped to the kitchen. “Hey, ignore me. Just here to look at the back door.”
“Damian, this is Caleb, Caleb, Damien.”
Bella watched as Damian and Caleb traded looks than nodded to each other. Men. “What’s wrong with it?”
Caleb observed the lock than gave her a look. “I think the question is ‘what’s not wrong with it?’.”
Bella blinked at the disgusted tone in the teenager’s voice. “A good jiggle and this lock is toast, the same case with your apartment door.” His tool box clattered open and his hands moved fast and confident, picking out the tools that he needed. “You live here alone, right?”
“Yeah.”
His lips firmed in a straight line. “You need a better lock. Good thing Jacob checked on this door.”
“Jacob’s a worry wart.” She muttered, wiping her hand dry. And so are you. The whirring sound of the power drill clashed with the upbeat sound of The Hush Sound that was playing through the speakers.
“You’re a girl, Bella. You should be more aware.”
“I tell her that again and again. She wouldn’t listen.” Damian confessed to Caleb, a twinkle in his eyes.
She frowned at her co-worker. “Don’t you start.”
She pulled out Jacob’s bracelet from her pocket and absently put it on, her eyes on the apple pie she had in the oven.
“Can I see that?”
Bella dragged her eyes away and looked at where Caleb was kneeling at her door. His eyes were on her bracelet. “Um, sure.”
She gave Caleb her braceleted wrist. His long able fingers touched the charms. “These are Jacob’s right?”
She avoided Damian’s lifted brows and nodded.
Caleb’s eyes lifted to hers. “Have you been in his room?”
She fought the flush and lost. “Not… not lately.”
“You should. You’ll find it interesting.” On that provoking note, he turned his back and worked on the door.
Bella met Damian’s amused gaze and frowned. “Can you watch over the pies for me, I need to pack.”
Damien waved her away but called out to her when she reached the door. His dark eyes bright with humor. “Remember, Bella. Love is a leap done on faith.”
“And what happens when you fall?”
He grinned. “Hope somebody catches you, of course.”
She rolled her eyes. “Figured.”
“Been there, done that?” He lifted an eyebrow.
“Got the T-shirt.” She added as she turned away. And the scars.
Her first suspicion was right after all, sure, Jacob didn’t come over himself, but he sent his minions. As soon as they saw her packed and her pies finished, they conveniently finished too, at least, for the moment. They didn’t bring the new tools, it’s late and several more excuses later, they ushered her to the car, Jacob’s car.
Bella couldn’t help but roll her eyes when Caleb smiled at her from the rear view mirror.
“Do you even have your license yet? Why don’t I get to drive?” Bella sunk her but onto the back seat. Actually, she was glad that she wasn’t driving, she was beat, her arm muscles ached from kneading and her eyes were tired but she couldn’t help but admired the way the car snarled every time Caleb stepped on the gas. She wondered whether she could talk Jacob into letting her drive it. She really needed a car.
“Of course, I have. Besides, you look like you’re going to fall asleep any second, I’d like to arrive at Forks alive, you know.”
Caleb drove like he did everything else, careful and easy like so Bella snuggled further into the back seat, her arms holding down the boxes of treats stacked on either side of her. The car smelled like a candy store.
She didn’t mind really, having company on the drive home either than her radio was nice, she amused herself on watching Caleb needle Mercy until she slapped him beside the head. She wondered about how it was between them, were they friends or were they ‘friends’ but looking at them, their relationship was more like brother and sister really, or more precisely, brother-like; Mercy being the exasperated big brother with the annoying younger one trailing behind.
She hid a grin when Caleb poked Mercy’s arm with a finger, again and again and again until she paid him back with a hard punch to his well defined biceps. He winced convincingly and slanted an injured puppy dog look which Mercy ignored.
He played good little boy for about five minutes until he did it again with the same result. The last thing Bella saw as her eyes slid close was their two heads close together whispering.
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