Jacob didn’t call.
He didn’t visit.
Considering that they hadn’t been back together for just a bit more than two months, Bella figured, she shouldn’t feel bereft, lonely, neglected. Abandoned.
Maybe if the universe hadn’t sent her all those little, trivial things that reminded her of his absence, Bella wouldn’t have. But it had, so she did.
If it wasn’t Lulu or Brian or Tina or Misha demanding why Jacob hadn’t been visiting, it was her espresso machine that decided to break down and refuse to be cajoled by Brian into working again. She drew the line and finally caved when a group of bikers with a raging sweet tooth parked their bikes in front of the shop, asking for a meal and directions to Forks since they heard such good things about a garage called JEQ.
She mulled over why it was that before Jacob knew of her existence, she had to beg, steal and borrow for scrap of news about him. But now that he did, everything seemed to be about him.
Phone calls to Billy only got her vague answers such as “he’s a little busy right now”, “pack business” and things like that which did nothing for her sudden anxiety attacks. Not that Billy did nothing but assure her that Jacob was alright, but his behavior only succeeded to remind her of Jacob’s baptism to the supernatural as she dubbed the weeks where Jacob was suddenly not available to her all those years ago. Since remembering those days only made her mood even darker, especially when she realized the throbbing sensation in her heart was fresher than she thought it should have been, she refused to even entertain it and pushed it way, way out of her mind.
But of course, it were exactly those thoughts that made her commandeer Lulu’s orange VW and skid into JEQ where she sat behind the wheel and chastised herself for being stupid.
Just because Billy said it was pack business didn’t mean that there was something wrong or that Jacob was hurt. Surely they would tell me if Jacob was hurt, right? She assured herself, but another voice followed that encouraging thought. Why the hell would they? Who are you to them?
Bella frowned at her reflection on the rear view mirror that was encased in a pink fuzzy casing. It’s not like they have an obligation to tell you anything, especially if it was pack business. For all she knew, they were at a mind that she had betrayed their trust right when she turned her back on Jacob and joined the Cullens.
She was an outsider then, she was an outsider now; an outsider who didn’t have the common sense to stay out of the way of creatures that could eat her.
And if she had any common sense at all, she would have given Jacob very wide, wide space after what happened the last time they met, exactly the way she had decided the morning after that particular night.
The memory of their make out session played often enough inside her mind that the blush that usually resulted only made her cheeks look attractively healthy rather than the boiled lobster effect that would have appeared not a week ago.
But it’s been two weeks since then and still no news from him.
She was getting worried and to be honest, she missed him.
She huffed out a breath of frustration at her fickle heart. She knew she had to stop doing this, stop pulling Jacob in and pushing him away when she wasn’t comfortable when he got too close…or when she was entirely too comfortable with his proximity.
But he wasn’t only some guy she was in love with, he was also her best friend. She cared for Lulu, Misha, Brian, Tina. She cared for Damien, Gabe and Matthew but she missed the connection that she had with her two men; the feeling of completion, of being whole that only they managed to conjure inside her. And her connection with Jacob was…special; although Edward was closer to her heart, Jacob was closer to her soul.
With Edward it was fireworks; that instant, intense attraction that blew her up from inside, tore her open and filled her up until she felt different in her own skin. While with Jacob it was a slow building warmth; like a laugh bubbling beneath the surface, the pure golden pleasure of wordless conversation packed in one glance.
When Edward made her feel uncomfortably special but special nonetheless, Jacob made her remember who she was...in a good way.
Strangely, considering how free and young she felt with Jacob, he was one of the most grounding influences in her life and she needed that right now. She needed to look at him and have him tell her that he was all right, that considering the many times they rocked the boat, they were sailing smooth and easy; that they were still friends.
She threw her reflection a disgruntled look.
She was a moron.
More than that, she was a bitchy, desperate, ungrateful moron.
Friends was the last thing that Jacob wanted to be, that was made clear enough and really, as she remembered years back, they had never really been ‘just friends’.
They had always been more.
He had always been more.
No matter how much she had wanted them to be just friends.
Lost in thought, she jerked and almost toppled over to the cement floor if not for her seatbelt when somebody suddenly opened the car door that she was leaning against. Bella lifted her eyes to meet laughing dark eyes.
“Oh. Sorry.” He grinned apologetically. “I saw you sitting here and just wanted to see whether you were alright.”
Mortified, Bella tried out a smile that probably came out as a grimace. “Uh, yeah. I’m fine.” She righted herself on the seat and as an afterthought released her seat belt.
Bella eyed the boy that eyed her back and realized that she recognized him. He was one of the boys that Jacob was teaching the first time she came to JEQ.
A bright smile lit up his face as he seemed to recognize her too. “Hey, you’re Jacob’s…friend.” The smile went crooked at the purposeful pause. “You came to see him?”
Fighting a bit of self-awareness, she fidgeted. “He’s here, then?”
He kept a hand on the top of her door, as if he sensed her urge to slam the door close and burn rubber in her haste to get there. “Yeah, he’s in the back room, sleeping, I think.”
“Sleeping?”
He nodded and popped the bubble gum he was munching on, the sweet smell of grape wafted to her nostrils and somehow, she found it comforting as she sized him up. Instead of the obvious effort of acting cool and at ease, as if he talked to weird girls that hung out near the garage like some stalker or worse, a groupie; the careless and almost cocky way he moved could only belong to a teenager. “Yeah, he’s been working the graveyard shift for these couple of days.” He shrugged broad shoulders under reddish orange overalls that had the JEQ emblem printed on his left chest. “Nothing strange in that, Jake always preferred to work alone.”
“I know.”
The smile widened as he raised his eyebrows. “So…you’re coming in or not?”
Bella brushed her hair out of her face, squirmed then sighed at the daring look in his eyes. Bella swallowed audibly and eyed the opened garage doors. “Yeah.”
He chuckled. “Better to get on with it than drag it out.” He must have seen the shocked expression in her face because he laughed. “Please, you’ve been sitting here for half an hour with a guilty look on your face while Jacob went around looking bummed. It’s doesn’t take a genius to figure out there’s trouble in paradise.”
“We’re not like that.” The denial slipped from her lips more out of reflex rather than any discomfort over the conclusion that she didn’t even feel irritated by the ‘yeah, right’ look on his face.
“I’m Caleb Joaquin, by the way.”
“Bella Swan.”
“I know, Chief Swan’s daughter.” Bella wondered whether ‘Chief’s Swan's daughter’ would be a label that would follow her forever. Maybe someday it would even sneak its way into her headstone. Bella Swan. Chief Swan’s Daughter. May she rest in peace. “And I’d shake your hand if I didn’t have muck all over them.”
She spared him a distracted smile as she followed him inside.
“Bella?”
She turned to see Embry’s inquisitive eyes. Worry bloomed even further in her chest when she saw relief soften Embry’s expression. “What’s wrong?”
Embry’s brown eyes flickered to Caleb who was watching them with more than passing interest, catching Embry’s look, he inched back with a curious smile. “I’ll just…go.”
Bella didn’t take her eyes off Embry when she waved a hand at him. “What is it? It’s Jacob, isn’t it?”
A wry smile curved Embry’s lips as he ran a hand over his hair. “No, he’s alright.” He lifted a hand to stop her. ”I’m not going to tell you anything. Something happened, yes, but I’m not going to tell you. It’s pack business and you’re not pack.” He returned his eyes to her face and gave her a sudden calculating look. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
Bella opened her mouth to answer but a wave of embarrassment and chagrin made her close her mouth.
He sighed, tired and long. “Bella.” The way he said her name made Bella shuffle her feet and cross her arms in front of her in a gesture that was so obviously defensive. When he leaned against a stack of trays that were filled with little nuts and bolts, guilt swarmed inside her for her part of making him wear that expression; he looked so tired and…alone. She didn’t know which alarmed her more. Each member of the pack had always been a huge, sizzling bolt of energy; it was in the movement of their limbs, the look in their eyes, the way they could pick a spot in a room and make that place their own. And they could be many things but they were never alone; pack meant more than family, more than blood, it was a connection that was as smothering as it was comforting. They were pack, they were never alone.
But something had happened to put that look in his gentle eyes; Embry who had always been loyal and caring and kind-hearted. Whole, Jacob said to her once, Embry had always been the one with two feet planted firmly on the ground. It didn’t matter that he didn’t know who his father was, that half of his identity was missing. Embry had always known who he was, but it was obvious, even to Bella who had never spent enough time with Embry to say that she knew him, that he was shaken about something. A disturbing thought popped inside her head and her nails bit onto her skin. “Embry, did something happen to the pack? Is somebody hurt? Is it…” She eyed the room and lowered her voice. “…vampires?”
A bitter laugh burst out of his mouth. “Vampires? No. Is somebody hurt? Well, that depends.”
He shook his head at the question in her eyes, his shoulders shrugging inside the blue black uniform overall that he was wearing, Bella noticed the black smudge under his fingernails and that the T-shirt under the opening of his overall was comfortably worn. “If you want to know, ask Jacob. If he wants you to know, he’ll tell you.”
Something in his tone caught her attention. “If it was your decision, would you?”
Embry sent her a sidelong glance and straightened. “What?”
“You’d prefer it if he didn’t tell me.”
Once again, his eyes returned to hers. She was taken aback by how angry they looked, but at the very least she wasn’t quite sure who he was angry at. “My mother doesn’t know what I am. Even the council doesn’t know everything that happens inside the pack. You’re not pack and you’re not tribe. You’re an outsider. The only reason why you know about us is because you were on the other side and because Jacob broke the rules with taking you in without permission. Not that he didn’t have good reason. But you’re a liability, Bella, one way or the other. You may not be in contact with the vampires anymore, at least not that we know of, but you were in their radar and even standing in the fringe, you’re dangerous.”
The thought that anyone considered her dangerous was funny but a werewolf? That was flat out laughable. Bella couldn’t find it in herself to laugh though, because she knew what he meant. She suppressed a shiver at the memory of the Volturi and the threat that she was still in. She had reassurance from Edward and Carlisle that they would take care of that but Embry was right, she knew about the supernatural now and the supernatural knew about her. If she were supernatural herself, it wouldn’t have been a problem. But she was human; frail, weak, mortal. She didn’t have time for her usual mental whipping and self mutilation however because Embry was already talking again.
“Do you know what it means to be Alpha, Bella?”
“Well, I…” She stuttered at the intense look in his eyes. “It means leader, right? In a wolf pack being Alpha means that he’s the most dominant male.”
“It’s more than that. It means that he’s the source of our strength, the ultimate protector. Alpha is both mother and father. When he is strong, we are strong.”
Bella’s spine tingled at the power she could feel behind Embry’s words, it was as if she could see his wolf lurking behind his eyes, watching her with the stillness that every great predator had. “Every good quality he has is also ours.” His voice lowered that it was almost like a growl. “But his weakness is also ours.”
Embry narrowed his eyes at Bella, not in animosity but in concentration. “Jacob’s strong, Bella. His bloodline makes him strong. His ascending into Alpha was destined. Everyone of us learned the hard way that blood is not something we can fight against. But as strong as he is, he has his weaknesses.”
Bella’s mouth dried. “Me.”
He tilted her head and watched the shifting expression on her face, the calculating gleam back into his eyes. “Haven’t you ever wondered why we accepted your presence as easily as we did?”
“You mean…Jacob made you…”
“No. Jacob would never do that. Not if there’s any other way. As I said he’s strong,” His lips curved in amusement. “…and sneaky enough to make sure that we follow his orders and find no loopholes like he once did, but he prefers to trust us.”
“You don’t think that Jacob can trust me?”
“It’s not a matter of whether he can or not. He shouldn’t.”
“I won’t betray Jacob or the pack…I’ve kept your secret this long…”
“How much of this secret have you shared with your vampires?”
Bella fumbled.
“Your vampires may be harmless. Now. But later? If somehow, someday one of them slips?” His smile turned sharp. “It’s just a matter of time. It’s their nature and when that happens, do you really think that they wouldn’t side with their own? That they wouldn’t clean up after one of them and consider it done? It wouldn’t be the first time or the last.”
Bella remembered a night so long ago, at her birthday where Jasper had lost control of himself. She remembered the wild, hungry look on his face, the predator that existed beneath the lovely façade.
Embry nodded, as if he knew what she was thinking about. “Sooner or later, we’ll be at war with them, just as we would have if they had changed you.”
She blinked in surprise. “Jacob said…”
“Jacob could have said whatever he wanted, the truth is if you had been changed, we would’ve gone after you and your new family. Jacob would have had no choice but to follow if Sam gave him the order. It’s what we do, Bella. What we were born to do.”
“There’s no need for that, The Cullens are… I’m not...going to change.”
“Maybe, but answer me this. If we go to war, which side will you be on?”
Bella stared and jerked in surprise when Embry turned and walked away and she forced herself to follow him when all she wanted was to tuck tail—haha—, run and hide. “Your humanity makes you harmless to us, Bella. We’ll protect you even if your divided loyalty makes you dangerous. But protecting you will cost Jacob something, and with him, us." He stopped and shook his head. "But pushing all of that aside, we may not want you but what we want doesn’t matter. What does matter is Jacob and he needs you.”
“I need him, too.” She said it so softly that it was almost lost in the typical sounds of garages everywhere but Embry’s sharp senses could detect the sincerity in those few words.
Embry lead her to the stairs that climbed to what looked like a set of rooms. “Now, sure.” He stopped at one of the doors. “But what about later? What’ll happen when your vampire returns?” He shook his head when she opened her mouth which was a good thing because she didn’t actually know how to answer him. “Nevermind. I don’t need to know your answer.” He put a hand on the doorknob. “He hasn’t been sleeping lately, he’s tired and…no serious conversations today, all right? Let him rest. Be for him what he is to you and you’ll have no problem from me.”
Bella shuffled inside the room. Nervous with the seriousness in Embry’s face and the mystery of Jacob’s condition, she jumped when Embry shut the door with a sharp click. She stared at the closed door before finally turning around to survey the room, blinking her eyes to adjust to the lack of light. She heard the silent sigh of the ceiling fan as it stirred the air that smelled like sandalwood; spicy and fresh.
She squinted and saw that the room wasn’t much; it was wide enough, the ceiling high enough that Jacob could walk around with no danger of braining himself with the fan, there were also no windows. Then she noticed the clutter; books, magazines, empty food delivery containers, paper balls, tool boxes, nuts and bolts, a shiny muffler thrown haphazardly across a long working table that was pushed against one of the walls alongside a drawing table. Toy cars; lines of cheap tin models all mixed in with professional made collector items on a wooden shelf. Her eyes caught several of those on the second shelf that were carved from wood and painted, her attention piqued, she scrutinized the workmanship, she had seen enough of Billy’s work (she’d found out that the old rocking chair of her baby years was actually Billy’s) and Jacob’s (the new table where Charlie’s flatscreen perched in a place of honor that replaced the old one) to know whose hands created which. Billy was a master, his works were intricate and detailed and beautifully rendered. Jacob’s lacked the subtle, liquid lines of his father’s but his was beautiful in a different way; bold, confident and warm. She rolled her eyes at the thought but shrugged. Art was about perspective after all and that was what she always got from Jacob’s wood carvings.
She crouched to better see the occupants of the lower shelf before standing up again to see if she missed any, silently ignoring the voice that accused her of stalling. She eyed the collection for another five minutes, reducing the voice inside her head into clucking like a chicken before she finally turned back into the room. She saw him, well, more like spotted his arm, dangling to the floor. He was sprawled deeply into a beat up, lived in sofa that was amazingly long enough for his tall, tall body. She inched forward and almost fell when her foot got tangled into what she found out was the same colored blue black coveralls that Embry wore, she also noticed one shoe under it and a red T-shirt near the sofa, as if he had taken everything off while he walked across the room before falling on his face on the sofa.
Considering how deep the sofa was and how heavy he was, Bella was kind of worried that he had smothered himself on the padding. As usual, Jacob was only wearing trunks and she couldn’t really blame him, she herself was wearing one of her thinnest T-shirts that she combined with denim shorts that hung to her knees in celebration of the warm, almost sunny weather. With his own insane body heat, Jacob must have felt like he was in a sauna or something.
Not willing to wake him up since he looked so tired and unsure what else to do, she hovered beside the sofa and just looked at him, it was something that was still new for her, to actually watch someone while he was asleep since Edward hadn’t slept at all. She wondered whether this was how he felt when he had watched her sleep; affectionate, protective, deeply amused and deliciously smug, as if he knew something that no one else did.
She sat on the table facing him, her earlier anxiety and churned feelings disappear by inches with Jacob’s every breath. There was no way she could feel so tense at the sight of Jacob being so unguarded, so relaxed and as far as she could tell; fine by the look of him. She took a deep breath and unconsciously breathed in time with him, warmed by the feeling of well-being that she always felt when she was with Jacob. Her eyes started to drift away from him but returned to him when she heard him mutter. Curious, she waited for him to say more, a smile curved her lips at the possibility of teasing him about talking in his sleep. To her delight, he said something else but it was so muffled by the pillow, she leaned forward to hear him better but still couldn’t catch it. Frowning, she stood and bent over him, carefully holding her hair up and turning her head in order to hear him better when he grumbled, his eyes still closed, “Bella, stop that…creeping me out.”
Before she could blink or process his words, she found herself pulled and flipped on her back onto the sofa that had the density of marshmallows. With a deep, contented sigh Jacob rearranged himself on the sofa and around her in a matter of seconds; one of his arms sneaked under her head, the other plopped on her waist, his nose touched her neck, one of his legs thrown on top of hers while the other wedged under them.
He snuggled and cuddled her like she was his favorite teddy bear.
Surprised, she turned her head, hitting his nose with her chin and glared at his closed eyes. “Were you pretending to be asleep?”
“Was asleep.” He muttered into her hair. “Felt you gawking.”
“I wasn’t gawk—“ She huffed when he exhaled, his hot breath misting over her shoulder. “Let go.”
“Don’t wanna.”
“Jake, I still have to go back to work.”
His grip on her waist shifted and she got distracted by wondering where Jacob found a couch that could not only fit both of them comfortably but also with room to spare. “So do I.”
“Jake—“
“What time is it?” he asked against her neck, at least that was what she thought he was asking, between his weariness and the fact that he’d been sleeping, and maybe because he was a werewolf, his words came out as a weird, husky, growl. What he actually said was, “whatimzit?”
“One.”
“Noon?”
“Yeah.”
“…two hours…drive you.”
“I drove here.”
“Wake me…drive you.”
She couldn’t fight the smile, more importantly, she didn’t want to fight the smile. “You should get more sleep.”
“Two hours.”
“Jake—“
“Sleeping.”
She rolled her eyes but subsided, her brows pinching when she heard the abrupt change of music from Eric Clapton’s blues to serious down and dirty rock. She winced at the high wail of guitars and quick, heavy beat of drums that was muffled by the door, she could only imagine how loud the music was outside.
She felt Jacob let out a short burst of breath that sounded suspiciously like a laugh but didn’t budge from his position. As he and the pack had often instilled awe inside of her for their supernaturally-enhanced senses, she wondered how Jacob or any of them could stand hearing something like that. She knew they could but didn’t know the mechanics of it. She suddenly wanted to know how, know about how being a werewolf works, what made them tick.
She was so busy with gathering questions and thoughts that she didn’t realize that she was absently brushing a hand over the length of his arm that was slung on her waist, sliding her fingers against the sleek, long muscle there, playing with the corded veins under the skin, relishing his warmth and the feel of his smooth skin, lacing their fingers and pressing against the calluses at his palm and fingertips. She breathed in the sun in his silky black hair, the trees and grass from his skin and waft of musk that was wolf and Jacob, unknowingly wrapping his scent and the feel of him around her and cataloging them in her mind under; love, comfort, home, Jacob.
Her breath caught when something else caught her attention, the subtle but strong bump of his heart, beating against her skin. That's another new thing, she thought, lulled to sleep by the sound.
He didn’t visit.
Considering that they hadn’t been back together for just a bit more than two months, Bella figured, she shouldn’t feel bereft, lonely, neglected. Abandoned.
Maybe if the universe hadn’t sent her all those little, trivial things that reminded her of his absence, Bella wouldn’t have. But it had, so she did.
If it wasn’t Lulu or Brian or Tina or Misha demanding why Jacob hadn’t been visiting, it was her espresso machine that decided to break down and refuse to be cajoled by Brian into working again. She drew the line and finally caved when a group of bikers with a raging sweet tooth parked their bikes in front of the shop, asking for a meal and directions to Forks since they heard such good things about a garage called JEQ.
She mulled over why it was that before Jacob knew of her existence, she had to beg, steal and borrow for scrap of news about him. But now that he did, everything seemed to be about him.
Phone calls to Billy only got her vague answers such as “he’s a little busy right now”, “pack business” and things like that which did nothing for her sudden anxiety attacks. Not that Billy did nothing but assure her that Jacob was alright, but his behavior only succeeded to remind her of Jacob’s baptism to the supernatural as she dubbed the weeks where Jacob was suddenly not available to her all those years ago. Since remembering those days only made her mood even darker, especially when she realized the throbbing sensation in her heart was fresher than she thought it should have been, she refused to even entertain it and pushed it way, way out of her mind.
But of course, it were exactly those thoughts that made her commandeer Lulu’s orange VW and skid into JEQ where she sat behind the wheel and chastised herself for being stupid.
Just because Billy said it was pack business didn’t mean that there was something wrong or that Jacob was hurt. Surely they would tell me if Jacob was hurt, right? She assured herself, but another voice followed that encouraging thought. Why the hell would they? Who are you to them?
Bella frowned at her reflection on the rear view mirror that was encased in a pink fuzzy casing. It’s not like they have an obligation to tell you anything, especially if it was pack business. For all she knew, they were at a mind that she had betrayed their trust right when she turned her back on Jacob and joined the Cullens.
She was an outsider then, she was an outsider now; an outsider who didn’t have the common sense to stay out of the way of creatures that could eat her.
And if she had any common sense at all, she would have given Jacob very wide, wide space after what happened the last time they met, exactly the way she had decided the morning after that particular night.
The memory of their make out session played often enough inside her mind that the blush that usually resulted only made her cheeks look attractively healthy rather than the boiled lobster effect that would have appeared not a week ago.
But it’s been two weeks since then and still no news from him.
She was getting worried and to be honest, she missed him.
She huffed out a breath of frustration at her fickle heart. She knew she had to stop doing this, stop pulling Jacob in and pushing him away when she wasn’t comfortable when he got too close…or when she was entirely too comfortable with his proximity.
But he wasn’t only some guy she was in love with, he was also her best friend. She cared for Lulu, Misha, Brian, Tina. She cared for Damien, Gabe and Matthew but she missed the connection that she had with her two men; the feeling of completion, of being whole that only they managed to conjure inside her. And her connection with Jacob was…special; although Edward was closer to her heart, Jacob was closer to her soul.
With Edward it was fireworks; that instant, intense attraction that blew her up from inside, tore her open and filled her up until she felt different in her own skin. While with Jacob it was a slow building warmth; like a laugh bubbling beneath the surface, the pure golden pleasure of wordless conversation packed in one glance.
When Edward made her feel uncomfortably special but special nonetheless, Jacob made her remember who she was...in a good way.
Strangely, considering how free and young she felt with Jacob, he was one of the most grounding influences in her life and she needed that right now. She needed to look at him and have him tell her that he was all right, that considering the many times they rocked the boat, they were sailing smooth and easy; that they were still friends.
She threw her reflection a disgruntled look.
She was a moron.
More than that, she was a bitchy, desperate, ungrateful moron.
Friends was the last thing that Jacob wanted to be, that was made clear enough and really, as she remembered years back, they had never really been ‘just friends’.
They had always been more.
He had always been more.
No matter how much she had wanted them to be just friends.
Lost in thought, she jerked and almost toppled over to the cement floor if not for her seatbelt when somebody suddenly opened the car door that she was leaning against. Bella lifted her eyes to meet laughing dark eyes.
“Oh. Sorry.” He grinned apologetically. “I saw you sitting here and just wanted to see whether you were alright.”
Mortified, Bella tried out a smile that probably came out as a grimace. “Uh, yeah. I’m fine.” She righted herself on the seat and as an afterthought released her seat belt.
Bella eyed the boy that eyed her back and realized that she recognized him. He was one of the boys that Jacob was teaching the first time she came to JEQ.
A bright smile lit up his face as he seemed to recognize her too. “Hey, you’re Jacob’s…friend.” The smile went crooked at the purposeful pause. “You came to see him?”
Fighting a bit of self-awareness, she fidgeted. “He’s here, then?”
He kept a hand on the top of her door, as if he sensed her urge to slam the door close and burn rubber in her haste to get there. “Yeah, he’s in the back room, sleeping, I think.”
“Sleeping?”
He nodded and popped the bubble gum he was munching on, the sweet smell of grape wafted to her nostrils and somehow, she found it comforting as she sized him up. Instead of the obvious effort of acting cool and at ease, as if he talked to weird girls that hung out near the garage like some stalker or worse, a groupie; the careless and almost cocky way he moved could only belong to a teenager. “Yeah, he’s been working the graveyard shift for these couple of days.” He shrugged broad shoulders under reddish orange overalls that had the JEQ emblem printed on his left chest. “Nothing strange in that, Jake always preferred to work alone.”
“I know.”
The smile widened as he raised his eyebrows. “So…you’re coming in or not?”
Bella brushed her hair out of her face, squirmed then sighed at the daring look in his eyes. Bella swallowed audibly and eyed the opened garage doors. “Yeah.”
He chuckled. “Better to get on with it than drag it out.” He must have seen the shocked expression in her face because he laughed. “Please, you’ve been sitting here for half an hour with a guilty look on your face while Jacob went around looking bummed. It’s doesn’t take a genius to figure out there’s trouble in paradise.”
“We’re not like that.” The denial slipped from her lips more out of reflex rather than any discomfort over the conclusion that she didn’t even feel irritated by the ‘yeah, right’ look on his face.
“I’m Caleb Joaquin, by the way.”
“Bella Swan.”
“I know, Chief Swan’s daughter.” Bella wondered whether ‘Chief’s Swan's daughter’ would be a label that would follow her forever. Maybe someday it would even sneak its way into her headstone. Bella Swan. Chief Swan’s Daughter. May she rest in peace. “And I’d shake your hand if I didn’t have muck all over them.”
She spared him a distracted smile as she followed him inside.
“Bella?”
She turned to see Embry’s inquisitive eyes. Worry bloomed even further in her chest when she saw relief soften Embry’s expression. “What’s wrong?”
Embry’s brown eyes flickered to Caleb who was watching them with more than passing interest, catching Embry’s look, he inched back with a curious smile. “I’ll just…go.”
Bella didn’t take her eyes off Embry when she waved a hand at him. “What is it? It’s Jacob, isn’t it?”
A wry smile curved Embry’s lips as he ran a hand over his hair. “No, he’s alright.” He lifted a hand to stop her. ”I’m not going to tell you anything. Something happened, yes, but I’m not going to tell you. It’s pack business and you’re not pack.” He returned his eyes to her face and gave her a sudden calculating look. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
Bella opened her mouth to answer but a wave of embarrassment and chagrin made her close her mouth.
He sighed, tired and long. “Bella.” The way he said her name made Bella shuffle her feet and cross her arms in front of her in a gesture that was so obviously defensive. When he leaned against a stack of trays that were filled with little nuts and bolts, guilt swarmed inside her for her part of making him wear that expression; he looked so tired and…alone. She didn’t know which alarmed her more. Each member of the pack had always been a huge, sizzling bolt of energy; it was in the movement of their limbs, the look in their eyes, the way they could pick a spot in a room and make that place their own. And they could be many things but they were never alone; pack meant more than family, more than blood, it was a connection that was as smothering as it was comforting. They were pack, they were never alone.
But something had happened to put that look in his gentle eyes; Embry who had always been loyal and caring and kind-hearted. Whole, Jacob said to her once, Embry had always been the one with two feet planted firmly on the ground. It didn’t matter that he didn’t know who his father was, that half of his identity was missing. Embry had always known who he was, but it was obvious, even to Bella who had never spent enough time with Embry to say that she knew him, that he was shaken about something. A disturbing thought popped inside her head and her nails bit onto her skin. “Embry, did something happen to the pack? Is somebody hurt? Is it…” She eyed the room and lowered her voice. “…vampires?”
A bitter laugh burst out of his mouth. “Vampires? No. Is somebody hurt? Well, that depends.”
He shook his head at the question in her eyes, his shoulders shrugging inside the blue black uniform overall that he was wearing, Bella noticed the black smudge under his fingernails and that the T-shirt under the opening of his overall was comfortably worn. “If you want to know, ask Jacob. If he wants you to know, he’ll tell you.”
Something in his tone caught her attention. “If it was your decision, would you?”
Embry sent her a sidelong glance and straightened. “What?”
“You’d prefer it if he didn’t tell me.”
Once again, his eyes returned to hers. She was taken aback by how angry they looked, but at the very least she wasn’t quite sure who he was angry at. “My mother doesn’t know what I am. Even the council doesn’t know everything that happens inside the pack. You’re not pack and you’re not tribe. You’re an outsider. The only reason why you know about us is because you were on the other side and because Jacob broke the rules with taking you in without permission. Not that he didn’t have good reason. But you’re a liability, Bella, one way or the other. You may not be in contact with the vampires anymore, at least not that we know of, but you were in their radar and even standing in the fringe, you’re dangerous.”
The thought that anyone considered her dangerous was funny but a werewolf? That was flat out laughable. Bella couldn’t find it in herself to laugh though, because she knew what he meant. She suppressed a shiver at the memory of the Volturi and the threat that she was still in. She had reassurance from Edward and Carlisle that they would take care of that but Embry was right, she knew about the supernatural now and the supernatural knew about her. If she were supernatural herself, it wouldn’t have been a problem. But she was human; frail, weak, mortal. She didn’t have time for her usual mental whipping and self mutilation however because Embry was already talking again.
“Do you know what it means to be Alpha, Bella?”
“Well, I…” She stuttered at the intense look in his eyes. “It means leader, right? In a wolf pack being Alpha means that he’s the most dominant male.”
“It’s more than that. It means that he’s the source of our strength, the ultimate protector. Alpha is both mother and father. When he is strong, we are strong.”
Bella’s spine tingled at the power she could feel behind Embry’s words, it was as if she could see his wolf lurking behind his eyes, watching her with the stillness that every great predator had. “Every good quality he has is also ours.” His voice lowered that it was almost like a growl. “But his weakness is also ours.”
Embry narrowed his eyes at Bella, not in animosity but in concentration. “Jacob’s strong, Bella. His bloodline makes him strong. His ascending into Alpha was destined. Everyone of us learned the hard way that blood is not something we can fight against. But as strong as he is, he has his weaknesses.”
Bella’s mouth dried. “Me.”
He tilted her head and watched the shifting expression on her face, the calculating gleam back into his eyes. “Haven’t you ever wondered why we accepted your presence as easily as we did?”
“You mean…Jacob made you…”
“No. Jacob would never do that. Not if there’s any other way. As I said he’s strong,” His lips curved in amusement. “…and sneaky enough to make sure that we follow his orders and find no loopholes like he once did, but he prefers to trust us.”
“You don’t think that Jacob can trust me?”
“It’s not a matter of whether he can or not. He shouldn’t.”
“I won’t betray Jacob or the pack…I’ve kept your secret this long…”
“How much of this secret have you shared with your vampires?”
Bella fumbled.
“Your vampires may be harmless. Now. But later? If somehow, someday one of them slips?” His smile turned sharp. “It’s just a matter of time. It’s their nature and when that happens, do you really think that they wouldn’t side with their own? That they wouldn’t clean up after one of them and consider it done? It wouldn’t be the first time or the last.”
Bella remembered a night so long ago, at her birthday where Jasper had lost control of himself. She remembered the wild, hungry look on his face, the predator that existed beneath the lovely façade.
Embry nodded, as if he knew what she was thinking about. “Sooner or later, we’ll be at war with them, just as we would have if they had changed you.”
She blinked in surprise. “Jacob said…”
“Jacob could have said whatever he wanted, the truth is if you had been changed, we would’ve gone after you and your new family. Jacob would have had no choice but to follow if Sam gave him the order. It’s what we do, Bella. What we were born to do.”
“There’s no need for that, The Cullens are… I’m not...going to change.”
“Maybe, but answer me this. If we go to war, which side will you be on?”
Bella stared and jerked in surprise when Embry turned and walked away and she forced herself to follow him when all she wanted was to tuck tail—haha—, run and hide. “Your humanity makes you harmless to us, Bella. We’ll protect you even if your divided loyalty makes you dangerous. But protecting you will cost Jacob something, and with him, us." He stopped and shook his head. "But pushing all of that aside, we may not want you but what we want doesn’t matter. What does matter is Jacob and he needs you.”
“I need him, too.” She said it so softly that it was almost lost in the typical sounds of garages everywhere but Embry’s sharp senses could detect the sincerity in those few words.
Embry lead her to the stairs that climbed to what looked like a set of rooms. “Now, sure.” He stopped at one of the doors. “But what about later? What’ll happen when your vampire returns?” He shook his head when she opened her mouth which was a good thing because she didn’t actually know how to answer him. “Nevermind. I don’t need to know your answer.” He put a hand on the doorknob. “He hasn’t been sleeping lately, he’s tired and…no serious conversations today, all right? Let him rest. Be for him what he is to you and you’ll have no problem from me.”
Bella shuffled inside the room. Nervous with the seriousness in Embry’s face and the mystery of Jacob’s condition, she jumped when Embry shut the door with a sharp click. She stared at the closed door before finally turning around to survey the room, blinking her eyes to adjust to the lack of light. She heard the silent sigh of the ceiling fan as it stirred the air that smelled like sandalwood; spicy and fresh.
She squinted and saw that the room wasn’t much; it was wide enough, the ceiling high enough that Jacob could walk around with no danger of braining himself with the fan, there were also no windows. Then she noticed the clutter; books, magazines, empty food delivery containers, paper balls, tool boxes, nuts and bolts, a shiny muffler thrown haphazardly across a long working table that was pushed against one of the walls alongside a drawing table. Toy cars; lines of cheap tin models all mixed in with professional made collector items on a wooden shelf. Her eyes caught several of those on the second shelf that were carved from wood and painted, her attention piqued, she scrutinized the workmanship, she had seen enough of Billy’s work (she’d found out that the old rocking chair of her baby years was actually Billy’s) and Jacob’s (the new table where Charlie’s flatscreen perched in a place of honor that replaced the old one) to know whose hands created which. Billy was a master, his works were intricate and detailed and beautifully rendered. Jacob’s lacked the subtle, liquid lines of his father’s but his was beautiful in a different way; bold, confident and warm. She rolled her eyes at the thought but shrugged. Art was about perspective after all and that was what she always got from Jacob’s wood carvings.
She crouched to better see the occupants of the lower shelf before standing up again to see if she missed any, silently ignoring the voice that accused her of stalling. She eyed the collection for another five minutes, reducing the voice inside her head into clucking like a chicken before she finally turned back into the room. She saw him, well, more like spotted his arm, dangling to the floor. He was sprawled deeply into a beat up, lived in sofa that was amazingly long enough for his tall, tall body. She inched forward and almost fell when her foot got tangled into what she found out was the same colored blue black coveralls that Embry wore, she also noticed one shoe under it and a red T-shirt near the sofa, as if he had taken everything off while he walked across the room before falling on his face on the sofa.
Considering how deep the sofa was and how heavy he was, Bella was kind of worried that he had smothered himself on the padding. As usual, Jacob was only wearing trunks and she couldn’t really blame him, she herself was wearing one of her thinnest T-shirts that she combined with denim shorts that hung to her knees in celebration of the warm, almost sunny weather. With his own insane body heat, Jacob must have felt like he was in a sauna or something.
Not willing to wake him up since he looked so tired and unsure what else to do, she hovered beside the sofa and just looked at him, it was something that was still new for her, to actually watch someone while he was asleep since Edward hadn’t slept at all. She wondered whether this was how he felt when he had watched her sleep; affectionate, protective, deeply amused and deliciously smug, as if he knew something that no one else did.
She sat on the table facing him, her earlier anxiety and churned feelings disappear by inches with Jacob’s every breath. There was no way she could feel so tense at the sight of Jacob being so unguarded, so relaxed and as far as she could tell; fine by the look of him. She took a deep breath and unconsciously breathed in time with him, warmed by the feeling of well-being that she always felt when she was with Jacob. Her eyes started to drift away from him but returned to him when she heard him mutter. Curious, she waited for him to say more, a smile curved her lips at the possibility of teasing him about talking in his sleep. To her delight, he said something else but it was so muffled by the pillow, she leaned forward to hear him better but still couldn’t catch it. Frowning, she stood and bent over him, carefully holding her hair up and turning her head in order to hear him better when he grumbled, his eyes still closed, “Bella, stop that…creeping me out.”
Before she could blink or process his words, she found herself pulled and flipped on her back onto the sofa that had the density of marshmallows. With a deep, contented sigh Jacob rearranged himself on the sofa and around her in a matter of seconds; one of his arms sneaked under her head, the other plopped on her waist, his nose touched her neck, one of his legs thrown on top of hers while the other wedged under them.
He snuggled and cuddled her like she was his favorite teddy bear.
Surprised, she turned her head, hitting his nose with her chin and glared at his closed eyes. “Were you pretending to be asleep?”
“Was asleep.” He muttered into her hair. “Felt you gawking.”
“I wasn’t gawk—“ She huffed when he exhaled, his hot breath misting over her shoulder. “Let go.”
“Don’t wanna.”
“Jake, I still have to go back to work.”
His grip on her waist shifted and she got distracted by wondering where Jacob found a couch that could not only fit both of them comfortably but also with room to spare. “So do I.”
“Jake—“
“What time is it?” he asked against her neck, at least that was what she thought he was asking, between his weariness and the fact that he’d been sleeping, and maybe because he was a werewolf, his words came out as a weird, husky, growl. What he actually said was, “whatimzit?”
“One.”
“Noon?”
“Yeah.”
“…two hours…drive you.”
“I drove here.”
“Wake me…drive you.”
She couldn’t fight the smile, more importantly, she didn’t want to fight the smile. “You should get more sleep.”
“Two hours.”
“Jake—“
“Sleeping.”
She rolled her eyes but subsided, her brows pinching when she heard the abrupt change of music from Eric Clapton’s blues to serious down and dirty rock. She winced at the high wail of guitars and quick, heavy beat of drums that was muffled by the door, she could only imagine how loud the music was outside.
She felt Jacob let out a short burst of breath that sounded suspiciously like a laugh but didn’t budge from his position. As he and the pack had often instilled awe inside of her for their supernaturally-enhanced senses, she wondered how Jacob or any of them could stand hearing something like that. She knew they could but didn’t know the mechanics of it. She suddenly wanted to know how, know about how being a werewolf works, what made them tick.
She was so busy with gathering questions and thoughts that she didn’t realize that she was absently brushing a hand over the length of his arm that was slung on her waist, sliding her fingers against the sleek, long muscle there, playing with the corded veins under the skin, relishing his warmth and the feel of his smooth skin, lacing their fingers and pressing against the calluses at his palm and fingertips. She breathed in the sun in his silky black hair, the trees and grass from his skin and waft of musk that was wolf and Jacob, unknowingly wrapping his scent and the feel of him around her and cataloging them in her mind under; love, comfort, home, Jacob.
Her breath caught when something else caught her attention, the subtle but strong bump of his heart, beating against her skin. That's another new thing, she thought, lulled to sleep by the sound.
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