The Definition of Want - Chapter 4
Title: The Definition of Want
Author: audreyii_fic
Fandom: Twilight (Team Jacob)
Rating: M
Characters: Bella, Jacob, Edward, and others (J/B)
Genre: Romance/Humor/Angst -- you know, all the good ones.
Warnings: Bad language and eventual sex.
Summary: You know how Edward offered to let Bella and Jacob make puppies? And we all secretly wondered how that would go? Yeah. It's one of those. Set post-Eclipse. (Link to the beginning.)
banner courtesy of boredess
banner courtesy of leithalia
Chapter Four :
A/N: I edited this left-handed while eating with my right so that I could get it done before I ran off to bell practice tonight. That is how much I love you. And, by the way, massive internet snorgles for boredess and leithalia . I love the banners, girls :)
but darlin' we can clearly see it's all life and fire and lunacy and excuses and excuses and excuses
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, "Hold On to Yourself"
I'm a cowboy, on a steel horse I ride! I'm wanted (WANT-e-e-ed) dead or alive! Wanted (WANT-e-e-ed) dead or al--
SHUT UP! Leah's voice shrieked in my head. SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP!
I paused my run, ears twitching in Leah's direction. What?
I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE! The grey wolf erupted out of the underbrush and snarled viciously at me. NO MORE BON JOVI! NO MORE BOSTON! NO MORE DEF LEPPARD! JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP!
Interestingly, when one tries to smile in wolf-form, it only comes out as a lolling tongue. My tongue lolled. Sorry, Leah. Had the eighties station on the radio this morning.
The grey wolf growled. Bullshit. You've been screaming hair metal at me for the last two hours. So there's something going on in that idiot brain of yours you don't want me hearing -- fine. Okay. I get it. Whatever. I don't care if you're dressing up in a tutu and performing satanic rituals in your basement, just stop it with the singing, or I swear to God I'll bite your leg off.
Fine. Yeesh. Calm down. I turned tail and trotted along as Leah's thoughts faded into indistinct grumblings and obscenities. The patrols had slowed down since the battle with the newborns had ended -- and thank God for that, because now we were all actually getting some sleep -- but still, someone had to check the boundary lines daily. Jared had actually found a straggler the previous week inside our lands, a newborn who had gone completely feral, naked and sucking blood out of her own wrist in an endless cycle. She couldn't even speak. Jared had called it a 'mercy killing' and after seeing the images in his head, no one could argue.
So patrols were still important. But Sam only called for two wolves together at a time now, and I'd pulled the short stick that day and got stuck with Leah.
Thanks, asshat. I love you too.
It was the HEEEEEEAT of the MOOOOment! Tellin' me wha--
SHUT UP!
My tongue lolled again.
Everything along the boundaries looked and smelled fine so far. No aroma of cloying death, no signs of anything to worry about. The day was impressively bright, with the sun shining down between the leaves and raising steam from the forest floor. The kind of day that Bella would--
Don't think about Bella.
Behind me, Leah snorted. God, not the leech-lover again. I'd rather listen to eighties than hear your emo crap. You got any Blue Oyster Cult in there? How about "The Reaper"? That's appropriate.
Drop it. Bella's name was verboten in the Pack mind these days, as much for everyone else's sanity as mine. It's not fun when fifteen other people can hear your heartbreak. And thank God they were leaving it be, because even hearing Bella's name made me instantly start thinking about... Stop it.
But somehow the rules of common courtesy didn't apply to Leah.
Like it's my fault you're spewing angst all over the place. You'd be obsessing whether I said anything or not. You want to wallow.
"Is this what you want?" The memory rose for a quarter of a second before I shoved it away roughly. Don't.
Huh? Leah's confusion rolled from her mind to mine. I don't want anything.
Never mind. Goddammit, this was why I kept eighties music in my head for a week straight, if I stopped for a second I started to focus on it-- mind shield, mind shield, mind shield. And when your looks are gone and you're alone, how many nights you sit beside the phone...
C'mon, at least not Asia, Leah thought, trotting past me to sniff at something in the leaves. If you have to be the Pack iPod, try to come up with something less shitty to play. Just try and keep the 'Bella left me for the undead and now I'm going to go cut myself' soundtrack to a minimum--
What were the things you wanted for yourself, teenage ambitions you remember well-- "When I think about what we could... I like a lot of it." Bella's face flushing red, her little fingers pushing her dark hair out of the way and I wanted--
The grey wolf whipped around, eyes wide. What was that?
It was the HEEEEEAT of the MOOOO-- Leah's teeth snapped at me, and I took a quick step back. Don't think about it don't think about it don't think about it, I chanted to myself.
Ever tried to not think about something? It pretty much guarantees that you do.
"The kid would be half mine, half Bella's, and none yours, Cullen."
Oh, fuck.
A wordless wave of shock slammed into my mind with all the force of a semi, a blunt mental blow that had me physically reeling. Then the grey wolf collapsed in on itself. Fur fluffed up into the air.
Leah dropped two feet onto the forest floor, naked and human and still on her hands and knees, her shorts and shirt fluttering free from the ties on her leg. "Turn around," she gasped, sounding like the wind had been knocked out of her. "Turn around, dipshit, and tell me what the fuck that was."
I obligingly turned my head, but I stayed in the wolf. It seemed... um... safer. I heard her scrambling into her clothes.
"Come on, Jacob," Leah said a moment later. "Phase and tell me I did not see what I thought I saw."
I didn't change. Frankly, all my instincts were telling me to run like hell. But I couldn't exactly leave a Pack member here alone and in human form; that was a huge no-no, and just because the newborns seemed to be mostly gone didn't mean--
A rock hit me on the back of the head. "Phase! Now!"
Shit. With considerably more grace than Leah -- though in fairness she'd transformed by accident -- I phased back into human form. I'd barely gotten my shorts on before I got hit in the head again. "Ow! Knock it off!"
"No!" I turned back to face the now-clothed and furious Leah, who already had another rock in her hand. "Now answer me!"
"Put the rock down, Leah," I ordered, wishing that I could have some of the advantages of being Alpha without taking all the crap that came with it. Forced obedience would be useful once in awhile. "It's not what you think--"
"Oh, it's not?" she spat angrily. "I didn't just see you offer to knock up the leech-lover?"
Okay, it was what she thought. "Stop calling her that," I said.
Leah's free hand clenched and unclenched restlessly at her side. "C'mon, seriously." There was almost a note of pleading in her voice. "Tell me this is just some fucked up dream of yours, okay? Tell me I've got it wrong."
"You've got it wrong," I replied automatically.
She paused, then narrowed her eyes. "You're lying."
"Well, you asked me to."
"AGH!" Leah let go a wordless scream of frustration and threw the rock at me with speeds that would get her drafted by the Yankees. I managed to dodge just before it broke my nose. "You idiot!"
"I know, I know," I mumbled, sitting down on a log.
I'd been doing my very best not to think about the whole situation for the last few days, because every time I did, it seemed like a worse and worse idea. Was fuck-up-edness a word? If it wasn't, then it needed to be, because it was the only thing that really described this mess. On the next episode of Jerry Springer, teenage werewolves having babies with a teenage girls getting married to a teenage vampires. (Well, the vampire wasn't really a teenager. Except sort of. My head hurt.)
But I'd agreed, and I wasn't going back now. Bella would be alive, and that was all that mattered-- and oh God, I was starting to sound like the bloodsucker. It wasn't true, there were still other things that mattered. Things like the part of me, the fucking crazy as shit part of me that actually wanted this. The little voice sitting in the back of my head, calmly saying It's what you've dreamed of, or close enough, and she wants it too, so don't throw your only chance away--
"Jacob Black! You listen to me when I'm bitching at you!"
"Sure thing, Mom," I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes.
"I wish she was here!" Leah's face was red. "Sarah would have kicked your ass!"
Silence.
God.
I couldn't speak. It felt like all the air had been sucked out of my lungs.
Leah closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Okay," she said, a little calmer. "Okay. Forget I said that. But I'm not fooling around here. I can't even imagine what you're... Look, have you done anything yet?"
I swallowed and tried to collect myself. "I said I would."
"But you haven't fucked her, right?" Leah persisted, sitting down next to me on the log. "I mean, no amount of stupid eighties music would keep your memory of her bony ass off the Pack Airwaves."
"No. But I agreed to it." I'd offered Bella something, and for me, that pretty much constituted a binding contract.
"Then unagree, moron," she snapped. "Jesus, you didn't sign anything in blood, right? Quit thinking with your dick and back out."
I glared at Leah. "I'm not thinking with my dick, all right? That has nothing to do with it. This wasn't even my fucking idea."
"It wasn't? So, what, Little Miss Necrophiliac snaps her fingers, and you come running with your swimmers on a silver platter?" She snorted in disgust. "That's real nice, Jacob. Classy. Tell me, do you still have your balls, or does she keep them in a jar on her dresser?"
"Leave her alone," I growled. No one got to talk about Bella like that, no one. "It wasn't her idea either."
"Then who--" Leah stopped abruptly, staring at me. She shook her head slowly. "You're kidding. Oh, you're kidding. Do not tell me this is the bloodsucker's brilliant scheme." When I didn't answer, she groaned. "Christ, this just keeps getting better and better. You're going to procreate for them? So they can keep up with the happy shiny sparkly family bullshit?"
"Not exactly," I explained. "It would still be mine. Get to be on the rez and stuff. And if Bella turns then she has to give it to me and leave."
Leah gaped. "Okay, I don't know if it's better or worse that you thought that through. If your brain is actually functioning at all, then you should never have agreed to it in the first place. I mean, this is sick, Jacob."
"I'm aware," I said sourly.
"Then why the fuck are you even thinking about it?!" Leah leapt off the log and started pacing. "Why in God's name are you even entertaining the thought?!"
"If I do this, it'll buy time." It all came back to that... time. Time was everything. Time was all I wanted. "She won't change right away. She's all messed up right now, Leah. She's going to kill herself."
"Well, let her!" Leah exploded. "Let her die! If she wants to be a fucking vampire so bad, then good fucking riddance!"
A shiver ran up my spine and an animal growl came out of my throat. "Do... not..." The wolf paced in my chest and my heart started to race -- I would rip Leah to pieces if she kept this up, I would, I would, I would...
Leah's eyes were blazing. Her body shuddered once, twice... but then her shoulders slumped, defeated. "Fuck it, I can't even focus. You've got me too rattled to phase, you idiot." She stalked past me and knocked a branch out of her way. "I'm going to have to walk home. Thanks a lot."
I ignored her, let her walk away for a moment, then... Fuck. "Wait up, Leah."
"No. Get lost."
I jogged around a few ferns to catch up. Leah refused to look at me and kept marching ahead. "I can't just leave you out here."
"In case you hadn't noticed, shit-for-brains, I'm not some pale, sickly hundred-and-ten pound weakling. I can take care of myself."
"And if some straggling newborn eats you," I countered, "it would be my fault. Sam would kill me for not protecting you."
That got her attention. Leah speared me with a withering look. "Sam can go fuck himself. Besides, I don't need protecting, you do. The Lord High Alpha's going to have you neutered when he hears about this."
I groaned. "Oh, God, Leah, please don't tell him."
"You think he's not going to find out?" she snarled, looking like she might spit at me the way she did the day at the cliff. "You think I'm going to be able to not think about this? Jesus, I'm not going to be able to think about anything else! Besides, don't you think he'll suspect something when the sprog actually comes? It's not like anyone's going to buy that a child with your genes could have been fathered by that whiter-than-white bloodsucker."
"I thought of that. We'll just say it was an accident. We got carried away at some point, and..." I trailed off and, to my absolute horror, felt my face redden.
Leah, of course, noticed and rolled her eyes. "Virgins," she said disparagingly.
"Shut up," I mumbled. "Anyway, so we did once, and we weren't careful, and... well, there you go. It happens, right?"
"Yes, Jacob, it happens. That happens all the time. It's stupid, but it happens. But doing it on purpose isn't just stupid, it's fucking demented." She glared at me like she was going to start throwing rocks again, but she just barreled forward, kicking a stump out of the way. "What I can't believe is that the bloodsucker came up with this bullshit. He's practically got her on a leash. If he won't even let her out of his sight, is he planning to watch while you sex her up?"
"Oh God no," I said quickly. Ugh. That mental image was going to stick with me for awhile.
"So, then, what's the bloodsucker's thinking?" Leah asked. "Well, to the extent that any of you morons are thinking. The whole thing stinks. Is she supposed to say no? Some kind of loyalty test he's setting up for the bride-to-be?"
"No, I don't think so." It would be nice if it were, though. Bella and I make love, she fails the test, the leeches leave town. That would be fantastic. "Cullen's trying to talk her out of turning and he thinks a kid will do it."
"Oh, that makes perfect sense." Leah rolled her eyes. "I know that when I'm trying to convince someone to see things my way, the first thing that comes to my mind is popping out a couple of brats." Her expression flickered, and for a moment, she looked sad. Then she shook her head and it was gone. "So, fine. The bloodsucker wants her alive. You want her alive. But she wants to be dead. So is there any fucking chance that this plan will actually work?"
"I'm not sure," I said honestly. "I don't think Bella's thought things through."
"No fucking kidding."
"Not just like that, Leah. I think... I think she still isn't sure about what she wants to do. She says she is, but..." I shrugged helplessly. "She's really good at lying to herself, but she's not so good at lying to me. If she changes she won't be happy. She'll be cold and she'll never see the sun and she'll have to say goodbye to--" me "--everyone she loves. But if she has a baby, she'll have to wait, at least for awhile, and if she can't rush into anything then maybe... she'll change her mind."
Leah stared at me. "Right. And your hard-on for this chick has nothing to do with your motivations here."
I couldn't meet her eyes. "That's not why I'm doing this. But, well, if she changes her mind about becoming a vampire, she could always, you know... change her mind about other things, too."
Okay, that sounded really bad.
"Well, I'm sold," Leah said sarcastically. "Having a baby to convince a girl to love you. Nothing can go wrong with that plan."
"She already loves me," I shot back, stung. "She told me so."
"She did what?!"
"She's in love with me, too." No matter how awful things got, Bella Swan loved me, and that was good. "We talked about it when I was recovering. She loves me, but she just... loves the bloodsucker more. She thinks so, anyway. But he's messed with her head so badly, if I just had more time, I think she might--"
Leah had stopped walking.
"What?"
"Jacob," she said slowly, "do you hear the words that are coming out of your mouth? Look, I happen to think you're nine kinds of stupid, but there are other girls who won't think that way. Amazingly enough, you can do better than being some angsty white chick's runner-up." She looked away, her lips twisting into a snarl. "Besides, she had no business saying shit like that. It's worse that way. If she was going to pick the bloodsucker then she should have just said she didn't want you at all."
"I wouldn't have believed her," I said. "I can tell when she's lying." I sighed. What a goddamn nightmare. "I love her, Leah."
"Well, don't," she snapped, her face closed.
"I've tried," I shot back. Jesus, I'd beaten myself up over this plenty, I didn't need to hear it from her, too. "I know this is fucked up. I've tried and just can't seem to stop."
"Then try harder."
"I can't try any harder!"
"Bullshit. You're wallowing in this because you want to, and you know it."
"Well, maybe I'll just imprint and that will solve everything!" I shouted.
Leah's entire body froze.
Oh, shit. "Leah, I--"
"Don't. You. Ever. Say. That," Leah bit out, her face like a stone mask. "Not ever. Imprinting solves nothing."
"Yeah," I said, looking down. "I know. That was thoughtless."
A muscle in Leah's jaw worked, then she nodded curtly and started walking again.
Wow. I was a jerk. Especially given that imprinting was one of the worst fates I could think of. Seeing inside other people's minds is disturbing enough, but looking into Jared's head, Quil's head, and seeing everything that used to make them them suffused with a haze of blank, unreasoning devotion... it was fucking terrifying. Sam was better at controlling it (or at least hiding it from the rest of us), but his adoration of Emily was still there, and it bled out all mixed up with his pain over Leah. It was awful. Unlike some people, I liked having choices. "I don't want to imprint," I said quietly. "I really, really don't."
"Good."
There was silence for a moment as we walked side by side, then Leah said, "I wouldn't worry about it too much. I don't think you will."
"No?"
"No. Trust me, I've thought about it a lot," she said bitterly, "and I think imprinting only happens if the world decides you need... help finding someone. Let's face it, Jared's kind of an idiot, and Quil was destined to marry his right hand. They would never have managed on their own. Just wait, I bet Paul will have to imprint too, since he's such an asshole. The great Matchmaker in the Sky just gives them a push, and presto! Instant soulmates. Of course," she added, "instant anything is pretty worthless. Like packaged noodles. They've got ramen relationships."
"But--" oh God she was going to bite my head off "--that doesn't make sense for Sam. Sam loved you."
She snorted. "Yeah, well," the bitterness deepened, "I've got a theory for that, too. I bet the Alpha is supposed to have puppies. Gotta keep up that leadership bloodline or something."
I blinked. "Yeah? So?" Then, suddenly, I got it. "You mean you can't... you don't--"
"Nope," Leah said. Instead of pushing a large branch out of the way, she broke it off in her hand. It snapped like a toothpick. "Not since I started phasing. Finally went to see a doctor last month, and the plumbing down there is all shot to shit. No puppies for me. So imprinting fixed Sam's little mistake and pointed him in the suitable direction. Emily can probably give him a whole litter."
Oh, fucking hell. "That... sucks."
"No kidding." Leah reached for her pocket, then made a disgusted noise in her throat. "Shit. I never remember to bring cigs when I need them. Anyway, I think you're probably safe from the magical insta-love. You're apparently capable of finding relationships--" she eyed me "--terrible, terrible relationships, so I'd say you get to keep your choices. Just stop making all the wrong ones. Head up to Seattle for a weekend, fuck some random girls, get it out of your system, then come back and think clearly for once."
"I don't think that'll work." I'd go to the city determined to find a blonde and end up clinging to the shortest, palest brunette I could find. Then I'd come back and implement my eternal fallback plan -- begging Quil and Embry to kill me. Maybe with their fireworks.
"Yeah, probably not." Leah stopped, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. Her face was focused. "Okay, I'm sick of walking. I think I can phase now," she said, her hands going to the hem of her shirt. "Turn around."
Man, the whole occasional nudity thing was all so much easier when there wasn't a girl phasing with us.
Within a few moments I felt the earth under my paws as I ran, the grey wolf darting around trees by my side. I didn't think I'd ever get tired of being able to move so fast. It was better than the bikes, even -- though not better than the Rabbit. Nothing was better than the Rabbit.
So tell me something, Leah thought, dodging a fallen log. What is it about this girl that makes you such a fucking idiot? Is it the translucent skin? The angst? The shameless manipulation? What? Because I don't see it and, let me tell you, neither does anyone else.
It was the HEEEEEAT of the- OW! Leah's teeth bit the end of my tail, sending a sharp pain shooting up my back. Jeez!
Answer my question, or I'll bite the whole damn thing off.
Fine! She's... she's just... I didn't mean to show Leah what I was thinking, I was just looking for the right words, but my mind filled up with bella bella bella and images of her knee-deep in garbage at the dump and drinking warm soda and fidgeting with a socket wrench and laughing at Embry and It's not that you're a wolf, that's fine and wrapping her arms around herself and wrapping her arms around me and her body against mine in the tent and how the girl I knew disappeared around the bloodsucker and how I missed my Bella and Kiss me and come back and her hands in my hair and You're the only one I'd ever want to have children with and dreams of pancakes and Saturday mornings mixed with nightmares of marble statues and blood-red eyes and I loved her and it was all so much.
It took a long moment before I could get my mind to slow down and refocus.
Ah, Leah thought finally. I get it now. You're a sap.
Pretty much, yeah.
A few minutes later we came to the edge of the forest. My house waited beyond the clearing. The grey wolf looked at me. I should go in there and tell your father, Jacob, I really should.
Are you going to? I thought nervously.
A long silence, then-- No. And I'll try not to think anything at Sam, either. I'll hum some Alanis Morissette or something.
I blinked. Really?
She snorted. I'm a free will kind of girl. People should get to make their own choices, even when the choices are insane. But Jacob, for the love of God, think. At least talk about it more before you do anything stupid. This is a baby, not a goldfish, and you're a werewolf and she's marrying a vampire and you're both kids and all of you are fucking certifiable. So I won't rat you out, but think.
It was hard to argue with that logic. Thanks, Leah.
Shut up. As she trotted back into the woods, she added, Besides, if I did rat you out, it wouldn't be to Sam or your father. I'd call Rachel and Rebecca. I've still got their numbers, you know. And I'm not picking up any more big sister slack around here.
That didn't make me feel any better.
***
The third time, the call came in the middle of the afternoon, just as the Mariners game was starting on the radio. (Yes, they sucked, but team loyalty trumps all. Don't judge.) The ringing started after the first Felix Hernandez strikeout, and I immediately jumped up to answer it before Billy could. Not that I was nervous or anything. "Hello?"
"Um... hi, Jake. It's Bella." Like I wouldn't know her voice anywhere.
"Hey, Bells." Billy glanced up from the radio and gave me a Look -- a Look that I'd been getting a lot over the last few months, one that said Son, just hang up before you do anything stupid. Which was funny, in that he really had no idea how stupid I was capable of being. I turned away and faced the kitchen cabinet. "How's it going?"
There was a short pause, then-- "Your dad's in the room, isn't he."
"A little bit," I said. A simple yes would have immediately given it away to Billy that Bella had asked whether he was there, whereas a little bit could mean any number of things. You have to learn a lot of tricks to phone communication when you live in a small house with your father and don't have a cell.
"Ah," Bella said understandingly. She'd learned to translate my code a long time ago. "Well... can you talk anyway?"
"I think so," I said in a way that could potentially be interpreted to mean that Bella was asking if she'd left her sweatshirt in the garage.
"All right. So... uh... yeah. Can I see you tomorrow? 'Cause that's when, um..." she trailed off, and I could practically see her blushing.
"Yeah, sure," I said, shrugging, as though there was no reason I couldn't drop off Bella's sweatshirt when I was next in town.
I would definitely see her, because I'd been meditating on Leah's verbal bitchslap for two days, and I'd come to the inescapable conclusion that she was right. We needed to talk about this a lot more. So I'd meet with Bella and explain that we'd just have to wait, don't worry not too long but at least until next month, and that would give us more time to hammer out details and look at things from a lot of different perspectives and try to make the whole thing less batshit crazy and maybe possibly convince her that if she wanted to have babies then I would give her lots of them but it would be easier if she just stayed with me and forgot the whole getting married to a bloodsucker thing.
And if that didn't work, I could always tell Charlie that his daughter believed in vampires and he better get her to a hospital. That was the backup plan.
"Okay. Okay, that's, um, good. But, the thing is... if you're free, then we could.. I mean..." she hesitated, then said in a rush, "wecouldspendtheweekendtogetherifyouwant."
I blinked. "What?"
"It's just... I said something last night about how it might feel less awkward if... and I wasn't asking or anything, I was just thinking out loud, and then Edward told me this morning that he'd called and rented this cabin on the shore and if you're free we could actually go up tonight, and stay through Sunday, but it's... we don't have to, we don't, if you don't it doesn't matter to me, I'll do what you want to do, it's just... something we could do," she finished. She sounded like she was hyperventilating.
Oh.
Oh.
Holy shit. An entire weekend with Bella all to myself. That was... perfect, actually. The leech would be miles away, so it would be my Bells there, the one I never got to see anymore, the one who gave me real answers and real smiles. We could discuss things as much as we wanted, like Leah suggested. There'd even be time left over to just enjoy being with her for once. And I had absolutely no motivations beyond that. None. Really.
(I'd just have to forget the part that Cullen was the one who set it up. Every time I thought that he couldn't get any fucking creepier...)
"Jake, seriously, if you think this'll just make it worse or weirder or whatever then--"
"Nah, I think that'll work," I said casually. I could feel Billy's eyes boring a hole in the back of my neck -- if he kept it up I'd probably get a blister.
A long silence followed, then Bella giggled in a I-don't-really-think-anything-is-funny kind of way and said, "Okay, I'm sorta freaking out right now and I can't tell if you're actually that calm or if you're still putting on a show for your dad."
"Probably the second one." Calm was definitely not a word I'd use to describe myself at the moment.
"Oh, okay. Well, then... if that's all going to work, then... yeah. We'll meet there, I guess." She read off the address, and I closed my eyes and repeated it to myself, praying I could keep it memorized long enough to leave the room and find a piece of paper. I couldn't risk taking notes where Billy could see. "So... six o'clock, maybe?"
"Whatever," I said, adding a slight tone of bitterness. I was going to need it for my cover story.
"Right. Okay. Well..." Bella was biting her lip, I knew it. "I'll see you then, Jake."
"Yeah. Bye." I hung up the phone with just a little more force than necessary, then blew out a deliberately frustrated breath.
"Not a great talk?" Billy said as I turned around. His face was unreadable.
"No," I said. Not a lie, technically. It wasn't a great talk. It was a weird talk. I missed the days when conversations with Bella were easy. "Look, Dad, if you don't mind, I'm gonna clear out for the weekend. Go camping or something. I'm not scheduled to patrol or anything, so... yeah." I picked at my nails. "I just... need to get away."
He looked at me for a long moment, then nodded. "All right." Wow. That was easier than I thought. I must've really been looking pathetic recently. I started towards my room, but froze when Billy continued. "Son... I know you think I'm an old man, but I do remember a few things about being your age. It hurts when a girl breaks your heart, but I promise, it does get better in time. You're not the first person to go through this."
My hand shook as it reached for the door handle. "No offense, Dad, but you have no idea what you're talking about."
I heard his sigh over the radio announcers as I went to pack.
***
Chapter Five: Wherein Jacob and Bella compete.