Jessica's thoughts ran wild as she hurried to her first class, peeking back at us now and then.
The whole story. I'm not accepting anything less. Did they plan to meet up last night? Are they dating? How long? How could she keep this a secret? Why would she want to? It can't be a casual thing - she has to be seriously into him. Is there any other option? I will find out. I can't stand not knowing. I wonder if she's made out with him? Oh, swoon... Jessica's thoughts were suddenly disjointed, and she let wordless fantasies swirl through her head.
"Did she actually think 'Oh, swoon',?" Jacob asked laughing.
"Whatever," Bella shrugged; she was so not looking forward to this conversation with Jessica.
I winced at her speculations, and not just because she'd replaced Bella with herself in the mental pictures.
It couldn't be like that. And yet I...I wanted...
I resisted making the admission, even to myself. How many wrong ways would I want Bella in? Which one would end up killing her?
"How about you stop thinking about that one and give us all a break?" Jacob hissed.
I shook my head, and tried to lighten up.
"What are you going to tell her?" I asked Bella.
"Hey!" she whispered fiercely. "I thought you couldn't read my mind!"
"I can't." I stared at her, surprised, trying to make sense of her words. Ah - we must have been thinking the same thing at the same time. Hmm...I rather liked that.
"The simplest things pleases him," Jacob chuckled.
"Um... I'm pretty sure this book proves that's not true," Bella said. "He's never pleased about anything... or he never lets himself be pleased."
"However," I told her, "I can read hers - she'll be waiting to ambush you in class."
Bella groaned, and then let the jacket slide off her shoulders. I didn't realize that she was giving it back at first - I wouldn't have asked for it; I would rather she kept it...a token - so I was too slow to offer her my help. She handed me the jacket, and put her arms through her own, without looking up to see that my hands were extended to assist. I frowned at that, and then controlled my expression before she noticed it.
"He really is a gentleman," Bella muttered, she was really going to have to remember that and that it wasn't only car doors that he wanted to help her with.
"So, what are you going to tell her?" I pressed.
"A little help? What does she want to know?"
I smiled, and shook my head. I wanted to hear what she was thinking without a prompt. "That's not fair."
Her eyes tightened. "No, you not sharing what you know - now that's unfair."
Right - she didn't like double standards.
"No... so tell me what you know," Bella said.
We got to the door of her class - where I would have to leave her; I wondered idly if Ms. Cope would be more accommodating about a switch in the schedule of my English class... I made myself focus. I could be fair.
"She wants to know if we're secretly dating," I said slowly. "And she wants to know how you feel about me."
Her eyes were wide - not startled, but ingenious now. They were open to me, readable. She was playing innocent.
Jacob again laughed at this image.
"Yikes," she murmured. "What should I say?"
"Hmmm." She always tried to make me give away more than she did. I pondered how to respond.
Bella rolled her eyes... that so wasn't true.
A wayward strand of her hair, slightly damp from the fog, draped across her shoulder and curled around where her collar bone was hidden by the ridiculous sweater.
It drew my eyes...pulled them across the other hidden lines...
I reached for it carefully, not touching her skin - the morning was chill enough without my touch - and twisted it back into place in her untidy bun so that it wouldn't distract me again. I remembered when Mike Newton had touched her hair, and my jaw flexed at the memory. She had flinched away from him then. Her reaction now was nothing the same; instead, there was a slight widening of her eyes, a rush of blood under her skin, and a sudden, uneven thumping of her heart.
Bella was again annoyed at having to read this out loud, and for the blush that came to her face... and that she had to wait another few days before meeting Edward... and worried about how that meeting would go...
"Um... are you going to read again any time soon?" Jacob asked.
"Yeah... sorry," Bella blushed even more and then started reading.
I tried to hide my smile as I answered her question.
"I suppose you could say yes to the first...if you don't mind - ," her choice, always her choice, " - it's easier than any other explanation."
"I don't mind," she whispered. Her heart had not found its normal rhythm yet.
"And as for her other question..." I couldn't hide my smile now. "Well, I'll be listening to hear the answer to that one myself."
"Argh," Bella said, now glaring at the book. "That's not fair."
"But it does make this more entertaining," Jacob laughed.