Mind The Gap / 10

I waited all morning for Bella to call and ended up at her door when she didn’t.

Nine is late for me. Apparently, not for her.

She answered it in a flurried huff of irritation, wearing nothing but little black panties and tank top that was basically see-through. She flushed when she laid eyes on me and barely gave me a chance to get a good look at her before she was pushing me out the backdoor and darting up the stairs. Alice was lounging in a padded love-seat on the deck, wrapped up in a flowered robe with a coffee mug secure in both hands, the little roof over our heads shielding us from the piercing morning sun.

“Hi.” She sounded surprised to see me.

I shoved my hands in my pockets, feeling uncomfortable. “Hey. Alice, right?”

“Yes. And you’re Edward. The rock climber.” She said it like it meant something else entirely. “Are you taking Bella out with you today? Maybe I could tag along?”

“Uh, no,” I stammered. “She fucked up her hand yesterday. I’m just here to check on her.”

Alice’s eyes narrowed at me and she glanced toward the open doorway as though she was checking for Bella. Her voice lowered and she studied my face, trying to figure out whether to trust me or not.

“You take care of her out there, right?”

“I would move fucking rocks for that girl,” I said without even thinking, kind of surprising myself.

If Alice had any more to say on the topic, Bella’s arrival cut her off. She did glare at me a little over Bella’s injured hand, however, and demanded an ice pack, which I fully agreed with. Bella’s palm was now stained an ugly red, a stigmata in her skin and the back of her hand was no better. She pulled an old faded quilt from the house and we laid on it for most of the day, lounging in the sun while she let me fawn over her injury.

It was the only part of her that felt like I had some clearance to touch.

Even though I spent all night smearing my chalk covered fingers across her skin in my dreams.

I put my house-climbing skills to use just to see the look on her face and she certainly didn’t disappoint. She watched me with something close to horror as I leapt up the side of the house and lounged on the porch roof like a cat in the sun. The siding had proven to be deceivingly easy to climb, a heavy jutting lip of plastic interlocking each sheet that my fingers slipped perfectly into. I knew a guy, Felix, who exclusively climbed man-made objects, calling it “buildering” with a laugh as though it was all a big joke. I’d gone out with him a few times but missed the quiet simplicity of the forest.

Choking on exhaust fumes and fending off security guards proved to be too much for me.

I leapt into the trees from the porch, ignoring the girl’s frantic calls, and kicked off my shoes.  Letting the soles of my feet do the handiwork and I padded softly along the limbs like I was a predator stalking something small and helpless. Alice was below me in a halo of frilly skirt, distracted by the strawberries, and I briefly thought about dropping down on her.

I’m sure that girl has a fantastic scream.

My ringing phone summoned me back to the grass instead and I fell down next to Bella in a crouch. Her dress was awesomely short, a tormenting distraction all damn day and it only rode up further when she sprawled out on the blanket. Climbing the house had partly been about putting some space between us, my head on overload from the close proximity and my dick aching to rub up against her. I shoved my hand into my pocket to readjust myself and before I pressed the button to pick up Jasper’s call, I noticed that I’d missed five others.

All from him.

“Where the fuck are you? Are you climbing?” Jasper huffed into the phone.

“No, I’m shutdown today. Bella fucked up her hand.”

“How?”

“Spotting.” I glanced over at Bella, dress skimming her thighs and her arm thrown over her eyes. I tried not to ogle the hint of black lace showing at her hip and attempted to pay attention to Jasper instead.

“Spotting who? You?” He was fully aware that Bella shouldn’t be spotting anyone really, much less someone my size, and I couldn’t help that I growled with latent frustration into the phone.

“Yeah, me. Who the fuck else would it be?” My eyes trailed back to her in that barely decent dress and she caught me this time, her gaze finding mine. Shit. Jasper was asking about Alice and I tore my eyes off Bella’s underwear to scan the yard for his own sparkly paramour instead, finding her still crouched in that patch of strawberries.

“Are you sure she’s there?” Jasper asked again and I rolled my eyes.

“Yes, she’s here.”

“You’re sure?”

“They live right next to each other and I’m watching her stuff her face with strawberries, so yeah. I’m sure.” I pocketed my phone before he could irritate me any more and glanced over at Bella. She was staring at me.

“Jasper’s coming over,” I mumbled.

“Good. He can entertain Alice.”

Alice squealed from the flower bed, mouth full of strawberries.

---

I wasn’t lying when I told Bella that she was different.

Special in a way that I hadn’t quite figured out, and unnervingly adept. I didn’t know if I could call it talent, this skill she seemed to have buried in her fingertips, but only because the word didn’t feel as though it did her justice. This might have been something that she was born with, for all I knew. Climbing was a sport of frustration dotted with brief moments of success, the high of which wore off completely before the next hit came along.

Not Bella.

She just kept propelling herself forward, her trajectory set high and wide and the truly interesting part was that most of the time, she succeeded. There was no awkward beginning as most of the rest of us suffered through, the constant blisters and overwhelming feeling of failure. None of the excuses or evasion tactics that we’d all tried on for size to get out of a day sure to be full of pain and anxiety.

Instead, she’d taken one sly side-long look at a rock and morphed right into a phenomena. A ballerina, slim and delicate and frighteningly easy to underestimate. Her limbs were graceful yet strong enough to hold her on a rock, hands small enough to fit in the smallest of cracks yet still strangely fragile under the chalk and blood and hardening skin. Her short stature completely belied her strength and she looked as though she belonged in an entirely different kind of shoe.

Pink ones, with trailing ribbons and a flattened toe.

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