The Other Way : Eight

You Don't Want To Know

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Carlisle showed up at the bungalow at precisely 5:12 the next morning, basically dragging Jasper out of bed while he rambled on and on about something involving the length of the boat dock. He paced around while Jasper got dressed, still ranting about replacing it and I lay there for nearly twenty minutes, tangled in the sheets, still unsure what was so wrong with the old one. He didn’t even apologize for taking Jasper away, just gave me a brief wave as Jasper leaned over the bed to press a kiss to my forehead and I was left alone in our big empty bed to the breeze and the waves and the sound of my heart sloshing around in my rib cage.  

Not even out of bed yet. Thoroughly drunk lavender and too much sunlight.

Jacob showed up just a few hours later, knocking softly and blushing that beautiful rosy caramel color as he scanned the room. I wondered what he was looking for because something sad and disappointed tainted his voice when he told me that the girls at the spa were waiting on my arrival. I spent the morning test running a few of the offered treatments and silently endured an hour getting avocado mashed into my hair, mango mashed into my skin, and coconut mashed into my feet. By the time the spa girls allowed me to escape I felt more like a fruit salad than I had any right to, stumbling to the pool in a daze. The heat of the sun made my skin smell even stronger of sugary fruit and combined with the lavender buzz wafting off the water, I was trashed. I slumped into one of the shaded lounge chairs which was really more like a bed and allowed a uniformed girl to bring me a drink garnished with one of those horrid paper umbrellas I was beginning to despise.

I managed to get half of the drink down before Emmett appeared, Edward in tow, and wished instantly that I’d had time for the whole thing.

Edward perched in a seat beside the lounger while Emmett unceremoniously pushed me over and flopped down beside me. He fanned his face and complained about the heat as Edward produced a pack of cigarettes and tucked one between his lips. Right between those two rings through his bottom lip.

“Where’s your man? We were supposed to meet up an hour ago to discuss the foundations of four and seven.” Emmett spoke into time to the flare of Edward’s lighter.

“With Carlisle,” I shrugged. I wasn’t sure at all what he meant by four and seven, but wasn’t interested at fucking all. The way Edward’s mouth was shaped right now, the hollows that appeared in his cheeks when he sucked, was far more intriguing than any construction nonsense.

“Should we be worried about how much those two seem to like each other? If I didn’t know any better, I might be jealous.” Emmett grumbled and plume of smoke was pushed out of Edward’s mouth in a weaving tail of ghostly grey.

“I’m not worried. At least I know he’s taken care of.” I shrugged because it was true and I really just wanted Emmett to shut up so that I could watch Edward smoke in relative peace. This shit was fascinating.

“Maybe you should be worried about how close he is with Moonflower. He seemed a bit more fond of her than anyone should feel about their hairdresser.” Emmett had that same lopsided grin on that I knew was directly tied to his dick and I scowled at him.

“You do understand that she’s his sister, right?”

“Who?”

Edward lifted the cigarette to his mouth, cupping his jaw with long slender fingers, eyes narrowed in my direction, listening along. Why was that so distracting?

“Moon uh. . . Rose,” I corrected myself.

“They’re siblings?” Emmett kind of squeaked when he said it, which was interesting considering he was the size of an obese silver-backed gorilla.

“Twins.” I couldn’t help wrenching the knife a little. Emmett actually shuddered.

“No wonder you liked her so much. She’s the female version of your boy-toy.” Edward spoke up around a mouthful of smoke and got an especially evil eye out of Emmett.

“Jasper is most certainly not my boy-toy.”

“He was all you talked about for months. I thought for sure I was coming back to be introduced to the great Jasper Hale, my new brother in law. Come to find out, he’s spoken for.” Edward’s eyes fell on me like burning balls of molten wreckage, littered from the sky in a hailstorm of rampant devastation, lips wrapped around his cigarette again.

“I thought you gave that shit up?” Emmett waved his hand at the cigarette dangling from Edward’s lips, obviously eager to shift the spotlight. “For a doctor, you really are fucking stupid sometimes.”

He’s a doctor?

Edward plucked the cigarette from his mouth and held it as though he was prepared to launch a dart, pinning it between three fingers and pointing it at Emmett as he spoke. Holding one of those was not supposed to look that good.

“Yeah, well . . . some traumatic bullshit went down in Africa and it was the least lethal of my old habits to fall back into, medical degree or not.” Edward took a drag and exhaled, staring off across the water as though he was really very far away. Maybe on a different continent.

He is a doctor.

And the Africa thing is true?

“You were in Africa?” I piped up, unable to decide which one was the most intriguing, and both of the boys turned at me with identical looks of humor on their face. I’d seen it on Esme enough to know that this was a conversation I’d probably zoned out on at a million cocktail parties.

“Yes. With Alice.” Edward looked as though he wanted to smile at me, but was holding it back. He took another drag off his smoke, eyelids fluttering closed, lavender-lidded in a way that reminded me of the drugged-up ocean.

“Is she a doctor, too?” I still couldn’t even begin to reconcile my visions of doctors in white scrubs and face masks with the inked-up boy sprawled in the chair beside me, smoking. Alice fit the bill even less.

“In theory. She calls herself a midwife.”

“And just what was the traumatic bullshit that brought back your bad habit?” Emmett butted in, maybe still a little pissed about Jasper bailing on him and the fact that his paramour wasn’t actually a Primrose who was related to his business partner. “Did little Alice turn you out of her bed? It must get awful lonely out there in the middle of fucking nowhere.”

“You don’t want to know.” Edward scowled at the ocean, mouth hardening and his voice gone brittle. He took an angry drag off the cigarette, shaking his head viciously and muttering something to himself.

“Oh, ho! So she did turn you down!” Emmett sneered, enjoying Edward’s obvious discomfort and I’m sure he was probably the worst kind of big brother to have. Edward eyed me furtively as he shook his head.

“No, that’s not it.” He sucked on the cigarette and I tried desperately not to watch.

“Then what? You vowed those things away for good the last time we talked.” Emmett curled his lip  You were never that good at following your own rules, anyway.”

Edward stared at Emmett for a long time before he spoke, his mouth set in a hard line and his eyes pulled back into his skull, aging a millennia in under a second. When he finally spoke, his whisper was stained with pain and rage and something ancient that made him sound as though he’d spent more time as a ghost than the other way around.

“The baby.”

“Holy fuck. Please don’t tell me that you have some half-Cullen kid running around naked and shoeless somewhere.” Emmett gaped at Edward and I realized that my own mouth had fallen open just in time to get it closed before either of them noticed.

Edward glanced at me again, eyes wide and face ashen. “No, it was Alice’s.”

“Damn, she looks good for having a kid,” Emmett blurted. “I thought their boobs sagged when-”

“No, Emmett,” Edward wrenched his eyes off me to finally glare at his brother, spitting in a hiss of rage, neck flushed. Hands trembling. “The baby Alice found. In a field. It took the miserable thing four fucking hours to die and it took me four days to convince her to drink some water, much less get out of bed.”

Edward stood fluidly and we both gaped up at him, the sun spilling over his shoulders and setting his hair on fire to match his mood. “That’s what happened in Africa. That’s why we’re back and that is why I’m smoking again.”

He hurled the pack of cigarettes at Emmett as though he wished it was a grenade and stormed away.

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