The Other Way : Seven

It's Not A Dream

-

Jasper pulled me around the side of the main building and pinned me up against the rough plastered wall, hips to mine and his breath in my face. The jungle was brushing leafy fingers against the shoulders of his soft grey shirt and we were conveniently hidden in the shadow between two windows, light and noise from the front desk leaking through the glass on either side of us. Jasper’s curls were in fine form, the damp air oddly taming them while dusting his skin with a faint sheen of dewy moisture. I undid the second button of his shirt as he dug his flask from his back pocket, fanning at the flushed skin of his neck while he pressed up against me and undid the cap, offering me the first swallow before taking a solid gulp himself.

He didn’t wince or cough or splutter like I did, my eyes watering and throat burning. He only smiled around the mouthful of fire and didn’t take his eyes off me, making the whole awful ordeal look smooth and sensual.

“This dress is absolutely stunning, Bella. It does something quite mystifying to your eyes.” His fingers found the soft fabric at my thigh; a thin pleated, whisper light chiffon that fell clear to the ground and would have been indecently sheer were it not stained a deep shade of indigo blue. It was loose and airy and draped quite low in the back, which meant I wasn’t wearing anything underneath and Jasper licked his lips as he eyed me, fingers edging my hip bones and looking for all the world as though he was contemplating activities far outside of our boundaries.

“Rose picked it out.”

“I wasn’t complementing the buyer.” He took another swallow and tipped the flask at me with his eyebrows lifted in question. I would never understand him anyway, so I took the flask from him instead, still warm from his pocket and downed another fortifying swallow. I did better the second time, allowing the liquor to slide down without fighting, letting it collide with the seawater buzz I was still sporting.

“Edward and Alice are here.” The combination obviously wreaked havoc on my filters.

“Yes,” Jasper nodded. “I told you that Edward joined the company. Alice tagged along.”

“Is Esme here?” I tried not to shuffle my feet, mostly because he’d be able to feel it if I did. Her presence was far more calming than I would ever admit and something about Edward made me nervous and achy in ways I couldn’t even begin to explain. Alice just plain overwhelmed me.

“She’s flying in the day after tomorrow. Something about a charity dinner.” Jasper shrugged before another thick swallow and he tucked the flask away. His hands found the exposed skin at my lower back and he fingered my hips, holding me close, eyes boring into me. “Tell me that you love me.”

He wasn’t pleading, or even demanding. Simply asking, giving me the option to refuse.

Classic.

“Of course I do.” I shook my head slightly, wondering when he was going to start believing me.  

“That’s good. I have something to show you.”

He took my hand and we tiptoed through the dark jungle, rounding a corner of the sandy path to a building looming through the twilight haze. I could tell that it was made up entirely of glass panels intersected with something pitch black and elaborate, like the curling wrought iron that framed my grandmother’s ancient canopy bed. Jasper set his shoulder against one of those glass panels and it opened with a weary scrape, glass and metal to flesh and bone. We stepped inside and I heard him fumbling for something in the dark, his fingers still twined through mine and the room was suddenly flooded with soft light.

Never in all my days . . .

There was glass on every side of me, the ceiling left open and airy through the metal hatch-marking the sky. The frame was certainly embellished, though far beyond my expectations. Vines and leaves of cast-iron were twining their hard, spiraling fingers through the metal, blending seamlessly with the climbing plants that were clawing their way toward the sun. There was a giant, gnarled tree in the far corner, limbs twisting themselves through the latticework ceiling like an embroidery project. The branches sprouted leaves shaped like pears and giant clusters of flowers that looked like soft pink grapes. The bark was covered in a fine speckle of emerald green moss, soft and springy to the touch. Between me and that awesome tree were intricate pathways cut through a creation that would make any botanical garden president jealous. There were potted trees and wild plants, leaves of every imaginable color, shape and size, the air full of so many smells that it sent my head reeling even farther.

“Jasper, it’s -” I choked his name, struck dumb by the spectacle and heard him chuckle behind me.

“It’s not a dream. I saw the photo and knew we had to buy.”

---

Jasper walked me back to the hotel before darting off to find Emmett. We were joining him and Carlisle for dinner in the hotel restaurant, presumably Edward and Alice as well. It was now just an enormous expanse of empty chairs and silence and I stood in the middle of the dining room, trying to imagine what it would be like with every seat filled. Tropically dressed tourists with sunburns and umbrellas in their drinks, talking too loud and snapping too many pictures. A clatter of conversation and dishes rising into the air, drowning out the sound of the ocean.

I liked it better this way, quiet and still.

“Bella. You look ravishing, as always.” Carlisle ambled into the dining room, taking my hand and pressing a kiss to my knuckles as though we were playing at being royalty. I smiled as best I could and gulped down the complement, never all that good at receiving them.

“I hear you’re flying solo for a couple of days.”

Carlisle chuckled and reddened at the neck just like a teenage boy in love for the first time. “She’s scheduled to fly in on Wednesday. She told me to tell you to wear plenty of sunscreen and that you can’t go exploring until she gets here.” He pressed his lips together as if he could barely contain his amusement.

“Of course she did.” I grinned back at him.

“Why don’t you choose where we sit tonight? This will be the first meal ever served here, a trial run of sorts, so be sure to pick out the best table.” Carlisle motioned at the room and my eyes scanned the endless opportunities, falling on a table situated right up near the windows, close enough that the metal frame fell away to a stunning view. The sun was staining the sky purple and gold as it sank, setting the crests of the waves afire, the faint speckle of stars only beginning to appear in the big opened mouth of the sky.

“There,” I pointed. “We can watch the sunset.”

Carlisle nodded in agreement. “I’ve never known you to make a bad decision, Bella. Is that where Jasper gets it? He seems to have an uncanny knack for intricate problems.”

“I can’t take any credit, you know that’s all him,” I deflected. “He’s special.”

“That he is.”

We were interrupted by a door flung wide open and the dancing appearance of Alice, clad in a tight black tube dress that only made her inked skin all the more apparent. Her feet were bare and covered in sand, the diamonds at the corners of her eyes studded in alternating shades of blue and green. She caught sight of us and smiled the smile that I was beginning to realize was her default look, a grin that ate up her face as she wove toward us through a maze of empty tables.

“Bella, allow me to introduce Alice. A friend of Edward’s.” Carlisle extended an arm toward her and I watched in fascination as she stepped right up into his embrace as though they’d known each other for years. He and I were still in the fragile, polite phase of our relationship, kisses to the backs of my hands and conversations that were only just beginning to feel comfortable. I was strangely jealous that this little tattooed girl had sprung right into his good graces. Here she was, all metal and ink and blinding megawatt smiles, accepted without question or hesitation.

“Carlisle, you can say it out loud. It won’t hurt, I promise.” Alice sounded as though she was teasing, poking him softly in the side and from the look on Carlisle’s face, twisted slightly in the center, maybe she was.

“Say what out loud?” I asked on a whim, interested that this little girl had the ability to make Carlisle look like that, amongst all her other seemingly unrealistic accomplishments. I had been fairly certain that his face never wavered from the calm, collected-complacency thing he was always doing. Here he was looking as though he’d bit into slightly sour, incredibly sweet lemon.

“I’m not just Edward’s friend,” Alice snickered and my stomach twisted up just like Carlisle’s face. “I’m his life-partner.” She broke into a peal of laughter strung through with silver, as though she’d just told the funniest joke to have ever existed.

I completely missed the punch line.

---

Jasper’s hand came down heavy on my knee underneath the table, stilling the anxious bounce that had taken over my ankle. I gulped and told my leg to chill the fuck out, glancing at Jasper from the corner of my eye but he was still talking animatedly with Carlisle and Emmett about something that I thought involved water rights. It sounded as though something was wrong, urgency tainting their words, but he didn’t even falter even as he moved to still me, conversation rolling right along while his fingers gently squeezed my thigh through the layers of my dress.

He knew me too well sometimes.

We were halfway through dinner and I couldn’t keep my eyes off Alice.

Actually, I couldn’t keep my eyes off Edward watching Alice. She’d confused me so thoroughly with that ‘life-partner’ reference that I’d spent the appetizer and salad course studying them intently rather than engaging in any sort of social involvement, or even enjoying my food.

Thus far, neither of them was giving me much to work with.

Jasper and Edward had appeared together, Jasper bee-lining to kiss me softly before greeting Carlisle. Edward ambled up to Alice as though he couldn’t be bothered to feel rushed, hands hidden in his pockets, hair in disarray and his mouth tucked up to the side like he knew a delicious secret. He pressed a soft kiss to her cheek and pulled out her chair, but other than that he’d done nothing but watch her intently. From the look on his face you would have thought she was a bomb bound to explode at any unforeseen moment, or an animal that was deathly dangerous but only under a certain set of circumstances.

Other than that kiss, he didn’t touch her. Not once.

He did meet my eyes across the table though, twice, busting me in my staring and that was what set my knee off. He was wearing a thin white cotton button down that was shadowed from underneath by dark splotches of ink, sleeves rolled to expose his colorful forearms and yeah, there really was more of it around his neck. The top button was undone but I could barely bring myself to inspect this new expanse of skin, almost afraid of what I might find and nervous that I wouldn’t be able to hold myself together once I did. I was trying to pay attention to Alice in one ear, regaling me with some story that I was finding hard to follow when I heard my name from the far end of the table.

“I’m on to Bella,” Carlisle was chuckling.

“What?” I butted in, hand falling down over Jasper’s to stop his infuriating massage of my thigh and he wound his fingers through mine with a secretive smile. It was hard, but I directed my attention at Carlisle. “Don’t talk about me unless you have any something nice to say.”

“I’m starting to believe that she’s your secret.” Carlisle ignored me and chided Jasper conspiratorially, an eyebrow arched suggestively in my direction, his words tottering along the thin precipice of a double-edged sword.

“Oh, Bells keeps me on a nice straight line.” Jasper winked at me, obviously thinking that he made a joke.

“She’s not your only secret,” Emmett goaded, winking at Jasper and my heart pounded to a bone-shattering halt. Jasper’s fingers dug so hard into my thigh that I knew for sure I was going to have a bruise later and I tried not to gasp as I discreetly tried to pry them out of my flesh. He’d gone completely rigid and I wondered if he was even breathing.

“And what is his other secret?” I asked, doing my best to sound nonchalant because it looked as though Jasper wouldn’t be able to form words right now, even if he wanted to. “I’m intrigued.”

“That salon you recommended? Epic win.” Emmett winked again at Jasper as though it meant something entirely different, although I highly doubted that Jasper had referred his boss’s son to any of his favored strip clubs. He must have sent Emmett to Rose. Jasper’s fingers relaxed, but not enough to free his grip of my thigh.

“You went to a salon?” Edward chuckled into his fist and ducked a swipe from his brother. From the looks of it he’d never visited one himself, that tousled hair unfamiliar to a pair of scissors.

“Whatever, shithead,” Emmett sneered at his brother, giving us a momentary glimpse into their childhood. “They gave me beer there, two in fact, and a shot of whiskey so it was more like a bar where you get your hair cut.”

“Are you sure they weren’t doing that just so you’d be drunkenly complacent? It looks a little crooked back there.” Alice reached around Edward and fingered the hair at base of Emmett’s skull.

“No,” Emmett huffed and pulled away from her fingers. “It’s just good marketing. Speaking of good marketing, the girls . . . my god.” He rolled his eyes and clutched his heart as though it hurt.

“The girls aren’t marketing schemes.” Jasper ground words through his teeth, trying to appear calm and succeeding for the most part except for his fingers, which were still digging into my flesh. He’d sunken quite a good deal of his own money into Rose’s salon and I knew he would be offended at the suggestion that sex was part of the business plan. If you asked Rose, however, her girls wore short skirts for a reason and none of them were suffering for it.

“With legs like that?” Emmett’s eyebrows raced up to greet his hairline. “Of course it’s marketing. The beauty who cut me should have a fucking continent named after her, much less a measly flower.”

Oh shit.

“Do you remember this beauty’s name?” Jasper sounded mildly uninterested but then again, only I knew that he was gripping my leg under the table like it was a rock he wanted to pick up and throw. Emmett obviously took it as a jab to his chivalrous side and scowled in his direction.

“Of course I do.”

“Well?” Jasper growled.

“Well, what?”

“Her name? You referred to a flower, I’m interested to find if you remembered anything beyond that.”

“Lavender.”

Jasper shook his head. “Rose.”

“No, Lavender. I’m sure of it. Well . . . maybe it was Lilac or Poppy or something.” Emmett smashed his eyebrows together, trying to conjure up the name around the vision before his eyes.

“It’s Rose,” Jasper snapped.

“Fine. Fuck.” Emmett huffed just as our plates were set before us, heralding the beginning of dinner by tucking his napkin into his collar. “She could be named Moonflower for all I care. I think I’m in love.”

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