Don't Look / No Promises

THIRTEEN

Bella

It took four rocks to get Rose to the window.

“Bella?” she leaned out, peering through the dark. Bella stepped into the light a little.

“Alice with you?” Rose nodded and Bella gave her the well, come on then head shake toward the street before she slipped back into the shadows. The girls came running down the darkened driveway ten minutes later, all giggles and holding hands until they saw the Thunderbird. They faltered, stopped completely, almost turned around, glancing at each other until Bella flung open the door to the back seat and waved them on. Rose crawled in first, then Alice, and Edward rolled the car clear down the hill before he pounded on the gas, the sudden angry growl from the engine sending all three girls in the back seat into a fit of fresh giggles.

Alice gave Bella a kiss right on the mouth and Rose handed her a bottle of something rose- colored and wickedly sweet, sweet enough to make Bella’s teeth ache.

“Something happened today,” she said, sounding ominous and braver than she really was.

“Newton and his boys. They got a lesson in manners.” Bella smiled.

“A lesson?” Rose asked. Alice was just staring at Bella with her mouth clamped tight to hold back a grin, because she probably knew exactly what Bella meant.

“A lesson,” Bella said, nodding

“An eye for an eye kind of lesson,” Edward spoke from the front.

“You didn’t!” Rose exhaled at the same moment Alice squealed, “You did it!”

Edward nodded and turned them sharp onto a back street, deep at the edge of town. Rose fumbled for Bella’s hand in the dark and Bella held her tight.

“I was gonna say, you look like you fell into a pile of fists.” Alice peered at Edward, his busted lip and that eyebrow that definitely needed the stitches he was still refusing.

“Hey, I gave better than I got,” Edward muttered.

“I’ll bet,” Alice laughed, launching to her feet and flinging herself across the seat to wrap her arms around him. “Thank you,” she said.

“No sweat, babe. I got your back.” He patted her arms with one hand and even from the back, Bella could tell he was smiling despite that lip.

“Stop the car.” Bella put her hand on Edward’s shoulder and he pulled the Bird up short beside a sleek white Roadmaster.                   

“This it?” he asked, glancing back over his shoulder at her.

“This is it.”

“I’ll wait.”

Bella shook her head, but he shook his right back.

“I’ll wait,” he repeated.

Rose was staring out the window at the white Buick, a pretty hard top, while Alice was staring at the exchange between Bella and Edward, her eyes darting back and forth between them.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

Bella grinned. “We have a car to lift, girls.”

They got it open in record time. Guess it wasn’t something that got lost even if was left forgotten for too long. Not something you exactly grew out of. Edward waited until Bella had the car revving before he slunk away, the growl of his engine finally roaring to life a block away and Bella jetted off toward the mountain, slipping easily out of town. Rose leaned over the back seat to wrap her arms around Bella, put a kiss on her cheek and mess up her hair.

“Missed you,” she said, before flopping back.

“Sounds like you’ve been having fun.” Alice grinned from beside her and Bella shook her head. Between the parking lot and the movies, the public spectacle she made of herself and then the boy in the tailored jacket printed houndstooth and the funny striped socks at the soda fountain, the one that called her Dolly . . .

“Today was the strangest day ever,” Bella said. “You won’t even believe it.”

---

Edward

There was a cop car in front of the garage when Edward pulled up.

He’d driven around aimlessly for a little while after he left the girls in that Roadie. Bella picked just fine, great even, when she tapped that car. It was a new model, which these days meant air conditioning and power windshield wipers. He ended up at the shop because he had nowhere better to go and recognized the cruiser immediately. Edward took his time going in, finished his smoke and then lighting another one, glaring at that car and wondering what was gonna happen just beyond that door there. He stubbed the second smoke out with his boot and grumbled all the way inside.

“Ed.” Jacob leapt to his feet, face ashen. Edward put a hand out to still his friend and looked right at Bella’s old man.

“Mr. Swan.”

“That’s Chief, son.” The older man extended his hand and Edward figured that was a damn good sign, this guy wanting to shake his hand first, so he shook it back, nice and firm and steady.

“What brings you down, Chief? That cruiser out there not runnin’ so smooth?”

“Not here about that, kid. Sit down.”

No handshake was gonna make those words sound any better than ever before. Edward sat and Jacob sat and the Chief sat after them, rubbing his hands on his knees.

“Seems the Newton boys saw a bit of trouble this afternoon. Know anything about that?” Chief asked.

“Yes, sir,” Edward said and Jacob shot him a stricken look, shaking his head frantically.

“You do?” Chief sounded surprised.

Edward nodded. “It was me.”

“You?”

Edward nodded.

“Just you?” Chief squinted at him.

He nodded again.

“Sixteen of them.” Chief squinted harder. “You,” he said flatly.

Edward nodded again. He wasn’t about to give up his boys, no fucking way, and he knew better than to bring the girls into it either. Some high school punks were one thing, but the real world was another. Most folk looked down on girls like that and wouldn’t give one raw fuck what happened to them, be it a fist or a boot or a gun. He was keeping this one all to himself.

“You lying to me, boy?”

Edward shook his head and the Chief sighed, shaking his own as he stood and fumbled with the  cuffs at his belt.

“Damn, kid. Was starting to think you were smart there for a minute, your dating my daughter and all, but you just went and proved me wrong.”

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