Page 56 of Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined (The Twilight Saga)

“What, Dad? Didn’t you just tell me that you wanted me to socialize?”

He blinked a few times, then picked up his fork. “Yeah, I guess I did.” He took another bite, chewed slowly, and swallowed. “And didn’t you just tell me that none of the girls in town are your type?”

“ I didn’t say that, you did.”

“Don’t get touchy with me, kid, you know what I mean. Why didn’t you say something? Was I being too nosey?”

“No, Dad, it’s just . . . this is all kind of new, okay? I didn’t want to jinx it.”

“Huh.” He reflected for a minute while he ate another bite. “So you went to meet her folks, eh?”

“Er, yeah. I mean, I already knew Dr. Cullen. But I got to meet her father.”

“Earnest Cullen is great—quiet, but very . . . kind, I guess is the best word for it. There’s something about him.”

“Yeah, I noticed that.”

“Meeting the parents, though. Isn’t that kind of serious? Does that mean she’s your girlfriend?”

“Yeah.” This wasn’t as hard as I’d thought it would be. I felt a strange sense of pride, being able to claim her this way. Kind of Neanderthal of me, but there it was. “Yeah, she’s my girlfriend.”

“Wow.”

“You’re telling me.”

“Do I get a visit, too?”

I raised one eyebrow. “Will you be on your best behavior?”

He lifted both hands. “What, me? Have I ever embarrassed you before?”

“Have I ever brought a girl over before?”

He huffed, then changed the subject. “When are you picking her up?”

“Um, she’s meeting me here. See—you do get a visit. She’ll probably be here soon, actually.”

“Where are you taking her?”

“Well, I guess the plan is that we’re going to go . . . play baseball with her family.”

Charlie stared at me for one second, and then he busted up. I rolled my eyes and waited for him to finish. Eventually, he pretended to wipe tears out of his eyes.

“I hope you’re getting that out of your system now.”

“Baseball, huh? You must really like this girl.”

I thought about just shrugging that off, but I figured he’d see through me anyway. “Yeah,” I said. “I really do.”

I heard an unfamiliar engine roar up to the house, and I looked up in surprise.

“That her?”

“Maybe . . .”

After a few seconds, the doorbell rang, and Charlie jumped up. I ran around him and beat him to the door.

“Pushy much?” he muttered under his breath.

I hadn’t realized how hard it was pouring outside. Edythe stood in the halo of the porch light, looking like a model in an ad for raincoats.

I heard Charlie’s breath catch in surprise. I wondered if he’d ever seen her up close before. It was kind of unnerving.

Even when you were used to it. I just stared at her, gobsmacked.

She laughed. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah! Of course.” I jumped back out of her way, knocking into Charlie in the process.

After a few seconds of bumbling around, I had her jacket hung up and had both her and Charlie sitting down in the living room. She was in the armchair, so I went to sit next to Charlie on the sofa.

“So, Edythe, how are your parents?”

“Excellent, thank you, Chief Swan.”

“You can call me Charlie. I’m off the clock.”

“Thanks, Charlie.” She unleashed the dimples, and his face went blank.

It took him a second to recover. “So, um, you’re playing baseball tonight?”

It didn’t seem to occur to either of them that the buckets of water falling out of the sky right now should impact these plans. Only in Washington.

“Yes. Hopefully Beau doesn’t mind hanging out with my family too much.”

Charlie jumped in before I could respond. “I’d say it was the baseball he’d mind more.”

They both laughed. I shot my dad a look. Where was the best behavior I’d been promised?

“Should we be on our way?” I suggested.

“We’re not in any hurry,” Edythe said with a grin.

I hit Charlie with my elbow. Edythe’s smile got wider.

“Oh, uh, yeah,” Charlie said. “You kids go ahead, I’ve got a . . . a bunch of stuff to get to. . . .”

Edythe was on her feet in a fluid move. “It was lovely to see you, Charlie.”

“Yes. You come visit anytime, Edythe.”

“Thank you, you’re very kind.”

Charlie ran a hand through his hair self-consciously. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him so flustered.

“Will you kids be out super late?”

I looked at her.

“No, we’ll be reasonable.”

“Don’t wait up, though,” I added.

I handed her coat to her and then held the door. As she passed, Charlie gave me a wide-eyed look. I shrugged my shoulders and raised my eyebrows. I didn’t know how I’d gotten so lucky, either.

I followed her out onto the porch, then stopped dead.

There, behind my truck, was a monster Jeep. Its tires were as high as my waist. There were metal guards over the headlights and taillights, and four large spotlights attached to the crash bar. The hardtop was shiny red.

Charlie let out a low whistle. “Wear your seat belts.”

I went to the driver’s side to get the door for Edythe.

She was inside in one efficient little leap, though I was glad we were on the far side of the Jeep from Charlie, because it didn’t look entirely natural.

I went to my side and climbed gracelessly into my seat.

She had the engine running now, and I recognized the roar that had surprised me earlier.

It wasn’t as loud as my truck, but it sounded a lot more brawny.

Out of habit—she wasn’t going to start driving until I was buckled in—I reached for my seat belt.

“What—er—what is all this? How do I . . . ?”

“Off-roading harness,” she explained.

“Um.”

I tried to find all the right connectors, but it wasn’t going too fast. And then her hands were there, flashing around at a barely visible speed, and gone again. I was glad the rain was too thick to see Charlie clearly on the porch, because that meant he couldn’t see me clearly, either.

“Er, thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

I knew better than to ask if she was going to put her own harness on.

She pulled away from the house.

“This is a . . . um . . . large Jeep you have.”

“It’s Eleanor’s. She let me borrow it so we wouldn’t have to run the whole way.”

“Where do you keep this thing?”

“We remodeled one of the outbuildings into a garage.”

Suddenly her first answer sank in.

“Wait. Run the whole way? As in, we’re still going to run part of the way?” I demanded.

She pursed her lips like she was trying not to smile. “You’re not going to run.”

I groaned. “I’m going to puke in front of your family.”

“Keep your eyes closed, you’ll be fine.”

I shook my head, sighed, then reached over and took her hand. “Hi. I missed you.”

She laughed—it was a trilling sound, not quite human. “I missed you, too. Isn’t that strange?”

“Why strange?”

“You’d think I’d have learned more patience over the last hundred years. And here I am, finding it difficult to pass an afternoon without you.”

“I’m glad it’s not just me.”

She leaned over to swiftly kiss my cheek, then pulled back quickly and sighed. “You smell even better in the rain.”

“In a good way or a bad way?”

She frowned. “Always both.”

I don’t know how she even knew where we were going with the downpour—it was like a liquid gray curtain around the Jeep—but she somehow found a side road that was more or less a mountain path.

For a long while conversation was impossible, because I was bouncing up and down on the seat like a jackhammer.

She seemed to enjoy the ride, though, smiling hugely the whole way.

And then we came to the end of the road; the trees formed green walls on three sides of the Jeep. The rain was a mere drizzle, slowing every second, the sky brighter through the clouds.

“Sorry, Beau, we have to go on foot from here.”

“You know what? I’ll just wait here.”

“What happened to all your courage? You were extraordinary this morning.”

“I haven’t forgotten the last time yet.” Was it really only yesterday?

She was around to my side of the car in a blur, and she started on the harness.

“I’ll get those, you go on ahead,” I protested. She was finished before I got the first few words out.

I sat in the car, looking at her.

“You don’t trust me?” she asked, hurt—or pretending to be hurt, I thought.

“That really isn’t the issue. Trust and motion sickness have zero relationship to each other.”

She looked at me for a minute, and I felt pretty stupid sitting there in the Jeep, but all I could think about was the most sickening roller-coaster ride I’d ever been on.

“Do you remember what I was saying about mind over matter?” she asked.

“Yes . . .”

“Maybe if you concentrated on something else.”

“Like what?”

Suddenly she was in the Jeep with me, one knee on the seat next to my leg, her hands on my shoulders. Her face was only inches away. I had a light heart attack.

“Keep breathing,” she told me.

“How?”

She smiled, and then her face was serious again. “When we’re running—and yes, that part is nonnegotiable—I want you to concentrate on this.”

Slowly, she moved in closer, turning her face to the side so that we were cheek to cheek, her lips at my ear. One of her hands slid down my chest to my waist.

“Just remember us . . . like this. . . .”

Her lips pulled softly on my earlobe, then moved slowly across my jaw and down my neck.

“Breathe, Beau,” she murmured.

I sucked in a loud lungful.

She kissed under the edge of my jaw, and then along my cheekbone. “Still worried?”

“Huh?”

She chuckled. Her hands were holding my face now, and she lightly kissed one eyelid and then the next.

“Edythe,” I breathed.

Then her lips were on mine, and they weren’t quite as gentle and cautious as they always had been before.

They moved urgently, cold and unyielding, and though I knew better, I couldn’t think coherently enough to make good decisions.

I didn’t consciously tell my hands to move, but my arms were wrapped around her waist, trying to pull her closer.

My mouth moved with hers and I was gasping for air, gasping in her scent with every breath.

“Dammit, Beau!”

And then she was gone—slithering easily out of my grasp—already standing ten feet away outside the car by the time I’d blinked my way back to reality.

“Sorry,” I gasped.