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Bella won't stop looking at him, and it's pissing Paul the fuck off.
She knows, of course. Bella has a weird way of seeing through all his bullshit and also not giving a damn, as if all the fury he can throw in her direction makes no dent in the unshakable assurance that Sam's love has given her. But she keeps looking, and he keeps getting more pissed off, and finally he says, "I'm leaving," and storms out of poker night like he's still sixteen and more wolf than man.
She follows, after a word to Sam. "Paul."
There's no use in running, but he thinks about it anyway before dismissing the notion. Bella's far more dogged than he, plus he needs to be around his first Alpha—and, much to his private dismay, his first Alpha's girl—more than she needs to avoid the words he uses to cut at her. "What?"
She closes the front door of the little house she shares with Sam and steps closer to Paul, eyes boring holes in his skull like she can drill to the truth. Good luck with that, sweetheart. "What's shoved a stick up your ass tonight? I mean, besides the one that's always there."
He can't restrain a snort. Bony Emoella who could barely think the word "fuck" has a potty mouth to rival the werewolves who surround her these days, but it's still a shock. Even to Paul, with whom she practices the least restraint. "It's none of your fucking business."
"And?" She's right beneath his nose now. The scars on her face have faded, but to his eyes they stand out even in the dark, a visible reminder of the price she paid for daring to play with forces outside her control. It sure as shit doesn't seem like it taught her to stop putting herself in danger.
Fuck it. He'll never have a moment's peace until he tells her so he might as well get it over with now. "She called me."
Bella doesn't need to ask who "she" is. Sam let that slip a long time ago. Her eyes darken with anger. "She's such a bitch. Did you answer?"
"No." But not because he meant to let it go to voicemail. He left his phone in the car accidentally and if he'd seen her number on the screen he would have talked to her. Realizing that, and realizing that he still knows her number even though he never dials it, infuriates him even more than the phone call. "She didn't leave a message either. But it was two o'clock in the morning so she was probably off her ass drunk or something."
"How often does she do that? Drunk dial you, I mean." Now Bella looks concerned. She just can't turn it off, even when it's somebody she hates, like Lauren.
"I don't know. It's been a while."
"I—"
"Don't say you're sorry."
Bella glares at him, safely restored to their usual combatant status. "I wasn't going to, dickhead. I hope there isn't something wrong, that's all. And I wish you didn't have to deal with her."
"I don't have to." That's the problem. "She just wishes I did." So does he. No he doesn't. For God's sake, sometimes his own head is so fucked up that he wishes there were a way to punch it hard enough to knock some sense into it. "Whatever. I'm leaving. By the way, your outside faucet's leaking like a bitch. I guess vice-Alpha's too busy to take care of his own damn house so I'll fix it tomorrow before it makes me lose my shit."
"Okay. Thanks. See you." Bella draws back, but she still gazes at him, anger faded to speculation.
"What?" It bugs the shit out of him when she does that. No matter how hard she stares she's not going to get to the bottom of the cesspool that's his mind.
To his surprise, a tiny smile curls up the corners of her mouth. "Nothing. I just like you, is all." Without waiting for an answer, she turns and goes into the house, back to her happy little picture-perfect life with Sam Uley, of all people, the one person Paul always counted on to be just as messed up as he himself was, until things got turned on their heads. Light flashes out of the open door, blinding him, and then fades just as quickly with the click of the latch.
Shaking his head in bewilderment, Paul turns and walks to his truck, but instead of driving home he drives to Port Angeles.
He doesn't come here nearly as often as he used to, back when he was supposed to be in high school and instead raced around in the woods chasing vampires. He started running down after the redheaded leech did her best to kill him and he had to miss all the fun. Jacob came too, for a while, but at the moment he's living at the beck and call of that curly-haired chatterbox he refuses to admit is a girlfriend.
Fuck it, it's not like Paul needs a wingman. He just has to sit in a corner and girls come to him. Thanks, werewolf makeover. He goes into the first club that he comes across. It's shitty and second-rate, of course, but who gives a fuck as long as they've got booze? These days, he phases seldom enough that if he drinks fast, he can actually get drunk. Tonight seems like a good enough time to give it a shot. Or seven.
The bartender lines them up in front of him and then moves onto the next customer. Paul listens with half his attention to the conversations under the music.
Two girls, sitting to his right:
"I'd fuck him."
"You're such a slut. Would he fuck you, though?"
Answer: no.
A guy and a girl on the floor:
"I've never seen you here before."
"I don't usually go to clubs."
Bullshit. Paul's seen her here the last five times he's visited, and it's not like he's been coming every weekend.
Two guys at the table closest to the bar:
"What the hell is she doing?"
"I don't know, but she's been there alone for a while."
"Go ask her if she's okay."
"Why?"
"Because she looks not okay."
"No thanks. I had enough drama with my last girlfriend."
"Probably a good call. She might be insane. Who comes to a club looking like that?"
Paul, not really curious, looks around anyway, and almost immediately sees what the two guys are talking about: a girl in a wedding dress sitting alone at a table, back to the bar, half-empty glass of what looks like whiskey swirling with the restless motion of her hand. Her blond hair, perfectly arranged under her veil, catches the different colors of the lights and reflects them back.
Oh.
So that's why she called.
No ring on her finger, though.
Paul upends all but one glass and carries the lone remainder over to Lauren's table. Sitting down without an invitation, he angles his chin, observing, "You look like you're supposed to be somewhere else."
Her makeup's all run down her face, a slow mudslide of fakery that's left her looking like a washed-up clown, but she doesn't seem to care. "I do? Weird. It feels like I'm supposed to be right here." Raising her glass to him, she says, "To the wrong girl."
"To Lauren," he acknowledges, and tilts his last shot back. Setting it down, he says, "Who's the poor dumb bastard you left at the altar?"
"You never met him. Javier. A guy from U-Dub. He's probably on his way back to his home in Hunts Point right now." She sips her drink again. "Ticket out of Forks, lost."
"Thousands of dollars, lost. Hope your parents are doing better than they were back when we hung out."
She laughs and buries her face in her hands. "I paid for it all myself. I didn't want to owe them a penny. Instead, I owe it all to Visa. And MasterCard. And Discover." Still keeping one palm firmly pressed to her eyes, she reaches to pull out the skirt of her wedding gown out for his inspection. "At least I got a kickass dress out of it."
"You look fucking stupid." She looks like a grown-up. Someone old enough to get married is too old to hold accountable for stupid choices she made years before, no matter how much his chest hurts because of those choices now. "Sitting here in a club wearing your wedding gown. And what's with the white?"
"It doesn't mean I'm a virgin, dumbass." With a damp giggle, she knocks back the rest of her drink and waves at a server.
"No shit. It's just…" He's disgusted with himself for remembering this, but, "You hate wearing white."
"Yeah, but I hate a lot of things."
"Did you love Hunts Point?" Fucking booze, making his tongue loose in his head. What the hell was he thinking?
"Not enough, I guess." She spreads her fingers out on the table before her, staring at her left hand. "I knew it when I called you, but I was too much of a pussy to tell him till today, an hour before the ceremony."
"Sucks to be him."
"Not as much as it would have if I'd gone through with it." She turns her hands over so that her palms lie facing upward. Paul stares, too, at all the crisscross marks that mar the delicate skin inside her wrists. They're faded, but still there, and of course nothing much can hide from his eyes. "When's the last time we talked?"
"Five years ago." At the most fucked-up party he ever had the displeasure of attending. Fucking Emoella and her death wish. "How'd you get my number?"
"Jessica. She made me promise I wasn't just going to jerk you around again." She laughs again. "So I hung up as soon as it rang. I hoped you wouldn't recognize mine."
"Yeah, well, don't flatter yourself. I've got a good memory for numbers." It's the truth, but he doesn't remember everybody's. Just the people who matter. "Are you gonna go home?"
"I guess. Once I can drive. Oh, wait, I walked from the church to here." She draws patterns in the water left by the condensation on her glass on the table. Spirals. It's always spirals. "Guess I'll catch a cab or something."
Catch a cab? From Port Angeles to Forks? It'll cost her a fucking fortune. "You done?"
"Yeah." The server sets a fresh glass in front of her. Lauren hands over a twenty with, "Keep it." At Paul's incredulous look, she shrugs. "I don't give a shit. What, I'm going to go more bankrupt? Somebody might as well get what they want tonight."
"You're so fucked up. Drink that and let's go." He stands, and then, when she stays seated, adds impatiently, "C'mon, Lauren, don't pull that hard-to-get bullshit with me. We both know you're not and anyway you don't have the money to pay for a cab."
She gives him a look with tears hovering around its edges. "You're such an asshole. You used to be sweet."
"Sweet didn't get me anywhere, did it?" Damn it, he didn't mean to say that, either. Paul breathes for a second, focusing, trying to figure out if he actually managed to get drunk and can't drive. After a moment, he regretfully comes to the conclusion that he's fine to get behind the wheel. It's just Lauren who makes him admit what he shouldn't. "Get up."
Swallowing, she redirects her gaze to the table and shakes her head.
"Why the fuck not?" he demands, and then spins around because shit, he sounded like the kid he used to be, the one everybody called Doughboy and whose own dad couldn't look at him with anything other than contempt. The one boy who was friends with Lauren Mallory, out of all the boys who hovered around her, not because he wanted to be but because she never saw him as fuckable.
She told him differently, once, but he still refuses to believe what she said was true. Just like he refuses to look at her until he's certain his face is blank.
At last, with a defeated sigh, Lauren stands and shakes out her dress, then gives him a nod. "Fine. Let's go."
Together, they walk out of the club and into the night. Rain sheets down on their heads the instant they step onto the sidewalk. Paul doesn't care, having spent more time outdoors than in at this point in his life, but when he looks back, he sees Lauren hunched over in misery, hugging herself against the chill. Her dress is one of the kind that leaves her shoulders entirely bare to the elements. Paul makes himself move forward, toward his truck, instead of to her. Unlocking the doors, he slides inside, waits while she awkwardly climbs into the cab, and then pulls out of the parking lot before she even gets her seatbelt buckled.
He makes it fifteen minutes down the 101 before her surreptitious sniffling and shivering get to him. Cursing at himself, he reaches to flip the heat on for the first time since he bought the truck and then, driving one-handed, unbuttons his shirt. His body heat's already evaporated most of the water from the fabric. Handing it to her, he orders, "Put it on. You're driving me nuts."
Without a word, she obeys.
Something about driving frees him to speak. Maybe it's because he can't really make eye contact with her. "Tried to kill yourself lately?"
"Not since the time you found me."
The memory makes him nauseous. To hide it, he says, "I guess those meds are magic. Fucking sanity in a goddamn pill."
"Fuck you, prick. I worked hard, too; I didn't, you know, pop a Xanax and hope for the best. Just because I didn't hop into bed with you doesn't mean I was trying to play you. I was honest with you like nobody else." Huddling into his shirt, she mutters, "I told you the truth, when you came to my party. I was so afraid of messing everything up, if I got together with you before my head was screwed on straight. I guess I put it off too long, but damn, Paul, I never lied to you. You're the one who ditched me, or did you forget that while you were telling yourself what a bitch I was?"
It hurt so badly to stop calling her, stop going round her place, and stop taking her calls, that he made himself forget. Guilt's another thing that makes him angry, so he snaps, "Whatever. I had shit going on that you wouldn't have understood."
"But Bella Swan did?" she demands, incredulity clear in her tone.
He starts and then forces himself to focus on the road rather than look at her. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"You hung out with her all the damn time! I saw you! Coming in the party to get her, riding in her truck around town…"
Raising his voice, Paul talks over her. "She's with one of my best friends. What was I supposed to do, pretend she wasn't there?"
"That worked with me, didn't it?"
It did. But Bella already knew about them. There was nothing left to hide. And she wouldn't allow Sam to hide from her even when he tried his best. Which, come to think of it, wasn't all that good. Those two were meant for each other.
Lauren's next words come out in a whisper. "I tried. I came up to La Push for months and tried to find you."
The sounds of the rain falling on the roof of the cab and the windshield wipers squeaking fills the cab until he can bring himself to speak. "I know you did."
He drives on in silence which she finally breaks with, "You never turned your lights on. How can you even see the road?"
Without answering, he rotates the switch and squints against the sudden brightness fanning across the asphalt.
They're coming up on the outskirts of Forks when he thinks of something to say. "Your folks still live on Fuhrman Road?"
The words come out in a sad little sigh. "Yeah, they do."
"Are they pissed at you?"
Still, the small, sad voice. "Yeah, they are. I think they hoped me getting married would make me someone else's problem."
Paul remembers that about the Mallorys. They were always trying to make Lauren someone else's problem, and her problems someone else's fault. Including his. Although he supposes he was a pretty easy target to find. "Too fucking bad for them."
"I know, right? At least this time they're not out a shitload of money." She gives a weak laugh.
"Silver lining." He passes Fuhrman Road and keeps heading for La Push.
"That was it, Paul."
"I know that."
"If you're taking me to Bella I'll cut a bitch."
"Hell, no. And she'd cut you first. She's not exactly your biggest fan."
"Yeah? Well, fuck her."
It's like the devil wants to make him say everything he can think of that's guaranteed to infuriate her. "You two are a lot alike, you know."
"Shut up, Paul, and take me to my parents' house. I'd rather listen to them yell than sit here while you spew this shit."
"Sorry, babe, we just passed the only stoplight. You won't even have a chance to jump, so, whoopsies, you're stuck with me. That'll teach you to take a ride from a stranger."
Lauren's gaze is just as penetrating as Bella's, and twice as annoying. "You're still the same guy, Paul. Or you would have taken me straight home. Don't try and pretend it's just to mess with me. You feel sorry for me still."
He manages a sneer. "So what if I do? That just makes you pathetic."
"I know I am. But what does it make you?"
Paul can't force himself to give the answer he knows is the truth. Just as pathetic. Instead, he shrugs. "Right now, I'd call myself your best chance for a good night's sleep."
The ambiguity of that statement keeps her quiet almost the entire way to La Push. It isn't till he turns off La Push Road and into the rez that she asks, "Is your dad home?"
"I live by myself now." In his dad's house, just like Sam lives in Allison's house. Even their parents could leave the rez behind, but not them. Not the wolves. "He got remarried and she didn't want to come to La Push."
Lauren laughs. "You chased her off, huh?"
He laughs, too, though it makes his throat tight. "Yeah. I did." He wasn't surprised when his dad went with her. After all, what did La Push have to offer?
Curling up on the seat, Lauren rests her head on her knees and looks at him. "You're pretty good at that. Chasing people off."
The feeling of being understood is a dangerous one. At any minute, he'll be spilling his guts just because he wants to make sure she understands everything. He grits his teeth against the confessions fighting to make their way free of his mouth and pulls up in front of the house. Lauren slips her feet out of her heels and clutches them to her stomach, along with the hem of her dress and her purse, picking her way through the mud behind him as they make their way to the front porch.
This time, he remembers that normal eyes need light and flips the switch when he opens the door. Dropping her shoes on the porch, Lauren steps in behind him and waits while he throws the deadbolt. She hands his shirt to him, turning to present her mostly-bare back. "I'm sorry, but would you mind unbuttoning these? I can't reach, and there are a couple of hooks, too."
Wordlessly, he obeys, taking care not to allow the backs of his fingers to brush her skin. When he's finished, he lets his hands drop, but doesn't move away. She clutches the front of her bodice to her chest, breathing too hard and staring at the wall. Paul waits. Lauren's going to turn and she's going to wrap her arms around his neck and she's going to pull his mouth to hers, and then he'll be on solid, familiar ground once more.
"Can I take a shower? I'm freezing."
"Nobody's stopping you."
Lauren shuffles off toward the bathroom without looking back. In seconds he hears the shower sputter on.
Well, shit.
Looking around, Paul's struck by how neglected the place looks. It's not filthy or anything—he's far too fastidious for that—but there are stacks of old magazines in random baskets under side tables, clean laundry hanging over the arms of the lounge chair, and used dishes still in the sink waiting for their once-a-week washing. Not ever having anyone inside has made him blind to the reality of his surroundings. Vaguely ashamed, he grabs the clothes and carries them to his room. Then he realizes what he just did and nearly throws all the clothes on the hallway floor until he remembers that they're his and he'd only be spiting himself. With a growl, he stalks into the kitchen and starts washing dishes, taking some grim satisfaction in the knowledge that she'll be showering in freezing water while he runs the faucet. No yelps emerge from the bathroom, but his ears are sharp enough to catch her gasp. He grins.
Of course, there's the question of what she'll wear. It's not as if she can fit on his old bunk bed wearing that massive dress, and anyway the fabric's soaked. It'd serve her right if he just let her sleep in it but it'll mess up his blankets. Cursing at himself, at Lauren, at Bella for staring at him and chasing him away to Port Angeles, he finds a t-shirt and cutoffs made out of sweatpants with a drawstring waist. He flings open the bathroom door, sees Lauren gaping at him and clutching a towel ineffectually to her chest, and throws the clothes at her head before slamming the door shut once more.
"Thanks?" Lauren drawls from behind the flimsy wood paneling.
"Whatever."
While he's waiting for her to emerge, he works on the dishes.
Lauren speaks behind him too soon. "Is it okay if I sleep in your old bed? Or would you rather I take the couch?"
In your old bed. She'll be sharing the room with the ghosts of his fantasies about her teenage self, the ones he indulged before he understood how much the vampires had stolen. She looks almost as young, now, especially with her habitually thick eyeliner rinsed from her face and her lips left bare. "You can sleep in the bunk bed. I have my dad's now." Thank fuck for that. Sleeping with his knees digging into his chest got real old, real fast, but that didn't mean he got a bigger bed just because he'd had the inconsideration to grow a foot in the space of a month or so.
"Thanks." Fidgeting, she opens her mouth as if to add something she's not certain will be welcome—like anything she says will be at this point, except maybe, "never mind, I'm leaving," but he knows that wouldn't make him happy either. Instead of saying it, she drapes her dress over the barren kitchen table and draws alongside him, drying the dishes before setting them into the rack as he finishes washing. When they're done, she says, "Goodnight," and heads for his old bedroom. Paul waits for the door to close behind her. Once it does maybe he'll be able to breathe again without this weird strangling feeling.
"Paul."
Damn it. "What?"
"I really appreciate you bringing me here. My parents are so mad that I don't think they'd even let me in tonight. So, thanks."
"Yeah." It doesn't sound cutting enough, but the ability to converse has deserted him along with the ability to breathe unhindered.
"Good night."
The bedroom door closes.
He still can't breathe.
Fighting off the urge to curl up on the floor outside her doorway so that she'll have to trip over him to leave, he gets ready for bed and crawls under the covers. His hands shake when he smoothes down the blankets around his body. Something's wrong with him but he doesn't want to figure out what it is, so instead he listens to Lauren's heartbeat until he falls asleep.
The sound of her crying awakens him. Between the clouds and the time—just before dawn—it's so black that even his eyes have to strain to see, but he makes his way to the other bedroom anyway. Shoving through the door, he says, "What the hell is your problem? I can't sleep."
"Sorry," she sobs, not lifting her face from her pillow. "I'm sorry."
Lauren's five feet, nine inches. He knows because she told him back when he was shorter and she wanted to be a model (I'm just barely tall enough). It's big for a girl. But she looks so little, curled up on the twin-size mattress, and before he knows it he's sitting on the edge, feeling her tremble against his updrawn leg. "Did you have a bad dream?"
Rolling over, she presents him with an unattractive picture: reddened skin, matted hair, streaming nose and eyes. Paul watches his hand as it reaches, all on its own, and strokes the damp blond strands back from where they've stuck to her temples.
"No," she tells him, and he jerks away. Catching his wrist, she pulls it back, clarifying, "No, it wasn't a bad dream. It was a good dream. The best. That was what made it so awful. Everything was perfect and I was so happy and then I woke up and…" Tears start leaking from the corners of her eyes again. She clamps her mouth shut and shrugs with a miserable smile.
"I get it." At her raised eyebrows, he adds, "I had those." Back when his mom left. He dreamed that she came back, promising never to leave again, and then she acted like moms on TV did, making dinner, chiding him about his homework and folding his shirts. What a bunch of bullshit. Still, "It sucked to wake up."
"Yeah." Her grasp on his wrist loosens enough for her to caress the skin next to his palm. He shivers.
When she tugs him toward her, Paul doesn't resist. He doesn't kiss her, either. He just ends up overlaying her, awkward, hip still on the edge of the bed and arm braced next to her head. "What do you want?"
Clearly taken aback by the question, she replies, "What do you think?"
"When I offered to fuck you the last time, you didn't seem to be too big a fan of the idea."
"Don't be a jerk. You were trying to get back at me for not recognizing you. I didn't want to be part of it. It wasn't my fault you grew like a weed and turned into a fucking bodybuilder."
It's hard to put what was wrong about what she did into words. He feels it so deeply that it almost bypasses the powers of speech. Finally, though, he manages to spit it out. "You treated me like one of them." The others, the saps, the guys who hopped into bed with her and proved she mattered and then hopped right back out again. The ones she used and threw away.
She sighs. "I didn't know what else to do."
It's good enough. He's not sure why. He presses his lips to her collarbone, and she catches her breath in not-quite-a-gasp, her body going limp before she pulls him down. Her arms wrap around his neck, just as he pictured before, but it's all strange and different because she's here with him just like she used to be when he was fifteen, only this time she's acting the way he wanted her to, and things happening the way he wants them to are always worthy of suspicion. Holy shit, she smells so good.
Shoving the doubt away, he lifts his shirt over her head. The squeezing in his chest eases when he has her topless. This is familiar; this is something he knows how to do. He's good at it. Lowering his head to her breast, he licks the inner slope. The responsive hitch of her chest makes him smile. Her body fits to his exactly, every curve pressing to a corresponding angle until he's locked into place. And he still hasn't gotten her naked.
Lauren doesn't like that. He's barely started paying attention to the other breast when she starts twisting, whimpering, "Take them off," and pushing his shorts down. Working her arm between them, she touches his cock. Paul sucks in air between his teeth and squeezes his eyes shut against the sensation, almost too powerful with all the weight of his juvenile speculations behind it. Lauren takes advantage of his distraction to push off her shorts too. Suddenly there are no further barriers between them.
With a glance up at him from beneath her lashes, Lauren pushes his shoulder until he's flat on his back, their positions reversed. Scooting downward, she licks his erection. When he gives a pained groan, she looks almost unbearably smug before opening her mouth to swallow him in soft wet warmth. Her corn-silk hair falls forward to tickle his stomach and thighs, and that's when his brain shorts out and his whole world dwindles to the feeling of her lips, tongue, and throat caressing his length. It seems like an embarrassingly short time before he feels himself hovering on the edge, way too close to coming for his liking.
"Cut that out," he tells her. She ignores him. "Lauren, I'm serious, don't." No way is he letting her get him off first.
With a petulant sound, she sits up as far as she can without hitting her head on the top bunk and scowls at him. The impact of the expression's somewhat reduced by her swollen mouth and bedroom eyes. "I don't mind."
Something in the way she says it makes him think that maybe she'd even prefer that outcome. Too bad. He isn't giving up control that easily. "Yeah, well, I do." He pulls her down to him once more but flips her over so that she lies on her side, facing away. Sliding one arm under her to curve around her breasts, and the other down between her thighs, he draws her earlobe between his teeth. She flinches, and he tightens his grip, releasing her ear to say, "No." The tension in her body gets worse, but she allows him to slip his hand up the inner curve of her leg.
She's not ready for him yet. Not nearly wet enough and that shaking might be arousal or it might be fear, so he wants to wait and make sure. She seems so fragile. Even Paul, long since accustomed to judging his own strength and how much the woman he's with can take, is a little hesitant to let go. Rubbing her clit with one finger, he whispers, "C'mon, this was your idea, remember? Don't tell me you're chickening out now."
Her legs clamp together, almost stopping the movement of his hand before she exhales and seems to make a conscious effort to relax. "I'm not."
Yeah, right. Pulling her more tightly against him, he strokes her breasts in rhythm with the fingers between her legs. "Good girl." She likes that; a gush of wetness dampens his hand.
No sooner does he start to feel her excitement building toward her climax, though, than she starts begging, "Paul, please. I don't wanna wait. Please."
It's almost like she doesn't want to come.
His pride won't allow that result. He frees her just long enough to reach under the bed and pull out a stray box of condoms, checking the expiration date on a wrapper before ripping it open with his teeth. It's been so long since he had someone here in his home that he's surprised they aren't out of date. Rolling it on one-handed, he tells her, "You don't have to wait," and slowly pushes inside her. Once he's fully seated, though, and she's pressing back against him, trying to cue a faster pace, he stops dead. Instead of moving, he instead returns his attentions to her clit. Lauren whimpers, her entire body jerking as if she's looking for an escape route, but unless she tells him she's changed her mind then he's not giving her an out. "Nobody's making you wait."
"Paul."
"Right here."
She's gasping, high-pitched noises reminiscent of the sobs he heard earlier. "Paul…"
The slow tightening of her internal muscles around his cock is making it almost impossible to think straight, but he focuses on maintaining his rhythm. He can't help the tiny, involuntary movements of his hips even though he tries to still them. "It's okay." It feels like a stupid thing to say, but Lauren almost seems scared, and it's the only response to come to mind. It isn't until he brushes his lips across her neck in a soft trail of kisses that she finally lets go. She inhales, her whole body clamping down in anticipation, and then cries out as the waves of release thrum through her. There's hardly any room to move, but Paul manages to roll her over onto her stomach so that he can thrust into her, finally freed from the need to be gentle. If he were really on his A game he'd see if he could get her to come again, but his usual standards have been destroyed by the woman in his arms. Instead, he gives in to his own orgasm, clenching his jaw against all the things he might say if he lets down his guard, even now.
Lauren stays face-down, head buried under her arms like she's shutting him out already, while he gets up to take care of the condom. When he gets back, though, she surprises him, rising naked to her feet and padding into the master bedroom without a word. He follows, and watches her settle into the bed and close her eyes before crawling in beside her.
Her stare awakens him a few hours later. It's heavy on his skin even with his eyes closed, but when he looks at her she glances down, swallowing hard.
"I can't just stay here."
Why not? is the first thought to pop into his head, and that scares him enough that he says, "Hell, no."
"Would you mind giving me a ride back to my parents'? I texted them last night to tell them where I was, and they didn't answer, so probably they don't care, but I still need to get my stuff and head out."
"Sure. I'll get dressed." Despite the words, he stays where he is while she rolls out of bed and heads to the bathroom. Maybe the nauseous, gnawing feeling in his gut is just hunger. He doesn't think it's the right kind, though.
For once, he lets the realization surface: He really wants her to stay.
He's always wanted her to stay.
That's a mistake, because instantly all the other shit he's been keeping at bay rushes to fill the gaps anger usually stops up, and he's panting between his teeth with the pain of it in seconds. Fucking Lauren and her fucking ability to prod through the impervious werewolf skin to the soft kid who's still there underneath it all.
Lauren exits the bathroom but doesn't come back in to join him. The tremors are back, a sick parody of the shaking that overwhelms him just before he phases. He manages to put on his pants but decides not to bother with anything else. He's just driving her back to Forks, after all.
Once he's finished in the bathroom himself, he walks out to see Lauren half into her wedding dress, frowning as she tries to do it up behind her back.
"Let me get that." He starts at the bottom and goes as slowly as possible. Maybe it's that his hands don't want to cooperate, or maybe it's that he knows as soon as he finishes, that's it.
Lauren sighs, and the sound carries the echo of grief.
"Don't go," he begs before he realizes he's even thought it. "Don't go."
She moans, but her mouth is clamped shut in a stubborn line.
"Don't go," he says again, and he spins her around to skim his fingertips up her bare skin, barely letting himself touch her because it slices him open and he's bleeding, he just can't see it yet. The dress collapses to her waist as she reaches up to stroke his hair. "Don't go," he whispers, and kisses her.
She kisses him back, but the misery radiating out of her vibrates through every point at which they touch until his heart's in his throat. "I'm so sorry," she whispers against his mouth. "I don't want to go but this is wrong. I'm too fucked up right now and it's not fair to you."
"Fuck fair," he tells her, but she steps away, shaking her head.
"I'm sorry."
Without another word, he wrenches her dress back up and finishes the job of closing it. They drive back to Forks in the same silence.
Once they're parked in her parents' driveway, she steps out, but then turns to look at him. "Paul—"
"There's your dad," he interrupts, nodding toward the porch. "Bye."
She closes the truck door, saying, "Bye."
Paul manages the drive back to his house. He doesn't remember it. It isn't until he's pulling in that he realizes the entire twenty minutes is a blank. Sam's sitting on the front step, in spite of the rain, waiting for him, so he doesn't get much of a chance to think it over.
"What's up?" he asks, walking past the Vice-Alpha and unlocking the door.
Sam follows him into the house and instantly stiffens, nostrils flaring. "What—you had a girl here?"
Giving him a derisive look, Paul collapses into the lounge chair. "That's why you came over? Yeah. I fucked a girl, Sam. You can leave."
Sam lifts an eyebrow and sits opposite him on the couch. "I came over because one, Bella was worried about you. And two, Jake was worried about you."
Great. Werewolf telepathy isn't worth the shit it puts him through, and neither is friendship, even friendship by proxy through the Sam buffer. "Tell Alpha Jr. I'm fine. Same goes for Emoella. Doesn't she have enough to worry about with you being her boyfriend?"
Shaking his head, Sam looks him in the eye. "I know you better, man. If you had someone here, she was special."
Paul opens his mouth, ready with a cutting reply, but before he can say the words all the feelings slam back into him, still too fresh and raw to shove away, and he ends up just gaping like a dumbass, unable to say a word under the assault.
"Paul." Sam stands, his face a picture of shock, but Paul only shakes his head and gets up, tripping over the lounge chair in his hurry to retreat.
"Don't," he warns, and then he's out the front door and running for the trees. Sam calls after him, but Paul ignores the summons and strips, leaving his pants on the ground as he bursts into the body of the wolf and keeps racing away, far from the weakness of his human heart.
The night after Lauren leaves Paul, he has to patrol with Jared. Fortunately Jared's way too happy—and clueless—to notice when anybody else is the opposite. He jabbers about the baby and the baby's diapers and the baby's crying and how Kim's boobs leak now whenever they do it and it's kind of weird, like, did Paul know that milk comes out of a bunch of different holes in her nipples and not just one like a bottle? (No. Paul did not. And he would've been abso-fucking-lutely fine with never ever seeing that picture, particularly the part where it squirted across their bedroom.) But of course it's not enough to stop them. And Kim's apparently just as much of a slut for Jared as she ever was so Paul figures that everything's okay in imprint la-la land.
At the end of his shift, he doesn't want to phase back. Turning human means regaining the human pain, which his current form holds at bay as long as he doesn't think about it. Paul's pretty good at not thinking about it. Instead, he paces through the woods, looking at his house, trying to decide whether or not it's worth it to sleep outside.
Unfortunately, he's so busy not thinking about what he wants to ignore that he forgets to think about other things, like the fact that it's Jacob and Sam's turn to patrol, and the instant they phase it's all over.
Paul?
Jacob knows already that something's wrong, so he's primed to be nosy. He barely has to prod before it's all jarred loose: wedding dress lights crying in the dark too much to resist and then she's gone
Oh, shit. Sam sees the face too. I remember that girl. Unfortunately for Paul, Sam's not the Alpha anymore, and his flashback to five years ago is open for both the other wolves to see.
Paul has the blonde from last weekend backed into the wall; he's kissing her and she's clinging to him and neither one of them seems at all wary or nervous or frightened. How is he able to touch her so freely? His hands are skimming over her sides, sliding beneath her shirt to rest on the flare of her hips, not particularly gentle or careful, but she's not acting hurt so it must be okay, right? Paul isn't shaky or holding back and how is he doing that?
When they break apart and Sam sees the way Paul is looking at her, he steps in. That look is not a look any of them can afford to give to anyone else. Even if Paul can somehow control himself. Even if he knows from the sick second-hand resignation building in his gut that Paul already understands he's going to have to walk away.
A moment's complete mental silence, and then both Sam and Jacob start, Paul—
Just leave me the fuck alone. Paul phases out and goes inside, eating everything in sight before collapsing on his bed and shutting the world out with sleep. For the next two weeks, that's all he does. Sleep. Patrol. Eat. Go to work. Come home. Bella stops by but, seeming to sense that this is beyond her powers, silently delivers dinner for him and then, to his disgust, pats him on the back before leaving again.
Everyone's worried. Jacob never gives Alpha orders—Alpha Jr.'s too moral for that sort of thing—but he does everything else he can to persuade Paul to talk. It doesn't work. Talking hurts.
Finally, Jacob sends in the big guns. He sends Jessica.
"Paul? Hey, grumpy-ass, open the damn door or I'm just coming in."
Unlike most of his neighbors, Paul locks the door, so he knows it's an empty threat. He sits and stares at the television, which is turned off.
The next minute, his head whips around in surprise as she strolls inside. "I told you," she says in answer to his look.
Right. He gave a key to Sam, and Bella owns everything Sam has. Goddamn happy couples. "What the hell do you want?" he asks, but his voice sounds weird, probably because he hasn't used it all that much in recent days.
"So Jacob says you're all emo and shit and he won't say why except Bella said it's about some girl and she won't tell me who but dude, it's probably Lauren, right? Because I remember that one time back in high school when you came to her party and it was really strange and she was all chasing you around, and then I heard she ditched her fiancé at the altar a couple weeks ago, but my mom saw her driving through town with some Native guy when she was leaving for her shift at the mill and then the next day was when you got all weird and so I'm guessing that's all part of the same weirdness. Am I right? I'm right, right?"
Paul just stares at her. Jessica sits down opposite, curls bouncing as she looks around. "Fine, don't tell me, it's not like I care anyway. Your place is nice. I kind of expected a man-cave but this looks like an actual home. Why are you just staring at the TV like your reflection is entertaining or something? Oh, laundry." She picks up a shirt from the pile on the chair's arm and starts folding, laying the clothes she finishes on the opposite arm. "Anyway, do me a favor and go to poker night so they stop talking about you. It's driving me nuts and God knows that's not a long trip. Or go rip Lauren a new one and then feel better because we all know she deserves it. Except not totally but that's really none of their business but I'm guessing you know that."
Swallowing, Paul croaks, "Can you just get the fuck out already?"
She slants a glance at him while shaking out his shorts. It's the pair Lauren wore. "Not until I'm sure you're going to quit making Jacob worry. That boy has enough on his mind without your drama piling onto it."
"Oh, fuck that shit," Paul spits out, and gets up to pace in a circle. "Alpha Junior's got all he ever wanted and then some. He doesn't get it."
Jessica tilts her head, giving him a raised eyebrow. "Really? All he ever wanted? Your standards are totally messed up. I guess it's not surprising but does it ever occur to you that people who don't turn into giant wolves might have it easier? There's like no way that Jacob ever put that on his list of what he wanted."
He never thinks about that. For fuck's sake, he's already pissed off all the time anyway; if he contemplates how much easier the non-mutants have it then he'll just spend all his time ripping things apart with his bare hands. Realization slams into him, two minutes too late. "Wait, what? How do you—Jacob told you?"
She nods, and then shakes her head, laughing. "Kind of. I guess Sam gave him an Alpha order to keep him from phasing around me unless there was a vampire, but when Jacob took over as the big dog all those orders stopped working, and then I came back from college and we had a big fight and he started phasing and ran away, so I kept bugging him until he gave in. I've known for years." Shrugging, she adds, "I knew there was something freaky about you all. My theory was that you were all clones for an Army experiment though. Environmental factors could've accounted for the difference before the growth spurt and—okay, like you care about that. But you should've known that Jacob's no good at keeping secrets from the people he, uh, cares about. Not like you. Which is probably why he's freaking out so bad about your little trip into Sulky Valley. Anyway, all that to say, you guys are really skewed in your standards for what's sad and awful. Turning into a giant wolf? Sad and awful. Dropping out of school when you didn't want to? Sad and awful. Killing things because you have to or they'll kill you? Sad and awful. That happened to all of you, just about. I mean I guess it makes sense that you'd forget to compare to outsiders because you just don't have time to think about it and plus everyone in your pack is in the same boat."
Paul still can't move past the fact that she's known, for years, while he had to leave Lauren alone because they weren't allowed to have that sort of complication, that sort of risk. Emily's face never looked any different in Sam's thoughts, but Paul saw her a couple times after the whole incident and that was a cautionary tale in and of itself. No words necessary from Sam, not that the original Alpha ever let that stop him… while he fucked Bella Swan with impunity because she already knew their secret. Jessica's got a point about them all making sacrifices, but right now it feels like nobody sacrificed as much as Paul.
Disregarding his silence, Jessica prattles on. "It's got to seem like Lauren had it easy by comparison and I guess she kind of did because of her parents having money but I gotta say I prefer my mom and she worked two jobs and was never home."
At least they both had a mom.
"And sure she was kind of spoiled but that was mainly because they felt guilty for never really being around her. I grew up with her and her parents were always leaving every time I saw them. And then she got really fucked up when we hit thirteen but I guess you knew that already."
Paul nods. Maybe if he doesn't say anything she'll run out of words and leave.
"You're the only guy I ever saw her straight-out chase after she got help."
He waits for the rest of it, but Jessica seems to be hoping for a response, so he says, "Whatever."
"I'm serious. That's the real reason I agreed to come over. Jacob asked but I try to stay out of the middle of this stuff, especially with somebody who's made it pretty damn clear that he doesn't care if I live or die. Lauren's still my friend though and she never knows how to talk when it matters, only when it doesn't, and she was so different when you were around that I still remember it all these years later. After she got help she just waited for guys to come to her and that worked fine."
If he could not hear this then that would be great.
"She asked about you, when she knew I'd been to the rez. Me and Bella, though I don't think she asked her twice because that was the most pissed-off I've ever seen Bella. That girl is protective of people she loves. But yeah. Lauren never told me to keep it a secret, either."
Now that sends a whole new stab of hurt through his chest. "Shut up, Jessica." Here he was so careful to never give Jessica or Bella a reason to believe he was thinking about Lauren, and Lauren didn't care if he knew she still thought about him. And what the fuck does that mean, Bella loves him?
"She did. She asked all the way up until she met Javier." Jessica stands. "I'm only telling you this so you can have the whole picture. She's so emotionally stupid that I'm willing to bet she didn't tell you any of it, or maybe you're such an angry bastard that you scared her away from trying. Personally I think you're a couple of train wrecks but if you're going to go off the rails anyway you might as well go together. Plus you've got a lot of people right here who want you to be happy, and it'd be nice if you stopped scaring them. See ya."
With that, she walks out, leaving a pile of folded laundry and a host of unanswered questions behind. Still, it's enough to pull him out of depression's grip, and when he phases in that night he can sense the relief in his brothers' minds before Jared pounces on his back. It pisses him off, but it's also sort of nice to know they care. Bunch of busybodies.
Once again, he falls back on routine, but this time it's the normal routine of poker night and cookouts, fishing trips and basketball games, in addition to work and patrol. Life stops feeling like it's a dead loss without Lauren and starts feeling okay again over the next few months. He's got his pack and he's got a life and whether or not he sees Lauren again, at least now he knows that she wasn't trying to fuck with his head. And when Bella, with studied nonchalance, mentions that she heard Lauren might possibly be coming into town over Fourth of July, he doesn't bother hiding his interest. "Are you sure?"
"Not sure, but that's what I heard," she replies with a jerk of her shoulder. Keeping her eyes on her cards, she goes on, "Her mom mentioned it to Jessica's mom so everybody she saw at the bank knew it by five o'clock. And that means I know, of course. You gonna go or what?"
Paul pushes his stack of chips into the center of the table. All in.
The next day is sunny so he has the next twelve hours off from patrols. No vampire who wants to keep its head goes out in this sort of weather. After he cleans his house he heads for First Beach. He could be wrong about that, but over the years he's learned to trust his instincts.
Sure enough, there's Lauren Mallory, sitting on the sand by herself, staring at the waves.
Paul freezes in place when he sees her, and then, cursing at himself for being such a pussy, jogs down the beach toward her. She sees him coming but makes no move except to draw her knees up to her chin. When he reaches her side he asks, "Mind if I sit?"
Clearly taken aback, she nods. "If you want."
"I want." He settles down next to her.
They sit in silence for a few minutes, which drives Paul nuts because he has about a dozen questions he wants to ask but can't decide on where to start. Lauren breaks it with, "How've you been?"
Huh. How come he didn't think to open with that? "Okay, I guess." Taking a deep breath, he offers a part of the truth. "I would've been better if you'd stayed, I think."
Tilting her head, she gazes at him. "We're going to talk about that?"
His courage almost fails him, but, hell, he turns into a giant wolf and he's going to let some girl scare him off? Fuck, no. "Sure. I mean, I want to." But then he runs out of words.
Fortunately Lauren's still got some. "Me, too. I'm sorry I fucked and ran. That was shitty of me."
"'S'okay." Sighing, he looks down and plays with the sand between his fingers. "I get it now. Bad timing."
"Yeah. I mean, I was wearing the dress I picked out for my marriage to some other guy. It just seemed really wrong, you know?" She swallows. "But still. It was shitty of me. It was exactly the thing I swore I'd never do to you."
"Why?" Why is he different from the others? Why can't he have what he wants? It's the thing he's never understood about her protestations.
"Because…" Now she's playing with the sand, funneling it through her hand into spirals next to her feet. "You gotta remember, you were really young when we got to be friends. Fifteen and thirteen's a big gap."
He snorts. "I was never thirteen."
Nodding, she allows, "You grew up fast because you had to. And I was really immature. But still, it would've been weird if I'd been into you like that. A whole new level of fucked-up."
Paul isn't sure if he agrees, but he says, "Okay."
"And then we hung out all the time, and I talked to you a lot, even more than I did to Jess or Angela. Or at least, I told you the truth more than I told them. You know? I knew you liked me but the only thing I did with boys back then was sleep with them. You were still underage and I wasn't sure if it'd be legal, plus even if it was I didn't want to risk giving up my listener. It was really selfish but I friendzoned you."
"It wasn't that selfish." He wants to stop her hand's nervous back-and-forth by catching it in his own, but doesn't know how she'd react. "You never lied to me or said 'maybe someday' or anything like that."
"Yeah, but I was still using you for a sounding board when I knew you wanted more. If I'd been nice I would've cut you loose. But then you found me, that time I tried to kill myself for real, and I felt so guilty for not being more careful not to let someone walk in on me, and not making it look like an accident—"
"Don't," he interrupts. "Don't."
"I did, though. But you were still there, so I let myself think about it, once I was sure my head wasn't horrible and the meds and stuff were actually working. You disappeared, though. I thought I must've finally chased you off." Her head ducks low, and the shining white-blond hair slides down like a curtain to hide her face. Her voice emerges from behind the barrier, small and uncertain. "Like, either you were waiting for me not to be suicidal anymore so you could dump me without me killing myself, or, maybe you only liked me when I was all screwy and once I got more normal you weren't interested anymore."
Holy shit. He was so caught up in the drama that his own life turned into when he phased for the first time that it never even crossed his mind how she would perceive his withdrawal. At the time, he figured she would find another jerk to carry her emotional baggage, and anyway he was kind of busy trying to figure out how he was supposed to kill vampires and finish high school. (Answer: he wasn't. Hooray for GEDs.) "That wasn't it."
"Yeah, I figured that out later. But by then you were so different, and I… I guess I felt like you were out of my league. I still wanted to be friends but you made it pretty clear you weren't interested, and I couldn't figure out what the hell was going on up here in La Push but obviously it was something I couldn't be part of."
"You're not… That's not what I thought. That you were—that I was out of your league." Damn. He sounds like a moron.
"Well, obviously not, since you slept with me," she replies with a laugh. "I think I understand some of it now, though. You had some secret tribal things, maybe? And you couldn't talk about it with me because I'm not Quileute?"
Close enough. "Yeah."
"Well, that sucks. I jabbered your ear off about all kinds of stuff and you couldn't do the same thing to me."
"It did suck," he agrees.
"I'm sorry. I wish you could have."
"Me too."
She falls silent, and they both watch a sandpiper picking its way through the driftwood.
Gathering his courage, Paul asks, "Do you wish we hadn't done it?"
"No!" Lauren turns to face him fully, rising onto her knees so she can get closer. "No, Paul, no. I wish I hadn't done it just then. Because I wasn't over Javi and it wasn't fair to you. But I…" Blushing crimson, she drops her gaze. "I've never regretted it or anything."
His head goes light with relief. "Okay." Reaching to brush her hair back, he asks, "So did I fuck up my chances to actually get you to go on a date with me? Or is that something you'd want?"
Lauren jerks with shock. Before he can panic, though, she blurts, "You really want me to go out with you?"
Paul can feel the goofy smile on his face, but for once he doesn't try to wipe it away. "Yeah. I really do. And do you think… Is there any chance you could maybe stick around for a while?" He's putting himself so far out there that he feels naked, but if he doesn't try now he'll despise himself forever.
Lauren opens her mouth to answer, but clamps it shut again and nods vigorously, eyes glittering.
Paul can't think of anything else to say except, "Good." She throws herself into his embrace, though, so he figures that's probably enough.