have to question my sanity in this book?" Bella huffed.
"Because you're crazy!" Jacob laughed.
"Yes," Jessica answered Bella's question.
"Well, then," Bella concluded. "Yes."
"Wow...Edward Cullen." Whether she likes him or not, this is major.
"I know," Bella sighed.
The tone of her voice encouraged Jessica.
"Damn," Bella said, she really wished she could have gotten out of this without revealing anything.
Finally - she sounds like she gets it! She must realize...
"Wait!" Jessica said, suddenly remembering her most vital question. "Has he kissed you?" Please say yes. And then describe every second!
"Do girls really care about that crap?" Jacob rolled his eyes. "Talking about kisses and stuff like that?"
"I guess," Bella shrugged, she wasn't one to talk about something like that unless it was pulled out of her painfully like Jessica seemed to want to do.
"No," Bella mumbled, and then she looked down at her hands, her face falling.
"It's not like that."
Damn. I wish... Ha. Looks like she does too.
Bella blushed again, and of course Edward was listening to that.
I frowned. Bella did look upset about something, but it couldn't be disappointment like Jessica assumed. She couldn't want that. Not knowing what she knew. She couldn't want to be that close to my teeth. For all she knew, I had fangs.
"Um... this guy does realize that if you like someone you probably think about kissing them, right?" Jacob said.
Bella shrugged at that.
I shuddered.
"Do you think Saturday...?" Jessica prodded.
Bella looked even more frustrated as she said, "I really doubt it."
Yeah, she does wish. That sucks for her.
Was it because I was watching all this through the filter of Jessica's perceptions that it seemed like Jessica was right?
Bella rolled her eyes.
"Slow as always, man," Jacob said.
For a half-second I was distracted by the idea, the impossibility, of what it would be like to try to kiss her. My lips to her lips, cold stone to warm, yielding silk...
And then she dies.
Bella rolled her eyes and Jacob flinched at that.
"You really have to take that seriously, Bella," Jacob said. "He's getting used to you... but it's got to be harder for him if he's close to you like that."
"I'll be careful," Bella said, but that didn't change her mind about wanting to be close to him like that.
I shook my head, wincing, and made myself pay attention.
"What did you talk about?" Did you talk to him, or did you make him drag every ounce of information out of you like this?
"A little of both," Jacob chuckled.
I smiled ruefully. Jessica wasn't far off.
"I don't know, Jess, lots of stuff. We talked about the English essay a little."
"Um... you did?" Jacob questioned.
"He mentioned it," Bella shrugged.
A very little. I smiled wider.
Oh, c'MON. "Please, Bella! Give me some details."
Bella deliberated for a moment.
"Well...okay, I've got one. You should have seen the waitress flirting with him - it was over the top. But he didn't pay any attention to her at all."
What a strange detail to share. I was surprised Bella had even noticed. It seemed a very inconsequential thing.
"Yeah, to you," Bella said. "But having someone flaunt themselves in front of someone you like isn't fun at all... and something that anyone would notice."
Interesting... "That's a good sign. Was she pretty?"
Hmm. Jessica thought more of it that I did. Must be a female thing.
"Or maybe it's a human thing," Jacob said, he thought it meant something, too. Of course he wouldn't have discussed this...
"Very," Bella told her. "And probably nineteen or twenty."
Jessica was momentarily distracted by a memory of Mike on her date Monday night - Mike being a little too friendly with a waitress who Jessica did not consider pretty at all.
"Hmph," Jacob huffed, his opinion of Mike, which was already low, just dropped there. He could have had at least the decency to not look at other girls when he was out on a date.
She shoved the memory away and returned, stifling her irritation, to her quest for details.
"Even better. He must like you."
"I think so," Bella said slowly, and I was on the edge of my seat, my body rigidly still. "But it's hard to tell. He's always so cryptic."
Jacob snorted at that.
"What? It's true!" Bella exclaimed.
"I know," Jacob said still laughing. "It's just so funny because we know how he really feels."
Bella give him a reluctant smile at that, even as she felt sorry for her book self for not knowing how Edward felt about her.
I must not have been as transparently obvious and out of control as I'd thought.