her smell better. I wouldn't have thought that was possible. Stupidly, I was suddenly imaging how she would taste. I tried to swallow against the burn in my throat, to think of something else.
"What is your mother like?" I asked as a distraction.
Bella smiled. "She looks a lot like me, but she's prettier."
I doubted that.
"I have too much Charlie in me," she went on. "She's more outgoing than I am, and braver."
I doubted that, too.
"She's irresponsible and slightly eccentric, and she's a very unpredictable cook. She's my best friend." Her voice had turned melancholy; her forehead creased.
Again, she sounded more like parent than child.
I stopped in front of her house, wondering too late if I was supposed to know where she lived. No, this wouldn't be suspicious in such a small town, with her father a public figure...
"How old are you, Bella?" She must be older than her peers. Perhaps she'd been late to start school, or been held back...that wasn't likely, though.
"I'm seventeen," she answered.
"You don't seem seventeen."
She laughed.
"What?"
"My mom always says I was born thirty-five years old and that I get more middleaged every year." She laughed again, and then sighed. "Well, someone has to be the adult."
This clarified things for me. I could see it now...how the irresponsible mother helped explain Bella's maturity. She'd had to grow up early, to become the caretaker. That's why she didn't like being cared for - she felt it was her job.
"You don't seem much like a junior in high school yourself," she said, pulling me from my reverie.
I grimaced. For everything I perceived about her, she perceived too much in return. I changed the subject.
"So why did your mother marry Phil?"
She hesitated a minute before answering. "My mother...she's very young for her age. I think Phil makes her feel even younger. At any rate, she's crazy about him." She shook her head indulgently.
"Do you approve?" I wondered.
"Does it matter?" she asked. "I want her to be happy...and he is who she wants." The unselfishness of her comment would have shocked me, except that it fit in all too well with what I'd learned of her character.
"That's very generous...I wonder."
"What?"
"Would she extend the same courtesy to you, do you think? No matter who your choice was?"
It was a foolish question, and I could not keep my voice casual while I asked it.
How stupid to even consider someone approving of me for their daughter. How stupid to even think of Bella choosing me.
"I-I think so," she stuttered, reacting in some way to my gaze. Fear...or attraction?
"But she's the parent, after all. It's a little bit different," she finished. I smiled wryly. "No one too scary then."
She grinned at me. "What do you mean by scary? Multiple facial piercings and extensive tattoos?"
"That's one definition, I suppose." A very nonthreatening definition, to my mind. "What's your definition?"
She always asked the wrong questions. Or exactly the right questions, maybe. The ones I didn't want to answer, at any rate.
"Do you think that I could be scary?" I asked her, trying to smile a little. She thought it through before answering me in a serious voice. "Hmm...I think you could be, if you wanted to."
I was serious, too. "Are you frightened of me now?"
She answered at once, not thinking this one through. "No."
I smiled more easily. I did not think she was entirely telling the truth, but nor was she truly lying. She wasn't frightened enough to want to leave, at least. I wondered how she would feel if I told her she was having this discussion with a vampire. I cringed internally at her imagined reaction.
"So, now are you going to tell me about your family? It's got to be a much more interesting story than mine."
A more frightening one, at least.
"What do you want to know?" I asked cautiously.
"The Cullens adopted you?"
"Yes."
She hesitated, then spoke in a small voice. "What happened to your parents?" This wasn't so hard; I wasn't even having to lie to her. "They died a very long time ago."
"I'm sorry," she mumbled, clearly worried about having hurt me.
She was worried about me.
"I don't really remember them that clearly," I assured her. "Carlisle and Esme have been my parents for a long time now."
"And you love them," she deduced.
I smiled. "Yes. I couldn't imagine two better people."
"You're very lucky."
"I know I am." In that one circumstance, the matter of parents, my luck could not be denied.
"And your brother and sisters?"
If I let her push for too many details, I would have