I pulled a bill from my back pocket. People were invariably cooperative when money was involved.
Bella was already taking the seat the hostess indicated without objection. I shook my head at her, and she hesitated, cocking her head to one side with curiosity.
"Sorry... I just have never seen anyone refuse a table before... except in movies," Bella said.
Yes, she would be very curious tonight. A crowd was not the ideal place for this conversation.
"Perhaps something more private?" I requested of the hostess, handing her the money. Her eyes widened in surprise, and then narrowed while her hand curled around the tip.
"Sure."
She peeked at the bill while she led us around a dividing wall.
Fifty dollars for a better table?
"What?" Bella said. "That's crazy!"
"I wish I had money to burn like that," Jacob mused.
Rich, too. That makes sense - I bet his jacket cost more than my last paycheck. Damn. Why does he want privacy with her?
She offered us a booth in a quiet corner of the restaurant where no one would be able to see us - to see Bella's reactions to whatever I would tell her. I had no clue as to what she would want from me tonight. Or what I would give her.
How much had she guessed? What explanation of tonight's events had she told herself?
"How's this?" the hostess asked.
"Perfect," I told her and, feeling slightly annoyed by her resentful attitude toward Bella, I smiled widely at her, baring my teeth. Let her see me clearly.
Whoa. "Um...your server will be right out." He can't be real. I must be asleep. Maybe she'll disappear...maybe I'll write my number on his plate with ketchup...
"Why did he want her more entranced with him?" Bella muttered darkly.
"Actually... I think he was trying to scare her off," Jacob chuckled. "It didn't seem to have worked quite right."
She wandered away, listing slightly to the side.
Odd. She still wasn't frightened. I suddenly remembered Emmett teasing me in the cafeteria, so many weeks ago. I'll bet I could have scared her better than that.
Was I losing my edge?
"You really shouldn't do that to people," Bella interrupted my thoughts in a disapproving tone. "It's hardly fair."
I stared at her critical expression. What did she mean? I hadn't frightened the hostess at all, despite my intentions. "Do what?"
"Dazzle them like that - she's probably hyperventilating in the kitchen right now."
"Dazzle?" Jacob questioned with a raised eyebrow and then laughed when Bella blushed.
Hmm. Bella was very nearly right. The hostess was only semi-coherent at the moment, describing her incorrect assessment of me to her friend on the wait staff.
"Oh, come on," Bella chided me when I didn't answer immediately. "You have to know the effect you have on people."
"I dazzle people?" That was an interesting way of phrasing it. Accurate enough for tonight. I wondered why the difference...
"Well obviously it has something to do with Bella," Jacob smirked. "Everything that's different with you is, after all, her fault."
"You haven't noticed?" she asked, still critical. "Do you think everybody gets their way so easily?"
"Do I dazzle you?" I voiced my curiosity impulsively, and then the words were out, and it was too late to recall them.
But before I had time to too deeply regret speaking the words aloud she answered,
"Frequently." And her cheeks took on a faint pink glow.
Bella was blushing a little there too, but mostly she was pleased that Edward might finally understand that she liked him too, so he could stop thinking so hard about not deserving her.
I dazzled her.
My silent heart swelled with a hope more intense than I could ever remember having felt before.
"Hello," someone said, the waitress, introducing herself. Her thoughts were loud, and more explicit than the hostess's, but I tuned her out. I stared at Bella's face instead of listening, watching the blood spreading under her skin, noticing not how that made my throat flame, but rather how it brightened her fair face, how it set off the cream of her skin...
The waitress was waiting for something from me. Ah, she'd asked for our drink order. I continued to stare at Bella, and the waitress grudgingly turned to look at her, too.
"I'll have a coke?" Bella said, as if asking for approval.
"Two cokes," I amended. Thirst - normal, human thirst - was a sign of shock. I would make sure she had the extra sugar from the soda in her system.
She looked healthy, though. More than healthy. She looked radiant.
"What?" she demanded - wondering why I was staring, I guessed. I