Chapter Music: The Bird and the Worm by Owl City
A/N: Thanks to miztrezboo and annanabanana. Also thanks to my Dad. He kept me right with this chapter—shingles or tiles, rafters or beams… He's my Charlie.
N.B. This should be read after Chapter 15: The Clearing of Reinvention of Hope. It takes place in the two week gap between chapters 14 and 15 of the main story.
LINK TO CHAPTER UNDER THE COMMENTS BAR
:: Bella ::
The sound of a car horn pulled me from a deep sleep and I pushed off the duvet, scrambling out of bed to get to the balcony. Throwing the doors open, I stomped like a petulant child to the railing, taking in the scene down in the yard. Edward was standing, leaning against his truck, with his arm through the window and his hand on the wheel.
"What do you want, Masen?" I yelled down.
Looking up at me, he smiled and tipped his hat. "Mornin', Bella."
"Ugh." I rolled my eyes at him. "Does this mean it's your turn to babysit me again?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.
"Come on, am I really that bad?" He raised an eyebrow and pouted in mock jest. I shook my head and threw up my hands, resigned to the fact that it had been like this for days. One after the other, my friends had all taken a turn at watching me and involving me in their routine. "Great! Now get dressed. We have somewhere to be," Edward shouted before heading toward the front door.
~oOo~
"Just hold the ladder straight, Bella."
"I can do more than hold the ladder and play with hay, you know," I called up to Edward, as I watched him climb up and over the top rung.
"I'm not takin' you back to Charlie with broken bones," he replied, peering over the top of the Miller's barn roof.
"That whole section is flat, Edward. What's the worst that could happen?" I asked, starting up the ladder.
"Hey, hold up. Truth is, I need a man on the ground, so to speak." He made quick work of a makeshift hoist—consisting of a metal bucket and a length of rope—and dropped it down to me. "I'm gonna need you to load that with nails and tools when I need them." I looked at him dubiously.
"What a crock of shit." I felt myself blush as I spoke. I'd been spending way too much time with Emmett. "Don't you people have belts for this sort of thing?"
"You people?" He laughed.
"Yes, you people! Handymen!" I yelled, frustrated at being sidelined. "Look, I appreciate getting out of the house, and being included in what you guys are all doing, but it'd be great to actually be included. Alice had me folding clothes, Emmett put me to work making salads, and I swept Jasper's cellar for heaven's sake." I was reaching, and I knew it. But I'd be damned if I was just going to stand and hold a ladder all day.
I'd sorted orders for Alice when two had come in at once; Emmett and I had worked in tandem when the kitchen staff had been one short; and I'd done the inventory at Whitlock's so Jasper could focus on getting his books to his accountant.
"I can hammer in a few nails, Edward. Please? At least let me up there so I can talk to you without yelling?"
"Fine. But load up the bucket first. And if you break anything, you tripped over your own feet, got it?" he said in jest with a wink.
"Sure," I chuckled, stuffing as much in the bucket as I could manage, before scaling the ladder. "What are we doing up here anyway?" I asked, swinging one leg after the other onto the roof when I reached the top.
"Part of the roof is rotten. I need to strip down the shingles, pull up the sheathing, and check the rafters. Once I've done that, I'll replace any of the damaged sections," Edward replied as he unloaded his tools.
"That sounds simple enough." Edward cocked his eyebrow at me. "Well, I can help do something, come on!"
"Um," Edward started, looking around and scratching his head. He nudged one of the loose tiles, with his foot, and a smile spread across his face. "Okay, so if I pass one of these to you, you can slide it down the chute." He pointed to the edge of the barn as he spoke.
"What are we sliding them down there for?" I asked, following the line of his finger down to the two lengths of wood that he had nailed together to serve as a chute.
"Mr. Miller wants me to reuse what I can. So I'll toss the ones that're rotten right through and you'll slide the ones we can save," he explained, smiling at me.
"So that's why you had me shaking hay all over the ground this morning? To cushion your tile thingys?" Edward smiled as I waved my finger at the wood by his feet.
"Shingles, and yes," he said, grinning now. "Here, this one's good." He bent to pick it up, and I took it from him when he passed it to me.
"Down the chute, right?" I rolled my eyes at the simple job Edward had given me, and he laughed in response. "I helped dad build my old tree house, you know?" I said matter of factly. But instead of stemming his amusement, my retort only served to send him doubling over in near hysterics.
"Your tree house? Really, Bella? It was two sheets of boarding with two short walls, before you got bored building it. And, if I remember correctly, it blew down less than three weeks later. In fact," he pointed an accusatory finger, "it wasn't even in a tree." Edward snorted, shaking his head. "It was built between two peach trees down in the orchard!" I made a hmph noise.
He was right, I couldn't dispute it. We'd been so eager to play in it that Charlie had never had the chance to finish building it.
"Ally and I spent three glorious weeks in that little house. We even camped out one weekend," I countered, crossing my arms over my chest and pouting. Charlie had slept on the porch swing that night, watching over us in the darkness while we whispered secrets and shared our hopes for the future.
"I'm sure you did, but that doesn't mean it was built like a fortress," Edward said playfully, dropping to his knees and starting to jimmy the tiles with his crowbar.
"Whatever, Masen. I'll be your girly help if that makes you feel like the big, strong guy. You pass me the shingles and I'll send them down the slide." I sat down, Indian style, between Edward and the barn edge, and glanced at him out of the corner of my eye.
His own eyes danced with humor and his smile was spread wide across his face. I had never noticed the light dusting of auburn freckles scattered over Edward's cheeks and nose before, but in the brilliant morning sun they held my gaze longer than they should have.
For over three hours Edward worked up a sweat, pulling shingles from the rafters, passing some of them to me, and tossing others down into the bed of his truck. He'd shed his over-shirt not long after we'd started, and although I tried to focus my attention on the view I was afforded of the Miller's sunflower crop and the cattle grazing out in the west field, I found—on more than one occasion—my eyes wandering back to Edward.
As I began braiding my hair into two low pigtails, I discretely glanced at the way his rich, autumn colored hair fell over his eyes while his forehead pinched in concentration and the way his lips puckered as he whistled quietly to himself. It was only when my eyes drifted over Edward's toned biceps, and the way his shoulder blades moved as he yanked at the wood, that I realized I wasn't just watching, but staring.
After securing each of my braids with a hair tie from the pocket of my dungarees, I stood up abruptly and dusted off the back of my shorts.
"Bella?" Edward turned his head and squinted up at me, his crowbar in one hand and a shingle in the other. "What is it?" he asked, tossing the damaged shingle over the side of the roof.
"Um…I…it's…numb." I shook my head and tried to run a sentence together in my mind before I spoke. "Everything below my waist is numb. I just need to…walk it off," I finished, unsure of why I suddenly felt so flustered.
"You okay?"
"Yeah, sure, of course," I babbled, talking with my hands and walking backward.
"Careful where you're puttin' your feet, Bella. I haven't checked how far the rot's spread yet." Edward pointed to the section of roof I was standing on, and I bounced lightly on the balls of my feet, giggling nervously at the concern etched on his face.
"Seems solid enough to me." No sooner had I closed my mouth, I heard the crack and splinter of dry wood echo through the air. "Edward!" I tried to move but it was too late. I felt like I was falling in slow motion as the roof gave way under me.
"Bella!" Edward lunged forward, reaching for me, but I was falling too fast. The momentum of my body, and the position of his, dragged us both through the hole in the roof. A shriek escaped my mouth as I fell, and a twinge in my side spasmed from where my ribs had hit the rafters when I'd broken through the barn. We didn't fall for long before we landed on the tossed hay gathered in the empty stables below.
"Are you okay?" Edward asked urgently, landing with a grunt by my side and reaching for me again.
"I'm fine," I replied, winded and trying to catch my breath. I winced as my side pulled and my hand moved automatically to feel how tender the area was.
"You're not fine," he scolded, rolling over to me and unclipping my dungarees, flipping down the bib at the front. As he moved, a hint of lemon ghosted through the air, and I stared at him, dumbfounded, lost in the scent and shocked by his actions. Keeping himself propped up on one arm, he used his other hand to quickly brush mine away and gently roll up the hem of my t-shirt. He hissed through his teeth and leaned over me to get a better look at what I'd done to myself. "Christ, Bella. That's gonna bruise."
"It's fine. Stop fussing," I whispered, trying to push Edward's hands out of the way. His eyes softened, and he watched as his fingertips carefully traced lightly over the angry red lines raised up across the bottom of my ribs.
"I can't take you home broken," Edward murmured.
"I'm stronger than I look." My wrist brushed Edward's arm as I reached up to remove a piece of hay stuck in his hair, and his eyes finally met mine.
"So it would seem."
Slowly, Edward removed his hand from my side and fastened the clips on my clothes again. "Are you sure you didn't hit your head?" he asked, running his hand cautiously over my hair.
"Edward," I said firmly, looking him in the eye and starting to feel a little awkward. "Stop it. Just let me up, please?"
The teasing banter of this morning had been easy and relaxed, but that had made way for a heavier and thicker mood, something that carried a more serious tone. Sharing that with Edward seemed…strange, although not entirely wrong. Feelings that had started to prickle the surface before Jacob's return now felt like they were trying to bubble deeper, and I didn't know quite what to do with them. I wasn't ready to start thinking about what that might mean—was I?
"You're sure you're okay?"
"Stop it," I repeated, laughing a little breathily. "You're not responsible for me."
"Someone oughta be." He smiled down at me. "You're too important to too many people."
"Edward, I…" I hesitated, not sure what to say. How did things get so serious?
Clearing his throat, Edward fingered my braid briefly before tugging gently on the end of it, trying to lift the tension that had settled around us. He rolled away from me and lay on his back. We both stared up, through the broken roof, at the clear blue sky in silence. Our breathing synchronized, and I turned my head to face Edward and found that he was already looking at me. My eyes held his for a moment and then flitted over his face. I'd never taken the time to really look at him before.
His eyebrows were a shade or two darker than his hair and his skin was a dusted, golden brown. It was surprising—given the time he spent outside—that his skin wasn't a deeper shade like Jacob's. But I liked that Edward's coloring was so close to my own: warm and inviting, not dark and bitter. His freckles weren't as obvious in the shade of the barn but I was still able to notice a faint scar under his chin.
I didn't remember seeing it in high school, and although I tried to stay out of Edward's way back then, we still crossed paths once in a blue moon at the diner.
My world and circle of friends had been so small, but word spreads quickly in a small town. If I hadn't left with Jacob I might have already known how the faded line had appeared on Edward's skin. A fight over a girl? A car accident? Clearing out the likes of James Burton from Whitlock's? The possibilities were endless.
I felt Edward's hand move in the hay next to mine and flexed my fingers almost reaching for his, but they never met.
After a few minutes, I decided it was time to try and get things back to where they had been this morning. "Maybe I should just hold the ladder for the rest of the afternoon," I said jokingly.
"That's probably the best idea I've heard today," he agreed with a laugh, sitting up and sliding down the haystack.
"Oh, shut up," I retorted, sliding down easily next to him and dodging his arm when he tried to sling it around me. "And let's not tell Charlie that you let me fall through the roof," I called back to him as I ran out of the barn and back into the afternoon sun.
A/N: Thanks for reading. Sorry this one took a while to post, hopefully the next one won't be as long. Next update will be over on the main story, Reinvention of Hope.
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