Edward POV
“Ugh!” Alice screeched out in annoyance and Edward frowned as he read her thoughts.
“Jacob’s coming?” he asked, seeing the black spots that filled her visions for the evening.
“Jacob?” Bella perked up at his side on the piano bench they shared. Edward knew, logically, that Bella and Jacob Black were friends, and Bella only perked up at the news that her friend would be arriving soon, but Jacob wanted to be much more than friends, and thus Bella’s enthusiasm to see him was unappreciated. “Why’s Jake coming?”
“I don’t know, but I had plans!” Alice wailed. “We were going to paint each other’s nails and put a braid in your hair and be normal teenage girls!”
Edward couldn’t read Bella’s thoughts, her mind as completely blocked to him as it had always been, but he still sensed her relief. She despised pretending to be a silly and vapid teenage girl and only did so for Alice every great once in a while.
Which was both incredibly endearing, and also terribly amusing to see Bella struggle through ‘gossip time’ with his sister.
“Darn,” Bella said brightly. “Should we go outside to see Jake?”
“Should I call Carlisle?” Alice trilled quietly enough that Bella couldn’t hear.
Edward considered for a moment, Jacob was coming closer, his thoughts murky, but with an eager undertone. He didn’t seem angry or upset, which would be a first. It didn’t seem like he was looking for a fight, and if he was, then Edward and Alice could hold off one teenage werewolf while they waited for the others to return from hunting.
“Not yet,” Edward murmured quietly. “Let’s go outside and greet Jacob,” he told Bella more clearly.
Bella jumped to her feet, eager to see her friend, and led the way with a bounce in her step that Edward had to work not to frown at.
You left her, he reminded himself. You can hardly be upset that she formed a bond with him in your absence.
If only jealousy listened to logic.
As they stepped out on to the porch, Edward absently grabbed Bella’s hand as he focused on Jacob’s thoughts, waiting for the moment they came in more clearly. Once they did, Edward’s lips twitched in an effort to stifle his laughter.
Even if Jacob was annoying, he also had a cheeky tenor to his thoughts in a way Edward could appreciate.
Knock, knock, leech, he called through his mind. We need to talk.
“Will you be phasing back?” Edward called through the trees.
Who all is there?
“Alice and Isabella.”
“What’s he saying?” Bella asked curiously, squinting through the trees.
I’ll phase back, Jacob thought.
“He’s going to phase and come talk to us,” Edward told her.
God damn you guys smell so terrible. Stinky little bat cave, Jacob grumbled mentally. Nasty. Just... ugh.
“You smell just as bad, pup,” Edward smirked.
“Are you guys... fighting?” Bella asked, her nose scrunched and a crease forming between her brow.
“No,” Edward assured her. And they weren’t, for once. Jacob’s thoughts were... happy, playful even. He hadn’t even been upset to know that Bella was here, ‘in the bat cave’.
Whatever Jacob wanted, it was something good.
“Jake!” Bella lifted her hand as Jacob came strutting through the trees in a pair of cutoff shorts before she lowered it, abruptly remembering that until today apparently, Jacob had not been returning her phone calls or friendship.
“Hey, Bells,” Jacob smiled and...
Oh.
Not a single thought of Bella appeared in his mind outside of his absolutely platonic happiness at seeing his friend.
“What are you doing here?” Bella asked him, stepping down towards him.
“I came to talk to the bloodsuckers,” Jacob said. He stopped in the middle of the yard, leaning against the tree with a casual grace and a lighthearted sparkle in his eyes.
This was not the same Jacob Black that turned Bella in to Charlie for their motorcycles and fought with Edward just a month ago.
Jacob was more... settled? Confident? Happy?
Something.
Edward shamelessly dug in Jacob’s mind for a moment, searching for the cause of his new aura and his visit.
It didn’t take long to find it.
“Amazing,” Edward breathed. “You’ve imprinted?”
“That’s annoying,” Jacob scowled. Edward’s mention of it seemed to bring forth a flood of thoughts of Jacob’s imprint.
A pretty girl, tanned legs and dark black hair. A charming smile and an impish glimmer in her green eyes.
The same girl, winking at Jacob from the back of a motorcycle.
The girls godfather, ‘I don’t like you.’
The girl squinting suspiciously at Jacob on a beach, ‘Piss off then. Quit staring like a weirdo.’
Aah. Yes. Edward could see how fate would match such a girl to Jacob.
Imprinting truly seemed to have found a perfect match for the brash and fierce Jacob in the witty and impish Harriette.
“You met your soulmate?” Bella asked. She bounced on the balls of her toes eagerly. “Who is she? Do I know her? Is it—”
“Her name’s Harriette,” Edward murmured. “She just moved to Forks. She’ll be a senior with us in August.”
“Quit,” Jacob snapped, no true heat to his tone. “I can talk about her myself, leech.”
Edward was quite sure Jacob would wax poetics about this girl for hours, so he tilted his head in apology and gave him the opportunity he was clearly dying to have.
“Her name’s Harriette Potter,” Jacob told Bella. Edward and Bella shared a quick smile at the wistful way Jacob sighed her name. “She lives in Forks, she’ll be a senior there this fall.”
“So... just as Edward said?” Bella grinned.
“No, not ‘just as Edward said’,” Jacob rolled his eyes before pointing at Edward threateningly. “You and your family better stay way the fuck away from her, got it? Treaty or not, if you guys hurt her—”
“We would never,” Edward said hastily, ignoring the devastating images of Jacob’s Harriette injured that were lingering in the back of Jacob’s mind. “We would never hurt a human regardless, but we are aware that hurting her would be the end of our treaty.”
“It would be a guaranteed war,” Jacob said bluntly. “I would kill every last one of you. Just so you know.”
“Understood,” Edward said solemnly.
“Can I meet her?” Bella asked with a smile. “It’ll be great knowing someone else my age that knows about the wolves!”
“What am I?” Alice grouched from inside the house.
“Annoying,” Edward murmured back.
“She... she doesn’t know yet,” Jacob said. He tensed his shoulders for a moment, uncomfortable now. “She doesn’t know about the wolves, or vampires, or...”
“Or your imprint.” Edward grimaced in surprising empathy with Jacob. “You plan on telling her soon?”
“I’ll get around to it,” Jacob said with a careless shrug belied only by the anxiety tinting his thoughts. “That brings me to my second point- Harriette is allowed to know of your existence and I will be telling her.”
“That...” Edward stared at Jacob, caught off-guard by that. “Do you believe she will keep the secret? You only just met her.”
“She’s a part of the pack now,” Jacob said. He drew himself up right, standing tall and confident. “She gets to know. I’m not asking for shit, I’m telling you as a one time courtesy.”
Bella looked anxiously between the two of them as Edward and Jacob studied each other closely.
If fate chose Harriette as Jacob’s soulmate, who was Edward to complain about the stipulations that came with it? Jacob would tell her regardless.
“I would appreciate if you could stress to her the importance of us remaining inconspicuous, especially if she’ll be at the same school as us.”
“Duly noted,” Jacob snorted. “So...” he bounced with an excitement in his movements—
Edward bit his lip to keep from smiling.
Jacob was positively enamored by this girl.
His thoughts were all wrapped around her.
I wonder what she’s doing?
What should I wear this weekend?
Could I find her number and call her?
‘Surprise! It’s Jacob!’
No. That’s weird. Right?
“Right,” Edward agreed aloud.
“God damn I hate you,” Jacob growled, his happy bounce now ending. “How do people stand you?”
“What are you guys talking about?” Bella asked, a tentative smile lighting up her face.
“Nothing,” Jacob said a touch hastily. “As long as we’re clear, I’m out of here. Leave Harriette and her family alone, and don’t you dare tell her anything until I do.”
“We won’t,” Edward and Bella said simultaneously.
“I promise,” Edward added solemnly.
He would have promised anything, truthfully.
Jacob finding his soulmate was perhaps the greatest thing to ever happen to Edward.
If only his promise could be so easily kept.
***
Bella was lounging on the wicker bench on her father’s porch one evening a few days. She had her head in Edward’s lap and they were quietly discussing Sense and Sensibility, Bella’s current favorite novel.
“All I’m saying is, Jane Austen’s works are much easier to relate to modern day than say... is that Jacob?”
Edward perked up slightly at the rumbling motor he too heard tearing down the street. They were too far away for Edward to hear their thoughts, but motorcycles were a rarity in Forks with the rain and the curving forest roads.
Only Jacob, and Bella, would be foolish enough to drive one recreationally.
“Probably,” Edward said. His lips twitched up in a smile, “Perhaps he’s coming to invite us to the wedding.”
“They just met,” Bella laughed, undoubtedly delighted at the idea. “I think a wedding is a while off.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Edward said. “Jacob was very firm in his belief that she was the ‘future Mrs Black’.”
Bella laughed again, a musical balm to Edward’s soul, and sat up to wait for Jacob’s arrival.
“That’s not Jake...” Bella said as the bike came careening around the corner, fast and reckless.
It was not Jacob.
It was Jacob’s Harriette.
Who was either currently brain-dead (a true possibility considering the careless way she drove the classic motorbike beneath her) or...
“I can’t hear her,” Edward breathed.
Bella sat up and was instantly more alert. They sat side by side and watched as the motorcycle came flying past Charlie’s house, prompting a small alarm in the Chief of Police’s mind from the living room, and then...
“Damn,” Edward swore under his breath. He had a fraction of a second to decide to either intervene, preventing Jacob’s Harriette crash in to the tree she was headed straight toward, or watch as the poor girl undoubtedly killed herself right in front of him.
There wasn’t a real option.
Edward sprinted to the fastest of his abilities, placing himself between the motorcycle and the tree before Bella could blink. As soon as it was close enough, Edward grabbed the girl off it and had her rolling to the side of the lawn a sixteenth of a second before the bike hit the tree.
The girl seemed momentarily dazed as she sat up and blinked. Her eyes were drawn to the mangled bike now smoking in front of the tree.
“Bloody hell,” she sighed. It took her a second to notice Edward, who was attempting to slip off to the side unobtrusively.
“Who are you?” she snapped as soon as she did notice him, a British accent ringing through her words. “And what- did I- how did I get over here?”
Edward focused on her eyes, bright green eyes narrowing as she too focused on him, and struggled to try and hear anything from her mind.
Suspicion? Maybe?
Nothing concrete.
Jacob’s Harriette was as mentally mute as Bella.
Unlike Bella though, Harriette smelled nearly as odd as Jacob. She didn’t smell like wet dog, as Jacob’s blood did, but something darker, more tangy, almost? Definitely unappetizing anyway.
“I’d appreciate it if you’d get the hell out of my head,” the girl, Harriette, snapped again. She got to her feet and brushed off her jeans and tank top before flicking her long black hair over her shoulder and walking casually over to the wrecked bike, as if she didn’t just call Edward out on his attempts to read her mind.
“Did you pull me off the bike or did I disappear and reappear on the ground?” Harriette asked.
Edward had to fight to keep his jaw from dropping. He glanced towards the porch where Bella still stood, her hands over her mouth, and shared a bewildered look with her.
“Are you... are you hurt?” Edward asked her, unsure how to puzzle through literally everything she had said so far.
“As if,” Harriette scoffed. She stood the smoking bike up, putting it on its kickstand, and stepped back with a frown. “Sirius might kick my arse though, I stole his bike then wrecked the bloody thing.”
Edward sent Bella a pleading look.
Please come interpret her, he tried begging with his eyes.
Why wasn’t she asking his name?
Asking how he’d saved her?
Asking... anything?
Did Jacob already tell her?
Edward hated not being able to just pluck the answers he wanted from her mind.
Bella seemed to understand his look though, she came jogging across the yard with a bemused, but friendly, grin tugging at her lips.
“Hey, I’m Bella,” she said to Harriette. “Are you okay? Good thing Edward was over here, you could have been hurt!”
“‘Edward’ was on your porch,” Harriette scoffed as she continued to inspect the bike. “And I had it perfectly under control, I didn’t need you to step in and play hero.”
...What?
Harriette finally looked up at them as the silence stretched on to an uncomfortable length of time.
“Oh.” She squinted at Bella, tilting her head to and fro. “Well, you’re not a vampire at all, are you?”
Aah. Jacob had told her.
Edward wasn’t sure if Jacob had told her about his imprint or not, but he’d clearly wasted no time in warning his Harriette about the vampires.
“I’m not...” Bella said slowly. She smiled hesitantly and offered her hand to Harriette. “I’m Bella Swan, human?”
“Harriette Potter, terribly famous witch,” Harriette winked, drawing a laugh from Bella. “And you’re a vampire,” she told Edward. “Your eyes are weird though.”
“Vegetarian,” Edward smiled politely, unsurprised that Jacob hadn’t shared that tidbit. He offered his hand after Harriette dropped Bella’s, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Are you two together then?” Harriette asked as she shook Edward’s hand and looked between the two of them. “Bloody hell, Bella, are you planning on becoming a vampire or eventual dinner?”
Edward and Bella seemed to flinch at the blunt question at the same time. Edward knew Bella planned on being turned after graduation, but he had ten months to talk her out of it.
And he prayed to the God he didn’t believe in that he would succeed.
Although...
“Definitely not dinner,” Bella grinned easily, clearly charmed by Jacob’s Harriette. She glanced at Harriette’s bike and frowned sympathetically. “Want us to help you move it? Do you live nearby?”
“No and no,” Harriette shrugged. “Mind if I push it in your yard? Sirius can come get it when him and Moony get home in the morning. It gives him a proper chance to yell at me, you see, makes him feel like a real parent.”
“Your dad’s name is Serious?” Bella asked, not having been privy to Harriette’s backstory through Jacob’s thoughts as Edward had been. “And yeah, you can park it in my driveway, Charlie, my dad, he won’t mind.”
As long as they made it clear it wasn’t Bella’s, he wouldn’t mind.
“S-I-R-I-U-S,” Harriette spelled out. “He’s not my dad, he’s my godfather. Moony as well, of course. They’ve been stuck with me since I was fifteen, poor sods.”
Edward smiled, also brought in by Harriette’s unintentional charms.
No wonder Jacob was obsessed with the girl.
“I’m sorry,” Bella said softly.
“For what?” Harriette asked. She reached up to tie her long messy hair back in a ponytail, and Edward caught sight of multiple scars on her arms.
She did seem to be the clumsy type, he thought as he eyed the bike she so carelessly wrecked without even a helmet for protection.
“Oh.” Bella blushed and stammered, “I meant- it sounded like- I mean- your... parents?”
“They’re dead,” Harriette said matter of factly. “They died when I was one, they were heroes, you know.”
Edward and Bella shared another puzzled look at Harriette’s smirk and mischievous look in her eyes. She was clearly enjoying a private joke of some sort, what it was, Edward couldn’t guess.
“I can move it for you,” Edward offered when Harriette began maneuvering the bike in the muddy yard. “Have you driven a motorcycle much before now?”
“Never,” Harriette said cheerfully, easily relinquishing the bike to Edward. “Sirius is going to be so bloody mad I think he might finally snap and yell at me.”
“And... that’s a good thing?” Bella asked, just as confused as Edward was.
“Sirius is the best, but he forgets that I’m not made of glass,” Harriette said as she walked alongside them towards the driveway. “I told him I was going to shag my new friend Jacob this weekend and he just turned red and sputtered a bit, so... I figured I should just do something positively mad to piss him off, he yells at me, and all’s well that ends well, you see?”
No.
Not really.
Edward understood the bit about shagging Jacob, and it was the one part of the sentence he wished he hadn’t understood.
“Uh...” Bella looked at Edward, who bit his lip and shook his head. “Not really, no,” Bella admitted.
“It’s complicated,” Harriette laughed. “Sirius is afraid to yell at me, he thinks something dreadful will happen if he does. So I need him to yell at me, so I can yell back a bit, then we’ll still be fine afterwards and he’ll stop walking on eggshells and I can be free to be a normal teenage girl.”
“A normal teenage girl who... is shagging Jacob?” Bella asked, her face redder than any tomato as she said it.
“Do you know Jacob?” Harriette asked. “You sound a bit like you know who I’m talking about?”
“Jacob’s my—”
“His friend, Bella! Of course!” Harriette cried. “He mentioned you. You own the other motorcycle at his house.”
“Yes,” Bella relaxed and smiled as Edward propped the mangled bike against the side of Charlie’s garage. “Jacob rebuilt them for us. Not that I ride mine anymore,” she added with a rueful look up at her front door.
“Wonderful, I’ve been hoping I’d find you before August,” Harriette said. She smiled, a bit less charmingly and a little more sharply. “I’m not sure if you and Jacob used to be a thing or not, but I went to boarding school with a lot of other girls, and I’ve learned it’s easier just to be upfront about these things. I rather fancy Jacob, and you seem to be...” she wiggled her fingers airily at Edward and Bella, “entangled, with your vampire lover. So, if you’ve got a secret crush on him or not, I’d be quite happy if you didn’t flirt with Jacob. I’d rather not start school here with an enemy, but,” she smirked and shrugged, “I’m bloody good at dealing with that if I must. So it’s up to you, Bella Swan.”
Bella was staring at Harriette with a slack-jawed look of surprise.
Edward bit his lip and forced himself to blink up at the sky to keep from laughing.
Jacob Black had truly met his match in this fiery little human, hadn’t he?
“I... I don’t have a crush on Jacob,” Bella said slowly, but confidently. “We’re just friends.”
“Brilliant,” Harriette beamed. “Well, I’m off then, Sirius and I will pop by tomorrow to get his bike. Don’t mention to Jacob anything I’ve said, I’m having quite a bit of fun letting him think I’m oblivious to his crush. Ta!”
Edward and Bella stood in her driveway and watched as the girl sloped off through the rain, clad in only her tank top, jeans, and a pair of odd looking black boots.
“She’s... odd...” Edward said slowly.
“I like her,” Bella grinned. “I can see why Jacob imprinted on her.”
“Well, the werewolf chief’s grandson would need a ‘terribly famous witch’ for a soulmate,” Edward laughed at the way Harriette introduced herself.
“I wonder why he told her about you and not himself,” Bella frowned.
Edward snorted, that was the easiest part of Harriette to understand. “Warning her away from the scary vamps,” he rolled his eyes. “Come on, let’s go make sure Charlie knows this isn’t your death trap in the driveway.”
Edward sent one more curious glance in the direction Harriette wandered off when he heard a faint ‘pop’, but shook his head.
Jacob’s Harriette was not his problem.