Chapter 23 = Profound Bite

Edward

I smiled when I saw her walking toward the processing building.

Bella was looking very Bella that morning, I remember.

Hair bouncing behind her, eyes bright…smile perfectly intact…

Things must have gone well.

“It’s perfect,” I told the label designer and then clapped his shoulder before leaving him there as I walked outside to meet the muse.

“I was getting worried about you,” I teased and she shyly tucked some hair behind her ear. 

“I know, I’m…really sorry.  It turned into a really long day and then he took me out to dinner with some of the executives of the company.”

I kissed her before she could get anything else out.

It was selfish of me, but hey, time was sneaking up on me and memorizing Bella’s kisses would be important.

She hummed once I let her go and then waited a moment or two before opening her eyes.

Maybe she was memorizing the kisses too.

“How’d it go?”

She shrugged.  “Well, he wants me to come work for him.  He said that, not only were my grades beyond what he was looking for, but that between the work I’d done through college and the Hale’s site…I was a perfect fit.”

And I hid the emo, smiling instead.

“That’s great, we should celebrate.”

“Y…eah,” she said, but there was something about the way she said it, that…

Then I decided I couldn’t wait anymore, and, since I needed to distract myself from thoughts of Bella moving over to the City, I nodded toward the building next to us.

“Come here, I wanna show you something,” I told her as I pulled her along by the hand.

Bella’s giggles followed behind and I felt like a kid in some ways when I was with her; sharing secrets and new ideas.

“What?” she finally asked, once we were inside. I pulled the bottle that was just about finished as a prototype down off of the shelf to show to her.

When she saw the label, her face looked…

“What’s wrong?”

I started to grab it away from her, wondering if I’d offended her or maybe it wasn’t as good as I’d thought it was, when she snatched it out of my hand completely and held it up to her chest, looking up at me with wet eyes.

“You made this…for me?” she asked, looking at it again, fingering the silhouette of a swan on the paper that was glued to the bottle.

And then I just had to smile.

It was relief that drove it, but, in all honesty, her approval of it meant the world.  “Even dated it,” I pointed.  “See?  It’s for your grapes…the ones that were picked this summer.”

She nodded, trying to choke back the tears and then wrapped her arms around me, hugging me tight.  My arms did the same to her as I kissed the top of her head.  “I’m glad you like it.”

The moment was over when workers bustled through and then I pushed her on the interview front.

“So, was there an acceptance of this deal on your end, or…?”

She got uncomfortable under my stare, only…not in the good, I’m about to take you up to my room and do things that no one else will ever be able to do to you kind of way. I resigned myself to the realization,  “You turned him down.”

“No,” she told me, defiantly, with her jaw pushed a little further forward than usual and I dipped my eyes down at her in disbelief.

And just when her mouth opened a tad and I thought I was gonna get some answers out of her…

“Edward.”

Dad.

And Alice.

I put a smile on my face and quickly shot a look at Bella before greeting the two of them.

“Hey there old man,” I teased as he inspected the place.

Just like old times.

“Still…young enough to teach you…a few things,” he grumbled, as I put some things away that were cluttering the area. 

It was habit.

“Hey, Mr. Cullen,” Bella said to him, sharing a smile with Alice. “I’m pretty sure I could be your next processing plant manager by the time Edward’s done with me.”

Embarrassed giggles from her, but she wasn’t kidding.

She learned fast.

“Wouldn’t be…surprised,” he muttered, walking slowly around the section of the building we were in…and without the wheelchair I’d purchased.  “Edward’s got a…sixth sense with the vines,” he told Bella and she smiled proudly over at me.

I was avoiding eye contact all around, so what do I know? But then Carlisle eyed the raspberries sitting on the table and nodded at them.  “Best seller,” he said and I scrunched my forehead at him. 

“Raspberries?”  I laughed.

“The Zin we made … the year those bushes came in…best selling Zin since the winery opened.”

He kept walking, but I could tell he was getting tired.

“You never told me that.”

And he shrugged, smirking a little. “Would’ve meant…telling you…you were right.”

Alice was hiding a smile and I was trying to figure out a way to change the subject and feeling the overwhelming need to turn the A/C down when he turned to me.

“You’ve…done a great job here, Edward.”

Where was the thermostat, anyway?

“Um…”

“I should’ve…told you that…more often,” he said and my forehead hurt from the crease in between my eyebrows that was deepening.

“Dad…”

“Don’t second guess…yourself, son…” he said, interrupting me.

I managed a “Why’s that?” when he finished. 

“Because you… never know when life’s gonna… throw you another curve ball, Edward.”

He nodded without another word and motioned for Alice to help him back up to the house after that weirdness.

I watched him walk.

He was crooked and slow but, even without those changes, he was different.

“He loves you so much,” Bella told me, watching the two of them walk away as she held onto my arm and rested her head against it.

I didn’t answer her.

And anyway, I needed to make a supply run, so I invited Bella to come along and we hopped into her truck to go visit the hardware store.

She let the fact that I’d sidestepped her comment slide for the time being and we jammed out to cheesy seventies music instead of discussing anything too deep.

We were still laughing at Bella’s impersonation of Sister Sledge when a Napa police officer crossed our path.

He didn’t say anything, it was just the way he looked at me that slowed the laughter and I told Bella, “Come on, this is the place,” taking her hand in mine as I entered the store.

“What’s going on?”

And why was she the type that didn’t miss much?

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Edward.”  She pulled her hand out of mine and stopped.

I picked up some solution off of the shelving, noticed the store clerk that was eyeballing me and breathed out.

“It might have something to do with my visit over to Felix’s place the other day.”

“Come again?” she asked, arching one of her excellently shaped eyebrows up at me.

“I might have done a little more than just…warn him.”

I put the bottle back and lifted another one.

“Edward…you can’t get yourself into trouble over me like that,” she told me and then I pulled one of her lines and threw it at her.

“Why is it that everything I do, you assume has something to do with you?”

I smirked and bopped my index finger against the tip of her nose because the look on her face, when I said it…

Fucking priceless.

And memorable.

I walked to the front of the store and set the bottle down to pay for it, waiting patiently for the cashier to stop giving me the stink eye.

When he didn’t, I asked him, “Are you gonna ring me up?”

I got nothin’ in return.

“Dude, I’m just trying to buy some fucking bleach.”

And I think I’ve mentioned how much I truly despise small towns.

“Ya know what?  Forget it,” I told him and left.  I heard Bella giving the guy crap but at that point I just needed air.

And about two or three hand grenades.

When I got outside I noticed my police friend was still outside.  Eerily seeming as though he’d been waiting for me.

Awesome.

“You look a little irritated, Edward. Nothing bothering you, is there?”

Did I know this guy?

“Actually, I’m surprised it took you so long…kinda disappoints me, to tell you the truth.”

“Edward?” Bella called to me, holding the bleach in her hand, stuffing her change back into her pocket.  I smiled despite the bitter taste in my mouth from the anticipation of the confrontation that was no doubt about to happen.

“Everything okay?”

“Yep,” I told her, taking the bleach and then we started back to the truck.

Then my friend in blue put a hand on my arm to stop me from leaving.

I eyed his hand, then him.

And he let go.

“You over at the Volturi’s yesterday, Edward?”

I didn’t answer him.

Silence was my best bet.

I was hoping, anyway.

And still trying to figure out how he knew me, but I didn’t know him.

“Why’s that any of your concern, officer?” I asked with a slight smirk I tried to hide while Bella took my hand.

I was being polite.

I knew how authoritative law type figures worked.

I’d had my share of run ins with the MPs, back in Georgia.

“Because we got a call from the Volturis…saying you assaulted one of their boys.  Is that true?”

I felt it.

Bella’s stare.

I was debating whether or not to play the warrant card or just fess up when…

“What’s the problem, Mike?” I heard Emmett asking, as he exited one of the small stores with Rose on his arm.

Mike Newton. 

Right.

“This is none of your concern, Emmett,” he said all authoritative like and I wanted to laugh suddenly, remembering how he was hall monitor all through Middle School and then class president in High School…thought he was gonna be president one day.

Now look at him.

“Sounds like it is if you’re asking him about his whereabouts yesterday,” Emmett told him and I’m thinking, oh shit, he’s about to get himself involved knee deep with this shit and then Rose is gonna kick my ass.

“Oh yeah, why’s that?”

“Because,” he said and I was preparing a way to cut him off…but he was almost smiling, which kinda threw me off my game. “He was with me yesterday.”

And…say what?

“Got an eye witness that backs Felix’s story up, that Edward here…” he eyed me…or, tried to, “Assaulted him…and Felix is pretty beat up.”

Bella squeezed my hand a little, but other than that, she showed no sign of surprise hearing that news.

I, on the other hand, was a little tense.

“Well, then consider me the eye witness that Felix’s eye witness is a lying sack of shit,” Emmett told him and I watched Rose’s eyes close in disbelief that he was lying for me.

Me?

I was starting to find it all a little amusing.

“What time were you with him?”

I crossed my arms and tapped my chin, in thought. “Yeah Em…” I goaded. “What time was I with you, again?” 

“From about ten AM, on,” he said, matter of factly as I stared at him, bewildered….then back at Officer Newton.

“And before that?”

Back to Emmett.

I could have let him squirm…just to see where it would lead…but there was just no way I was letting him do this anymore, so I opened my mouth to say something, but again was cut off…only not by Emmett this time.

“He was having sex…” Bella told him and all of us gave her the old, what the fuck? look when she added, “With me…”

Thank you.

“Desperate, animalistic, probably illegal in some states, sex,” she insisted and then the officer, along with the rest of us, dropped his jaw just a little bit. 

She arched an eyebrow at him when he didn’t say anything.  “Did you want to know the exact positions he put me into, or…?”

She waited, stubbornly and he cleared his throat.  “Uh…no ma’am, that’ll be fine.”

My lips were pursed as Officer Newton glared at me…and I stared right back at him, refusing to even comment on that comment.

Pie Girl was a bad…bad girl.

And I…really liked that about her.

“Guess we’re done here, then?” Emmett said, stone faced. Rose was just standing there, like she was willing Officer Newton to forget why he’d even stopped me.

He wrote a few things down and then closed his pad up and said, “We’ll be in touch,” before turning to go.

“Have a great day,” I told him, waving and then, once he was gone, I turned to Bella with curled eyebrows.

“Illegal in some states?” I asked. “Really?”

“It could have been,” she insisted and then we all laughed.

Probably out of sheer nervousness over completely lying our asses off to a police officer.

Well, they did, anyway.

“Just like the old days,” Rose said, rolling her eyes while she gave us a side order of sarcasm and then I added with a smirk…just to fuck with her, “Good times.”

She kicked at me but missed and then slapped Emmett in the arm and said, “You’re nuts, you know that?”

“Anything for Edward,” he told her, but he was saying it to me.

I nodded and then asked the two of them, “Hey, why don’t you come over for dinner tonight?  Dad would love to see you, Em.”

He looked over at Rose for the…approval…and after a thoughtful moment she said, “Sure, why not?”

I smiled.

Rose was warming up.

And I wasn’t kidding about Carlisle being happy to see him either, because when they arrived later, one might have thought dad was going to jump out of his skin.

“Emmett,” he muttered and smiled and scuffled over to give my old friend a hug of all hugs.

I’d never seen Emmett so gentle as when he wrapped those big ass arms around Carlisle back and part of me was jealous that they had that physical contact type of relationship.

Alice caught a break when Rose and Bella started preparing dinner.  I noticed her slip into the other room to make a call and had a feeling it was Jasper she was calling.

I wondered just exactly what had transpired between the two of them because I’d never known Jasper to get attached to anyone, but he sure seemed attached to Alice for some reason.

Then I un-corked a couple of bottles of wine for us.

Red for most of us.

White for Pie Girl.

She still wasn’t all that hell bent on the reds.

“Why don’t you…go get some from the…cellar?” dad asked and then Bella stopped chopping vegetables and I stopped un-corking for a second or two.

Now, not only was it completely unlike Carlisle to offer up one of his best of the best bottles of wine.

But why would he have wanted to offer more than one…for a measly dinner?

Thank God Alice was in the other room.

“Um…”

I was still thinking about what to say to change the subject when Rose blurted, “Didn’t Edward destroy them all when he went all psycho last week?”

“Rose…” Emmett whined and she said, “What? That’s what you told me.”

I’m hanging my head, shaking it back and forth, waiting for the onslaught when Bella…she just smiled her Bella smile, put her things down and walked over to Carlisle.

Then she told him, with a soft touch to his arm, “New memories are waiting for their place down there, Carlisle.”

I waited.

And watched.

He looked hurt.

And upset.

But in the end, Dad just nodded at her, thoughtfully, and left the room for a little while, not giving me a second glance.

“Well, that went well,” Emmett chided and Rose added, “May as well rip it off, like with bandaids.”

I breathed out some and Bella placed a tiny, lingering kiss on the side of my face before getting back to the vegetable cutting.

“He’ll be fine,” she whispered, before leaving me there to pour our glasses.

And somehow, she was right again.

When Carlisle returned, he seemed…normal.  Or, at least, normal for him, lately…

And Alice had returned, who was a nice buffer for me as she busied him with setting the table and chit chatting about the vines and how they were coming along.

Emmett and I were discussing what might happen going forward with Felix and, even though the two of us thought we were being at least semi-discreet about it, Dad asked us, “Everything…alright?”

“Fine, dad…nothing for you to worry about,” I told him, as I grinned over at him.  And I eyed Alice to make sure she didn’t start opening her mouth about the shit that had being going on.

‘Cause it would have just been added stress on Carlisle’s heart that he didn’t need and a really, very inconvenient time for Alice to decide to start sharing with everyone.

Dinner went great.

There was laughing and joking and stories being told above the table.

Smiles were shared.

Playfully evil looks were given.

But under the table, where Bella and I sat, there was touching and tickling and teasing and lots…and lots of sexual tension.

Whether it was her fingers that would brush up against my knee.

Or her foot that would tangle with mine.  Sending messages of want and…illegal desires.

I needed her alone.

In my bed.

Maybe in the shower.

And even as I thought it, I looked over at her, while she engaged easily with my family and friends, wondering how many more days I’d have with her.

Dad seemed okay, in all honesty, which meant I wouldn’t be needed much longer and there were still unanswered questions for me over how Bella’s interview had gone and what her plans were.

Even though, I supposed, the only thing I needed to know was that whatever those plans were, they wouldn’t include me.

I held my wine glass up, despite myself. “To Bella,” I said and she eyed me. “Who will no doubt become a famous web designer, someday soon.”

“To Bella,” they all mimicked and she barely lifted her glass before drinking which just confirmed my suspicions about how she’d ended things with the CEO over in the City.

She managed to avoid the topic the rest of the night.

Asking Carlisle about me and Emmett as kids and offering to help with cleaning up, but Emmett and I told the girls to go chill out,  that we’d handle it, while Alice helped Carlisle up to bed.

But before he left for the night, he stopped next to me and put a hand on my shoulder.

I looked down at him, still chuckling at some stupid asinine thing Emmett had said, but slowed as I took in the look on Dad’s face.

“I love you, son.  Thanks…for…everything,” he told me as he looked me straight in the eyes and I knew he was talking about the vineyard.

“No problem, Dad,” I told him.

It was weird, still. Hearing him say things like that.

It wasn’t the thank you that threw me off, though.

It was the I love you.

I couldn’t really respond other than that, but I didn’t have to because he hugged me, abruptly, and then he squeezed me tight.

As tight as an older, heart attack victim, possibly poisoned father could, anyway.

I hugged him back and told him goodnight and, as he left the kitchen, I hesitated to get back to my cleaning duties for a beat or two.

When I did, Emmett was staring at me with a stupid as shit grin on his face.

“What?”

“Nothin’ man, just glad you’re here.”

“Whatever,” I told him and then threw a dish towel at him before we got back to work.

After a few beers to chase down the wine we’d all had at dinner and some idle talk about winter plans for the wineries around town that Rose’s family had planned on telling about Bella’s skills, the two of them left and I took Bella upstairs.

It was late, but when I was with her weariness subsided and adrenalin kicked in.

We kissed and taunted and she pulled me to the bed, but something was nagging at me.

Something I couldn’t get out of my head until I’d faced it.

So as we lay there, entangled in each other, I pushed the hair out of Bella’s face and kissed her one last time before telling her, “I need to go take care of something.”

She giggled. “At one o’clock in the morning?”

“Well I don’t have that far to go, it’s…I need to see Carlisle.”

And she got it.

She curled her eyebrows up a little, then kissed me and told me, “I’ll be here when you get back,” as I left her there. Part of me felt like an idiot for leaving the most ridiculously beautiful woman I’d ever met, naked in my bed to go have a one on one with my dad.

It was well past one in the morning; it probably could have waited ‘till morning…but my gut was telling me to just…go handle it.

Never put shit off again, I thought, but besides that…there was just something about how Carlisle had reacted earlier that had stuck with me and I didn’t want to wait ‘till the next day to go see him about it.

So I made my way down the hallway to his room and cracked the door open a smidge to see if he was sleeping.

If he was, I’d consider it fate and head back to the previously aforementioned naked woman in my bed.

But he wasn’t.

“Edward,” he said and I felt like an eight year old kid again, sneaking into his parent’s room to crawl into bed after a bad dream.

Which, ironically, is what at least part of my life had felt like.

I stepped inside and he patted the bed beside him, then waved for me to go sit with him.

I walked over to him uncomfortably.

And definitely felt eight again, maybe even thirteen…

Entering Carlisle’s room after breaking some curfew or getting caught skipping school with Emmett…

It felt the same and yet…different.

Because now I wasn’t so much despising the time I spent with him as much as I was regretting that we didn’t have very much more time to actually get to know each other.

“Help you with something…Edward?” he asked, bobbing his head up and down as he tried to read some documents…sometimes using his glasses, sometimes not.

“Nothing,” I said at first.  “Just…checkin’ on ya.”

I smiled and he grunted.

“When you were…young,” he said.  “Used to…sit down…in the office…spinning around in my chair….waiting for me to….finish everything I thought was important…so you could…follow me out to the vines…”

I laughed a short, strained laugh. “Yeah?”

“Mmm,” he nodded.

“You’d wait hours…sometimes,” he told me.  “Funny thing is…none of those things were…all that important…after all.”

My chest was tightening.

He seemed weak and tired and almost as if the flimsy pieces of paper he was holding weighed ten pounds.

“You did what you thought was right for us; there’s something to be said for that,” I assured him but he waved me off.

“What was…right, was…making you happy…I failed at that.”

Lumps.

They’d returned.

And I fought them, this time.

But that meant sitting there in silence for a while, saying nothing as he rifled through papers and made notes on things with a shaky hand, but I couldn’t just avoid the something I needed to say at some point.

So I said it.

“Dad.”

“Mmm,” he grumbled, as he fingered through some papers sitting next to him. 

“I’m sorry about the bottles.”

He stopped and looked over at me, over his glasses and told me, “Edward…”

I looked back and he seemed like he was mulling over what to say, next.

“Those bottles….held memories for me…,” he mumbled, waving a hand.  “From… years here…they meant a lot…”

And I knew this was coming.

“Important moments…”

I deserved it.

“Prestigious awards…”

But it didn’t sting any less.

“I didn’t…”

He shushed me.

Held a hand up, and shushed me as he continued.

“But in the end…do you know what they really were, son?”

I shook my head, silently.

“Just…bottles…with liquid in ‘em.”

He shook his head as he went back to flipping through his papers and then pulled one out that he’d found there, underneath the others.

But this one wasn’t any official looking piece of paper.

It was hand written.

“Wrote you…something,” he told me and then held it up to me.

I laughed at him a little bit because, “Dad, why don’t you just say whatever it is?”

He pointed to his throat.  “Too…hard…to say everything.”

“Okay,” I said, slowly, taking the letter.  He urged me to go ahead and read it, so I leaned back against the head board and opened it up.

…………………….

Son,

I wasn’t there, through your life, the way I should have been.

I made a lot of mistakes.

The one thing I’ve always been sure of, though, was this vineyard.

And of course…the vineyard.

It would always be about the vineyard.

I practically rolled my eyes before taking the time to look over at him.

He was watching me with an odd expression on his face and I smiled. “You okay?”

He nodded and told me, “Just a little…cold in here…” scowling at me and motioned with a hand to keep reading.

“Are you kidding,” I teased him.  “It’s beautiful out.

He waved at me some more, so I kept on reading.

From the moment I saw it, I knew it was where I belonged.  The vines, they have a way of speaking to you and I didn’t sleep a wink until I’d signed on the dotted line and began planting the seeds for our first crop. 

They speak to you, too, Edward.

I glanced out dad’s window for a second or two, then back down at the words he’d written.

He put a hand on top of my free one.

I see it in your eyes, in the work you’ve put into this place.  The pride I see on your face each day when you look out at what you’ve accomplished.

I’ve been there, I know it.

Don’t ignore them, son.

Don’t let my lifetime of bad choices and horrible behavior run your life.

I’ll always be sorry for what I put you through and it will never be enough, but believe me when I say you belong here, son.

It’s yours.

It was hard to read. 

His words were…hard to take in, but simple and I was once again finding myself in a place of confusion.

Wafting through a sea of too many things to think about.

Regretting too many years of wishing I’d been a better person…

“Dad, I don’t know what to…” I looked to him again, but this time, he wasn’t looking at me.

His eyes were closed and his hands were still and he seemed more than just asleep.

He was…Peaceful…and then, I felt it.

“Dad?”

I don’t know why I’d said it, like that.

I knew he was gone.

I just…didn’t want him to be, I guess.

Finally, I didn’t want to lose him.

Ironic.

And those fucking lumps.

I placed his hand over the other one, folded the piece of paper he’d given me and tucked it into my shirt pocket. Then I let out a breath of air and leaned back against the head board, staring at nothing for a few minutes as my breathing shook and my eyes dampened.

I listened to the clock hand, on his dresser, as it ticked away the seconds.

Glanced around and took note, for some reason, at how organized his room was.

Then, I looked out of the window…out at the vines.

It was one of those nights where you could see for miles.

The moon was up high and full, surrounded by a bazillion stars and you could see them.  The vines, that is, shimmering out there.

Like they were dancing.

And I could hear them whispering to me.

Or maybe they were talking to Carlisle.

Showing him the way home, perhaps.

And, all I could think of, was that…for everything seeming to be so clear out there, to me, nothing was.

And I wondered if it ever would be.

A/N: Bite refers to a lively sharpness resulting from a wines acidity.