Fic: Keep the Wolf from the Door
“And things ain’t like what they used to be, And this ain’t the summer of love”
Summer of Love - Blue Oyster Cult
I was just sitting there in one of the ridiculously expensive lawn chairs my family had in the back yard, minding my own business. I was certainly not checking out the way Jacob Black’s back muscles created two symmetrical dimples at the place just above the waistband of his shorts as he mowed our grass, when Alice rudely cut into my happy-time. “Nessie, seriously, just because the rest of us can’t read your mind doesn’t mean we don’t know what you’re thinking. You’ve got a little drool right here-“she leaned across the small table between us to pretend to wipe the nonexistent drool off my face with one hand while keeping her place in her ever-present fashion magazine with the other. I laughed, knowing she was only teasing me. Embarrassingly enough, my entire family was well aware of how I lusted after Jake. I sometimes thought that the only person in my entire life who didn’t know was Jake himself, but I was pretty sure Grandpa Charlie was just as in the dark on that one as Jake. I batted Alice’s hand away from my face before she could reach me and made what my parents would call a “rude gesture” at her. Alice laughed, and I suspect that if she had been a human she may have snorted, before gathering her gigantic pile of magazines and getting up to go inside. “I’ll just leave you to your animal watching.” She winked as farewell and was back inside the house before I had time to say anything else to her.
Once alone I put in my headphones and lounged back in the chair, getting comfortable to spend the rest of the time it took Jake to finish mowing our 10 acre yard sneakily enjoying the aforementioned scenery. Alice and I had originally come out back to sunbathe in our bikinis, my favorite thing to do with her besides shopping. She enjoyed the heat of the sun on her skin, making her feel nearly human-temperature, and I enjoyed the tiny bit of tan I was able to achieve and the benefit of her skin’s glittering intensified that tanning process better than any pool water could. We hadn’t been outside long before Jake showed up and mom batted her vampire lashes at him to sweet talk him into doing yard work. The family had a roster of sorts to keep the outdoor work evenly spread out week by week, and it was a tradition that whenever it was either of our turns, mom and me would get Jake to do our work for us. Mom preferred to spend her time in the house reading or weirdly staring at dad. I didn’t mind cutting grass or trimming hedges when it was my turn, but I have to say I’d rather just lay back and watch a shirtless 6’7” wolf man do it instead. I mentioned it’s genetic to stare creepily at guys you were in love with, right? It’s totally not a lack of willpower on my part, I blame my parents. (Dad loved that argument when he overheard some of my thoughts about Jake during my stare-sessions.) Presently that wolf man had this adorable little line between his eyebrows like he always did whenever he did our chores for us. He told me once he liked doing it because it was one of those mindless tasks that gave him time to do some serious thinking. I enjoyed him doing it for the same reasons, like how I was now seriously thinking about this one bead of sweat that was starting to drip slowly down his abs, and that of course led to seriously considering what it would be like to lick it off of his toned stomach. Summer was by far the best season of the year if for no other reason that there was frequently a sweaty, shirtless Jake hanging around.
I sort of zoned out for the rest of the time it took him to finish mom’s chores, which I can hardly be blamed for. Genetics, not my fault. It seemed like no time at all passed before Jake had put the lawnmower away and plopped down, stray grass blades sticking to the moisture on his skin, in Alice’s vacated chair. He wasted no time in downing half of my unopened bottled water and pouring the rest over his head to cool off. This unfortunately had the opposite effect on me and I was grateful for the dark sunglasses on my face concealing my up-close visual examination of the glory that is a wet Jacob. When I finally looked back up to his face I realized he was talking. I quickly yanked the headphones out of my ears so I could tune in to what he was saying. “-and then Leah was bitching to Seth about acting like he had imprinted on her because he was being really nice to her, but really he was just trying to distract her so whatever his new girl’s name is could crawl out the window behind her. But she locked herself in her room and called me and was yelling about ‘fucked up wolf magic’ and ‘seriously disgusting incestuous werewolf bullshit’ just to piss him off as payback before he busted down the door and took the phone from her.” He was smiling at me, flailing his hands around with the story and I couldn’t help but smile back at him and laugh. “She’s been in his head for like ten years, she couldn’t figure out what was going on?” I asked, knowing that Seth and Leah, my two best friends outside of the family and Jake, never seemed to think when it came to how they interacted with each other and went straight for dramatic sibling fights. Jake shook his head, “Yeah, I mean, she knows all about imprinting, obviously.” He said, referring to her pre-phasing days when Sam had imprinted on Emily. “She was just doing it to be funny and irritate him.”
I forced a laugh out and put my headphones back in, turning so that I was lying on my stomach with my head facing away from him. I’d figured out when I was outwardly twelve that I was Jake’s imprint. It hadn’t been a hard thing to guess. From that time until about a year ago, I’d waited for the imprinting to turn from friendship to a romantic relationship, and when it didn’t, I’d decided to try and change it myself by practicing flirting with him at every opportunity, wearing low cut shirts to show off my newly developed boobs, short=shorts in the summer to accentuate my thighs and butt. I didn’t know whether he was a breast=man or a leg-man or an-ass man, but I made sure to cover all my bases. That was also around the time that Alice and I had become more friends than aunt and niece. I’d started shopping with her to pick out outfits to draw his attention, let her teach me how to do my own hair and makeup to perfect the flaws my human genes left me with, and started laying out in the backyard with her to try and show off as much of my skin to him as possible whenever he was over. Now I do those things with her mainly because I like spending time with her, not for any ulterior motives.
Short of slipping some roofies into his drink, I tried every trick in the book. (I probably would have tried that too, if I thought it would affect his shape shifter metabolism). Nothing worked, however, and we’re still just really close best friends. The only theory I could come up with that explained it was that our natures were too opposed to each other; he was too repelled by my vampire half to be attracted to me as anything more than a friend, even with the help of ancient supernatural magic. It was depressing to think about, and I’d never let on to anyone that I knew I was his imprint, it was less humiliating that way. As bad as I felt for myself because of that, I felt even worse for Jake. He had no choice but to make me the most important person in his life, and he wouldn’t ever be able to love me the way imprinting was designed to be. He’d go on forever, single, instincts on edge because he was around vampire most of the day, every day. The two of us were fated to always be freaks of nature, even worse than our families, who had a pretty high freak quotient themselves.
I gave myself a minute to tamp down my more melancholy feelings regarding Jake before turning my head around so that I was facing him again. He had his eyes closed, relaxed and happy to just be near me, but I could tell he wasn’t asleep. Too lazy to take my headphones back out I just reached over to his chair and laid my hand on his forearm. “Do you ever miss La Push?” I asked through the connection of my skin on his. He opened his eyes and frowned at me, clearly confused about why I asked. I could just barely hear him over the music playing on my iPod when he answered back a few seconds later, “I guess, sometimes…but I’m more than happy here with you. As long as I get to have my Ness, I’m good pretty much anywhere. I could probably even be happy if all of us had to move to Siberia or something. If you’re there…it’s home.” He finished his speech with a soft half smile, looking at me with so much love and awe that it made my heart clench. It was times like this that I couldn’t even be upset that he didn’t want me the way I wanted him--it didn’t matter. He loved me more than anyone else, more intensely and focused and I couldn’t find it in me to feel bad about not getting more than most people are never lucky enough to have in the first place.
Keeping the mood light, I shared the thought, “You’re such a girl sometimes. Even Rose is manlier than you right now.” He mock=gasped at the insult and had a good time throwing an exaggerated, girly fit for a few minutes. “Listen here, little lady, I am by far the manliest, most masculine man that you have ever had the supreme pleasure of knowing. Without a doubt more manly than you. I’m not the one that cries every time we watch A Walk to Remember.” He paused and bit his lip, which caused another mini-stare session, before continuing, “…And I cannot believe I just used A Nicholas Sparks movie in an argument about my manhood. You, Nessie, are ruining me as a man. We keep being friends and it won’t be long before I’m giggling like a little school girl with Alice over those stupid celebrity magazines.” I was laughing at him at this point, and I could barely concentrate enough to send him the image of him “having something in his eye” during more than one of the times we had piled onto my bed to watch one of my favorite movies. “I really did have something in my eye! Yes, every time!” he said before I could even question that. “…Don’t say anything to Emmett, and I won’t bring up the time we stumbled onto Edward and Bella’s ‘hunting trip’.” He said with a barely suppressed smirk. I shot up to a sitting position and pointed an accusing finger at him. “We swore we’d never bring that up again! You are such an asshole. Oh, my god, I repressed that memory and now I can’t get it out of my head. I feel like I need to bleach my brain.” He got up, cocked his hip to the side in an impression of a woman, and said, “Well then, I guess you shouldn’t be such a catty bitch,” then he pretended to flip his close cropped hair over his shoulder and literally sashayed up the porch and into the house. I laughed, and then groaned at the memory of my parents going at it like the teenagers they would be forever. Ugh, disgusting. It’s so not my fault I linger so much on sexual thoughts, everyone in the house was paired up and it was rare if a day went by that I didn’t overhear at least one of the couples having not-so-private time. Oh, god, now I was picturing Grandpa Carlisle and Grandma Esme. Would I ever get these traumatizing thoughts out of my head? I blamed Jake. Hmm, Jake…sex…well, now I was picturing me and Jake having sex. That’s not so bad. With a smile on my face I laid back down on the chair, the warmth of the summer sun against my skin- not as pleasantly searing as I imagined Jake's large, impossibly hot body (in more ways than one) would be on top of mine, but it was still nice. It wasn’t long until that second-best warmth and the graphic visions playing in my mind lulled me into a dream filled sleep.