dandelions || quil ateara

before

The group stood up, chicken wings in hand when Rue heard a voice that made her face scrunch in annoyance. "Great, Bella's here too."

The group of boys jogged out of the house, bounding down the steps to great the pair, Rue followed behind them while Malia and Leah stayed in the house.

"Hey look who's back!"

"What's up, Bella." Quil greeted.

"Quil," she smiled, "you too?"

"Yep, finally made the pack!" He grinned. Quil and Rue looked at each other awkwardly when they realized their arms bumped, moving to the side to create a little distance.

Bella stared at the pair curiously, something was off between them. "I'm glad you're here, Bella. Maybe we can get a break from Jake's obsessive inner monologue." Embry joked.

The group of boys joined in on picking on Jake as Rue and Tama watched, making little comments to each other in their head.

"You see how awkward she looks?" Tama's laughed echoed through her head.

"Yeah she always looks like that. I still don't get why Jake even tries with her."

Tama shot her a knowing look. "Because he's 'in love' with her."

The pack of boys laughed as Jake smiled passive aggressively. "All right, you can shut up now."

Then he turned his attention to the twins. "And you two can quit having little conversations in your heads."

The siblings gave the boy a smile as Bella looked confused. But their attention quickly turned toward Leah who made her way out of the house, Malia not far behind her.

"Bella, this is Leah Clearwater, Harry's daughter." Jacob introduced.

"Hey. I'm really sorry about your father."

Leah glared at the girl. "If you're here to torture Jacob some more, feel free to leave."

The pack stood awkwardly as Leah continued walking, not bothering to look back before phasing.

"Fun isn't she?" Jacob sighed.

Malia narrowed her eyes at the boy. "Watch it, Jacob." Before shoving past him and following Leah into the woods.

"Bella!" Emily greeted, pulling her into a hug. "I was wondering when we'd see your face around here again."

"Yeah, same here."

"Sam, we good?" Jacob asked.

"We're good." Sam replied. "She won't be getting through our line any time soon."

❀•°❀°•❀

BELLA WALKED ALONGSIDE Jacob as he pushed his bike toward the garage. "So what's up with Rue and Quil?"

Jacob sighed. "You noticed that?"

"I mean, it was kind of hard not to." Bella shrugged. "I've only seen them together a few times, but something looked... off, between them."

"Ever since Quil shifted, they've had some problems." Jacob explained. "And them on top of that, there's the Leah/Sam/Emily pain fest."

"Wait, so Sam dumped Leah for Emily?"

"Yeah, it wasn't like that." Jacob said. "Sam hates himself for hurting Leah. But, Emily was the one."

"Yeah, I guess it sort of chooses you sometimes."

Jacob shook his head. "It's more than some crush, Bella. Sam imprinted on Emily."

"Do I even want to know what that is?" Bella asked.

"Imprinting on someone is like... like when you see her, everything changes. All of a sudden, it's not gravity holding you to the planet. It's her. Nothing else matters. You would do anything, be anything for her."

Bella shifted awkwardly. "Is that what happened to Rue and Quil?"

Jacob sighed, nodding. "When one of us imprints, we're allowed to tell them the tribe secret. But, when Rue imprinted on Quil, she decided not to tell him."

"Then, the night you left, I said some really shitty stuff to her. Embry walked her home, but they stopped by the dandelion field first because Rue wanted some time to herself. So Embry waited for her, and when she got there she saw Quil."

"They talked for a little and then, Embry, ran up to tell her that Tama had shifted and Quil freaked out cause he thought Rue brought him there."

"Quil ended up phasing, and every since then things have been really weird between them."

"Oh wow," Bella said, shocked.

Rue sat inside the house, listening to the pair talk. She balled her fists up, she didn't appreciate that Jacob just decided to tell Bella about her personal life like that.

"You good?" Quil asked, pulling her out of her trance.

"Yeah," she replied. "I'm just gonna kill Jacob later, that's all."

Quil let out a small laugh. "He say some stuff he shouldn't have?"

"Yes."

"Do you wanna go to the dandelion field?"

Rue turned to look at him, surprised. They haven't gone to the dandelion field since the night he shifted. "Uh, yeah sure."

The pair hopped off the couch, telling Sam they were gonna head out for a little. Sam nodded, shouting after them as they walked out of the house.

"Make sure you're back in time for patrol!"

❀•°❀°•❀

a/n: good morning! so if you guys didn't already know, i published the prologue of act one of brainstorm so go check that out! i'm very excited to be moving forward with this book.

hope you guys enjoyed! please don't forget to comment and vote!

— k