CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Good Morning
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-Abigail-
To her surprise, the sun was shining through the window when she woke up. She perked up a little, silencing the alarm on her phone and padding over to peak outside at the sun. It had been sunny once back in August after she had just moved back, but it was never sunny in Washington in January. She was surprised there was no snow on the ground, but she supposed it would be coming soon. The sun was just there to tease them. But she would take advantage of it, especially since she would be calling out of work. She felt like such a rebel.
The call was quickly made as she was a pro at faking sick; she did it all the time in high school, and as a nurse, knew just what to say. Mackenzie was the one who had answered and marked her down to let Dr. Jones know.
"Must be something going around," Mackenzie commented. "Dr. Cullen is out sick as well." Abigail froze and her heart began to jackhammer behind her ribs. She hadn't expected that. She figured she would be spending the day with the others and would head home around the time Carlisle got home from work, but it seemed that instead she would be forced to deal with her confusing and intense emotions about the man while trying to have fun with his kids. Wonderful.
"Must be," she said evasively and bid her goodbye before hanging up. Her mind whirled through the possibilities, of how she was supposed to get through an entire day in Carlisle's presence without messing something up. She already felt her heart pounding and flipping around, enough so that she didn't hear the knock on the door until the door swung open slightly and Alice peaked in. She looked worried until she saw Abigail standing there and she brightened.
"Abi, you're awake!" She bounded over and quickly pulled her into a hug, pulling back to look at her. "Are you okay?"
Abigail quickly nodded, smiling. "I'm good. Still waking up."
Alice didn't look like she believed her, but continued to smile. "Well, wake up faster. There are clothes there," She pointed to the closet, "and you can shower. Breakfast will be ready once you're done!" And with that she danced from the room, shutting the door behind her. Abigail sighed and moved quickly to the door that lead to the bathroom.
The shower felt amazing over her muscles, relaxing her enough that she felt she could pull this day off without a hitch. Being so close to him would surely hurt, knowing he would never care for her, but she found that it was getting easier. Well, not easier per-se, but rather she was able to ignore it. She had always been a pro at hiding her feelings, and now it was more essential than ever before. All of her anger at them had been lifted off her chest during her tantrum—which she was ever so grateful nobody brought that up as she was still highly embarrassed—and she was left with resolve. She forgave them for that week of being ignored—even though she still wanted to know why—and all she wanted to do was embrace this budding friendship while she had the chance to do so. She wasn't an idiot, she knew there was a high chance it could happen again and she would be hurt, but she wasn't strong enough to be the one to stay away.
She realized she was in a daze as she finished up and quickly dried off, padding into the large walk-in closet that held the clothes Alice spoke of. One outfit cost more than a month's salary for her and she didn't even want to touch it let alone wear it. But she couldn't exactly walk around with a towel on or excuse herself back to her house to get her cheap jeans and t-shirt. Finally she settled on something that didn't look too extremely expensive: soft white denim jeans, a cream colored cashmere sweater with a white camisole underneath, and a pair of black flats. She brushed her hair out and pulled it back into a braid to keep it out of her face, and then headed downstairs to the great room. Everybody was already awake and dressed, a few of them around the coffee table and the couch, while Alice, Emmett, and Carlisle sat at the kitchen table.
The amount of food that sat along the polished wood had her eyes nearly bugging out. Eggs, sausage and bacon, toast, cinnamon rolls, grits and oatmeal, muffins and bagels, and freshly cut fruit. She paused in the doorway, stomach growling, but there was no way she could finish it all herself so she hoped they were joining her.
"Are we feeding an army?" she wondered, stepping closer and ceasing the whispered conversation that drifted between the other three. Alice grinned and jumped up to drag Abigail to a seat to the right of Carlisle, making her blush deeply.
"Only if the wolves show up," she said. "But otherwise it's for you. Sit and eat."
"I can't eat all of it—"
"I know that, silly, we'll join you." She smiled and sat next to Emmett on the other side. He had a weird look on his face, almost disgust, but he smiled at her, too. "Dig in!"
"You know, cereal would've been more than enough..." she murmured as she shyly started piling a little bit of everything on her plate.
"This is better," Emmett pointed out as he took a bite out of a piece of bacon.
Abigail slowly smiled. "You're right. Thank you so much. I haven't had a breakfast like this since—" She paused and her face darkened for a moment before she pushed it away and smiled, chewing on a piece of toast.
"What?" Carlisle asked softly and she paused, glancing over at him, swallowing suddenly thickly and putting the bread on her plate and feeling as her stomach twisted.
She sighed softly. "Since high school, when my parents were still alive. The morning of my graduation, actually. Mom invited Charlie, Billy and Jake, Waylon, the Clearwaters... She was so proud, and they couldn't all go to the graduation, but she invited them over that morning for a breakfast bigger than this. The Quileutes ate a lot even back then." She chuckled softly, staring at her twisting hands. "A couple days later is when I moved to Seattle. I wasn't allowing a graduation party, so that's why she did the breakfast. I came back over the years of course, but it was never like that again. The day they died, I was supposed to be there, but I ran late because the hospital wanted me to pull a double the night before and I slept through my alarm. Before I left the apartment, that's when I got the call that they were in a car accident. Drunk driver." She sighed shakily. "I found everything at the house when I went back. I cleaned up what I needed, and didn't go back at all until Bella and Edward's wedding." She shrugged then and tried a bite of toast to stop her twisting stomach. Slowly she looked at the others who were frowning, and she managed a soft smile. "That's in the past, though. The future is what matters, right?"
None of them said anything for a few moments, but finally Alice smiled which prompted smiles from the other two. "Right. And you'll have a lot of that with us. We're not letting you go anywhere."
Abigail didn't see or feel Carlisle stiffen beside her, so she just blushed and felt her stomach thaw and finally allow her to eat more than just a couple bites of toast.
Most of it was gone by the time they were all finished, and the rest was packed away in the fridge for when Jacob showed up, which it was a given he would at some point. None of them ever explained how they knew about the wolves or why Jacob hung around so much, but she didn't ask, it wasn't her business. Besides, that just meant that she didn't have to choose between the Cullens and Jacob and that meant a lot to her. Maybe someday she would ask, but that day had too much promise to mess it up by pushing into things that weren't her business.
Emmett pulled her over to the table usually reserved for the chess board, but this time he had checkers over it instead, and he sat across from her with a grin. "I assume you at least know checkers."
She grinned. "'Course I do. My dad taught me." She took the red pieces and set them on her end of the board, pulling her legs up under her. Alice pulled up a chair next to her and smirked at Emmett.
"Team Abigail," she announced, mimicking the way Abigail was sitting.
Emmett's face fell. "Aw, man! That's not even fair."
Alice grinned and leaned for Abigail. "Don't worry, my team always wins." Emmett just grumbled to himself which made the girls giggle.
Checkers was probably the only game that Abigail was actually good at, so even if Alice wasn't there, she still would've won. Of the four games they played, she won three of them. The forth one couldn't really be considered a win or lose, though, for either of them because as she had three quarters of her markers kinged, Emmett swiped the board off the table and actually pouted as he narrowed his eyes at the girls, who were both laughing hysterically. Abigail thought she sounded like a donkey braying next to Alice's tinkling laugh, but for once she didn't feel embarrassed and that was a surprise itself. She felt so comfortable around them, opening up and finally just being herself the way she was around Jacob, not feeling a bit of shyness as she grinned at Emmett, happier than she had been in awhile, allowing herself to tease him.
"So you still want me as your good luck charm?" she wondered, turning in her chair and dropping her legs to the ground, leaning forward.
Emmett's narrow-eyed gaze landed on her and he studied her for a moment before sighing. "In chess, yes. But I'm never playing checkers with you and Alice again. Maybe you and Rose..."
"Hey!" Rosalie called out in indignation, making everyone laugh.
The ringing of a phone cut off the laughter and Abigail glanced around, perplexed, before she realized it was coming from her pocket. Jacob and Beth were the only other ones that would call her so she assumed it was one of them, but when she pulled her phone from her pocket, she saw it was an unknown number and she frowned. Maybe someone got a new number? she thought lamely as she stood up. Alice frowned at her, and Edward looked at Alice as if confused about something. Abigail just shrugged.
"Just a sec," she murmured and quickly padded from the room into the kitchen so she could speak.
She answered it right before it hung up, her voice tentative. "Hello?"
"Abs, you sound horrible."
She frowned for a second, not recognizing the voice, but it dawned on her as only one person ever called her "Abs," and her eyebrows shot up her forehead.
"Dr. Jones?" she asked, confused.
The man chuckled. "You got it. But you know it's Brett."
She laughed uneasily. "Right... Well, what can I do for you?"
"I was just checking up on you, sweetheart. Mackenzie told me you called in sick. That's not like you, so I wanted to check."
Sweetheart. She shivered, feeling uncomfortable even on the phone with him let alone when he touched her. She always got uneasy goosebumps when he did and a sick, twisted feeling in her gut.
"Yeah, came down with something. I'm fine, I'll be in tomorrow."
"Better be." Was that a threat in his voice? "I miss you down here." "I" not "we." She shivered again.
"Right... Well I'm sure it's just a twenty-four hour thing."
"Hope so. Cullen's out, too." She didn't like that tone in his voice either, and another shiver went through her, causing her arms to lock around her body.
"Mackenzie told me."
Silence.
"Well, feel better soon, sweetheart. I'll see you tomorrow."
"Bye, Brett." She hung up before he could say anything else and frowned at her phone, taking a deep breath before shoving it in her pocket and turning to go back into the other room, only Emmett blocked the doorway and she jumped at his close proximity. "Geez, you startled me." But he didn't answer, just stared at her evenly with a hint of—Was that rage?—behind his ochre gaze. "Something wrong?" she hedged, hesitant.
"Boyfriend?" He spat the word out and she actually winced. Why does he care?
"No." Her nose wrinkled up as if she ate a bug. "Not even close. I don't know why he called me. He said he was checking up on me, but..." She trailed off and shrugged. "He makes me uncomfortable. He's...kind of...I don't know, grabby? Not really, I don't know, he just touches me a lot." She shrugged. "I don't think he means any harm." A glance to Emmett told her the look on his face didn't change, it just got more intense, and she frowned. "Why're you mad at me?" she asked softly.
"I'm not." She raised an eyebrow at the edge in his voice. He cracked his knuckles menacingly. "Look, if you don't want him to touch you, let me come down there and show him how to be polite to a lady."
Wait...he's angry for me, not at me? She stared at him in shock as she slowly blushed once again. She gave him a small smile and stepped closer to him, hugging him around the waist. For a moment his entire body was tense and she nearly pulled away, but he didn't let her as his strong arms moved around her shoulders tightly. Hugging him was comforting enough that her eyes closed and she couldn't help but feel like she was home.
"I'll let you know if I need a bodyguard," she teased with a small grin against his chest. She felt a rumbled laugh against her cheek and she pulled back a moment later. "C'mon, before Alice sends a search party." He grinned and led her out to the other room, an arm still around her shoulder. Nobody seemed to notice their disappearance other than Alice and she hopped up as soon as they entered.
"Everything okay?" she asked hesitantly, eyes flickering between Abigail and Emmett. Abigail smiled and nodded.
"All good. It was just my boss." More or less. "And I think I wanna play chess. Up for it, Emmett?"
His eyes brightened and he nearly cheered as he moved quickly to get the board and pieces, causing Abigail to snort in amusement. He insisted on Alice playing them as he wouldn't play against Abigail herself since she was his "lucky charm," and they actually did win one, but lost the second and when he tried to insist on a third game, Alice declined and stood, bringing a confused Abigail with her.
"Sorry, Em, we've got some girl stuff to do."
"We do?" Abigail wondered as she was tugged for the stairs. Alice nodded and gestured behind them and Abigail glanced over and saw Bella, Carlie, and Rosalie following them. Abigail sighed, realizing she had no choice, and followed Alice up the stairs.