For as much as Edward was staring at the girl, it seemed that she was hellbent on doing the same. She didn’t break her gaze. She stared at him. It wasn’t something that Edward found to be uncommon. There were a lot of women who stared at him. A lot of women that attempted and failed to get his attention. Why did this brunette seem to demand his attention and capture him at the same exact time? It didn’t matter how many times he told himself to look away; his gaze always ended up on her.
Perhaps they’d known each other in another life. That would explain the familiarity that Edward felt when he was in her presence. Her presence was like slipping into an old sweater. One that he knew like the back of his hand. Every worn thread, every tear. It was comfortable. Like a warm embrace that he’d had a million times and still craved it every single moment.
That would explain the dreams. It would explain the feeling he’d had in her gut when he’d finally read her name upon her nametag at the bookstore. Why it hadn’t left his head since. Why it felt so right. So familiar. He’d seen her in almost every one of his dreams. Sometimes he heard her laugh. Sometimes he made her smile. Other times she was broken and bleeding out in his arms. It didn’t make sense to him.
Edward looked away from Bella, but his immediate instinct was to look back up at her and he did. Despite something within him telling him that he didn’t deserve it, he ignored that irrational part of him. He was just serving her a drink. It wasn’t anything more than that.
Bella tossed her hair back and Edward knew what her scent would be like before it hit his nose. At the same time, he felt a burning within his throat that he couldn’t explain. There weren’t many things he found that could easily be explained lately. His hand twitched at his side again, begging its owner to allow a single pass through her hair. Edward - if he hadn’t already been clenching his jaw - would have gaped at the girl when she said she trusted him. Instead, he merely nodded and turned his back to her to grab one of the beers that they had on tap. It seemed like something that she described liking. However, he couldn’t read her as easily as others.
Edward slid the beer over to her and murmured, “Here you go. It’s an IPA. If you hate it, I can grab something else.” Why was he so worried about her opinion? Why did he want to hear her voice more than anything? To hear her laugh? “Surprised to find you outside of the bookstore.”
She liked the sound of his voice. It was old-fashioned and musical, like the golden age movie stars in the movies Renee liked to watch. With the set of his chin and the slope of his forehead, he seemed better suited for an old photo album than leaning behind the counter of a modern-day, real-life bar. His hands, pale and slender, should have been at a piano, not pouring beers and mixing cocktails.
Bella watched him move deftly, gracefully, so at odds with her own fumbling hands and two left feet. She’d told Charlie once that she was thinking about trying for a job at one of the campus cafes, and he’d laughed so hard at the idea of her handling coffees that she’d dropped it immediately. Bookstore it was. No risk of spilling boiling liquids or being any kind of safety hazard, just the occasional tipped pile of paperbacks and inexplicable papercut.
But watching the bartender was like a dance, backed by a familiar melody. It was a ghostly refrain, a quiet lullaby, soft-played piano chords echoing like a heartbeat. It was the pattern of her breathing, of her footsteps, of something world-shaking and frighteningly intimate. It was a song she’d never heard before, and a song she knew by heart.
And then it was gone. Just the too-loud thumping of the bar’s tinny speakers and the din of her neighbors getting drunk. In the far corner, someone laughed loudly, and their table mates cheered.
Please hurry up with that drink.
He slid her the beer, and it nearly slipped through her fingers, but Bella caught it. The condensation was cold against her hands, and it felt good and familiar. (Pale skin, a touch like ice, a melody.) She smiled in thanks and raised it in a little toast. “No,” she said, “this is great.”
She took a sip, swallowed, closed her eyes for a moment, exhaled. He’d chosen well. She’d been right. She needed this. He’d known.
When she opened her eyes, she set down the beer and laced her fingers together. “So,” she said. Why was she talking? Was she making small talk? She didn’t do this. Why was she doing this? What was going on? “Do you have a name?”
