Hope you have a fantastic day and amazing year.
Love you SO SO MUCH!
Boo xo
"Ugh, oh my God, you should see him, Rose!"
I hesitate for a second before rolling my eyes, but I figure Bella is so far gone into her 'how hot this OJ Boy is' speech that she won't notice.
"Seriously, I think I come a little when he walks into the store. It's like I can sense his presence, you know?"
She's been watching far too many Buffy reruns... or Grey's Anatomy, that 'seriously' thing annoys the shit out of me and she knows it. Which, to me, says that she is heavily into this retelling of 'the boy that makes her panties wet and her heart implode' and can't see past the love bubbles popping in front of her.
"It's just... he walks in and I get tingles. Tingles, Rose. Tingles!"
"That's probably just the arctic temperature Noob Newton keeps the air in here, purely so he can snort and stare at our boobs."
Bella shakes her head and returns to feeding apples into the juicer. "No, it's not. I know it's different. It feels different. And when he smiles at me, Rose..." she leads off and smiles this goofy grin and it's then I know Bella, my best friend since we were old enough to steal Barbie dolls from each other. Is in it head over heels.
The big one.
The L word.
Love.
I'd be jealous, but she's acting like a complete dork, and it's kind of funny. So I put aside the fact I've been secretly mooning over Emmett, the class clown who gets straight As in algebra and actually offered to tutor me after school--privately at his house, no less--and bask in the glow of her complete and utter boy crush.
The machine is making this awfully strange crunching noise. I look down and see that Bella's stopped adding apples and has somehow managed to throw the keys to the store in there. Our only set and we're the ones closing up tonight.
Fantastic. Just. Fantastic.
Emmett was supposed to be picking me up tonight, and now I'm going to have to either hang around for Tyler to bring the spare set or ring Noob's parents who are out of town and will be royally pissed that B and I have screwed this 'responsibility' up.
Just when I thought we'd finally escaped doing night shift with the Noob...
Back to buying those horrid stick-on unwanted headlight stoppers again. In bulk.
"Oh, shoot, Rose! He's here!" Bella starts preening and primping her hair like she's some sort of bird of paradise, and not the pretty-hot-if-you-like-that-girl-next-door-Joey-from-Dawson's-Creek-look kind of thing.
Bella is stunning without any work or extras that most girls (including me) have to use. She's just... naturally gorgeous. I can say this because not only has she been my closest friend for years, we made out once. Drunk. Very drunk. On Schnapps that we stole from my grandmother's and drank in the tree house Bella's Dad had made her when we were six. I still can't stand the smell of peppermint. It was nice, but I like boys better.
I try not to giggle as I watch the so-called 'OJ hottie' stand just inside the front door, doing a little manly primping of his own. He's tall, really tall, which will make the semi-petite B look like a dwarf if she ever ends up standing beside him. His overly large hands and fingers that look like they'd be at home attached to a spider's body comb back and forth through hair that appears to be almost as untameable as that kid in those wizard books B made me read (and reread the last one to her three times when it first came out because she refused to believe that the owl and Dobby died.)
She's such a dweeb.
I cover a snort with a cough when I see him actually go to check his breath with the palm of his hand like you see people do in TV shows. This guy has no idea how perfect he is for B and I have to wonder how she never saw that he was interested too. Obviously, they've both had their rose tinted glasses on at the same time, negating any chance of noticing the love bug that had bitten them both.
I stand a little away so that I can watch this interaction and pretend to be really busy wiping down the glass counter that I'd buffed to a high polish an hour ago when the last of our customers left. B, of course, stutters and stumbles and drops an empty tray with a clatter to the ground muttering an, "oh shoot!" and this time I can't help but giggle out loud.
I can feel the death rays her eyes are most definitely shooting into the back of my head as the 'spider fingers hottie' clears his throat and finally B looks up. His face flushes the same shade of pink as B's and I can see why she thinks he's such a catch when he straightens his tortoise shell frames before making this squeaking sound which I think is a hello?
Adorkable.
"The usual?" B asks, biting her bottom lip and yet still managing to talk at the same time. Must have been all that ventriloquism we practiced for one of our Brownies badges way back when we were little and B's mom was still around.
He nods and licks his lips and switches his balance from the right to the left foot. Wow. Nice lips. Very nice. Not too full, not too thin, and that bottom one is just ripe for the sucking and nibbling on. I can really get a good look at him now that he's lost in watching Bella juicing orange after orange in the hand squeezers we have here that are normally just for show. Obviously, Bella has figured out the silver twisting knob thing at the top is basically at eye level with her cleavage for the customer on the other side of the counter.
The girl has listened to me over the years.
My eyes drift over his face, chiseled cheek bones and a strong angular jaw that is so sharp, you could cut yourself on it. Thick, dark lashes surround brilliant green eyes, standing out all the more with the magnification of his glasses. I have to wonder if this hair touching thing is a nervous tic or if he has lice or something because his left spidey hand has yet to leave his hair, just brushing it in a constant back and forth motion.
Boy needs a hair cut and fast if he ever wants to regain full motion of that limb.
"So, I--" he begins just as Bella starts the ice machine.
She shakes her head and says, "What?" in return.
He gets louder, "I WAS JUST WONDERING IF YOU WERE DOING--" then stops as B turns the machine off and her brown eyes go wide at either the unspoken end of that question or the fact that OJ Boy is being so very loud.
He stumbles and swallows hard, his adams apple bobbing rapidly, and I'm pinching myself to stop the laughter that is dying to escape my throat. This is just too hilarious for words. How my best friend found a fellow bumbling idiot to fall for is beyond me. Must be karma, or kismet or fate or something.
Lord knows she's had bad taste in men starting with Noob Newton when he first moved to town when we were fifteen and ending in that little pup of a family friend of hers three months ago. Ugh, there was just something about Jacob Black that rubbed me the wrong way, even if he was nice to B. Too nice might have been the problem, nobody is that sweet all the time. But, it ran its course and now that she's fallen for king of the dorks here, I suppose I'll have to get used to being relegated to third wheel or forgotten about once more.
Which could be a good thing considering I want to see just how far this 'private tutoring' thing with Emmett McCarty can go. He does have big feet and you know what they say about a man and his shoe size...
"Your juice is--"
"Are you busy--"
They both start and stop and blush and I take back my self imposed rule of only three eye rolls a day because this is just dorktastic and deserves a Rosalie Lilian Primrose Periwinkle Hale epic violet-eyed roll of 'can't you two just shut up and do it already?'
"I'm not."
"Thanks."
They both speak at the same time again and the geek level in the room rises another ten degrees. Maybe even twenty when Bella snorts and OJ boy pushes his glasses back up his nose. Both of them smiling like loons.
It's so cute I almost want to puke. Almost.
OJ Boy takes the cup from B and she takes the money he's holding out to her and when their hands touch they both spring back like someone's attached forty volt starter cables to each of their behinds. It's kind of funny to see both their mouths drop into little 'o' shapes, but even more laughable when OJ Boy manages to throw his drink on himself.
His whole white and mint green striped polo is now covered in pulp and orange liquid and Bella is the same shade as the strawberries we've just gotten in stock. This time I can't laugh, I can't giggle, I can't even manage one guffaw, I'm just in shock.
OJ Boy is shaking his head and Bella is rounding the counter and pressing handfuls of the tiny napkins we have to his shirt. It's not really doing that much but they're both muttering "sorry's" and "so, so verys" over the top of one another that he finally leans back and pulls his shirt over his head with one hand.
OJ Boy just shot up around thirty notches on the Rosalie 'insert random flower name that my hippy parents thought would be cool at the time' Hale scale of hotness. OJ Boy obviously works out. A lot.
If his jaw could slice your skin then the eight pack--the eight pack--this boy was hiding under a thin cotton weave could slide through glass like it was butter. He even has those swimmer's V muscle things that are even more prominent like his hip bones as his arms lift up and the cargo pants he's wearing fall a little revealing the tops of red boxer shorts and a snail trail that leads down, down, down pale toned skin.
Even I can feel the drool building in my mouth.
This sight doesn't even have B pausing for a moment. No, my brave little trooper continues patting at his chest with the now soaked napkins, her fingers inches from the holy land which lies between a man's legs, if endowed correctly. It's obvious, even in the loose shorts OJ Boy is wearing, that he's at half mast from either her touch or being in her presence alone.
Cute. But geekariffic just the same.
OJ Boy finally catches her wrist in his hand, long fingers wrapping almost twice around. She blinks a few times, finally noticing I gather, that he is shirtless and her eyes must have whiplash from the speed at which she moves from staring at his chest to looking up into his eyes.
"It's okay, um..." He pauses, obviously waiting for her name.
"Isabella, but everyone calls me Bella or B."
"I'm the only one that calls you B," I say without thinking, a little affronted at how easily she's giving this guy the right to call her by my nickname. One that I fought for and won against Tyler Crowley in the fifth grade to have sole rights to.
My opposition doesn't factor though as these two continue to make googly eyes at each other. He repeats the word, "Isabella," like he's reciting the holiest of holy names and I swear they both swoon.
I'm not sure if it's possible or if it's even the right term, but I would bet money on it that they both sigh at the same time and sway a little. Double swoon, dwoon, swoonage?
"Isabella, are you doing anything tonight? It's just that I thought, maybe you might want to, oh I don't know, you're probably really busy and there's nothing new on at the movies and--"
"Yes, whatever you want to do, yes as long as it's with you," B interrupts, and my inner best friend is dancing with delight that she is finally being brave like this. The B I know and love is shy and quiet, but this just goes to show that endless weekends of watching Mean Girls and Jawbreaker and Clueless has her finally taking the bull by the horns so to speak, and not being so afraid to speak up about what she wants. Girl power in the form of movies with slight psychopaths in the main roles works.
OJ Boy smiles and again with the swooning and they just stand there. Staring.
"Who you going out with after work B?" I ask, breaking the strange and eerie silence between the love birds and the me with nothing better to do than grab a mop to clean up the OJ spill on the floor around them.
"Edward, my name's Edward Cullen," he says, still apparently lost in B's eyes and just as I'm about to tell her to get out of here early with the shirtless, extremely good looking and buff OJ Boy she says words that I've previously used on her to me instead.
"You'll be alright to close won't you, Rosie? I can't have Edward here wandering around without a shirt on, he might catch a cold." She turns her hand in his so they're locked together and drags him past the staff only line and down the back of the store where the employee lounge aka hallway with a few broken lockers are kept.
I should be annoyed that she's leaving me here, alone to clean up this mess and with no keys to lock up later.
But...
She is my best friend and she is running off with what appears to be the man of her dreams, or AdorkableOJward as I'm sure she'll end up calling him when he's not within hearing range. B always makes up odd nicknames for her boyfriends.
Though I did call Jake the Pup.
In all fairness he was one year and fifty six days younger than her. He was a pup.
I hear giggling and then footsteps again pounding up the linoleum I'll now be mopping up on my own and then with a little wave of her fingers they're both out the front door. The bell above jingles and then I'm alone.
I make a start on cleaning up the juice mess on the floor, having grabbed the mop I'd hidden behind one of the fridges. When I come back around the corner I almost bump into a human wall that was definitely not there before. Large, warm hands reach out and grasp my hips, steadying me. My eyeline is level with a broad chest still encased in a familiar light blue button up shirt, windsor knot still tied tight in a navy tie. I'd know that prep uniform anywhere, especially this tie and this shirt that I've stared at most of class today. When I look up, it's into warm blue eyes, as warm and inviting as the waters off the coast of Mexico can be.
"Emmett?" I ask even though I know who this is with his hands burning into my skin over the awful scratchy black skirt I have to wear, not to mention the unbecoming bright purple apron that makes up my lower body uniform.
He grins and those dimples that have been begging for my tongues inspection all week whenever he's talked to me in class come on show. God, how I want to touch them, poke my fingers in or just grasp his face in my hands and squeeze his squishy cheeks. He's totally adoreable and not in a dorky way what so ever.
"Rosalie, I thought we might get an early start on... ah screw it, I can't pretend. Do you want to go out sometime?" he says in a rush and I can see that he has a smattering of freckles over the bridge of his nose and his cheeks as he leans down to catch my eyes with his as he speaks.
"No time like the present," I return, loving the feel of his arms slipping around my waist, something I don't think he's realized he's doing or that I actually want him not to do either.
He takes a step backwards and then we're on the floor, me landing on top of him and he makes this 'oof' sound like I weigh a lot. Which I don't.
My hands rest on either side of his head as I brace myself above him, somehow managing to stop myself sinking on him completely in our fall. Damn OJ Boy and B, but then again... when I think about it, now that I'm this close to Emmett, maybe the fruit juice covered floor isn't such a bad thing.
"Are you okay?" he asks, his own hands coming up cup my face, shifting back all the fuzzy blonde pieces of hair that have escaped my bun during the night and his fingers thread them back behind my ears. His thumbs move slowly up and down my cheeks and I don't think.
I don't breathe.
I just kiss him.
I don't even care when somehow I end up on my back, the leftover ice pressing hard like little lumps joins the thick pulp soaking through my shirt all cold and clammy on heated skin. Emmett's hands feel good everywhere and his lips, oh his lips are even better than I thought.
And my tongue gets to taste those dimples and a whole lot more.
Who would have though something as plain as tall OJ to go, extra pulp, would change an ordinary night at the juice bar into something so very extraordinary?
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