BODY. ❪ eclipse ❫³ [REWRITING]

𝐢𝐢𝐢. HOTEL CALIFORNIA

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  A THOROUGH PLAN HAD BEEN devised by the time they arrived at Bailey's house. Mike Newton had been swapped out with a different person, someone that Paul had recently become acquainted with and her name was Kim. Apparently, this "Kim" person was Jared Cameron's imprint. Jared and Kim were the same age, both being a year older than Paul and Bailey at seventeen years old. Apparently, Jared and Kim were in the same history class together and she'd already had a massive crush on him, so imagine her surprise, and delight, when one random school day Jared looked into her eyes and never looked away.

Bailey was a bit hesitant at the idea of declaring to her father that a stranger was her new friend but Paul explained that Kim was a good person and made Jared much less "annoying" (Paul's exact words). 

"Charlie's still going to be suspicious that I managed to make a friend so quickly," Bailey said, still doubtful. 

Paul paused for a moment, thinking.

"Jake'll back up the story." 

"Jacob? How can you be sure?" 

Briefly, a dark smirk spread across his face. "Oh, he'll do it. I'll make sure of that," he murmured.

In the evening the house was full again. Bella had returned from school with Edward and together they'd prepared stroganoff from Grandma Swan's recipe. Bailey thought the food choice was strange given that she knew that Bella didn't like stroganoff. But, on the other hand, it was one of Charlie's favourite meals.

Their father seemed to already be in a good mood when he got home. He didn't even go out of his way to be rude to Edward. Edward had excused himself from eating with them, as usual. The sound of the nightly news drifted from the front room, but it was likely he wasn't watching. 

After forcing down three helpings, Charlie kicked his feet up on the spare chair and folded his hand contently across his distended stomach. 

"That was great, Bells." 

"I'm glad you liked it. How was work?" He'd been eating with too much concentration to make conversation before.

"Sort of slow. Well, dead slow really. Mark and I played cards for a good part of the afternoon," he admitted with a grin. "I won, nineteen hands to seven. And then I was on the phone with Billy for a while." 

"How is he?" Bella asked, trying to keep her expression the same. 

"Good, good. His joints are bothering him a little." 

"Oh. That's too bad." 

"Yeah. He invited us down to visit this weekend. He was thinking of having the Clearwaters and the Uleys over too. Sort of a playoff party..." 

This weekend? Bailey's face remained stoic despite her worry. She was trying to figure out how to inject herself into the conversation. How could she possibly bring up her potential trip to California? Why was making conversation so hard?