GODS AND MONSTERS ↝ P. LAHOTE

[10]

"Over here, over here!" Quil yelled to Jared, who passed him the ball and he took off, kicking the ball between his feet to get to the end of the playing field before Paul could catch him and kick the ball in the opposite direction.

"Okay, spill." Leo said as Lark watched Paul run after Quil, turning the girl's attention on her and Alicia. The girls had opted to just let the boys play while they chatted, so they sat on the sand to watch them.

"Spill what?" Lark asked.

"About your magical date with Paul, duh." Leo said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I haven't seen you since it happened, and Paul won't tell us anything about it."

"Though, he smiles like an idiot if you bring it up." Alicia added.

Lark smiled. "Really?"

"Yes!" the girls yelled in unison.

"Tell us what happened," Leo urged.

"I mean, I guess it wasn't much." Lark explained. "He showed up at my house that morning, apologizing for accidentally standing me up the night before."

"Jared said he felt terrible about it." Leo said. "Once he realized, it was about two in the morning, and he knew you'd already be asleep. He had been so worried about Jacob it didn't seem to cross his mind. They're all like brothers."

"So we went for breakfast instead, and it was nice." Lark said. "He can actually be really sweet when he wants to be. He opened my car door for me and everything."

"Wait, Paul?" Leo asked, her jaw dropping. "Bullshit."

"It's true." Lark said. "Though he said if I told you guys you'd never believe it. I couldn't believe it either." Lark watched as Jacob ran alongside Sam in an attempt to catch up to Paul, who had managed to steal the ball away from Quil. "But hey, Jacob sure seems to be doing a lot better."

"Thank God," Leo said.

"What happened exactly?" Lark asked. "Paul just said something about Jacob taking a bad fall?"

Leo nodded. "I asked Seth about it when he got home that night. They were hiking down the trail to get back to the van, and the guys were goofing around, kinda shoving each other, not really watching where they were going. You know, typical boy stuff. Next thing the guys knew, Jacob fell and went over the edge. Sam tried to catch him before he fell, but he couldn't get to him in time. It wasn't a cliff he fell off of, necessarily, since the trail went more at a zig-zag. It wasn't like a straight descent hundreds of feet to the ground, but he fell about ten feet to the next landing. Seth said it looked a lot worse than it actually was, and that's what worried them so much. But he got lucky. They got him."

Lark opened her mouth to respond, finding it strange that, even if he hadn't actually been hurt as bad as they thought, he was already fully recovered when the guys approached the girls, Sam at the front of the group holding the soccer ball before he tossed it next to the girls' bags.

"We're going cliff jumping." Sam announced. "Do you three want to join?"

"No," Lark began to say as Leo and Alicia both chorused "Yes!"

"C'mon, Lark, you have to try it." Leo encouraged her. "It's a La Push tradition."

"C'mon, Hudson." Jacob teased. "Are you scared?"

"Of falling to my death?" Lark retorted. "Yes. Yes I am."

"We do it all the time." Quil assured her. "It's completely safe."

"C'mon," Paul said, walking over to her and grabbing her hands, pulling her to her feet. "I promise you'll love it."

"And if I die?" she asked, looking up at him skeptically.