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An incessant, burning, almost excruciating itch sprawls itself across Edith's chest. Licks across her skin, sets her hairs on end. Wrenches her from sleep, like a grub from under its warm, damp rock.
Rosalie, bundled up next to her, must hear the trembling noise Edith's mouth makes, because she meets it with a huffy groan and says, "Edith, shut up." She then audibly shifts onto her side. "I'm trying to sleep." But, as quickly as Rosalie awoke, her breaths slow again, then start to whistle.
Edith blinks the sleep and tears from her eyes.
What is happening?
She went to sleep feeling alright. Yes, she had some mild cramps and leftover bitterness from being unable to go swimming, since her period decided to strike this morning, right as she woke up. But, still, not so bad.
This is her first period ever, actually — although it's not been very exciting, like she thought it might be. Simply another step in the pupal mutating of her body from child to adult.
Rosalie said there were bloodthirsty piranhas in the lake, which seemed stupid. But Rosalie was always lying. Edith just wasn't going to call her bluff. She had books to read, anyway.
When that also became boring, she went out into the brush trying to hear pretty birdsong. Maybe she rubbed up against a hogweed plant? Hemlock? Could their poisons seep through fabric?
Opening her eyes has not made a thing clearer, but has instead introduced her to strange shapes that twist up and over the walls of the tent — impressions of things creeping in the leaves. A staticky noise overlaying it all.
She scratches the itch, but the burn doesn't abate, just doubles. Her next breath is more like a gasp.
Mom, Dad. They can help.
Edith crawls out of her sleeping bag, barely refraining from kicking Rosalie in the leg as she does. The tent unzips with a scream to total night. The air is thick outside.
Her nails curl into her palm. Breathing in deep and squeezing her mouth tight together, Edith paws out into the black, hearing the shwshwsh of her hand against the tent's nylon. Her fingers bump the handle of the electric lantern, and she snatches it into her lap. She pushes the button to turn it on.
The light makes Rosalie moan, again, and she flips over, again. Edith sighs. Stepping out of the tent, she zips it closed behind her, not so annoyed as to let potentially viral bugs and wild animals make a snack out of her sister. At least not tonight.
The lantern casts a tiny ball of gray against the dark. Beyond it lies who knows what. Her socked foot stands half-caught in nothingness.
She doesn't run. She just walks with an entirely understandable sense of urgency.
The itch is quieting down though, which makes her feel silly, for getting up and not ignoring the pain and falling back asleep. But she's already outside — and standing in front of Mom and Dad's tent. She peels it open much more quietly and quickly than she did hers.
The shape of their sleeping bodies inside gives her such an indescribable sense of relief. After a frightening journey, now she's caught on their shore.
The lump closest to her is Mom — the dark hair spilling from the top of the bag, the snores. Edith crawls up to her head, and puts a hand in her soft, luxuriant hair, the fibers thinner than her own. Pluming with a scent of trees.
Mom loves soaking in hours-long baths at home. All lemon wedges and foam and dimmed lights. She comes out of them smelling like everything that's right with the world. Sometimes Edith sits with her, on the bathroom floor, or a little stool she brings in. Mostly to talk, but sometimes just to watch. To feel swaddled, like she doesn't remember being.
"Mom. Mom." Edith pets a little firmer. "Mom."
She snorts, then there's a fluttering of eyelids. Before speaking, she lets out a long hum that tilts up at the end. "What is it?"
"My chest hurts."
Mom inhales loudly. She picks hair out of her mouth and smacks her dry lips. "Edie, you remember what your Dad and I told you? That you might start to feel sensitive in your chest as your breasts grow?" Mom squints against the lantern. She holds the hand Edith is not resting on her head. "It's late, you should be sleeping. Are you hurting a lot?"
"Uhm, I don't think this has anything to do with my . . . breasts. I think it's a rash."
Mom stumbles up and pats her thigh. "Come here, then, let me look. If it's a rash, we have some cream for that in the car. Please roll up your shirt, dearie." Edith does, up to where she can still feel the itch — just simmering now. Mom brings the lantern closer, her nose scrunching all the while, and startles. "Oh my goodness . . . Edith, do you remember what else we told you might happen during puberty? Words that could appear on your body?"
It takes a second, but only that. "Oh. I have a soulmark?" She doesn't know what to make of that. But outside of any kind of reasoning, a curious, rapid buzzing starts up in her mind — the world is only just beginning to open up to her, and this is one of its secrets lying curled up in her hand. Alighting like a butterfly. "What does it look like?"
"It's a name, dearie. Want me to read it to you?" Edith nods. "'Jacob Black.' A nice one, no?"
A crush of people is very apt, he thinks, shivering away from a pair of overeager elbows.
The two of them are on a night out, perusing a lively market strung about with fairy-lights, tinsel, and serviceable music. The present crowd is more like an endless swarming mass, exuding sweat and raucous laughter. Various someones keep stepping on the heels of his shoes.
Alice's hand on his arm is an anchor. The Edward Antonia Masen on her wrist shocks him with happiness, even through the coat. A sparkling thread that joins them together.
And he is not special in this, though Alice can make him feel like he is. Jasper collars her throat, Rosalie is there under her ear, Emmett in the crook of the arm, Esme and Carlisle crisscrossed along her lower back. Names of other friends in high and low places, tucked in-between folds of skin or joint-seams. Instead of a body, a compass-star.
She tugs him over to a booth strewn about with glasswork and beadery, and he follows. It's a refreshing display of artistry, which Edward finds to be lacking amongst all the printed plastic drivel. The vendor waves to them from under a fuzzy beanie, and manners command him to nod back.
Alice looks around the selection for a moment, then picks up a pair of earrings from a basket full of them, jingle-jangles them in her palm. The design is . . . certainly eccentric — oblong little beads stacked one atop each other, glazed over with a satiny, iridescent sheen.
"Would these look nice on me?"
She holds them up to her ear, raining shimmery light down on Rosalie Josefa Henrique da Silva — curved about her jaw, its tallest letters flirting with her hairline.
"Alice, you alone could make a pair of twenty-dollar earrings look worthy of Fashion Week. Any one of them, in any season."
She laughs and knocks him on the chin. "I trained you well." She peers over the basket again, her glossy nails twiddling in the air. Eventually, she plucks out another set. "Ooh, I like these for you." Alice brings these earrings up for his inspection, and he gently runs his fingertips over them. Each earring is made of three round pearls strung together by silver wire, studded along its length with tiny white gems. They're very pretty.
Still, Edward sighs. "And where, exactly, would I wear them?"
Alice tuts, patting his arm like he's some pitiable little creature. "It's okay, not all of us can afford things like good taste, or vision. We're getting both. And this lovely bracelet, too! I'm paying."
"How generous."
Casting around in her handbag for her phone, Alice smiles her cheekiest smile. "I'm nothing but a gentleman."
She chats up the vendor as their jewelry is bagged and topped off with glittery tissue paper, ever the people-person. Edward finds the song-and-dance of social niceties to be exhausting, so he stays quiet. Presses his arm into Alice's wrist just to feel that zap again.
Waltz of the Flowers, from the third tableau of Tchaikovsky's seventy-first opus, starts to play as a single snowflake lands on his shoulder.
Giggles burst up at something someone says, and Alice finally finger-waves goodbye while walking away, dragging Edward along with.
Though exceptionally tiny — not even five foot! — Alice slices through the shoppers and drunks and first-daters like a hot knife through butter. It's how she always moves through the world, expecting everyone to fall into place. Edward just tries to keep himself tucked close.
The crowd gradually, then quickly, thickens. There is a deep bass pulsing in his throat, and lights banding the sky — somewhere ahead of them is an open-air stage. It must be completely packed over there, people spilling out to dawdle on the walkways, taking up excessive space.
Which is shocking, considering the music is hardly worth anyone's time. Just schlocky covers of Billboard Hot 100 rock songs, indiscernible for the terrible quality of the speakers and the whining of the guitars and the droning of the vocalist — with a few jingle bells thrown in for festive charm.
Everyone is standing shoulder to hip, so jostling is expected. What isn't expected in the least is for Edward to be bumped into and immediately suffer a heart attack.
In the future, at one point or another, Edward will shy away from describing this moment. It's energy, the rush of feeling. It is too beautiful for words, and he is nothing if not cripplingly private. Jacob, of course, will spin up a story that is light and picturesque and funny, so that anyone who hears it will laugh along.
But in the present, he can say that it feels startlingly like a hand has reached itself into Edward's chest and plucked a chord deep in his bone marrow. Rearranged all his composite parts. A bright note settles somewhere in his being. It is as pleasurable as it is painful.
His head whips around.
"Oh. Hey." Strong nose on brown skin, dimpled white smile, tall. Very tall. Long black hair cascading over his shoulders, down his back, like water. This is a complete and total stranger — and Edward is entirely unsurprised to see him. "It's you. Hi."
Thickly, he replies, "Hello."
Alice pops out from behind his shoulder, and so does a smile onto her face. "You must be Jacob! I'm Alice, Edward's sister." She puts her hand out for a shake, and Jacob takes it politely, if not consciously. There is a forgivable disconnect between them. Alice is impeccably dressed, fat and half-Japanese and charming. Edward is a neurotic twink. "I'm so happy to see you! I had a really good feeling that the two of you would meet soon. Once again, I proved myself right." She looks between both of their stupefied, blinking faces. "Should I step away?"
Somehow, Edward manages language. "If you don't mind, Alice."
She turns his head with her fingers, and looks into his eyes, shaking him a little. Her blunt manicure brings some of his senses back to him. "You're gonna be great," she whispers, leaving him with a peck on the cheek. She slips off into the crowd, like ice splitting up rock.
Jacob is smiling still when he turns around again.
Raising his voice to be heard, he says, "Let's move somewhere with not so many people."
Jacob waves to someplace on the fringes in response, and Edward follows. He brushes past people with an excuse me or a just cutting through, and a hand hovering behind their backs. All Edward needs to do is stay downstream.
Yes, he is very tall — Edward only comes up to Jacob's chin, and his height is actually one of his few points of pride — but also quite broad. Not as bulging as Emmett, but he must exercise. Even in the dark, Edward can see the tightness in the shoulders of his jacket. Jacob looks back every now and again, an anxious gleam in his eye, and that pulls his clothes ever tighter.
Plus one point for him, then.
He's just as good as Alice at clearing a path, and they come out in front of a brick-and-mortar shop with blinding window displays. Glowing squares in Jacob's eyes. From there, Edward leads them to sit on a bench next to the mouth of an alleyway. It is absolutely freezing outside, but it was impossible to feel that when crushed between all those people. The bench is like hundreds of small icicles against his legs. But Jacob is burning where their arms touch, and on his chest.
Jacob clears his throat, not a few times. "So, uh, hey. I'm Jacob." He gives a little wave. It's so silly. "It feels kinda weird to say that, 'cause obviously you already know my name. But it feels rude to not introduce myself, you know?"
"I do. It's only polite of you." Another point for manners. "My name is Edward."
"Nice to meet you, Edward," he says, like they're sharing a joke. "So, I don't wanna, like, pressure you into anything. I don't know what you believe about soulmarks, or what your expectations are, so I thought we could just talk? To start." His expression is endearingly sheepish, awaiting, like he's hoping to not discomfort Edward. It's a pleasantly unfamiliar thing to see in a stranger. But then, Jacob isn't really a stranger.
"That's perfectly reasonable." Edward nods, and takes in a fortifying breath. He's not very nervous, but this subject has always been a slightly sore one for him. "I figure I'll go first. My siblings and I are foster-adopts. You might've already guessed something along those lines, seeing Alice. My parents don't share marks, but are in love, in their own way. And they raised us with open minds — they've always emphasized to us that our lives are what we make them, and not what others believe them to be."
"They sound like smart people," Jacob says.
"I think so too." That's definitely a point. Edward's mouth twitches at the corner. Jacob catches this, and bursts into his own full-on smile. It's sweet, and encouraging. "So, Alice. My name isn't her only mark, but the names of our whole family. And many others. Yet, none of us wear hers." Edward has only the one. His true north. A scraggly name under his right breast, the color of a birthmark, that binds him — to Jacob. "If you follow the popular theology, this would suggest something incomplete about her supposed soul. But I couldn't disagree more. Alice's soul, if it exists, must be the most wonderful thing on this earth. She is so full of life, sees the world with such bright eyes . . . I'd be much more unbearable if not for her." He unclenches his fists, and forces them flat on his thighs.
"You're already pretty unbearable," Jacob says, laughing, smiling to cushion the bite. It should be utterly annoying, and presumptuous. But Edward finds that he wants to be in on the joke. People rarely think him funny, and tend to exclude him from theirs. "Nah, I'm just kidding." Jacob pats his shoulder, too easily. Quietly, Edward sucks in a gasp. "Honestly, it's nice to hear you speak so highly of your sister. I feel the same way about my own. They're my idols."
Comedic, a family man — there goes another two points.
"Then maybe you understand my skepticism. Is Alice not enough alone? Am I not? Am I really meant to stake my sense of self-worth on some person I might never meet? I resent that." Edward feels his face fall into a little moue. This seems to draw Jacob's eye to his mouth, and he steadies himself to not react. Not lick his lip. "Of course, I did end up meeting you. But I'm still not quite sure what that means."
If Edward were to listen to the squishy parts of himself, the teenaged and lonely parts that he beats deep down, they would rebel. Jacob on his skin means something — everything. That he is soul-having, worthy of another.
But he's grown-up now, and doesn't waste his time on fruitless daydreams. He's a pianist, not a poet.
But then Jacob says, "Well, I hope we can find out."
"And you? Your stance? You're clearly very eager to talk to me," he says, his voice very certainly not shaking. It's cold. He can't handle all these plying words and these good-natured smiles and Jacob's lilting vocal-fry, the way it rings in his ears.
What does Jacob gain from this? Is he expecting to trap him in some bond borne out of happenstance? A bond that could so easily sour because they turn out awful together, setting each other on edge with inexcusable habits and ticks, or simply wrong. Edward is not worth that pain.
Jacob ducks his head, ink spilling over his shoulder to blot out his face. A small triangle slip of neck reveals itself to Edward. It's almost embarrassing to look at. So vulnerable — flushed from the cold, the strands at the hairline so thin and soft-looking.
"I've been wanting to talk to you for a long time." Edward watches the impression of Jacob's mouth moving behind the hair, before it's tucked back. "Soulmarks have always been big in my family, but it's not, like, stressful. It's a happy thing. They're supposed to remind us that we're not just one, but many. Each a single thread on a piece of rainbow cloth as big as the sky, as my dad would say." Jacob speaks as much with his hands and face as he does with words. So alive, every part of him. Edward can see that cloth now, and it looks beautiful. "If you share a soulmark with someone, you're likely to do good in each other's lives." He glances at Edward. "And in your sister's case, she's like an anchor. One thread connecting many others." Jacob sighs, and loses his serious air. "That's what I believe."
What a soul, Edward thinks. Enjoying what he could not. Turning his pounding heart to mush, like taffy all chewed-up and stuck against his ribs.
"That's so lovely." He puts a faint hand on Jacob's arm, and tries not to snatch it back. Hot. Very hot. "Much more heart-warming than my view. Really," he amends, when it seems Jacob thinks he is being facetious.
This relieves Jacob — and that lights him up, from his mouth to the tip of his thick eyebrow. He bites his lip against a smile, but fails entirely. Turns out he has just one dimple, on his right side. One point for the one dimple.
"Thanks. You know, I try." Jacob laughs. Then, playfully, he asks, "So, do you have a funny story about your mark coming in? If you don't mind me asking. Because I do."
Edward wouldn't say that he does. It's like being asked if he has a funny story about his adult teeth growing in. Well, potentially, he might, if ceramic braces and an expander count as a story. It was a grueling three years of his life.
He gives a curious hum. "Tell me it."
Jacobs nods, very quickly, seemingly amping himself up to tell his tale. "Okay, picture me at, like, thirteen — I'm super skinny, and way less cute." Jacob rolls his eyes, like that isn't categorically impossible. All knees and elbows, maybe his hands too big for his frame. A little braid. Edward immediately wishes to see a picture.
He feels an overly fond smile curl up on his face. "I don't believe that."
Jacob blinks, laughs. "You charmer. Okay, so, it's just a regular day — I'm outside, messing around with my little cousin." His hands do somersaults in the air. "I guess my shirt rides up, 'cause he points at me, and goes, What's that? I try to see what he's looking at, but it's an awkward spot on my hip. But, I have an idea about what it might be, so I start running up to my house. The back-door was propped open, but then the screen-door wasn't, and I was going fast enough that — bam!" Jacob claps his hands together, clear and as loud a bell. "And I'm telling you, it hurt so bad. My dad starts yelling at me, but I'm not listening — I was a rambunctious kid." Jacob smiles, proud, like he hasn't grown a day from that moment. "I keep running, and I go up to a mirror and pull my shirt up, and gasp so loud. It was my soulmark!" Wonder overcomes his face, and Edward is there with him — watching a scrawny teen learn the name of his neighbor in that tapestry called life. Three points. No, five. "A little long and fancy, but I didn't care. Totally worth the pain." Again, he smiles.
Edward does not think of what his name looks like on Jacob. It'd be highly inappropriate. They are only technically acquaintances. So, he'd do best to not imagine the miles of brown skin underneath his clothes . . .
He coughs into his fist. "Is that meant to be a snipe at me? Do I pain you, Jacob?" The taste of his name in Edward's mouth is not a little addicting.
Jacob lightly shrugs, the beautiful bastard. "Maybe."
"Well, it wasn't so dramatic for me. It happened just after I'd started my period." Edward watches, but to this Jacob hardly reacts. Which isn't that unexpected, considering Edward does not care to be cis-passing and they've been chatting so warmly so far — flirting, even. Still, it's satisfying to have lingering doubts squashed. "I woke up in the middle of the night, or maybe the very early morning, with this awful itch on my chest — right here." Edward puts a hand atop the name, under his breast, which draws the sweater under his coat closer to his figure. Hardly realizes that he does it. Most days, he thinks of himself as little more than his thoughts, forgetting that those thoughts reside within a body that materially exists. That people can see him. Jacob's gaze, like fingers dancing along his skin, reminds him. It's so thrilling. "Thought maybe I'd gotten a rash, or bitten by a bug. But when I showed it to my mom, she read out your name to me."
"Aw," Jacob coos. He bumps their shoulders together, nearly knocking Edward over, and that makes them laugh. He is so solid. "But, hey! That's kinda funny! Def Leppard did say 'love bites.'"
"'Love?'" Edward huffs, tucks his chin into his woolen scarf. He isn't displeased. Maybe the opposite. His face must be red like an apple. "Your ego is really quite something."
Jacob frames his face with his hands and smiles a wide, sparkling smile. "It's one of my most attractive qualities." Another five for him.
"Among other things," Edward mutters into the scarf. He does lick his lip then, and that leaves both him and Jacob smiling and blushing, for the cold and nerves and pleasure.
The crowd shouts together as one organism as the music swells again. That damn music. It would be almost enough to wash away all the good-feeling Edward has bubbling inside of him, but nothing on earth has that power.
The song playing now might possibly be a caterwauling rendition of I Believe in a Thing Called Love. It shouldn't be possible to make a song that sounds that bad even worse — it should be illegal, in fact. What he'd do if he were president — but, clearly, miracles of all kinds are abound tonight.
His face must look something awful, he can feel it, because Jacob asks, "You don't like this song?"
"God, no. What, you do?"
"Uhm, yeah." He scoffs. "It's awesome and has a killer guitar riff."
Edward's nose scrunches up. Should he deduct points for that?
"Of course you'd think that, you Def Leppard fan." He rolls his eyes, which, in and of itself, is not unusual for him, but he's hardly once done it before with so much joy. "Never mind the guitarist, who's doing a commendable effort of holding the whole piece together, but the vocalist — he keeps at a pitch consistent with mosquitoes, all while screaming through the tackiest lines put to paper. The band quite literally had the express intention of writing the 'stupidest song ever!' And, let me tell you, they did a really spectacular job of that." Disgusted, he says, "'All the feelings that you're making me feel' How inspired."
Jacob whistles and throws up his hands. "Okay, okay! I'll give you that one."
"Good. You don't want to fight with me, I turn into a total priss. I think I got it from my sister. My other one, she's older." Edward sighs then, long-sufferingly. "I have far too much family."
"Hey, if they're anything at all like you, I'm sure they're wonderful." Jacob knocks their knees together as he speaks. Edward stares at where they touch.
Did bodies have to be such a hassle? Edward can feel his own betraying him in a hundred ways — his lily-pale skin keeps no secrets. Curse his Irish birth-parents. And, somehow, it finds the wherewithal to sweat, in this weather.
Normally, he is not considered to be the kind of person who should be flattered. It's not unfair. Who is he, but a nobody? A boring misanthrope. Jacob has proved, though, in their conversations, that he is anything but normal.
Diversion tactics — "Are you here with anyone?"
Jacob can likely see through him. Still, he smiles. "A couple of friends. They're around here somewhere." His waves across the market. "If they want to leave they'll text me. I just broke away for a minute to hear the band — they were playing Shoot To Thrill." He shimmies his shoulders to the tune of the song. It's heart-wrenching.
Edward gingerly puts a hand on his chest, and, in his most scandalized tone, says, "The horror."
Jacob jumps in place. He points a stern finger at Edward. It takes all his emotional fortitude, of which he's spent years building, to not laugh. "No! Actually, you don't get a say this time! I let you bash The Darkness because I have a soft spot for you, but AC/DC? Nope." He gestures very finally. "That's completely off-limits."
Edward tuts. "I was accused earlier today of lacking taste, but I think you've just proved that there are people who certainly have it worse than me."
"I think you just hate rock music." Jacob looks at him, part disbelieving, part in awe. And he's hardly deserving of all that. His stomach squirms, but he stays cool on the outside. Hopefully.
"Queen really took the genre to new heights, artistically and commercially. But, yes, I do. It's largely sonic pollution."
"You were right, you are acting like a total priss right now."
Edward laughs. "Oh, just lock me up." He offers his wrists to Jacob — as a joke, since that's what they do, apparently. But then Jacob, also laughing, fetters him with his hands — his large, burning hands, with callouses on the fingers and cracks in the palms. Against his will, Edward shivers. He chews his lip against the feeling.
It takes him a moment, but Jacob springs back. His shocked face is only visible for a second, before hair covers it again. Edward wants desperately to see — all of it. What does he look like embarrassed? Upset? There's a whole breadth of Jacob that he has yet to uncover. The little he has feels so scarce now.
Feeling brave, and greedy, and foolish, Edward reaches out and winds some of that black veil behind Jacob's ear. It is so fine, so soft — like spun silk. His ear is bitten from the cold, it stings to touch.
Jacob looks at him through thick lashes, his eyes brown and searching.
In that perfect moment, Jacob's phone pings. He takes it out of his jacket pocket, checks the screen, and looks up apologetically. A little of Edward's happiness curdles into preemptive longing. His hand falls.
"And that's my friends." He says this so skittishly, it's a world away from the Jacob of just a minute ago. "So, I know you definitely didn't plan on running into me, and I don't want to keep you if you've got somewhere to be. But if you didn't mind, I was thinking we could meet up again? Just to talk. Maybe get drinks? See where that goes?" He bites his lip, and Edward watches, rapt. "I think I'm starting to really like you." He blushes a sweet red color at this.
The words land like a hook into Edward's heart. For a second, he cowers. What has he ever done in his short life to earn this chance? Nothing, he's sure. Where did all his caution go? He probes himself, and finds it completely and wholly gone.
This is too fast. They barely know each other. Jacob is bright, warm, funny, beautiful, strong — all the things Edward lacks. He has nothing to give.
But then, he also wants — very wretchedly. Damn the consequences.
Steeling himself with cold air, Edward takes what he's been given. "That's kind of you, to consider my plans. You must know you're very easy to talk to, Jacob." He licks his lip, savoring the taste of the name. Helplessly, the corner of his mouth turns up. "As for like . . . that's something entirely different." Edward tips his chin into his scarf, and meets Jacob's eye. "Meeting you again sounds delightful."
"'Delightful,'" Jacobs murmurs, giddily. "Yeah, it does. Here, lemme give you my number." He fumbles out his phone again, and opens it to his contact page. More complicated than just saying the numbers, but maybe Jacob isn't exactly thinking rationally. Lord knows Edward isn't. His contact picture is of a woodcarving — a tiny wolf. Taking in a deep breath, Jacob pats his legs once and stands. "It was really nice talking to you, and I hope it's not the last time." He looks back. So expecting. "Have a nice night, Edward."
He touches his fingertips to Edward's shoulder, and leaves. Edward watches him go, until he becomes another one in the crowd. And then for a little longer after that.
He would think it was a dream, if not for the new name in his phone, to match the one on his chest. Jacob Black.
He would try to tally up all the points from throughout the night, but it's not an exact math. Each single point weighs as much as ten, if he had been measuring them on some reasonable scale. Edward is very much not reasonable. And he was more giving them out based on gut-feeling, as time wore on.
Well, by anyone else's metric, Jacob passes with flying colors. By Edward's own, he won from that first 'hi.'
He sits there, letting snowflakes catch on the furs in his coat, and takes out his phone.