His Sweet Girl (P. Lahote)

Chapter 6

The girls spend two weeks at Jake's working on the bikes. Embry stopped coming around and Quill kept wanting to. Jacob thinks he has a crush on Janie.
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Bella carries her tray to an empty table at school, but looks over at Mike, Angela, Jessica, Janie, and Eric. Bella takes a breath, then casually joins them. They take note, but keep talking.

"I'll kill Tyler if he gave me his flu," Jessica comments.

"It's going around," Angela states. "My sister was so sick she couldn't come on our hike this weekend... so she didn't see it."

"Ang, maybe you should keep that to yourself --"

"We saw something, Eric," Angela says firmly, cutting her boyfriend off.

"I believe you," Eric claims.

"No he doesn't. He's just trying to get lucky," Jessica says.

"Is that an option?" Eric asks. "Ow!" He yelps when Janie slaps his head. "Janie!"

Janie smiles innocently at him and he rolls his eyes, smiling, too.

"It was jet black and huge; on all fours it was still taller than a person," Angela says, ignoring Eric and trying not to smile. "A bear, maybe."

"Or Big Foot," Jess guesses,

"Or an alien," says Mike. "Lucky you didn't get probed."

"... we saw it," Angela says quietly.

She's serious. And a little scared. Bella see that.

"You're not the only one," Bella says and they all- but Janie - stare because they didn't expect her to speak. "Our dad's been getting reports at the sheriff's station. A couple hikers went missing. People are scared."

Now everyone is chilled.

"I did hear some guy talking about it at the store," Mike says. His parents own a hunting and sporting good's store. They're connected because this is Forks, it's a tiny town.

"Last time you clowns doubt my girlfriend," Eric says and he swats away Janie's hand as she goes to hit him again. "Hah!" He laughs and she giggles, unable to resist the urge.

As they continue talking and joking around, Angela mouths 'thanks' to Bella. They share a smile and join in, Bella becoming part of the group.
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Janie goes home to do her homework after school and Bella goes over to Jake's for lessons on how to ride the bikes they spent weeks working on.