Beyond Love |Paul Lahote|

7

I have no clue what Billy had meant by 'While it's still nice out.' The clouds rolled in threatening the inevitable rain in the evening, a chilly breeze caused me to grab my sweater before we headed off, Paul seemed to be eager to get back the way he was hurrying me along was off though and I couldn't figure out why.

"What about Babycakes?" Paul questioned. The ride here was spent with him coming up with names other than Babe and the one my mother gave me, some of them had been teasing like shortstop, shorty, and freckles but most of them had been stupidly sweet. Angelcakes, baby doll, dollface, honey bunches, sugar... the list goes on. 

That doesn't mean it wasn't fun, and flattering at this point I'm pretty sure that he's only going on to keep the blush on my face. Something that he caught and made it a point to tell me how cute it looked on me, that only made it worse. "How about this." I sighed doing my best to fake annoyance at the man who had all of my bags in his hands before I had the chance to even offer help. "You tell me how I'm different then you can call me whatever you want," I said smirking at him knowing that he couldn't answer that question because he didn't know it that or their wasn't one.

The dumbfounded look on his face made me laugh, as I reached to grab some of the bags from him and walk over to the grill where Sam and Billy were talking

"Where is everyone at?" I asked Billy as I sat the bags of food for the cookout on the picnic table and looked over the beach fully expecting the Quileute boys to be playing football or soccer. However, it was empty except for the two men standing at the grill having a hushed conversation.

Billy didn't even look at me when he spoke he looked directly at Paul who was sitting down the remainder of the bags I had brought. His face was different from the cheerful smirk that was there less than 30 seconds ago. Now it looked like he was getting ready to bust a blood vessel, his nose flared in obvious anger as he looked behind him as if someone was going to be standing there. 

"Bella and Renesmee are going to be hanging out with us today," Billy said in what was the most obviously faked enthusiasm I have ever heard in my life. The old man's smile was genuine but not his voice. "Are they back?" I asked pulling my phone from my pocket and checking my texts. Bella had promised as soon as she got back she would message me, I guess she forgot. 

"Where's Em?" I asked sliding my phone into my back pocket and starting to separate the food in the bags from what needed to go back to Billy's house to cook and what was for the grill. "Bed rest," Sam said not looking in my direction in a tone that I couldn't read. 

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" Paul snapped so viciously that I jumped turning to look at him, reflexively moving between him and Billy. The second that Pauls' eyes met mine through the only thing in them was instant regret, anger gone in a second. This was like before at the house when he came in ready to fight someone or something and then in an instant, he was cooled down and I didn't understand why. Just that it made me nervous. 

"Kat, I'm sorry," Paul muttered apologetically stepping towards me and I took a step back absentmindedly putting a hand behind myself, on Billy's shoulder. I don't know why I did it if it was to reassure myself or him that it was ok. 

The whole time Paul was begging me silently those dark eyes pleading for something that I was assuming was forgiveness. "Are you ok?" I asked my grip still on the shoulder of Billy's shirt, at this point I was convincing myself that I was using him as an anchor otherwise I might just lose my shit. I hate confrontation, its one of the things that would cause panic attacks even before the accident. "Yeah, I just-." 

"I've got it, Paul, go meet up with the others," Sam ordered I didn't even look at him and I had a feeling that he didn't look in our direction either. The pissed off look was back on Pauls' face again as his glair flicked to Sams back. "Go." Sams voice had a tone that said 'don't-test-me'. "You better go, Paul," I said not really wanting to see the two fight.