My alarm pulled me from my dreams, and I rolled over to shut it off. Then I rolled back to my previous position and laid my head back on the cool pillow I was using. It was firm, cold, and felt just right. Then a hand brushed my hair back from my forehead, and I about had a heart attack. My eyes sprang open to see my arms wrapped around Edyth's thigh, "Tell me I'm still dreaming. It's a good dream and much better than the prospect of doing something so embarrassing in the real world. At least so soon."
A dreaded (But lovely) chuckle sounded from above my head, "What, you use me all morning and want to deny it at dawn's light? Are you truly so frivolous?"
I sighed, "There is no way I'm keeping my pride intact, is there?" I held her leg tighter and snuggled my head into her thigh even more.
She laughed softly at my actions and tapped my forehead with a finger, "Scoundrel, hurry and let me go. You need to get ready for Jasper to get here. You have no idea how much your morning training means to him."
I sat up and wiped the sleep from my eyes, I couldn't even pretend that seeing Edythe here first thing in the morning was beyond my expectations. I reached out a hand and held it to her face, "Good morning, my Sunshine." I really thought she would have gotten bored and left at some point in the night.
Letting her cheek go before I could do something as stupid as try and kiss her with my morning breath, I got out of bed and made my way to the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth. I changed into my morning workout clothes I had brought to the bathroom with me, and returned feeling ready for the day. When I walked back into my room, Edythe handed me my backpack and followed me downstairs.
In the kitchen, I started my normal routine of four eggs and a glass of orange juice. Edythe was watching my every move as if she wanted to burn it into her mind. I looked at my backpack, "Looks like I will have to take it with me today since Charlie isn't here."
"How about I take it and pick you up this morning? I can text Bella, so she doesn't waste the trip. You need it to change at the police station, right?"
"That would be very helpful, thank you."
"It is no big deal, Thomas. As pathetic as it sounds, I am hopeful to be even the least bit helpful to you, dear. Ugh, the feminist in me is screaming her head off, I can't believe I just said that."
I laughed, "Well, tell your feminist side that I promise to never take you for granted. You can also explain to her that I find myself just as devoted to making you happy."
After cleaning up after myself, Edythe and I left the house and found Jasper waiting in his usual spot.
"Morning to you two, have a pleasant night?" He had a large smile on his face.
My face went a bit red, but Edythe just secured my backpack on her shoulder, leaned over and kissed my cheek, "See you at the station." Then she ran off almost too fast for my eyes to follow.
I brought my hand up to the cheek she kissed and just stared at where she had disappeared off to for a few moments.
Jasper laughed at my almost confused expression, "Come on, Thomas, Let's go see how much you have improved lately."
About an hour later saw me on my back, yet again, looking into the slowly brightening sky, "You are still relying too much on your initial movement. You have to learn to change your strike as needed. Stop locking yourself into an action, it makes you predictable. And on the battlefield, predictable is dead."
I got up and shook off some dirt from my back. I made to approach Jasper but kept myself angling his position, so I wasn't open to an easy rush attack. I was trying to make use of my longer reach to keep him at bay. He swung his arm in a throwing motion occasionally to try and distract my eyes and slowly inched forward, trying to make it look like he wasn't any closer to me. He had used this trick on me several times, and I had finally learned to read it by looking at his surroundings as much as his feet. The small stick by his foot was more than an inch behind him now when he was standing nearly on it before.
He started a quick rush toward me, but because of the changing weather, the dirt was dry and easy to lose traction in, and his foot seemed to slip, he lost a little forward momentum. As quickly as I could, I reacted and grabbed his forward hand and brought him toward my own body. Then I twisted and put my free hand on his arm behind his bicep, locking his elbow straight, and dragged him face-first into a nearby tree.
What I didn't count on was the increased strength and speed I used, which caused Jasper to explode through the tree instead of being pinned to it like I planned. It looked like someone drilled a hole in the tree and set off a stick of dynamite. The trunk was about 5 feet around, and now the whole tree was falling on the top of us. I jumped to the side so the trunk wouldn't hit me, and Jasper lay face-first on the ground after having been shoved through the tree.
Before I could do much more than dodge falling branches, Jasper jumped up and shouted in excitement, "YES, that was a well-executed throw. Excellent, Thomas." He was brushing the splinters of himself as he spoke."
This was the first time I had thrown him when he wasn't intentionally letting me. I was simply amazed I had gotten a hold of him. We talked for a few moments about why it happened before we started our run to the police station. Once there, I checked on Charlie and took him to task for working so hard the last few days. He looked like shit, and I made sure to tell him about it.
This man needed a woman to settle him down and make him look forward to going home. "Bella and I get worried that you are working too hard, Charlie. You need to take care of yourself." I ended my rant there, and joined Jasper in the small gym room. Charlie had taken my complaints good-naturedly as he knew they came from worry for him and promised to take some time to rest soon.
Working out lately had changed a good deal. I was now beyond any weight that we could put on the bar without making a spectacle of it, so Jasper and I had worked out a solution. We put the 400 pounds of weights on the bar, and while it looked like Jasper was spotting me, he was actually adding resistance to the bar so I could get a solid workout.
The only thing I didn't like about this solution was that I didn't know exactly how much I was truly lifting. I had years of meticulously keeping track of that, and now I had no idea. But at least I was getting a workout once more. I had confirmed with Jasper that he could in fact, not increase his max strength as his body couldn't increase muscle any longer after the bite.
Now his strength was, like his stamina, connected to his appetite. The diet of animal blood made him a bit weaker than a vampire that was drinking human blood. It had something to do with the way their body processed the blood.
My strength, however, was continually increasing. Jasper was trying to come up with a way to gauge it, but the closest he could get so far was that he was nearly putting triple the weight resistance on the bar as I was pushing, putting my lift somewhere between 800 pounds and 1200 pounds. Jasper thought it was just over 1000 pounds, and I was doing a solid ladder of 5, up and down. So, I was doing 20 lifts at over 1000 pounds at a time and getting stronger as I went.
My count was interrupted by Edythe as she entered the gym beside Charlie, "Here he is, can I do anything else for you, Edythe?"
"No thanks, Chief... Sorry, Charlie. It was great talking to you. I hope we can do it again soon."
Charlie gave me a raised eyebrow and a somewhat discreet thumbs up before leaving Edythe at the doorway. She pulled my backpack off her shoulder and handed it to me.
"Thanks, Sunshine. I'll run and get a shower and be out in 10."
Jasper was removing the weights from the bar. "I'll head out and ride to school with my hummingbird, see you at school, Thomas."
After I finished my shower and got dressed, I went in search of Edythe. I found her talking to Jerry, the station dispatcher.
As I walked up, I heard Jerry saying, "Oh dear, you better let it be known soon. There is talk of girls looking to tie him up and kidnap him. And not just ones your age either. If I were 30 years younger... Well, enough of that. Good morning, Thomas. It was such a pleasure meeting your girlfriend."
I smiled at her, "Good morning, Jerry. I am glad she introduced herself to you. Will you make sure that Uncle Charlie goes home today? His idea of sleeping on that couch in his office isn't proper rest. I just know he will try and put in a full day, thinking he is fine."
"You got it, dear, he really needs to find someone to set him straight. It just doesn't do to be single for so long." She turned her eyes to Charlie's office. "I think my niece Betty needs to come take me to lunch today and see if she can't turn his head."
Edythe smiled at Jerry, "Well, it was wonderful meeting you, Jerry. I will see you a lot in the future as I will be taking Thomas to school in the mornings now, at least when I can."
I took her hand and walked her out of the building to her car, where I found a covered plate in the passenger seat. Putting it in my lap as I sat down, Edythe spoke, "That's for you. Mom spent all night looking stuff up on the internet and getting nutritional advice from Dad. We cooked it when I got home. Esme sure does love cooking again, I think she missed it terribly."
I lifted the plate cover to find what looked like a stack of pancakes. When I took the top one, I found that it was actually a Ribeye steak and pancake sandwich. God, I loved this girl and her mother.