what a woman! i.

vingt

●○●

After dragging a sleepy Tatum away from Keith, Jasper rests his arm around her shoulders. She doesn't realize, but Tatum leans into Jasper's side. The tall vampire stiffens and starts internally screaming like a 14-year-old girl seeing shirtless Zac Efron. (m00d)

"Jasper, am I making you uncomfy?" Tatum asks him, lazily looking him in the eye. He smirks and lets his mouth run before his brain.

"You make me uncomfortable, darlin', but not how you think you do-"

"JaspeR WHITLOCK HALE!" Alice screeches angrily to her adoptive brother. Jasper realizes his mistake as soon as he sees the furious blush spread across Tatum's cheeks and his siblings split between laughter and anger.

"Oh, shiT!"

●○●

The second hour was cut short for Tatum after a call from the front desk. She was pulled from class and sent to the principal's office, where she waits for ten minutes before the principal actually enters her office. She sits down at her desk and looks through the notes put on her desk.

"So, Miss Fernsby. We got a call from the local daycare saying that a child by the name of Avery Fernsby has the stomach flu and needs to be picked up. Are you by any chance related to little Avery?" 

"I am, Mrs. Meyer. I'm guessing this means I should go and pick him up?" Tatum says, nervously twisting her fingers together. She didn't know if their principal knew Bailey's secret, but she wanted to keep the eldest sister out of their conversation for as long as she could. 

"Luckily for you, nothing much has happened today so all your teachers have collected your homework for the night. I am giving you a slip of absence in case that Sheriff Swan decides to pull you over," Mrs. Meyer says, handing the girl a yellow slip of paper and a stack of 15 pages of homework.

Tatum nods in thanks before leaving the office to grab some stuff out of her locker. Of course, with her unluck of the day, the bell rings and out of the classroom beside her comes out a mopey Keith. He perks up when he sees Tatum, trying to ignore him, by her locker.

"Tate! Hey-"

"She's asked you to stop calling her that," Rosalie spits out venomously, spooking both Tatum and Keith. The tall blonde had her arms crossed and a deathly glare towards Keith, she stood somewhat close to Tatum as a way of saying 'back off bub'.

"I...uhm, I gotta go," Keith says wimply, scattering off towards his next class. Tatum finished packing her stuff up in her backpack and closing the locker. The wavy-haired girl turns to Rosalie and nods tiredly before heading out to her car.

Tatum ignores everything and just makes her way to Avery's daycare. She picks him up, drives him home, gives him medicine, rubs his back while he pukes, and holds him while he cries. She hears a car pulling into her driveway and checks her phone curiously while Avery cries into her chest. 

To say Tatum felt tired was an understatement, she felt as if she was in hell. The only thing worse than dealing with a sick toddler is dealing with a sick toddler and a hormonal sister. Surprisingly, this person didn't barge in and start stomping upstairs. This person knocked on the door very politely.

"Can I go answer the door, bubba?" Tatum whispers to her nephew gently. The toddler nods while wiping his runny nose on her sleeve, Tatum internally grumbles. She sets the toddler on the couch and opens her front door.

"You left school. Is everything okay?"

"Jasper Hale, what are you doing here?" Tatum asks sleepily as the 6'3" Southern gentleman was standing outside the Fernsby home. He looked emotionless but his words asked otherwise.

"I'm making sure you're okay. Everything is okay, right?" Jasper says worriedly. Jasper was searching through her emotions to find a single clue of what was going on, but she didn't know that. All she thought she was feeling was the breeze making her skin tingle. 

"Yes, everything is-"

*BLURGH*

"Oh damn," a small, weak voice says.

"Ah shit," Tatum says. She tries to close the door on Jasper but he sticks his foot in the doorway. He finally lets his face show some emotion by raising his eyebrow. He knew what happened. He could smell it. 

"Go, I can take care of him," Jasper says, pointing in between Tatum's snotted up shirt and towards where Avery was spilling his lunch. Tatum knew she needed help, so she nodded.