Beautiful Things Can Come From the Dark

Josephine had hoped that she would be able to hold a decent conversation with Cambria while the young woman was in her bakery but due to the high demand of pastries and low supply of bakers, she found herself forced to return to the kitchen.

Literally forced, because Christopher walked over to the table and interrupted Josephine in the middle of a story to tell her that they were running low on muffins and that she had to get her ‘fat ass’ into the kitchen.

A loud groan escaped her lips as she lazily stood up from her chair. “I'm really sorry about having to leave, but apparently I'm not allowed to get a fucking break.”

“Bitch please,” shrieked Christopher, “The day you hire another fucking baker is the day that you can take a break, now, get back to the kitchen before I get rough to you.”

“Promise?” she raised her brow at him with a sly smirk on her face before turning to the two teenagers. “Feel free to get whatever you want. Cambria, I’ll see you tomorrow and Jake, tell my brother . . .”

Before Josephine was able to finish her sentence, Christopher had grabbed her arm and began dragging her towards the kitchen, complaining about how Josephine was not only making him obese but also driving him insane.

Snickering was her response to his overdramatic antics, anyone else would’ve probably told him to calm down because he was making a big deal out of nothing but not Josephine, she found his ranting to be very endearing.

“You whore!” hissed Christopher when they were safely inside the kitchen, “Why didn’t you tell me that you’re not with Charlie anymore?! I found out when I overheard some cops talking about it this morning!”

Josephine smacked his arm roughly. “Christopher Harrison, did you take me away from my conversation so that you could interrogate me?!”

“Obviously,” Christopher folded his arms across his chest. “Now tell me what happened!!”

“There’s honestly nothing to tell,” Josephine threw on her apron. “He just came over to my house a few days ago and told me. That’s it. There was no epic fight or tears, sorry to disappoint.”

Disappointed is an understatement for how Christopher felt when she told him that there hadn’t been any drama. For as long as he could remember, Josephine’s break ups had always been action packed.

In fact, the last guy she broke up with had tried to beat her for dumping him, the one before that had camped outside her house for two weeks straight after the relationship had ended.

“But, but!” Christopher pouted. “Your breakups are always daytime soap opera worthy! Damn that awkward fuck! Why couldn’t he have cuffed you to the bed to have his way with you one last time, wouldn’t that have been great drama?!”

“You need to stop watching WE and Oxygen.” She washed her hands in the sink, ignoring the expletives that the young man was directing towards her. “Would you please be a dear and fuck off, I have some work to do.”

Several batches of muffins were quickly whipped up, along with a few orders of blueberry scones that had been placed by the principal of Forks High for a staff meeting that was going to be held later that afternoon.

Once those pastries were inside the oven, Josephine began taking out fruits to chop up for the fruit tart that she was going to make to take down to the police station like she’d been doing for the last two months, momentarily forgetting that the Chief of police was no longer hers.

“This is so fucking pathetic of you,” cursed Josephine under her breath when she realized what she’d been doing. “He wasn’t even all that amazing.”

Deep inside, she knew that that was a lie.

Charlie Swan may be an awkward reclusive man that rarely shows any emotion but he’d treated her better than any man had ever treated her before, he’d been great in bed, and had indulged her several times with her crazy ideas.

Hell, he’d even smoked pot with her for the first time in his life.

And as much as she wanted to pretend that his breaking up with her was no big deal, she knew that it was. Josephine had become very attached to Charlie, more than she had planned to, so having him toss her aside just because his kid had shown up, stung.

“That looks delicious,” rang a voice from the doorway.

Josephine tensed at the sound of his voice. Her eyes were fixed on the nearly finished tart, willing it to tell her what to do, but the tart wasn’t going to give her a message; it was a fucking tart not a fortune cookie.

Her plan was to ignore him, to make him feel awkward so that he would leave but Charlie didn’t leave. Instead he stepped closer, grasping the large bouquet of sunflowers tightly in his hands, struggling to string a sentence together in his head.

“What are you doing here?” asked Josephine, lifting her face to look at him.

Charlie cleared his throat, “Thought you might like some flowers.”

“Don’t care for them,” she answered, picking up the tart to place it in her fridge.

He followed her to the fridge. “What about some Chex Mix? I, I took out all the pretzels since well, you know, you hate them.” Her silence made him uneasy. “M & M’s! I got M & M’s just the green kind.”

“Damn it Charlie!” shouted Josephine, slamming the refrigerator door shut. “What are you doing here?!”

Charlie reached into his jacket to take out his badge.

“Why the fuck are you taking out your badge?! I’ve seen it a million times before!”

“I'm not showing you my badge,” whispered Charlie, glancing towards the door. “I-I got you something.”

Josephine’s eyes widened when she saw the small baggie filled with marijuana.

“Charles Swan, what on earth are you doing with that?!”

“Well I thought that you’d like it, the man told me it’s the best stuff, he called it train wreck but then he had this other one he called green crack, I think that’s what it was, well I don’t know I didn’t get that one because what if it was crack painted green that he was trying to pass off as marijuana and if that was the case then I didn’t want to give that to you,” rambled Charlie, his face flushing with color.

“I still don’t understand what you’re doing with it,” spoke Josephine, placing her back to the fridge. “Why would you risk yourself buying me weed when we’re not even together? That makes no sense. Wait. Is this you apologizing for breaking up with me? Because you don’t have to apologize, Charlie, I get it.”

Charlie stopped right in front of her holding the baggie in his hands. “This isn’t me apologizing for having broken up with you.”

“Then what is it?”

He lifted his hand to her face, gently caressing her cheek, “An offering that’ll hopefully convince you to take me back.”

“So weed was the offering,” she chuckled.

Charlie nodded. “It made sense at the time. So what do you say?”

“I don’t know. I want to be with you, but at the same time it makes sense for us to not be together when your daughter, get’s here. Just imagine how weird it’ll be for her to see me standing there. She’s going through a big change; you should try to make it as easy for her as possible.”

“Is that a no or a not right now?” Charlie scratched his head. “We could sneak around couldn’t we?”

“The 70’s porn star in you has you thinking with the wrong head again,” teased Josephine.

Charlie gave a short laugh before capturing her lips with his. Josephine couldn’t help but smile when his moustache tickled her upper lip, there was something about that moustache that just drove her wild whenever it touched her flesh.

Her hands immediately wrapped around his neck, closing whatever space existed between the two of them so that their bodies could touch. Charlie’s hands went to her derrière, grabbing it roughly before placing his hands right underneath her derrière so that he could place her on the counter.

Josephine giggled into the kiss when Charlie picked her up, but her laughter was short lived for pain soon shot throughout her derrière.

“CHARLIE!” she yelled.

Poor Charlie thought that she was moaning in pleasure as opposed to pain. “I didn’t think you missed me that much.”

“I don’t! There’s something cutting my ass! Get me the fuck off of this thing!” bellowed Josephine.

Charlie quickly set her down, his eyes widening in horror when he saw blood staining the counter where she’d been sitting. His eyes darted towards her bum and there, wedged relatively deep inside her was a knife.

“There’s a knife!”

“What do you mean there’s a knife?!”

Charlie grabbed a nearby knife. “One of these cut into you! Damn it! This is why I don’t try to do that spicy Latin lover crap! It never works for me! Ever! But here I was trying to do it because it would make me look hip!”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” snapped Josephine. “Help me get to your car! I need to go to the hospital, this shit only happens to me! What are you waiting for?! Take me!”

Everyone at the hospital was shocked when they saw Charlie running inside with Josephine thrown over his shoulder, cursing at him for having taken so damn long to get her to the hospital.

“Will someone get me a fucking doctor?! There’s a knife in my ass!”

Carlisle Cullen appeared a few moments later, a charming smile spread across his face. “Well bring her in Charlie, we can’t have her in pain to long.”

She smacked Charlie in the chest. “Hurry up bitch! I'm going to bleed to death!”

Josephine was quickly taken into a free room where Carlisle was going to tend to her while Charlie waited outside.

“How on earth did this happen?” inquired Carlisle as he took out the disinfecting solution.

Josephine turned to look at him, “It was a moment of stupidity. I should be more careful about where I leave my knives.”

“You should, we wouldn’t want you getting hurt,” his eyes were warm and tender when he said that.

“Of course not, I am after all the one that caters your hospital events.”

Carlisle laughed, his laugh sounding like music to her ears. “Exactly, I wouldn’t know what to do without your organic goodness.”

“It’s because my organic goodness is the best.”

He couldn’t help but smile inwardly at those words.

She had no idea how true her words were.