AN: Well, another one-shot. This one has been tough on me, but I hope you guys like it. I have to clarify a few things. First, I know that normally, Royal Flush is actually a Flush of Diamonds, and not Hearts, but Hearts fit my story better. Second, this is a biter-sweet story, and you may notice that it's written in first person. I'll just say that it hits close to home. Maybe too close, but it had to be written. Third - I hope you guys enjoy it. Let me know what you think.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Twilight. All the other references made to classic Hollywood movies, Frank Sinatra songs - yeah, I don't own any of those either.

King of Hearts

I knew keeping my heart whole was impossible after our first talk.

You see, Edward doesn't talk much. He mostly broods, grunts, and smirks. He does not talk like a normal person. He doesn't joke around like Emmet does, nor does he enjoy a calm exchange of opinions like Jasper. He says as much as is needed, and not a word more.

He talked to me.

We were alone, smoking cigarettes and joking around. I don't remember where we were before that, but we decided we weren't going to go home yet, because the night was still young. So we went to his apartment, and just sat and talked.

We talked about relationships, of course. I was in a bad relationship at that time, and I knew Jacob was a dick. I just didn't want to admit it to myself, or anyone else for that matter. Edward had just split up with Kate, his ex girlfriend and a friend of mine. We talked about love, and about conformity, and settling for less, all the while drinking water and smoking cigarettes, and listening to Frankie softly singing in the background.

I told him about my parents, how they split up, and I was more or less always responsible of myself. He told me about his family, how being an only son affected him, and how he sometimes wished things weren't so hard on them financially while he was growing up.

I never traveled that much. My parents did not have the money to afford it, they barely managed to send me to Seattle to school, for which I was eternally grateful. Edward's parents weren't much better off on the social ladder, but he managed to go and see more than half of the country, sometimes hitch-hiking, sometimes sleeping out beneath the stars, sometimes living of a couple of bucks and not knowing how he would get back home. I've been to Seattle and Jacksonville, because my Mom moved there with her new husband, Phil, and I went to visit her. So I asked him how it was.

"What?" He asked.

"The world," I replied.

He smiled and started talking about New York. His eyes lit up as he took a drag of his cigarette. I remember his words to this day.

"You see, Bella, it is hectic in New York. Everybody is running somewhere, people in their suits, angry at the world, at this or that. They are all in a hurry, and I felt the need to hurry too, or I may miss something. You can see all sorts of people there, the young and the old, creepy and strange, beautiful and ugly, but you hurry up, catching up to the crowd and you never really look at all those people. And then you come to Battery Park in the south Manhattan, and you get to Staten Island Ferry. And people board in, and the ferry starts moving. In that moment, it's like the time just comes to a halt. People sit down and read their newspapers, some get up and smoke, some just stand and stare into the water or the scenery around them. It's wonderful because they know that for the next half an hour, they are bound to stay in their place, because they won't get to Staten Island any faster. The time stops, and you can feel the peace for the first time in the Big Apple."

He looked at me in that moment and the look on his face was breathtaking. I could almost feel my heart cracking, begging to be given to him. I smiled back and sang along with Frank, fighting the stupid blood-pumping organ in my chest and subduing the unease and anxiety I felt along with something stronger, that had come to life in that moment, on that cold December night.

Love is not something you can control. If I could have, I would have squashed all hope in that moment, because I knew Edward would never think of me that way. If I were smart, I would have forced myself to think of him like I do of Jazz, or Alec, or Emmet – like a friend, or a brother.

But no, I had to go and fall for him, out of all people in this world. Him, the one that looks at me like I'm his little sister.

Edward drove me home that night, and he did the sweetest thing anyone's ever done for me. I told him I liked this street, a long one with rows of trees on each side because it was always beautiful walking and feeling the leaves rustling, a breath of nature in the city of concrete. He laughed and made a detour and we spent half an hour more driving, as we went on a search for my favourite street. When we got there, he got out of the car on the empty street and wrote 'Bella's street' with a sharpie on the sign next to the real name of the street. When I think of that moment now, I believe that's when my heart voluntarily gave itself to him.

I got pissed drunk on the night he went away to California to spend a semester at UCLA. I got so drunk that I told Alice everything. I told her how much I like him, I told her how emotionally abusive Jacob is, I told her how depressed I am. She told me that, being Kate's best friend, she knows more about their relationship than I did, and that I'm honestly better off without him. She also told me I don't deserve anyone's abuse, and that I need to dump Jacob, the sooner the better.

She never elaborated on any of her words, but I couldn't stop my feelings from growing.

Edward called me from LA occasionally, he even told me I could come for a vacation while he was still there. Jacob went ballistic when I mentioned it, even though Edward invited us both. I think Jacob knew I had feelings for Edward even before I did. It only got worse when Edward got back. Jacob was borderline psychotic, and he wanted me to stop hanging out with my new group of friends, because Edward was there more often than not.

After that, I couldn't handle it anymore and I finally broke it off with Jacob. I realized that high-school sweethearts were meant to be just that, and that the way he treated me wasn't the way I wanted my daughter to be treated by her potential boyfriend.

I knew I deserved better, but apparently, I am a sucker for guys who don't really like me as much as they should, or in a way I wanted them to.

Edward got back with Kate; whether it was just for sex, or something else, I didn't know. Alice told me one day, she told me I should stop hoping because they are basically friends-with-benefits again, and the pity in her eyes drove me crazy.

Why wasn't I worth it? Why couldn't he look at me that way?

I drank my weight in whiskey that night, and the next day I went off to visit my Dad. Some time off helped me clear my head, and I thought I could handle it, them in the same room, knowing that he still loves her. Edward rarely talked about his personal life, and I never asked. I deluded myself into thinking it would be better if I didn't know. Stupid, stupid Bella.

Maybe it's the movies I was brought up with. Casablanca, Gone With the Wind, Brief Encounter... I wanted romance. I still want it, and I want grand gestures and good music and someone to look at me the way Rick looked at Ilsa. I wanted someone to dance with me the way Rhett danced with Scarlett. I wanted someone to love me as much as Alec loved Laura.

I danced with Edward once. I don't remember much of it; we were at a party and Edward had just seen Kate making out in a corner with Riley. He was devastated, and the look in his eyes made me ache for him, to comfort him, to make his pain disappear.

And then he grabbed me by the waist and pulled me close and I stopped breathing. Edward's hands hugged me around the waist, and a slow song came up as I gathered all my courage and stepped even closer. My hands wowed into his bronze hair, and I felt his stubble on my cheek. I was aroused and scared and oh so happy in that moment, as his lips caressed my neck and his breath warmed me from the inside. The music was loud, but my heart's beats were louder.

I imagined his arms caressing my naked body, his stubble tickling me and bringing me sweet release. I imagined what it would be like to kiss him, to envelop him in a hug and to just feel him around me and inside me. My head was foggy and my brain turned to mush as I imagined his delectable lips wrapped around my nipples and his fingers plunging into me, filling me and preparing me for him. I imagined skin on skin and his auburn hair between my legs, and I shuddered. I thought I heard him moan, but that was probably me.

The dance only lasted a couple of minutes, but I didn't care. As we came apart, I could see him searching for Kate, his eyes scanning the room.

The metaphorical blade pierced my heart and I reached for the nearest bottle of Jack. Needles to say, Jack became my best friend and for the rest of the night, he warmed me and kept the tears at bay.

It was seven o'clock in the morning when the party ended, and Edward pulled me with him to the nearest couch. He was out cold in a moment, but as he put his arm around me, I realized something. I would never mean as much to Edward as he does to me. I remember some tears sprung from my eyes, but as he snuggled close to me I decided to embrace it and take as much from him as I could, to quench at least a part of this insane thirst for him that I have.

Nothing has changed in these past couple of months. We have all these inside jokes of our own and I feel pathetic, but it makes me feel special. We joke around, and he teases me in good humor, and sometimes we even have serious conversations. I sometimes go days without seeing him, but every time I do, I get all flustered.

He is sitting across from me now, and we are laughing together, playing poker and drinking whiskey – Johnny this time. I know he is bluffing. I know him. We are the only two left; all the others folded. Emmet is laughing, looking from me to him. Alice is smiling, talking to Jasper and his girlfriend Maria. I know it's as hard for her to watch Jazz with someone else as it is for me to see Edward every day, but she still smiles beautifully and excuses herself as Jazz gives Maria a kiss. Rose isn't here – she and Emmet broke up ten days ago, and she went home to Rochester. Emmet was here, mostly getting drunk, flirting with everyone without a penis, and basically drowning his heartbreak in cognac. Peter and Charlotte are making out in the corner – this is their night off, as they've let their two-years-old son Benjamin at home with the babysitter. Kate and Riley were deep in conversation by the bar.

I am looking into the green of Edward's eyes, locked in a staring contest. I lose myself for a moment, thinking about this strange situation. We are all heartbroken.

Emmet broke up with the girl he almost proposed to, the one he wanted to be his wife. Rosalie spent all this time convincing everybody that her life was a fairytale and that she had finally found the love of her life, but she was actually convincing herself the whole time. When she couldn't delude herself anymore, she ended it and ran away to heal.

Jasper was painfully melancholic sometimes. He pinned after Charlotte for years only to have his heart broken when she went about and screwed basically everybody but him. She finally calmed down and married Peter, a guy that did not know anything about her past. Char is happy now; you can see it whenever she is with Peter and Ben.

Alice has been in love with Jasper for as long as I've known her, but she never told him anything. Jazz settled for Maria; a quiet southern belle, that did not drink, and was not particularly impressed with our group of borderline alcoholics. Alice was heartbroken when she found out, and that time, I carried her home after Jose Cuervo made her puke her guts out.

Riley was always on and off with Victoria, a girl living in his dorm. He enjoyed leading her on, screwing her once in a while and then dumping her again. He was absolutely infatuated with Kate though. She was older, sophisticated, and as vain as he was. I loved them both dearly, but sometimes I couldn't handle listening to their snobbish opinions.

Edward, well, he was still in love with Kate.

And I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.

"You giving up yet Bella?"

His beautiful voice penetrates my cloud of thoughts, and I come down to reality.

"Never."

Edward's mouth pulls up in a smirk and I think of kissing those lips. he throws his cards on the table.

"Full house, babe."

He winks at me, and confidently leans back in his chair. I hear wolf howls around the table, and I try not to think how his muscles flex in that black wife-beater. I chug down the last of Johnny, and motion to Emmet to hit me up.

"Hold on, pretty boy."

I start turning around my cards one by one. A Jack of Hearts first, followed by the King of Hearts. Edward's eyes bulge out as he looks at the Queen and Ten of Hearts on the table.

"No."

I smile as I turn the Ace of Hearts around.

"Royal Flush baby. You lose."

The room erupts in cheers as I gather the cigarettes and small coins to my side. We never play for money, or anything serious - we play for shits and giggles. Edward shakes his head and then laughs, standing up to get closer to me. He leans down to my level and grins, waving the King of Hearts in front of my face.

"I will get you next time baby Swan. You're too young to be playing poker anyways."

He gives me a kiss on the cheek and drops the card from his hand. As I catch it in mid-air, I laugh loudly.

You've got nothing on the king of my heart, I think to myself as I look at the card. I turn to Emmett, pointing at Edward and my still empty glass.

"Come on Em, hit me up again. One for my baby and one more for the road."

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