1As much as Bella disliked admitting hunger in Edward's presence, she couldn't deny her loud, insolent stomach its food any longer. She hadn't eaten anything since breakfast and, as the clock inched towards 2:00, her stomach growled.

Again.

Searching through the small fridge that Charlie kept sparsely stocked, Bella felt ashamed and embarrassed; mostly in sense not unlike when the teacher makes you go up to do a math problem on the board, in front of the entire class no less, and you have no idea what the hell you're doing. It definitely was one of the very worst feelings in the world.
She felt very high-maintenance. She was surrounded by reminders that she was fragile, clumsy, breakable, defenseless, delicious, mouth-watering–– wait, no. Bella paused.

Finding her train of thought again, Bella added the inconvenience of eating to her long list of human imperfections, right under 'not ridiculously gorgeous', 'slow and clumsy', and 'stupid habit of stupid blushing'.

And so as Bella put a plate of leftovers into the microwave and pushed its buttons, she felt completely and utterly useless.

Up until now, Edward had been occupying himself in Bella's living room, waiting patiently for her to return. As she wolfed down her now lukewarm leftovers, Bella peeked in to see what he was doing.
He was looking at Bella's old baby pictures.

Oh, God.

Bella walked back into the kitchen dearly hoping that she was fully dressed in all of those pictures and that this wouldn't inspire Edward to get into a 'Bella's normal human life is precious' mood.

Bella had just placed her empty plate into the kitchen sink when Edward walked in, looking unreasonably statuesque and godlike for someone wearing neither socks nor shoes.
Bella couldn't help but stare at his feet. She could honestly say that they were the singular most gorgeous pair of feet she'd ever seen. 'Surely,' Bella thought, 'in a beauty contest between me and Edward's feet, I would lose instantly and miserably.'

Her thoughts were interrupted when Edward extended a long pale arm to offer her a plate with a slice of cake sitting on top.
Bella stared at the cake. Charlie's birthday had been two days ago and, although several of the Cullens had been invited to the celebration, more than three fourths of the cake still remained in the Swan fridge. Bella took the plate hesitantly, looking up at Edward.
"Eat it," he offered simply.

"I already ate," Bella reminded him.

"You should have desert," he decided. "Besides..." Edward began again slowly, "it will make your blood sugar go up."

Bella's eyed widened in astonishment.
"You... you can sense things like that? I didn't know you were so sensitive to m–– Wait. Is it just me, or can you smell that in anyone's blood?"

Bella had a dozen more questions, but Edward didn't look like he was even going to answer the few she'd voiced. He remained silent as he turned to get her a fork. With his head turned, Bella couldn't tell whether Edward was smiling.

Bella cautiously took the fork and began eating the cake in slow, small bites, mulling over this whole blood sugar thing very intently.
She barely noticed when Edward wrapped his arm around her waist.
She did notice, however, when he kissed her forehead lovingly. She almost choked.

The burning embarrassment of eating human food flooded back now, and Bella couldn't help but blush. She realized that the rush of blood to her cheeks couldn't be making this any easier for Edward and, scolding herself mentally, she swallowed the cake in her mouth forcefully; the frosting tasted dry and painfully sweet going down.
She put her fork down determinedly.

She heard Edward chuckle.
"Don't waste the food," he murmured against her hair, kissing her lightly again.

Quite unnerved, Bella lifted the fork again and tried to take another bite. Very distracted by Edward's proximity, and partially due to her complete lack of hand-eye coordination, Bella missed her mouth slightly, leaving a streak of vanilla icing across her cheek.

She rolled her eyes at her own incompetence and lifted a hand to rub away the frosting, but Edward caught her wrist firmly with the usual lightening speed.
Bella, who had quite forgotten how to breathe, looked up in surprise.
With slow, precise movement, Edward lowered his head and licked the icing off Bella's cheek.

He straightened up. Releasing her wrist, Edward tucked a lock of Bella's hair behind her ear and smiled at her warmly.

Bella had yet to exhale the breath she took in long ago.

"Yummy," Edward murmured, unable to repress his grin.
Bella at long last exhaled and, after a brief moment of recovery, stared up at Edward, bewildered.
"I ... thought food didn't taste good to vam... you..." she stuttered lamely.

"I wasn't talking about the frosting."