Disclaimer: If I owned them, Bella would have a personality.
Gatlinburg, Tennessee 1934
When Edward was seven years old, Sarah Jane Lasseter showed him her undergarments.
This scandalous act took place in the one corner of his uncle, Peter's, hayloft where the sunlight didn't touch during the final round of a particularly raucous game of hide-and-go-seek. Their games tended to get a bit wild during the summer, you see; for only two months out of the year, Sarah Jane had the luxury of playing with someone other than her sisters (Pearl was too little to keep up, Mary was mostly piqued and sickly, and Lilah had stopped being fun once she started kissing Mitchell Holmes and requesting privacy). Edward Masen would show up in Milledgeville with his steamer trunk and funny hair, and they'd run around until the sky turned a deep purple only stopping to eat or get yelled at, or both on occasion.
That day, Sarah Jane had cheated and peeked through the cracks in her fingers watching as Edward tried his best to tiptoe up the hayloft ladder. She found him in that sunless corner under a heap of straw and tickled him til he was near breathless (because she was the victor, after all), and sometime after competing to see who could make, and dive into, the biggest hay pile, Sarah Jane got a funny look on her face.
"Do you wanna see something, Eddie?" she asked with that musical southern lilt of hers. Her dirty dress, ruined braids, and mischievous smile made her look a bit like a porcelain doll that'd seen better days.
Edward nodded out of curiosity and his eyes widened when Sarah Jane lifted her skirts with a giggle.
He would've touched them, those strange, starch white bloomers – and his fingers were awfully close, but Uncle Peter chose that moment to come roaring up the ladder. They knew better than to play in that loft; there could've been snakes up there.
Twenty-six years later, when he is technically thirty-three years old, but looks not a day over seventeen, Edward's face holds that same wide-eyed curiosity as he stares at Rosalie Hale's stockings.
It's not the first time. Back when she was still new and different, and disrupting, and fond of reading magazines instead engaging in conversation, Edward caught a glimpse of those stockings. A rustling of fabric momentarily stole his attention away from Carlisle and Edward watched out of the corner of his eye, Rosalie cross her legs (not ankles, like the women he used to know). His gaze burned with the fire of a heathen as he let it travel up that leg and when he looked up, Rosalie's eyes were no longer pouring over the pages of Life.
She raised a brow, and her mind was suspiciously blank so Edward didn't have any concrete material to use for beating himself up over later, but he spent the rest of the week avoiding her anyway.
Now those stockings are draped over the bathroom door like a skin that's been shed, and he wants to touch them. He imagines touching the legs they belong to because his better judgment is too slow to persuade him otherwise. And his fingers come awfully close.
"Mr. Edward, how are you this afternoon?"
Benny, the laundry woman, fixes him with a firm stare over her basket and Edward's recoil is so natural (so, human) he would've been proud had it not been born out of utter embarrassment.
"I'm fine, Benny. You?" he says.
"Fine, just fine. It's a lovely afternoon isn't it? I can already hear the porch swing calling my name."
His smile is strained, but polite. "Yes…well, if you'll excuse me…" Edward turns on his heel and heads down the hall.
Benny's not fazed by his abruptness since she's much too preoccupied with the thought that Dr. Cullen's brother has all of the makings of a Peeping Tom.
Author's Note: Once upon a time I had a discussion that went something like "just think about when Rosalie came along and suddenly there's this beautiful woman around without maternal feelings for him. I bet Edward beat off until his eyes crossed". And then I went and plotted this thing out because I'm super cool.
This will be very short (chapters probably won't top 1,000 words) and it will muddy up, but stick to canon. I like Edward/Rose best tense and unrealized.
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