A/N: This story was written as a challenge by the lovely Dorchester. The theme was Jealousy, and the word limit, 1k. Since I'm known for my wordiness, I decided to take up the challenge and the count came in at exactly 1k (excluding this A/N of course lol). Thank you Dorchester for giving me the opportunity to write this piece (it's been lovely to set aside the OF and dip the toes back into FF waters), and for the wonderful banner to accompany this quick story. Loopylou992 also wrote a piece based on the same theme - so why not hop on over to her profile and check it out?

This story is slash, JSYK.

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight, or these characters. Doesn't stop me from wanting to play with them, though :D

It's the same damned thing each day.

I see him as he walks into the bar, graceful as a gazelle when he moves.

Watch as he flashes his classic warm summer's day smile.

Wait as he turns his attentions to the latest fresh-faced dancer, James.

He's driving me crazy.

Hair soft, curly and the color of wheat and a body to die for, I want him so bad I can taste it.

But he'll never look at me in that way again.

Why would he, when I'm so broken?

An empty shell where not even the soothing sounds of the ocean can be heard?

So not what he needs?

Still, I can't help wonder.

Fantasize.

Imagine him, all hands and mouth and skin, blood and bone possessing me.

Taking me to inexplicable heights.

But, it will never be.

He deserves someone whole.

Complete.

Someone who can dance to the same beat, a man who doesn't fill him with dread.

Someone he can love, not pity.

I watch as he jokes with the new guy while they work on their new routine, every word he utters in that Texan twang tugging at my gut as he watches the wannabe twirl around the stripper's pole.

I want that.

Want him.

I turn and stare out the window.

It's what I do most days.

I don't make eye contact.

It's taken me an entire month to get as far as I have.

I've seen disappointment in his eyes before. But I don't think I could bear it if that look came from him now.

I want to tell him everything.

Let him know that inside this husk, lies a heart that beats only for him.

But, I can no sooner share that with him than fly to the moon.

He flirts with the girls.

Laughs and jokes with the boys.

But he can't do any of that with me.

I've caught him looking at me once or twice.

But that devastating smile is always mingled with unfathomable pain and sadness.

And I helped put it there.

Emmett places a shot glass before me, and gives me a look of pity before he turns and heads back to the bar.

I knock back the whiskey, the burn down my gullet a reminder that I'm still occupying a small space on this earth.

It's then I feel him. All the hairs rise on the back of my neck. His scent hits me, the one that smells like heaven and hell all rolled into one. My breath catches. And if I wasn't so crippled, so trapped between him and the exit, I'd already be gone.

"Edward."

I hear the chair drag across the tiled floor as he sits down next to me.

All the blood rushes to my pounding heart. I can't move.

"Edward," he repeats, with far more conviction this time.

I turn until I'm left facing the man whose life I have destroyed, gasping when his beauty assaults me. I ache for him so much, it hurts.

But there is no slate to wipe clean here. I'd broken us. Broken him.

There was no coming back from that.

His heat sears me to the bone as he reaches out and takes my hand, fine fingers squeezing gently.

I take a stuttering breath and bask in the feel of him. Lose my way as midnight bores into green with sheer desperation.

Best friends and business partners for ten years, he and I had both made a choice to keep our relationship professional. It didn't stop me from seething over every hot twink that came into his life.

Jasper wasn't supposed to forgive me for being jealous of Riley, the club's headlining dancer and latest in a long line of many to have caught his eye.

He wasn't meant to forget the fact that I was so obsessed with making Jasper mine, I befriended Riley in an effort to tear them apart. I wanted to know his secrets. Discover what he had that I didn't. Find his Achilles heel.

It all came crashing down the night Riley and I went to the gym together. He'd decided he was going to take things to the next level, professing his love for my Jasper like some awful, torturous prayer. I flew into a rage, only to be confronted by two of his goonish friends who decided that pinning me by the throat under a barbell that weighed couple of hundred pounds and breaking my leg so I'd walk with a limp forever would be a great way to tell me to back the hell off.

I hadn't spoken a word since, my vocal chords damaged, right leg held together by enough pins and screws to set off airport alarms the world over.

He lets go of my hand, and I breathe out a silent whimper at the loss.

Then, a nervous smile breaks across his face, and his hands move in a way that has become familiar to me this past year, but yet at the same time it's so damned foreign, because he's doing it.

'I love you,' he signs slowly, perfectly, as he professes his love in my own language, no less.

I sit there, gaping at him. I am unable to breathe. A silent tear slips down my face, and then another, until I'm blinded.

And he's holding me, so tight I feel him everywhere. He whispers how he tried to find love elsewhere, but that he couldn't stop thinking about me. Tells me he forgives me. That I need to forgive myself.

Then, his lips find mine in a kiss so all-encompassing, I can't contain myself. I thrust my tongue deep inside, revelling in his taste and touch until I'm starved for air.

I pull back, my forehead pressed against his, his breath hot on my face as I take a deep breath and tell him in a rasping voice what I'd longed to say for so long.

"I love you, too. So much."