Something was different.

Rosalie could tell the moment she set foot back in the house.

Something had changed.

The air was charged, crackling with unseen tension. She sniffed, almost expecting that they'd had yet another visitor, but could detect no scent other than that of her brother. Brothers.

The man she had thought would be her mate liked her like a sister. In other words, he finds you annoying and rude, Edward had told her. As if that jerk had any room to talk! Why don't you try being a little less obvious, he'd suggested. The trouble was, she'd tried that already! Give him some time, he'd repeated Esme's advice. He didn't exactly ask to be thrust into this... life. The look he'd given her had been mild, but the simple rebuke had been loaded with disdain.

After all her railing at Carlisle for changing her into a vampire, it took a lot of gall for her to beg him to change yet another person, but she had, and so he had. To make matters worse, the addition of another vampire into the family had seemed to please everyone, including said vampire! To be more accurate, it pleased everyone except her. Rose could no more understand Emmett's antipathy now, than she'd been able to when she'd been new, and it had been Edward who'd spurned her.

Not that she'd wanted him. Far from it!

Jerk.

Nosy know-it-all with his stupid little smirk.

That smirk was on his face now as he entered the front room with his arms loaded with boxes.

"This is the last of them. Emmett and I finished loading the rest while you and Esme were off having a bite to eat. We're ready to go as soon as Carlisle gets home. Oh. Well. And after you pack your room, of course. I didn't think we should disturb any of your things; what if we had broken something?"

Rose's eyebrows drew together as one of his raised. Deliberately, she formed the satisfying image of his car in a smoking pile of rubble.

"Yes," he said. "Precisely."

She only glimpsed it briefly as he passed her to take the boxes to the waiting cars, but his smirk broadened into a gloat. She'd been certain he would fly into a rage when she'd returned home that day, visions of driving his car off a cliff in the forefront of her mind where he'd be sure to see it. She'd wanted him to scream at her! She had no outlet for her hurt and anger except him, but when her actions failed to provoke him, he won without even trying.

He'd stood in the middle of the driveway where she should have been parking the car. Motionless. Expressionless. She'd lifted her chin and replayed the event in vivid detail, making sure to draw out her pleasure at watching the smoke rise and billow. Rather than yelling or going on a rampage breaking her things in retaliation, when she'd finished replaying the scene for him, he'd only said the newer models looked to be a vast improvement and he'd been wondering how he was going to talk Carlisle into allowing him to buy one, so thanks. And without another word, he'd turned on his heal and strolled into the house to pine over the place where his stupid piano was supposed to go.

Very quietly, she'd considered forming a picture of it in the place of the car. He must have glimpsed it anyway, because he'd muttered through his teeth, even you aren't that dumb.

Emmett had entered the room then, excitedly telling Edward about a new animal scent he'd caught on their walk home, and did Edward want to see if they could find it again?

Did he!

And the two had run off, shoving each other and laughing carelessly while she stood, impotently seething.

Just as she seethed now, when she saw Emmett join Edward by the remaining cars. Her eyes narrowed as she studied the tall man. A tendril of desire crept through her stomach at the careless way his shirt was unbuttoned and pulled loose from his pants, and how his usually neat hair was disheveled. His broad shoulders just begged her to latch on to them. She ached to dig her nails into them, to feel them flex as he wrapped his arms around her. She wanted to see that dimple in his cheek form just for her to kiss it.

Emmett didn't move the lips she wished he would use on her, but he must have thought something amusing, because suddenly, Edward started laughing and rumpling his hair with one hand. The easy comradery they shared caused her eyes to burn and sting, but she was denied even the release of tears. Biting her lip in fury, she stalked to her room (if she could call it that when it had been hers for all of a week!) to gather the boxes that awaited her there.

A month after moving in to their next place, the Cullens were cautiously settled in without incident. Emmett's eyes were losing their vivid red at last, and Carlisle had begun working at the local hospital. Esme had befriended the librarian and charmed the elderly lady into allowing her to come in to read after-hours. Edward was fussing daily at the piano movers for updates on the status of his baby. Rose was sure the switchboard operators already knew him by his voice.

"You could always-"

"No." Rose cut Esme off from speaking. Whatever it was she'd been about to suggest, Rose didn't want to hear it. Whether it was about Emmett or not.

But especially if it was.

"You know, Carlisle lived-"

"Yes!" Rose hissed. "I know all about how Good Father Carlisle lived all alone for over two hundred years. Cry me a river, why don't you?"

"I only meant-"

"I know what you meant!

Esme sighed. Her only daughter lived with hurts at least as bad as her own, but without anyone to share and help ease them. She'd been so certain that Carlisle had found the missing piece of their family when he'd brought home the nearly dead girl. Edward had been livid. How dare Carlisle bring home some girl for him.

For him!

It was perhaps that last that had turned Rose off Edward so instantly and completely. To have been plucked away from the path of her life (even when that path was about to come to an early end) and set onto this new, unending one was bad enough, but to find out that she'd been offered to the young man she only knew in passing like she was a showpiece for Edward to enjoy or reject with no considerations of her own feelings had been humiliating.

She was no car! She was no piece of meat! She was a woman with a mind and a heart of her own!

That heart was aching now. It may not beat, but a frozen heart could still be broken.

She glared out the window, feeling the sting of unshed tears once more, while she watched her brothers circle each other on the back lawn. She guessed Emmett was trying to hide his thoughts so he could get the upper hand for once. He was crouched slightly as he attempted to maneuver past Edward's defenses, his knees bent and weight on the balls of his bare feet, a lethal predator coiled to spring.

"Oh-ho, I don't think so!" Edward said with a delighted laugh.

"Damn!" Emmett said and screwed his face up in concentration.

They circled each other a few times more. Edward snorted that in that haughty way he had and said, "Nice try!"

"Play hard to get all you like, I'll catch you eventually."

"Promises, promises. Woop!" Edward slid to the side and spun around an instant before the larger man moved. Laughing as he pranced away, he taunted his brother, "How do you even manage to catch deer with moves like those?"

Abandoning the dance, Emmett charged Edward with a roar. It couldn't have taken Edward by surprise, but the house shook as the two vampire bodies collided to the ground. They rolled about, snickering and grappling for the upper hand, legs flailing and hands grasping. Emmett gave a yelp and batted one of Edward's hands away from his chest where he'd given the larger vampire's nipple a hard twist.

Rose blinked, uncertain she'd actually seen it happen.

There was no mistaking the way Emmett's hips were grinding against Edward's though.

Rose's mouth dropped open.

Edward had to know she was watching, but apparently he didn't care, because he laughed and wiggled underneath him. He turned his head so Rose could see his lips move, but his words were so soft, she couldn't catch what he said. It must have been something about her. She was sure of it, especially when Emmett released Edward and collapsed beside him, howling with laughter.

Edward sprang from the ground and ran into the woods that surrounded their house with a victorious shout of, "I win!" over his shoulders.

"This time!" Emmett yelled after him. "Cheater."

The ghost of Edward's laugh carried back to them on the breeze. Emmett reclined onto the grass, reached absently into a patch beside him to pluck a blade that hung heavy with seeds out of the ground, and tucked it between his lips. He rolled it about, chewing on the end. The seed-heavy tip danced and quivered, and Rose cried out in shock as a flood of frustrated desire swept through her at the thought of what his tongue was doing to make the grass move so.