Minibusted:

Everything belongs to its respective owners. No sue. Because I love to play in Stephenie's world.

Chapter 2: Clifton Hill

Bella's pov

I had to admit that the day was going kind of well, despite the fact that Alice had completely scuppered my romantic scheming for Edward. You can't seduce somebody with that many witnesses around.

The minute our group of girls had left the hotel restaurant, the barrage of personal questions started. It was just as bad as I expected. What had Alice meant when she said that Edward hadn't spent a night without me since his return in January? What had we gotten up to last night? Why had I been holding out on my best friends? I mumbled and stuttered my way through answers as bland as I could invent, but I still had to admit Edward had been sneaking in my window at night for cuddles. Nobody believed that we hadn't gotten to third base, and Alice was not helping with her interjections and innuendo.

Unfortunately, I kinda lost it on her in front of Forks' two worst junior league gossips.

"Alice, for once, just once, shut your mouth. Because of you, Edward and I went to that stupid movie. Had you not been driving us up the wall, we would never have gone, and we would never have gotten carried away. Then Charlie would never have caught Edward undressing me and he would not have tried to shoot us and we would not have had to endure positively excruciating conversations with parents while wearing practically nothing. And you took pictures to commemorate the occasion! I thought you loved me. And had you not put that damned picture in the paper and had Rose not showed it to Charlie, then Edward and I would not have run away from home. And had the hotel clerks in Seattle not asked for our autographs because that picture has made us some sort of ... soft porn celebrities everywhere between La Push and Montana, Edward and I would not be here at the Falls, caught by our peers and siblings while trying to break a Commandment. Edward and I would be at home right now ticking items off your damned annoying wedding lists!" I threw all this at Alice with arms akimbo, then blushed fiery red as I remembered where we were. Rose was snickering and Ang, Jessica and Lauren were agog. Alice was the only one not phased by my tirade.

"Well, where would the fun be in that? You've been together nearly two years, Bella, and have hardly any embarrassingly human moments to remember in your old age. You should thank me for livening things up for you. You were becoming positively boring to watch. Maybe now he'll let things heat up."

"Alice, things were heating up!" I whined. "Then you showed up with a busload of friends. I will be lucky if Edward spends five minutes alone with me between now and the wedding. You know how old-fashioned he is." Belatedly, I remembered that Jessica, Lauren and Ang were present, heads swinging back and forth between myself and Alice like they were following a tennis match. I waggled my finger at them, "And if any of you repeat any of that to anybody, then I am going to get Charlie's gun and personally come after you!"

"It's probably just as well we're here, Bella. Edward would have ended up breaking more than one Commandment if we had left you two alone too much." Alice eyed me darkly. Oh. I blanched. So that's why she engineered this.

"Well, um, everything happens for a reason, right? Are we going to go and have some fun? Where are we shopping?" Angela, my best human friend, looked completely nonplussed by my abrupt about face. Edward breaking Commandments? Me enthusing about shopping? Both concepts were totally alien to her knowledge of us.

The females fell into the minibus and the conversation passed onto more amenable subjects. Rosalie drove up to a plaza on Lundy's Lane where they sold designer clothes at warehouse prices and hustled us out of the bus. Alice, on cloud nine, helped me pick out nice, midnight blue Tommy Hilfiger jeans for Edward and me, and a pale blue golf shirt for him and a blue button-down t-shirt for me, and the girls teased me into getting myself and Edward matching red, white and blue polar fleece hoodies. I quietly slipped underwear and socks into the basket. Like I would ever normally pay $90 for ordinary looking underwear, but necessity dictated the purchase. Besides, Edward's credit card limit was astronomical. I couldn't go around with this lot dressed like Paris. Then, I thought I'd better get some underwear for Edward, too. I hoped nobody noticed me in the guys' section of the store. Jess and Lauren would have a field day with that. I ducked in and out of the aisle as quickly as possible.

Alice found navy blue windbreakers at another store, and bought enough to supply one to all 14 people in our group. Great. Now we all matched. At least it should be easy to keep track of everybody.

In a tacky gift shop, we found bathing suits. Rosalie gave the human girls pointers on buying bikinis that would fit well and be flattering, and told them how to keep them from riding up. I picked a blue one-piece and demanded to see the suit Alice had chosen for Edward. It was a black thong. I put it back and chose a soft, green pair of shorts for him over her protests. Then, when she wasn't looking, I tucked the thong back into my pile of purchases. What Alice didn't know wouldn't hurt us.

After using Edward's credit card, I rejoined the group and all of us traipsed back to the minibus, purchases in hand. Rosalie handed me a little bag, saying it was for me. In it, I discovered a miniscule red thong bikini. She smiled softly at me and got behind the wheel. Holy. Cow. Rosalie bought me a present? Guess she didn't hate me anymore.

Edward was waiting for his new clothing when I got to the room. He raised one eyebrow at the thong, but said nothing. We changed into the polite swimwear and went down to meet our group at the pool. Soon, the girls were dangling tired feet in the cool water, and the boys were roughhousing with each other to impress us. My future family did not join in.

Edward came to tread water peacefully beside me, whispering amusing anecdotes about weight lifting with humans that were only audible to me. Jasper took his guitar, and now sat quietly against the end wall, picking out notes and humming quietly to himself. After she spent a few minutes in the water, Alice went to sit with him. Rose and Emmett lounged on the deck furniture, pretending to drowse.

I joined Edward in the water, and we swam a few lazy laps. We continued to whisper about the perils of having human friends around us, privy to our every move, and then Edward teasingly goosed me on the backside. His hand was freezing! I yelped in surprise and went under and he had to haul me up, spluttering. Naturally, everyone noticed.

"Edward Anthony Masen Cullen!" Alice frowned theatrically as she bellowed across the pool, "Did you just cop a feel? I am going to tell Esme on you." Rosalie and Emmett rolled with glee. The humans snickered. Jasper smirked and went back to picking his guitar.

"Alice? Be careful how you threaten me. I still owe you for the other day, and I have thought of a few things I could tell Esme about you, too."

After that, Jessica and Mike announced that they had a little gift for us. Much to our chagrin, they forced us to don black baseball caps. Edward's had a little white tuxedo shirt sewn into the front, complete with tie, and it said 'groomzilla' on the back. Mine had a little white veil on top, and a little white dress on the front, and it said 'bridezilla' on the back. We were told that we would be expected to wear them everywhere for the duration of the trip. Well, it could have been a lot worse.

After 45 minutes, Edward ordered us out of the pool. By noon, we were all assembled in the parking lot, hats and all. Alice announced that we had lunch reservations, and that all group meals and activity tickets for the trip were to be covered by Carlisle. Our friends were thrilled.

Since it was only about a mile's walk to Clifton Hill, we decided to leave the minibus behind. We lunched at a place called the Rainforest Cafe, where bellowing animatronic gorillas and elephants and booming fake thunderstorms interrupted patron conversations ever few minutes. I thought it was awesome but my vampires said it wasn't nearly as good as the real thing.

After lunch, we hit Dracula's Castle, but something leapt out at us and Emmett attacked it. He roared and pushed it back so hard that he busted the hydraulic gear and we could hear it groaning. We made a fast getaway. We rampaged through video arcades and fun houses on the Hill. Everybody went on a laser-gun-shooting, interactive ghost ride. Emmett and Jasper kept directing the laser guns at Edward's zipper. We cashed in game tokens for prizes (Emmett got the biggest prize on offer, a big stuffed bear, for Rosalie). We ate ice cream, bought maple fudge and souvenirs, took pictures and razzed each other the whole time.

We had dinner reservations at an old fashioned place called the Beef Baron, way up at the top of the Hill. It had dark-wooden, circular booths with red leather seats that could comfortably fit 8 people. The non-vegetarians had prime rib dinners and the vegetarian vampires pretended to eat pasta. I wondered where they hid the food. Edward was going to have to teach me that, once I was changed. Dinner was rounded off with a selection of rich tortes and the best coffee I had ever tasted.

We rolled our overstuffed bellies out of the restaurant after dark, and took in the bright lights on the Hill. Then we took a ride on the observation wheel. Our group started to board one car. An instant before the door could shut, Edward lifted me off so fast I didn't know where we were. We were in the next car. We got to ride by ourselves, while the rest of our group was crammed in together. Alice shook her finger at us from the opposing car, but was distracted when Jasper scootched up behind her and bit her on the neck. Edward and I took advantage of the alone time. More teasing ensued when the ride was over.

When Jess suggested we stop somewhere for a drink, Emmett led us to an upstairs patio offering karaoke, pizza and beer.

Mike and his friends were delighted to discover that we were of legal drinking age, and most of our humans queued up to the bar. The beer flowed freely, and my future siblings were draining bottles as fast as any human. Edward nursed his, not playing along. I, like Angela, stuck with soda.

Before we knew it, we were all laughing and cheering as various members of the group went up for karaoke. Emmett was first, crooning Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing" to Rose while gyrating in an obscene manner. Mike took a turn with "I'm too Sexy", which Jessica and Lauren followed up with Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend". The group cajoled me unsuccessfully. I would rather be tortured by Jane than go up there. I waved Ang and Ben up, and they did a lousy but enthusiastic job of the old classic, "Kung Fu Fighting". Jasper covered a James Taylor song I'd never heard of but Edward seemed to like. Then somebody noticed that Edward had not been dragged up there.

Edward rolled his eyes and allowed himself to be bullied up. It took him several minutes to choose a song from the catalogue. I guess he couldn't find anything from the 50's. Then, he approached the microphone and dedicated the song to me. It was "Unchained Melody" by the Righteous Brothers, and it was perfect. The people on the patio paired up to dance. I felt my eyes well up as he finished. I was such a sentimental slob. Angela nudged me and whispered, "That boy is too good to be true. He really loves you. I wish Ben were that romantic. Of course, nobody really wants to hear Ben sing."

When asked for an encore, Edward followed up with the bluesy David Bowie version of "Wild is the Wind". He crooned. He snarled. He cried. And the whole time, his eyes smouldered into mine. When he hit the last high note, I could restrain myself no longer. I ran right up on the platform and threw myself into his arms. He crushed me to his chest and swung me off my feet. After kissing me soundly, he deposited me back at our section of tables, where our friends delivered a series of compliments and toasts to our future.

"Like, wow... that was really hot!" Jess enthused, "Are you going into music?"

"No, I don't like the public attention." Edward pretended to sip his beer.

"Why didn't you take music at school?" Mike wondered.

"Well, I did take it in Alaska, but the guys at school there made fun of me, so I decided not to take it when we moved to Forks."

"Nobody's making fun of you now, man. You are really good." Tyler stated.

"Thanks, but I only sing for people I know."

Nobody seemed to want to follow Edward's performance, so everyone danced to recorded music after that. Edward picked me up and simply carried me onto the dance floor. There was no denying him.

Emmett requested a lot of well-known dances, like Thriller, the Macarena, the Cha Cha Slide, and Soulja Boy. My vampires knew all the moves. They Chicken Danced with exuberance and they Mony Monyed with all the naughty response words added in. They did their best to help the humans learn the steps. Edward also dazzled me into trying a couple of salsa dances. I probably would have done better had I imbibed a couple of beers. Still, my senses were full of Edward and my feet followed him without any severe difficulty.

Finally, the bar closed and after a last slow dance (to which the vampires foxtrotted), our group walked contentedly, if somewhat unsteadily, back to the hotel. It seemed a lot farther to walk on the way back. Of course, Edward had pulled me up for almost every dance, so I was tired. When Edward noticed I was having a hard time keeping up, he hoisted me up on his back and carried me.

Mike must have found his courage at the bottom of a beer glass because he asked Edward a much-too-personal question about our plans for the night. Edward turned frosty eyes on him, and Emmett, who was pretending to be drunk, threw an arm around Mike and told him he'd better watch what he asked if he wanted to live long enough to get back to the hotel. Mike paled a little, but recovered when Em punched his shoulder gently and chuckled. Emmett then instigated a much too loud sing-along of lewd songs, which Edward tried to quash because we were walking past people's houses.

In the lobby, we all bade each other goodnight and headed to our respective rooms, but not before several people gave me and Edward rather suggestive winks. We were under-impressed.

I kicked off my shoes as soon as Edward had the door open, flopped down spread-eagled, and moaned into the comforter. The next thing I knew, it was morning.