A/N: I am SO sorry it's taken me so long to post the second chapter! This is the first story I've had going in about 8 years, so I'm still working on getting myself back into shape. And then I got sick, and my boyfriend got sick, and other aspects of reality came into play that made me move the chapter to the backburner for a few days here and there. Anyways, enough excuses, I hope you find it worth the wait! I'll be posting pictures on my profile of Jasper and Edward's sweet rides, because they're so delicious I can't keep them to myself. =)

Thanks to hazed_confused for being my Chapter 2 guinea pig. =)

Disclaimer: SM owns, Silver rents.

CHAPTER TWO

EPOV

I was in my room lying on my back and listening to a stack of 45s with my eyes closed. The blend of the music and lyrics washed over me and gave me a near instantaneous calm feeling. Music the way I chose to unwind after a long day, unlike my cousin Jasper, who preferred hitting the bottle to relax. Sometimes I might join him for a drink or two, but I always ended up choosing to ride out my buzz in my room with some Otis Redding records.

I found it humorous that the reputation of "The Cullen Boys" was so skewed. I was considered the dangerous delinquent for no reason other than I ride a motorcycle and tend to keep to myself, and Jasper was thought to be pretty wholesome for the most part despite our greaser ways. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Jasper was always up to no good, mostly when it came to girls, but parents loved him because he was charming and respectful…at least to their faces. Pity may have also played a small part, as everyone knew that the reason Jasper was living with us was that he'd lost his parents in a car accident back in Houston a few years earlier. Of course, he had been devastated, and I knew that although he had dealt with his grief already, he was milking it for all it was worth. What girl could resist the opportunity to be the one to heal the orphaned boy with the sweet southern charm? His mint condition '58 Chevy Impala had yet to hear the word "no" uttered in the backseat. Hell, he had a better track record than Seabiscuit.

My mother's influence on me was far stronger than I would ever openly admit. She raised me to be a gentleman, and chivalrous like my father. I didn't date much, but when I did on occasion take a girl out I always defied the greaser reputation and treated her respectfully. I could easily be on par with Jasper in the girl department if I chose, but it just wasn't my deal. That's not to say I hadn't gotten any action, I just didn't really see the point in a string of meaningless relationships, if you could even call them that. I just wasn't the "notch in the bedpost" kind of guy, and I wasn't interested in the kinds of girls that wanted that kind of thing either. I wanted someone intelligent who I could actually hold a conversation with. Someone who won me over with what she had to offer between her ears rather than between her legs.

As Otis started to sing his soulful melody of lonely arms, I let out a sigh and rested my hands under my head. I stared at the ceiling and remembered the girl from earlier in the afternoon. Isabella Swan. I cracked a small smile, still incredulous that someone actually had the gall to name their kid that. It seemed fitting though. Bella Swan was by no means Greta Garbo or Marilyn Monroe, but she certainly wasn't unattractive either. She was the perfect height for her slender frame, not too tall or too short, the top of her head reaching just under my chin. Her dark brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail, but I could estimate that it probably fell long midway down her back. The most striking thing about her was her eyes, they were like melted chocolate, and they held a level of mystique I'd never seen reflected in anyone else before. I found myself wondering what made her tick.

I could tell she was normally the shy quiet type, since she was blushing for the entirety of our short interaction with each other. What sparked my curiosity was that she had challenged me when she muttered about my being rude. She had said it so quietly it might as well have been to herself, yet she had clearly intended for me to hear. It was such an insignificant thing, but I couldn't help myself as my mind kept wandering back to that moment, wondering what strength might be hiding behind the meek exterior. It would be easy to simply dismiss our meeting as nothing more than an a slightly inconvenient encounter with a clumsy and shy girl, but something kept gnawing at me, telling me that to dismiss Bella Swan might not be the wisest decision to make.

My thoughts were interrupted as I suddenly heard a tapping on my window. I sat up and reached for the volume knob on my record player to turn it down. I pulled back one of my black curtains just as the window was slid open from the outside. What the hell? As my eyes adjusted to the darkness beyond the window, I saw the small blonde headed figure of Jessica Stanley, Jasper's flavor of the week. She didn't seem to notice that she had the wrong window as she sat herself up on the ledge and swung her legs around to enter the room.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" I asked the intruder as she dusted off her skirt.

She finally looked up at me, startled, when she heard me speak. She quickly looked around the room and registered her surroundings. "Whoops," she said in her annoying breezy Marilyn wannabe voice. "I guess I must've miscounted the windows, I thought this was Jasper's bedroom."

I suppressed an annoyed groan as I rolled my eyes. I didn't like Jessica one iota, but I couldn't very well shove her back out the window either, no matter how much I wanted to. Damn my mother's influence. Jessica was the typical kind of girl I couldn't stand. Physically she was a beautiful girl, but her awareness of this fact was at the core of everything I hated about her and everything that made her hideous in my eyes. Mercifully I didn't have to spend more than a minute alone with her, as I was attempting to find the right words, Jasper burst into the room.

"Hey E, I need a favor--"he stopped midthought when he saw Jessica. The look on his face went from pleading to pensive to smoldering all in the span of two seconds. "Hazel…doll-face, what are you doing in here?"

Jessica's face scrunched, but I had to give her credit, she didn't lose all control at being called the wrong name. "Jasper," she started slowly, "My name is not 'Hazel'." She folded her arms across her ample chest and huffed, waiting for an explanation.

I knew what Jasper's excuse would be, and my suspicions were confirmed when he spoke again. "Of course it's not, doll. But it is the color of those beautiful eyes I keep getting lost in." He cupped her face and tilted it up towards his when he spoke, forcing her eyes to lock with his. It was like watching a magician pull a rabbit out of a hat, and she bought it. Her knees wobbled as if she was about to tip over if it weren't for his hold on her. I seriously feel like vomiting…

"Um, Jazz," I said, alerting him to my presence. "Hazel here mistook my window for yours and intruded into my room. Think maybe you guys can redirect back to yours now?" The last thing in the world I needed was to get kicked out of my own room so Jasper could screw Jessica in my bed. I shuddered at the thought.

Jasper licked his lips and grabbed Jessica by the waist, pulling her back towards the door. "Come on Hazel, we don't want to give Edward here a free show."

"I don't mind if he wants to watch," she said, trying to sound seductive, but instead just sounding ridiculous. How Jasper was able to stick it to her was beyond me. I supposed he possessed an amazing ability to tune her out.

"…um, yeah. As tempting as that offer sounds," I said as sarcastically as possible, "I'd much rather you keep your sordid sex lives to yourselves. I don't particularly fancy seeing either of you naked." I ushered them quickly out my door as I spoke and breathed a sigh of relief once I was able to shut it. I leaned back against it for a moment before turning the lock on the doorknob, and then decided it might be a good safety measure to reshut and lock my window as well, just in case anymore of Jasper's dimwitted playthings decided to stop by.

I turned the volume on the record player back up again, effectively drowning out the sound of the muffled moans that were starting to filter in from the next room. Nice to know he's not wasting any time. It was a good thing that my parents' bedroom was on the opposite side of the house from ours, ensuring not only that we were safe from having to overhear their nighttime activities but that we were also safe from having ours overheard. While I'm sure my folks had had the house built in this floorplan with the assurance of privacy in mind, I doubt they imagined how advantageous it really would be for me and Jasper.

I looked at the clock that hung over my desk. 8:00PM, still early. I didn't have any assignments left to complete for the next day of school, and television wasn't sounding appealing either. As the soft sound of a rhythmic thumping started to disrupt the flow of the records I was listening to, I decided it would be best to escape out of the house for a little bit. I quickly put on my leather jacket, checking to make sure my smokes were still in the pocket, and grabbed my composition notebook off my desk.

That notebook was the key to my sanity. It wasn't a journal or a diary, those descriptions were too restrictive. It was more like a random collection of my thoughts and things that I found inspiring. I didn't like to document things about my life, it seemed trivial to me. Rather, I liked to keep track of lyrics and quotes that triggered a response in me. On occasion I even wrote my own poetry and lyrics. Writing cleared my head and gave me an outlet to get a grip on reality.

I climbed out my window and made my way to my bike, my pride and joy. Most people assumed that Harley Davidsons were the best bikes out there, but they were wrong. To a true connoisseur, Indians were the true leader in the motorcycle market. They made them first, and they made them best in my book. It was too bad the company folded in '53, but I was lucky enough to be able to track down one of the last true Indian Chiefs ever made and fix it up to mint condition. There were a lot of fakes out there, imported from England, fashioned like the originals and stamped with the trademark name, but none like my baby.

I rode out of my neighborhood streets and turned south, heading the direction of South Mountain. The mountain was one of my favorite places, the one undisturbed area of natural beauty in the middle of our ever-expanding metropolis. It was too dark for me to ride the narrow and winding roads all the way to the top, but there were plenty of picnic areas at the base that were deserted after sundown. I liked it that way, empty and secluded.

I parked my bike next to one of the tables when I approached the area, leaving my headlight on to provide myself with the illumination I would need for writing in the darkness. I sat down at the table and pulled out my smokes, notebook, and pen. I lit one cigarette, relishing the delight of the first drag, and took a moment before opening the notebook.

A wave of panic hit me when I started to flip through the pages. What the hell?! SHIT!


BPOV

"What's eatin' you?" my younger sister, Alice, asked me after dinner while we were settling on the sofa to watch I Love Lucy. I looked at her, confused. Alice was only a year younger than me, she was born prematurely. My mother always said it was because she was so eager to enjoy life and it's splendors that she couldn't possibly wait two more months inside the womb, she had to get out immediately. The doctors didn't think she would survive, but she proved them all wrong. A medical miracle, they all called her, but we knew my mother was right. Alice was just eager to enjoy life as soon as possible, and she never stopped. I envied her for that. She was smaller than most other 16 year old girls, but she had spunk, gumption, and strength. She was also extremely sharp, and always seemed to know about something that was happening before it actually happened.

"Huh?" I asked. Her brown eyes were scrutinizing my face, and I had no idea what she was looking for.

"I don't know, you just seem…distracted, I guess," she said, still searching my face for answers. "Something's different. I mean, you're always quiet…but now it seems like…you're actually focusing on something else."

If I was confused before, now I was most definitely lost. "What on earth are you talking about?"

"You're usually quiet because you just don't seem to care much about whatever's going on. Like you're bored," she explained. "But tonight…you seem like you're actually thinking about something."

I rolled my eyes at her remark. "Gee, thanks Alice," I replied sarcastically. "It's so nice to know how you really feel about me."

She shoved my shoulder lightly. "Stop it! You know what I mean," she tried to backtrack. "Something's changed, is all I'm trying to say." She sighed, and turned her focus back to the TV as Lucy and Ethel plotted to steal John Wayne's footprints from Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

I turned my own eyes toward the TV as well. I was finding it hard to believe that mere hours after my chance meeting with the mysterious Edward Cullen any shift in my mentality was noticeable, but Alice did have a tendency to pick up on the tiniest of nuances. I excused myself to go to my room before the show was even over, deciding that I needed to be alone for a while.

I sat down at my desk and turned my focus to my history homework. I flipped my book open to the chapter we were studying on the Civil War, and grabbed my composition notebook for my notes. When I opened the notebook, I quickly realized there was something very wrong. My handwriting was not on the inside of the pages, nor was my history notes. Instead, there were the quick and hurried, yet elegant, scrawlings of a male hand. Oh no. I flipped to the front page of the notebook, and found the inscription: This notebook and all it contains belong to Edward A. Cullen.

A/N: Thanks to everyone who's put the story on alert, favorited me and/or the story, and reviewed. I seriously wasn't expecting that after just one chapter! You make me smile.