Wow, so since the people who have reviewed have been unbelievably kind so far and I had a second, shorter topic waiting in the wings, I thought I'd get this up for all you lovelies who have taken the time to follow, favourite and review. Thank you so much for the support. Hope you enjoy. Title of this chapter credited to Katy Perry - Fingerprints

Voted most likely to end up on the back of a milk box drink, looks like I'm letting them down…

EPOV

The next day I was frogmarched to the gym by Carlisle. That's a pretty humiliating experience for anyone, but for a twenty-five year old man, it's even worse. I was told to apologise to Bella Swan, when he 'reintroduced' myself and my brother to her.

It was a Saturday, and so Charlie was there already, reading through a fax whilst holding a cinnamon bun in his hand. It smelled delicious, and my stomach rumbled at the memory of the pancakes I had been about to indulge in when I had been dragged outside by my ear.

"Old man Cullen!" Charlie greeted my dad affectionately, and again, my stomach twisted at the neighbourly tone to his voice. There was no hang back there. No moment needed to assess my dad's character.

"Charlie, how are things?" My dad launched into a conversation about Esmé's most recent art show, and the new collection she was working on. He always spoke about my mom with a quiet kind of reverence, and even though he was nothing to be shy about professionally, he always built her up on some pedestal. It was endearing, to be perfectly honest.

I tuned out of the conversation until my brother nudged my elbow and leaned down to whisper in my ear.

"Holy shit, Bella got hot."

"Emmett, she's like…18. Don't be so inappropriate."

But I followed his gaze anyway. In the office, I could see her more clearly than I had been able to out in the gym itself. Bella was standing behind the desk, checking something on the computer screen. She had on one of those crop top things that girls wear to stop their assets doing all manner of distracting things whilst exercising and soft grey yoga pants. I could see the soft tone of her abdominal muscles, the slim but healthy line of her legs inside of the pants. Her face was devoid of make-up and her hair was piled up on top of her head in some shiny, floppy mess that somehow looked appealing – Wait. What the fuck? Bella did get hot.

Her sharp little white teeth were tearing apart a cinnamon bun, leaving flakes of pastry all over her sugared lips and I stared like a starving man, unusually transfixed on the pointed pink tongue that slipped out to sweep in the stray crumbs.

She looked up so suddenly that I was caught off guard. My focus was shifted from almost obscenely pink lips to her almond shaped eyes and their fringing of dark lashes. And the dark eyebrow that quirked atop them.

I had been caught flat out molesting her with my eyes, and in a superbly well thought out reflex, I scowled and looked away. She looked enraged again.

"So, Bella's back Chief?"

BPOV

I checked the bank balance on the screen in front of me, synonymously impressed with the earnings my dad was maintaining, and the homemade cinnamon bun that was deliriously good with freshly brewed coffee. I knew half of it was all over my face, but my dad had seen me eat like a pre-pubescent male many a time.

I was halfway through my morning pastry when I realised I wasn't alone. I had that uncomfortable, prickling feeling that you get when someone's staring at you, and I was ninety nine per cent sure that my dad knew what I looked like without minutely analysing me.

No, this stare was different. It made me ache a little. It was a searing. As if someone was mentally taking me apart and putting me back together again. I glanced up from the screen to catch none other than Edward Cullen eyeballing me. What an asshole. He comes back into the gym, the very gym where he'd insulted me just yesterday and tries to stare me out through a window. Looking me up and down like I'm a piece of dirt on the bottom of his shoe. Mature, Cullen. Very mature.

"Bella, get on out here and say hallo to Carlisle and his boys."

I sighed. At least the burly one looked friendly, which was ironic considering he was built like a grizzly bear.

I dusted the remnants of my snack off my shirt and took the box; it was only polite to offer them around and visualise Edward biting into his to find some of my saliva that would probably disgust him so much. Maybe just a picture of my face would do, come to think of it.

I emerged from the office smiling, and brandished the box at Carlisle.

"I come baring gifts." I hated myself for how cheesy I sounded. I hated myself more for being so hyper aware of not wanting to sound like an utter girl in front of this overgrown, sullen teenager.

"Most kind of you Bella, they smell delicious." Carlisle spoke like an Amish man most of the time, but you couldn't help but forgive him when he was just so frustratingly…nice.

"I believe you met one of my sons yesterday, and although I'm sure he was altogether the charming and polite man I raised him to be, I thought we'd do it again just in case."

I almost choked my cinnamon bun back up. Polite and charming were not two words I would associate with this asshole. Still, I humoured him.

"This is Emmett." Emmett held his hand out and his eyes crinkled with his smile, and for a second I was blown away by how genuine this guy was. He took the cinnamon treat readily and scarfed it down so quickly I offered him another out of guilt. He patted his stomach satisfactorily and exclaimed that they were like heaven in a pastry.

I blushed, and I felt Cullen's eyes hone in on my face again. I thought the tips of my ears were going to burn off they were so red.

"And this is Edward."

I kept my eyes to the floor as I fished out a cinnamon roll. I did not want to shake hands with this guy, so I brandished the sweet snack as a peace flag and hoped that he would take it as a truce. I did not want a verbal spat in front of our parents.

He chewed on the inside of his lip in contemplation and I honed in on the bob of his Adam's apple. My original evaluation of him had been severely underrated. He was, in actual fact, the perfect amalgamation of Esmé and Carlisle; two exceedingly good looking people. He was in jeans and a button down today; a moss green colour that brought out the shade of his eyes exactly. His face was harsh planes and angles but for his pursed lips and the shadow of his impossibly long eyelashes over the cheekbones you could slice a salami off. The fine stubble that coated his chin and cheeks was the same gorgeous bronze colour as his hair, which looked feather soft to the touch. I met his gaze shakily, aware that I had completely perused his physical profile, window shopping my way from his head to his toes. I arranged my face into a neutral expression, and the tension was palpable. It was an armistice, and the silence felt like it stretched into forever.

And then his hand stretched between us, spanning the chasm.

And if I thought his gaze had been unsettling, if I had been uncomfortable in his harsh manner, then it was nothing to what I felt at the slight brush of his fingertips against my skin. He was cool, a balm against my flushed hand. And even though it was such a feather-light caress it was practically imagined, it was like someone had injected me with fireworks. They sparked through my blood and he lingered there for longer than was necessary before yanking his hand away, holding the sticky pastry. He cast his eyes to the floor again, muttering a shaky 'thank you'. His father looked pleasantly awkward, and I just wanted the ground to open up and swallow me.

There were two things I knew about Edward Cullen.

The first was that he irritated to me to the emotional equivalent of sandpaper irritation of the eyeballs.

The second was that with one hooded emerald gaze as he left the gym, he could almost make me flood my panties.

I want you to remember me, I'm leaving my fingerprints on you.