Disclaimer: Twilight and it's related characters do not belong to me. They are owned by Stephenie Meyer.

Wanderer, stranger in the night. Come closer my sweet, but you will not entice me.

The drive home was a lot slower. I paced myself so that I would arrive around the time that I would on any given work day. I figured that by now the two lovebirds would have composed themselves in the expectation that I was due home any time, and I was grateful to find them sitting on the couch when I walked through the door. My relief surpassed the normal twinge that I would experience whenever I saw them enveloped in each other's arms as they were now. Affectionate gestures like that always made me feel horrible inside, and opened up the pit where my heart once was even further. I nodded to them both as a 'hello' motion and set off toward my bedroom. My eyes swept the room when I opened the door, looking for any indication of change, a routine that I had yet to grow out of. Nothing seemed out of place. The bed was still made and unused, with the rumpled bedspread cast across it. The dresser was closed, the bookcase untouched, and the nightstand still bare with the lamp and glass of water. I trundled over to the bed, and sat on the end, kicking my shoes off in the process. I felt no comfort here, or anywhere really, but this was my place of solitude at the very least. I ran my hands lightly across the edge of the doona cover and stared at the bookcase. In a sad attempt to escape from my world, my own mental anguish, I had taken to reading a lot, allowing myself to become engrossed in other people, places and times. It was somewhat disturbing when I habitually tended to go for books with violent characters, but I figured that was my way of letting my own frustrations out. I read several stories at once, both new and previously read ones, and each night I would choose one based on my mood. Sometimes my mood would be so bad that a book would never suffice, and I would just lay awake the entire night. Not wanting tonight to be one of those nights, I studiously analysed my collection, willing myself to find something that would engross me for a few hours at the very least. I felt myself being drawn to a favourite story, a crime-thriller novel which had particularly graphic death scenes in it. I wasn't a sadist, that kind of stuff didn't get me off, I always rooted for the good guy. I guess I just felt better reading about someone performing those actions, better them than me. Because I never would do anything like that, no matter how badly tempted I was, it just wasn't in my nature. I stopped moving my hands along the comforter and peered at my watch. It was a little after six, too early to begin reading. As if on cue, my stomach rumbled and I remembered that I hadn't eaten since breakfast. My lunch sat uneaten on my desk at work. Conceding that I should probably eat something, I left for the kitchen. There was no dinner made, not that I had expected Emmett or Rose to have time to make anything seeing as they were most likely occupied in other ways all day. I was tastefully bad myself at cooking, so I avoided it at all costs. Dinner became a ham and cheese sandwich, washed down with a beer. Not entirely gratifying, but enough to satiate the hunger. As I was finishing up and clearing the bench, Emmett walked into the kitchen.

"Hey buddy," he said as he came over and placed a large bowl in the sink. "How was today?"

I knew what he meant by the question, it was not something he asked me on a regular basis. He wanted to know if today was a bad day for me, because today marked the first anniversary of my divorce. As much as I held affection for my brother, and appreciated his hospitality immeasurably, he just wasn't the person that I could talk to about my pathetic feelings.

"Fine," I answered bluntly. "Although it seems that you had an even better day." I raised my eyebrows knowingly at him, telling him that I knew he had been here for the entire day.

He grinned at me when he caught my drift, "Well, sometimes it's healthy to take a sick day."

I smirked in spite of myself and told him he was a sappy loser. It was impossible to insult Emmett, snide comments rolled off his back like they were drops of summer rain.

A knock at the door caught both of our attention, though neither of us moved figuring that Rose would find out who it was. It marked a serious point in their relationship that he was comfortable enough to have her answer the door to his house. I tried not to feel envious. There was a muffled conversation, and then Jasper's voice came floating into the house. Shit. There goes my quiet night. I eyed him as he walked into the kitchen, wondering what the hell he was doing here. He caught my gaze and shook his head minutely. He wasn't going to answer me with Emmett here. I watched as he strode over to Emmett and did one of those handshake manoeuvres before turning his attention to me.

"You didn't reply to my email," He said shortly, settling onto the barstool on the far side of the counter.

"I thought that was answer enough." I threw back.

Emmett, realising the tension between us, smartly left the room.

"You can be such a pitiful dick sometimes, you know that right Edward?" His voice was scathing.

"And you can be a downright pain in my arse." His comment hit me a bit harder than it was intended. "What are you doing here anyway?"

"I thought it was obvious." He stated incredulously.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "I am not going to some idiotic work party of yours Jasper, and especially not because you need someone there talk you up. You have work friends, use them."

"Man you can be stupid sometimes." He stated with a hollow laugh. "That's not the main reason I invited you. Honestly I don't think I need to be talked up because that fine woman seems keen already. I mostly asked you so that you could get out of this fucking house for once." I rolled my eyes at him.

"Don't even think of giving me some crap excuse Edward. You and I both know what today is, and we both know how miserable you've been for the past year and a half. I've accepted it up until this point, hoping you'd get over it, but instead you wallow here in pity. Grow some balls man. Get on with your life! Get out there!"

I snorted. "Jasper, do you honestly think that any woman would want to take me while I'm in this sort of state."

"I'm not talking about finding another woman. I'm talking about doing something better than sitting here every damn night." He was almost yelling at me.

I looked at him straight for a second. "What the hell brought this on?"

"Seriously? I've been meaning to say something to you for a while now. I guess I was kind of avoiding all of that serious talk shit. So are you going to come out willingly, or am I going to have to drag your arse out of here."

"I'm not going Jasper." I said, folding my arms.

"Quit being such a righteous prick and go and put some decent clothes on. You're a fucking mess man." He said, indicating my scruffy appearance.

"Give me one damn good reason why I should."

"Because she moved on and so should you." He spoke the words as quietly as he could.

I shoved myself away from the sink and slammed my hands down on the bench in front of Jasper, my face inches away from his.

"That's because she fucking moved on while we were still together." I spat out, anger rising in my chest. I was close to punching him, but I stopped myself knowing that my fury was misdirected.

I stood there, staring at him, waiting for him to say something else, but he just stared straight back at me. A minute passed and he still said nothing, so I pushed myself off the bench and blew out an irritated sigh. When he saw that I was calming down, he spoke.

"I'll be outside waiting in the car. Be there in ten minutes." He gave me a final glance that told me he wasn't taking 'no' for answer and stepped out of the kitchen.

The anger was still lingering inside of me as I moved to my room, with the urge to clobber something remaining as well. I knew Jasper was only trying to help, but I was in that mindset where I didn't want to be helped. He was right. I was pitiful. I had allowed myself to feel this pain for too long. I just didn't know how to go about this any other way. No one was able to tell me what was and wasn't an appropriate reaction to this, or how I was supposed to behave. I initially contemplated going out there and fucking any woman that threw herself at me, that was the normal male approach to any relationship breakdown. For some reason I couldn't though. Whenever I considered it, I was reminded of her and the shit she put me through. Fucking Tanya.

Knowing I had only a couple of minutes left before Jasper drove off, I resigned myself to finding something to wear. I grabbed the first thing I found, a black t-shirt and jeans, and threw it on. I didn't bother doing anything else, it would have been a pointless effort anyhow. Jasper already had the engine running when I finally made it to the car.

"About fucking time!" He spoke with a tone which showed he was glad I had decided to come.

"Had to beautify myself," I said. I silently thanked him for not being overly princessy about my decision.

***

We got there forty-five minutes later, with Jasper stating that we had left too early and he needed a feed. Apparently the food at these get-togethers left something to be desired, so we went on a take-out run. The venue was some shabby pub which looked slightly run down and was called Seaside. A thoroughly stupid name considering we were miles from the ocean. It seems that Jasper's employers scrimped just as much as mine did. He had informed me that this was for some long-term employee's retirement, and I commented on how much he must have meant to the company if this is where they were holding an event to commemorate his time there.

I took in the pub's furnishings as I entered; fishing netting hung from the ceiling, and pictures of boats were slung over the walls everywhere, leaving only room for fake portholes which served to show the wooden boards behind them. Everything in the place was wooden, from the bar, to the tables, chairs and floors. I chortled to myself, thinking about how many splinters you could get from a place like this.

The pub was filled with people already, and I wondered how many, if any, were people not here for the party. I noticed a few lonesome men down the far end of the bar, who looked like they had been dragged through hell and back and figured they could probably count as the regulars. I cringed thinking how easily that could become me. We walked up to the bar to get drinks first, while Jasper chatted to some work friends of his. He didn't bother introducing them to me, which suited me fine. No point in faking niceties. Just because I came out didn't mean I had to be Mary Sunshine about it. After a few minutes Jasper turned his attention back to me and indicated that we should take a seat.

"She's not here yet," he announced when we sat down. I knew instantly that he was talking about the girl that he had come here for.

"What's her name anyway?" I asked in an effort to keep the conversation going.

"Alice," he stated grinning. "Short as man, but she's fucking hot. Intelligent too, she's put me in my place a couple of times. "

I shook my head at him. If he ever got with this girl I could see him becoming as much of a pansy as Emmett. There was a glint in his eye which told me that indicated that he felt more than lust for this girl. He made a couple more comments, mainly about her breasts and arse in an outfit that she had been wearing today, which he hoped she'd still be wearing. I was interested to meet her, if only to assess if she was precisely all that he was making her out to be. We moved onto other topics, discussing work and the miserable weather we had been having. When I had drained my glass of beer, I stood up to get another for both of us. By the time I got back to the table, there were two girls there. There was a girl sitting close to Jasper with raven hair which was so short it was borderline boyish. She had a petite frame and an impish face. By the way that she was leaning towards him, head down with a hand on his shoulder, this had to be Alice. She was attractive but not particularly the type of girl I would consider. I noted that she wasn't wearing a cleavage bearing shirt and wondered if Jasper was disappointed. The other girl occupied the chair next to mine. She had long chocolate brown hair which cascaded over her shoulders, but her face was turned away from mine, so I was unable to make any further assessments on her.

I coughed as I sat down, scraping the chair outwards slightly, and away from the brunette next to me. Jasper, who had been engrossed in a conversation with Alice, turned his head towards me as I set his beer down in front of him. He smirked at me as if he had been caught doing something he shouldn't, and cleared his throat.

"Hey thanks man. Edward I'd like you to meet Alice, Alice this is my buddy Edward," he said, gesturing with his hand between us.

Alice's eyes looked me over, seemingly gauging my appearance. I couldn't tell if she was appalled or not. She finally cracked a smile and offered me a hand to shake. I took it and shook it lightly before allowing it to fall and took a gulp of my drink. She then indicated towards the girl next to me.

"Edward, this is my friend Bella."

'Bella' slowly turned her head towards mine and gave a weak smile. My eyes widened slightly at the sight of her. She was quite attractive, with large brown eyes and red pouty lips.

"Hi." The word stumbled out of my mouth as I quickly swallowed my mouthful of beer and tried not to choke.

"Hi," she responded softly, while giving me a slightly mystified look. She appeared to be just about as happy to be here as I did, and I figured that Alice had probably dragged her along for the same reason that I had been. Neither of the girls had drinks. I considered if Jasper would offer to buy Alice one, and possibly her friend too. I just hoped that he wouldn't expect me to do another bar run.

With the introductions now over, Jasper and Alice turned back to their conversation. I tried to tune out their ramblings about work. Every now and then the sound level of their exchange would drop, and I could see them sharing flirtatious glances. Bella didn't talk at all. She had an aura of shyness about her. I was tempted to say something to her, just so that she wouldn't seem so bored, but after such a long time of not talking to people except out of necessity, I couldn't think of anything to say. So we both sat there, trying not to look at the two people in front of us. I gazed around the room, watching people laughing and chatting to one another, while I played with my half-empty glass. I was quickly regretting coming out. There was nothing to really hold my attention here, and my mind kept wandering to thoughts that I had been trying to avoid since I got home. It wouldn't be particularly good to get irate, or even emotional, in a room full of strangers. When Alice started running her hands through Jasper's hair, I got the sudden urge to leave the table. This was becoming far too uncomfortable for my liking. First Emmett, now Jasper, throwing this type of behaviour in my face. I tried to put it down to the meaning of the day for me, but I wasn't really sure that I could tolerate watching people act like this at all anymore. I practically guzzled the rest of my beer and got up from my chair. Jasper gave me a slightly worried look, but I brushed him off with the wave of my hand, took my jacket which I had slung on the back of my chair when we had first sat down and made a beeline for the door.

The front doors just about opened onto a street. Not wanting to stand there to be watched by passers by in cars, I walked around the corner to face the parking lot instead. I fished through my jacket pockets for my packet of cigarettes and lighter. I wasn't really much of a smoker. It was just another thing that I did to fill the time, and it was something else for me to focus on. There was no breeze now as there had been earlier, just a dead chill in the air, so I had no trouble lighting one up. I took a deep draw and leant my head back onto the wall, closing my eyes, thinking about how long I could stay out here without Jasper noticing. I figured that I could stay here the whole night and he wouldn't notice. I heard scuffling noises to the side of me, so I opened my eyes to see who was heading in my direction. It was hard to see, with only the faint glow of a few incandescent bulbs attached to the alcove roof and the burning of my cigarette to cast light onto the path. Whoever it was had their eyes cast downward and probably hadn't seen me. When they moved under the next light, I noticed that it was Alice's friend. I stood up a little straighter, still looking in her direction. The noise finally alerted her that someone else was there, blocking her pathway. She glanced up, her eyes wider than what they had been inside, and stopped. She stood fast for a moment while I continued to stare at her, and then mumbled 'sorry' and made to turn around and walk back to where she came from. It took me a moment to register what she was doing, so I reacted a little slowly.

I took another draw on my cigarette and called out to her, "You can stay here, I don't mind." I frowned slightly at the honesty in my voice. "I mean you don't have to go back inside to that charade."

She turned a little back towards me, eyeing me apprehensively.

"I won't bite, I promise." I continued.

She seemed to be mentally deliberating the situation, chewing on her bottom lip. Then she turned herself completely towards me and shuffled back, stopping a few metres before she reached me. I averted my gaze towards the black landscape in front of me, trying to not make her feel any more uncomfortable than she already looked. We stood there quietly, with only the sounds of the night and me smoking my cigarette to accompany us. When I took the last puff, I dropped it to the ground and buried it underneath my foot to extinguish the flame. I felt her eyes on me, so I turned to find her scrutinising me disapprovingly.

"I'll pick it up when I leave," I said, anticipating what she was thinking, and her face relaxed a little in response.

I leaned against the wall once more, taking in deep breaths of the ice cold air. It burned my lungs more than the smoke had. My fingers became twitchy since I no longer had something I could occupy them with, so I began to tap them against the wall. Her head turned towards me once more, and I met her eyes. There was something in them, like she was trying to figure me out. I almost snorted. She would have one bitch of a task on her hands if she tried to do that.

"Do you do this often?" She asked me curiously.

"Do what?" I answered.

"Escape from crowds like this?" Her eyes danced a little in the light, but gave no meaning to the question.

"Sometimes," I said after a moment, and turned my head away letting the conversation fall.

An owl hooted in the distance, and cars splashed by on the road adjacent to us, the only sounds to break the silence, until she spoke again.

"I do too." Her voice was soft, almost as hushed as it had been when she said 'hi'. "I find it easier to not be around people. Most are so fake."

I peered at her quizzically. Why was she telling me this? I merely nodded, not knowing what to say. She let out a sigh at my non-responsiveness.

"People project who they think everyone else wants to see," I said thoughtfully, trying to meet the effort that she was making. "We are who society dictates us to be."

She smiled a little at my words. "That's true." Her expression changed to one of analysis again as she surveyed my face.

"You're quite true in your projection." She stated.

"Excuse me?" I said as I furrowed my brow. The words came out a little angrier than I had intended them to be.

She winced a little, "I just meant that you don't seem to hold yourself back as much."

I scoffed at her statement. "You know this from the thirty seconds of dialogue that we have exchanged?" I said challengingly.

Her eyes narrowed a little, and I could tell she was still assessing me. "I watched you inside a little. I get feelings about people, and usually I'm dead on."

"Lucky you." I didn't feel like continuing this conversation, so I attempted to change its direction. "So why are you here tonight?"

"Isn't it obvious," she said scathingly, "it's the same reason you are." She had noticed that too.

I had to laugh at the flash of anger that I saw in her eyes. At least someone else held the same amount of enthusiasm that I did, and I told her so.

I watched as she chewed at her lip again. "Maybe they thought they could set us up?" She questioned.

This time my laughter was loud and rambunctious. "I hardly think so Bella," I said, addressing her by name for the first time. "Jasper isn't that much of an idiot."

She appeared a little stung by my words, so I moved to clarify somewhat. "If Jasper tried to set me up on a date, it would fail no matter who it was."

She nodded, and appeared to accept my declaration. "I'm sure Alice would know better too." I was curious as to what she meant by that, but I allowed the moment to pass without questioning her further.

With a last look over her body in the dim light, I made a motion to leave. "Well I guess I'd better head back inside and see if I can find Jasper."

I began to walk, thinking she would likely do the same, but she didn't move. As I tried to move past her she reached out a hand to stop me and I felt a small electric charge when her skin touched mine. I glanced down at her hand and then back up to her face; her expression indicated that she had felt it too. I held my attention to her, my face a mask of minor aggravation and curiosity, waiting for her to say something.

"Your cigarette butt," she said pointedly, indicating towards the ground where I had left my trash.

I flashed my eyes towards the butt, and walked back to grab it. I watched her, amused, as I started walking once more. This time she turned and started walking before I reached her. When we reached the bright lights just outside the front door, I had the chance to fully appreciate her feminine figure. She had nice hips, slightly hidden by her jacket, and a diminutive arse. She was quite attractive by the standards of a lot of the women I knew. She hesitated by the door, waiting until I had caught up, her gaze meeting mine as ambled towards her. Her cheeks began to turn red, and I wasn't sure if it was from the tiny breeze that had began to blow, or whether she had caught me admiring her body. I felt like telling her it didn't matter if I found her attractive, I wouldn't consider doing anything that could even indicate a relationship; that was my honest truth.

I reached out to the door handle before she could, and gestured her inside. Part of me acknowledged how this might appear to an onlooker, with her blush and my tousled hair, just because that's how it was, and I laughed to myself as the noise and ambience of the pub washed over me once more. Considering how much laughter I had emitted tonight, I figured it hadn't been so bad after all.

A/N: Please review, I like knowing what you like/dislike about the story. It fuels my fire to continue writing. :)