My Favorite Accident

Chapter Three: My New Weekend Plans

Chapter Summary: A conclusion to the previous chapter's rehearsal dinner. Bella and Edward are formally introduced, and Rosalie lets out a bit of a bombshell.

BPOV

It took me a moment to assess my current situation. First, I was very much aware that I was in the front seat of my car. My coat was in the restaurant, and my keys were in the purse I had thrown at the passenger seat. Rosalie could give me back my coat tomorrow, I thought to myself as I grabbed my purse and reached blindly for the keys. It would have been so easy to just drive away from this. That way I don't have to face my sister when she makes a formal introduction of Edward, as she had promised me over the phone that afternoon. I wouldn't have to face Edward's reaction to the news that hey, the girl from Starbucks was actually genetically related to his current girlfriend.

No wonder he was interested in me. Apparently Alexa and I actually had something in common.

I had just thrust the keys into its proper place when the passenger door opened and Alice had let herself in.

"Bella," she said cautiously. "Are you okay? Jasper and I saw you storm out."
I laughed bitterly at that. Alice barely knew the guy and already she was referring to them as a single unit. I had actually stormed out of a place instead of simply disappearing into a crowd, which I tended to do. I secretly hoped that nobody else had seen me.

"I'm fine," I lied. "I just remembered I had to do something…at home."
"Something?" Alice echoed. I knew she was digging a hole for me here. I was a horrible liar, and Alice knew that. There was no way I could tell her why I had left. I felt so stupid for thinking about him, for being so giddy at nothing and even for wishing that I would see him again! It all felt so ridiculous now. I had been drawn to a complete stranger. Except now, he's not a stranger anymore. Edward, from being a random guy from the supermarket became Edward, Alexa's boyfriend. All I wanted right now was to go home.

"Yeah, I…I forgot to put the groceries away," I said as I shifted my fingers across the curve of the steering wheel.

"Bel-la," Alice repeated, the same intonation her voice usually took when she wanted me to do something. It was a tone that I had grown to recognize in the years we had known each other. "I know about Edward."
"What?" I asked her and my hand slipped, making the car let out a loud honk. We both jumped a little, and Alice giggled a bit before she turned to me.

"Oh come now Bella. I saw the look on your face when Alexa called him to the stage with her, and that you were talking to him before the speeches. It has to be Edward."
I said nothing as I played with the ruffles on my dress. I was pretending to ignore Alice. She didn't usually have such good perceptions of people, so I assumed that my actions had been incredibly transparent.

"Call me a liar," Alice dared me.

"No," I immediately said. "And you're right. It's Edward. Oh Alice, I didn't know what else to do, I just had to get out of there," I said exasperatedly, not knowing how I would be able to lie to Alice two times in a row. I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream, but I knew that none of that would do me any good. So I was here, in my car, trying desperately to escape the situation. I touched my forehead against the steering wheel, just like I had when I first climbed into the car.

"Okay, It's okay Bella," Alice said soothingly, rubbing gentle circles on my back. "I'll switch places with you so you can tell me everything on the way home."
I looked up at Alice, her warm, buttery gold eyes as sincere as they had been since the day I find out about Mike and Jessica. She had been the first one there for me, letting me bawl it out in her car as she yelled at Mike to stay away. I could still hear her voice yelling at him, 'No, you don't get to be here! No!' So much of this moment reminded me of that scene that was still so fresh in my mind. Alice's sincere smile as she told me that everything was going to be okay, the pain that had exploded in my chest too much for me to handle.

But then my eyes were diverted towards something that was new to the scene. Behind Alice, leaning against the building and looking quite cold, was Jasper. He glanced nervously towards the car, his hands stuffed deep into his pockets for some kind of warmth. Party guests were already leaving the restaurant, but Jasper didn't seem to notice any of them. It didn't take a genius to figure out who Jasper was waiting for. I sighed and looked back at Alice, whose expression did not change as she waited for my answer.

"No, Alice," I managed to say. She drew her hand back as I leaned against my seat. "It's fine. We can stay."

I could swear that a look of relief had crossed Alice's face. Clearly, Rosalie had finally made a real love match. Alice wrapped her arms around me and squeezed me so tightly that I almost lost my breath. Not to say that I hadn't lost my breath because of her hugs before.

"Oh Bella," she said to me. "It'll be okay, you'll see. After the wedding, you won't even have to see him anymore! And…and look on the bright side. It's not like we have to really bond or anything. After this, we'll see him once at the wedding, and that it will be that, right?"

It would have been selfish of me to just have Alice leave without at least giving Jasper a proper goodnight. It would have been selfish of me to simply leave Rosalie's dinner just because of a boy. This wasn't high school anymore, nor was this Bella Swan Post-Mike Newton. I could be civil and mature if I wanted to. Everything, or the lack of anything that happened between Edward and me was far from the relationship Mike and I had.

So why did my chest still hurt as I walked back into the restaurant? There were still a few people who stayed to mingle a bit more. In the center of the room, I saw Edward and Alexa dancing to the jazz music that played over the speakers. She was laughing about something that he'd said, making her lean towards him as he planted a quick kiss on the top of her head.

A waiter with champagne glasses passed my way and I reached out a hand to grab a flute. Just in time, I thought to myself. I was surprised when my fingers only managed to clasp a few strands of Rosalie's silky blonde tresses.

"Bella!" She said to me excitedly, and it was the tone of her voice that made me nervous. She hadn't even said anything yet, and already I wanted to say no. Rosalie pulled my arm as she rattled off on how her cousin's friend was a musician and that he was really excited to meet me.

"And when he mentioned that he liked listening to jazz, it just clicked," Rosalie said, shaking her head in disbelief. "I can't believe I hadn't introduced him to you before!"

"Rose," I groaned. "I really don't want to be meeting guys right now."
"Because of your grocery boy? Oh darling, please! What if Tanya's friend actually turns out to be your grocery boy? Now, wouldn't that be convenient?"
"Surprisingly so," I replied as Rosalie's pull on my arm loosened. "Now James, this is Bella. Bella, this is Tanya's cousin James, the guy I was talking to you about."

We stood in front of a good-looking guy, with an easy smile and…a tattoo on his hand. It was an odd place to have one, especially one of what looked like a lizard of some kind.

"Hi," he said to me, his voice deep and rolling, like waves that were crashing on a shore. He held out his hand to shake mine, and the lizard on his hand seemed to be waving at me as well.

"Hi," I managed to say back, barely noticing his firm grip on my hand. I didn't mind tattoos, really. Some people like getting ink done. It was just that…after I met Edward, and I hated to admit this to myself then, I just didn't seem to notice anyone else. Nobody had me gripped the way he had. I hated that word now, gripped. It ruined any chance of me having a normal conversation with Tanya's friend, who looked really nervous as he saw that I wasn't really paying attention. I smiled at him, and was about to open my mouth to strike an actual awkward conversation when—

"Bellie!" For once, my sister developed perfect timing. I turned around to face her, and noticed that her cheeks were pink from the champagne and strawberries as she came to me. Even drunk, Alexa knew that I was not that much of a hugger. She also knew that I hated being called anything other than Bella. I don't know why she insisted on calling me that stupid nickname. I didn't go around yelling Lexie when I was drunk. Well maybe now I would. You had to understand; my sister had been the farthest thing from my mind before today, and now I was dizzy from the length of time we were actually in the same social circles.

"Alexa," I said, letting my sister drag me away from James as Rosalie practically fumed at me for not even trying to talk to him. "You're drunk."
She laughed at me, waving a hand over to someone to come towards us. I assumed she was calling a waiter over to bring her more champagne, which I was partial for at the moment. "I'm not drunk," Alexa explained, her pink cheeks flushing even more. "I'm nervous. Yes, nervous is the perfect word for what I am right now. Yoo-hoo! Yes, thank you!"

She took two flutes of champagne and, as she had done ever since she first discovered social drinking, popped strawberries into both our glasses, making the drink sweeter than usual. I wasn't too fond of the strawberries, but they certainly added a nice fizz to the drink. Alexa's shiny brown hair fell away from her face as she saw someone approach us. My heart sank the moment her eyes began to sparkle and as a smile spread across her lips. I wanted to choke on a strawberry and die as I saw my sister reach for his pale, smooth hand and clasp it firmly. The worst part was seeing the exact same expression on his face, an expression, it seemed was reserved only for my older sister. He laughed as he took a sip of my sister's drink, looking quite amused as she popped the strawberry into her mouth. After a few moments of watching them, I was about to turn around and leave again when Alexa called me again.

"Bellie, don't go! I really wanted you to meet someone," she said to me. The more she stood next to me, the more I wanted to choke her with her own darn strawberry. Why did he have to fall for her? Before Mike Newton I had one insecurity. Growing up a single child in Arizona with a scatterbrained mother was hard, but was only made worse by my mother's monthly exclamations of my supposed older sister in Washington who was head of the student council, while I was barely standing my social ground. My older sister, who became prom queen before she got a scholarship to Dartmouth while I would much rather spend a day in a library, reading than behind a desk, studying. Any picture I saw of her was like something out of a magazine. Renee was forever upset with how I could never manage to tame my hair. When I moved to Washington, Charlie spoke nothing but goodness about Alexa, even if she had abandoned him the same way Renee had. Now, standing so close to her, all those feelings rushed back, made only worse by the fact that she was holding the hand of the one guy I had felt so intensely connected to.

I decided I would much rather stab her with my own heel.

"Edward, this is my little sister, Isabella. Bella, this is Edward Masen, my boyfriend."

Alexa's words barely registered to me, so I was taken aback by his hand as he held it out for me. I looked up and stared into his intense eyes, the same blue-green eyes that had captured me right away. The same copper hair that I wanted to touch and the same face I had become so familiar with that it scared me. Keeping my eyes on his, I managed to place my hand into his, feeling his grim grip on my hand, my fingers brushing against his palm. The same electricity from this afternoon shot through my body. Although it was familiar, it did not make it any more comfortable.

"It's a pleasure to meet you at last, Bella," his voice spoke, and I didn't recognize his words until they came out. "I see the family resemblance, Alexa."

My eyes widened at him immediately. What was he trying to do? I closed my eyes for a brief second, trying to refocus them before I turned to Edward's face once again. They were intense, but for entirely different reasons. It was like he was begging me to do something. To play along with the fact that he and I had only met for the very first time, right here and now. But why?

"It's…a pleasure to meet you too," I managed to say, pulling my hand away from his immediately.

"I'm so glad you two finally get to know each other," Alexa said with a smile as she leaned against Edward affectionately. Edward's gaze remained firm as he stared at me, the easy smile from earlier now completely gone. He was studying me, trying to determine and predict what I was going to do or say next. Suddenly I felt…offended. Why did he think it would be such a big deal that we had met before? It wasn't as if he had cheated on Alexa. But his eyes…they seemed cold, calculating somehow. I wanted to just open my mouth and scream out the truth.

"Yo, Edward, come here for a second," Emmett yelled over the din of the people that was in between him and us. Edward's face immediately melted into an easy smile, saying a quick 'excuse me' and giving Alexa a kiss on the cheek before going over to see what Emmett wanted. I was furious at him then. Furious for being so casual with me until he learned who my sister was, for thinking that I would be the one to spill his big secret and…maybe I hated him because he had barely smiled at me, not even in the same way he had smiled at Alexa before. As he left, Alexa sighed and giggled.

"I really like him, you know," she said to me.

"I know," I replied immediately, looking around for Alice and wondering where she and Jasper had gone.
"Was it like this when you and Mike were together?" Alexa asked me, and immediately I felt sour bile rise up my throat as I turned to her again. How could she ask me that? After her emotionally abandoning me for most of my life, she's asking me about Mike Newton? Now?

"I cannot believe you asked me that," I said to her as I shook my head. "You're about a year off there, sis."

I let out a frustrated groan and walked away. Behind me, I heard Alexa gasp and follow me outside, her heels clicking exactly on the pavement as I wobbled along. No wonder she caught up with me.
"Bella!" She said to me. "Can we please talk about this like rational adults? I just wanted to know how you were after what happened with Newton."
"Well you have incredibly amazing timing," I said to her sarcastically, biting back my anger before I said something really horrible, or something that would make this into a sister moment. The last thing I ever wanted, and the last thing I needed from Alexa Swan. "And how dare you be so…intrusive! It's not like you were even there when it happened, so just stay out of it. And speaking of being intrusive, when was the last time you talked to Charlie?"

I knew I crossed a line when I said that. Charlie was always her weak spot. As I expected, Alexa fumed, but said nothing as she glared at me, crossing her arms over her chest. We were so busy staring at each other that we didn't notice Jasper coming up behind us until he coughed a little behind Alexa.

"Jas!" She said as she jumped, placing a hand on her chest. "You scared me."

"I wasn't sure how I was gonna break the tension," he said with a shrug. "Did you gals fight or something?"

"We're fine," Alexa snapped immediately, flickering a glance at me as she turned to Jasper again. "What's going on?"

"Rosalie wanted us all inside, she wanted to make an announcement," Jasper explained with another shrug. Alexa nodded and went inside with him while I tagged uselessly behind. Rosalie was at the head of the room, surrounded by Alice, Emmett, Edward and soon enough, Alexa, Jasper and finally myself. She pulled us all into a very awkward circle. I could tell something was up by the smile that was on her face.

"Pack your bags, kids. My parents just told us that they were flying us to the beach house tomorrow for the wedding!" Rosalie exclaimed, clapping her hands excitedly. Alice gasped and squealed in delight beside me as the guys expressed positively towards the news as well. Rosalie was having her wedding at their family home somewhere on the coast. It was supposed to be a beautiful place, and where Rosalie had seen herself getting married since she was a little girl. It was a big deal for her then, that we be the first ones to see the place. I wasn't too sure about how I felt about this. A whole week with Edward?

"Oh don't worry Alexa! I told my mom, and she totally agreed that you should be a bridesmaid too," I heard Rosalie say behind me as she fell into conversation with the guys. I looked around and realized that I was in desperate need to a drink. Alice came to me as I swallowed down a shot of tequila. I needed some form of strength.

"Can you believe it, Bella? A whole week, just us!" She asked me.

"Not really."

End Chapter