Chapter Four

Looking at the incredibly handsome man standing in my bedroom, I immediately blushed when I realized that I was dressed in only a tank top and a thong. Granted, my outfit was okay when I was lounging around with my roommates, but NOT okay when you add my new crush into the mix.

New crush or old crush? Same difference.

Throwing myself on my bed and wrapping myself in my comforter, I successfully covered myself. Once my body was covered, my embarrassment waned and made way for another emotion...anger.

Rosalie caught on to my change in mood and smirked. "Whoa, Bella...you sure are red right now," Rosalie said, eyeing Edward.

I crossed my arms over my chest and looked right at Edward, willing his eyes to look at my face. "Yes, well...I wouldn't be so red had we not gotten abruptly interrupted while I am in my underwear by someone who does not have a standing invitation to visit our apartment whenever he pleases. Which begs me to ask, what are you doing here Edward?"

He ran his hand through his hair nervously and smiled his darn half smile at me. Wow, that boy has charm just dripping off him, even at this early in the morning. How is that even possible?

Oh my GOD, I hope that my puffy cheeks and red eyes don't give away the fact that I had just been crying. Edward has the worst timing in the history of the world.

Edward shifted uncomfortably under my stare. "Well, I realized that it has been a long time since any of us have really hung out with each other. Being that I have committed to helping you all out, basically making it so much of my free time will either be with or around you ladies, I thought that I would 'break the ice' if you will. I brought you all breakfast."

Alice's face lit up. "Breakfast?! If I wasn't with Jasper, I would kiss you Edward!" Alice squealed, skipping out of my bedroom.

Edward smiled and turned to follow her. "I'm glad you have Jasper Alice; because beyond the obvious, I wouldn't be prepared for you to kiss me," he said, turning to wink at me before disappearing into the hallway.

Why would he wink at me? That just seemed so odd of an action, especially for Edward. Sighing at my friend's exuberance towards food, I rolled out of bed, dropped my comforter on the floor, and walked to my dresser to get out a pair of yoga pants.

"Hey Bella, are you coming?"

I turned to see Edward, standing in my bedroom again. Looking at me in my underwear, again.

"EDWARD!" I screamed, feeling my face warm up. "This is highly inappropriate! Will you please give me a few minutes to put some clothes on?" A torrent of emotions ran through my body at that moment. I was mad that he felt it was okay to walk into my room whenever he felt like it, embarrassed that he had seen me in my underwear for the second time that day, and...happy...that he felt the need to come back and make sure that I was joining him.

What is going on with me? Happy? REALLY, Bella?

He coughed, clearing his throat. His face tilted down towards his feet and I watched him shift from one foot to the next. "Oh, I am sorry Bella. If it makes you feel any better, I, um…didn't see anything."

I shot a look over to him. He looked sincere. Maybe he didn't see my in all of my glory as he said. However that didn't change the fact that I was still standing in front of him, holding my pants in front of my body to cover my underwear. What. The. Fuck.

I was gong to wait until Edward left my room to finish getting dressed, but he didn't seem to want to budge- he just stood there with the most peculiar look on his face as he studied my bedroom. Trying my best to not expose myself in any way, I pulled my pants up and looked at Edward again. While I had been dressing, he had been walking around my room and was drawn to my south wall where I had picture frames hung up.

Incredibly, Edward was smiling as he looked at a picture of me, Alice and Rosalie that we had taken last year at our favorite restaurant. We had just gotten done with school and had a particularly hard day that day, so we decided to "kick off our shoes" and go out for a margarita. Or two, or three. By the time this picture had been taken, all three of us were four drinks in and had totally forgotten all of our troubles. Emmett and Jasper had joined us for the sole purpose of taking care of us, for we had gotten to the point of impaired judgment- we decided to call the boys when Alice threw salt at Rosalie and screamed, "body shot!"

The boys made us pose for the picture, sure that they were going to get a show in front of the camera. Instead, what they got were three best friends hugging each other with all of their might with the biggest smiles plastered across their faces. To be truthful, that picture is one of my favorites that I have ever taken because the look on all of our faces is that of pure happiness.

"This is a really nice picture of you guys. You are all so very beautiful," Edward said, nodding his head towards the picture I had just reminisced about.

"Yeah, Rosalie and Alice are gorgeous. I am quite lucky to have them as friends," I said, turning my back to the pictures on my wall and looking Edward straight in the eye.

Edward's brow furrowed as he took in my statement. "You don't see yourself very clearly, do you Bella?"

"I don't know what you are talking about..."

I didn't get to finish my thought, because I was interrupted by my best friend who came bounding into my room.

"Bella! Edward! Come on, the food is getting cold!" Alice yelled, obviously with a mouth full of food.

"She's right; the point of me bringing you guys breakfast is for you to eat it. Come on, after you," Edward said, as he motioned with his hands my bedroom doorway.

Walking out of my room, I caught a glance of Edward looking at me. And smiling.

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I have to admit that breakfast was delicious. Of course, it didn't hurt that Edward sat right across from me with an insanely sexy grin plastered across his face during the entirety of the meal. I spent the entire time wondering what it was that had him grinning like a madman.

While I was cleaning of from breakfast, my cell phone rang. Running to my bedroom to grab it, I noticed that it was Jake calling. He was supposed to be at work, why was he calling me?

"Hello?"

"Hey Bella, I only have a minute. Can I ask you a quick question?"

"Yes, Jake. What is it?" I was slightly annoyed because I hate when people ask if they can ask a question. It's terribly redundant.

"Will you have dinner with me on Saturday? I want to do something special for you."

I bit my lip in contemplation. Saturday, huh? I guess that will be as good a time as any to have the "relationship talk" with Jake. It's not as if I wanted to hurry into hurting his feelings and possibly jeopardizing our friendship, but I had to do something before it was "too late," as Alice put it.

"Uh, I guess that's fine Jake. There is something that I want to talk about with you anyways." I said in what I can only imagine was a hollow tone. Crap, I hope that didn't sound too standoffish or rude.

"Sounds great Bella! Hey, can you do me a favor and put Alice on the phone?"

"What? Why do you need to talk to Alice?" I said, raising my voice.

"I just do. Could you please put her on?"

I walked up to Alice, interrupting a conversation that she was having with Rosalie about the pros and cons of wearing gauchos in the rain. An incredibly important conversation, I'm sure. Motioning for her, I handed her my phone.

I walked away from Alice, not wanting to know why my future ex-boyfriend found it necessary to talk to my best friend. I walked into the kitchen again to finish doing the dishes when I felt someone walk up behind me and grab my waist. This action startled me, and caused me to drop the dish that I was currently washing. The dish tumbled to the floor, shattering into a million pieces, missing my bare feet by mere millimeters.

"What the f? You just caused me to break one of my favorite dishes! You are totally paying for this…"

I turned around, expecting to see Rosalie. Or Alice. Or some random person who had decided to walk into my apartment uninvited. Anyone but who I saw.

"Edward, why are you holding me like that?"

I was beyond confused. In all the years that I had known Edward, he had never held on to me like that. Come to think of it, he has been acting pretty strange lately…

"Bella, here's your phone back. Listen, we have to talk; something's going on and I don't like the feelings that I am having here," Alice said with a pout displayed across her lips.

"Um, Alice- can we talk about this later?"

"No Bella, we have to talk about it now. It's about this Saturday."

Alice grabbed my wrist and let me into the living room, away from the watchful eye of Edward.

Alice stopped and turned to me, taking a deep breath. "Bella, Jake asked me to go buy you a really nice dress for your date this weekend. Something is fishy; you need to break up with him soon if you are going to do it before things get too complicated. That man has something up his sleeve."

I felt myself cringe and my hands balled up into fists as my jaw tensed. "Damn it, I knew it. I wish that he knew me a little better to know that I hate surprises. I just want to scream right now!"

"Bella, are you okay? Ali, what's going on?" Rosalie said, getting up from the couch.

I looked at my concerned friend and tried to straighten out the frown that was prominently displayed on my face. "Yeah, I am fine. I just am a little stressed out at the moment, you know? As if I need all of this crap piled up on me this week, of all weeks! I just can't wait until rush is over…then I can focus on how I am going to break up with my boyfriend. Then I can worry about initiation! Can someone please remind me why I decided to run for the vice president position?" I said exasperatingly.

"Stop over thinking all of this. Everything will be fine, I promise you," Rosalie said, brushing a piece of my hair behind my ear.

I walked back into the kitchen to see that Edward had already cleaned up the broken glass from the plate that I so carelessly had dropped on the floor. My heart warmed at the sight, and I felt a small smile tug at the corners of my lips.

"Thank you Edward. You really didn't have to clean that up for me. It's my fault that I am so darn clumsy."

"Not a problem, Bella. Besides, it's my fault that you dropped it anyways. And can't a pledge do something nice for their VP?" he said with a panty-dropping smile.

Oooh…panties. Damnit Bella, get your head out of the gutter. This is your pledge, remember? PLEDGE.

I scoffed at his remark, quickly shaking away the images of underwear from my mind. "You really are serious about all of this, aren't you?"

"Yes, of course I am. Why wouldn't I be?" Edward said, crossing his arms.

"Well, this is all quite peculiar if you ask me. Actually, why a man would want to join a sorority is beyond me. Not that I am complaining, though, because without you our chapter would be history."

"Oh Bella, I have my reasons. Trust me." Edward said, smirking again.

"Which are…?"

"I don't know if I am comfortable at this moment talking about it."

Studying his face, I realized that he was serious. I wasn't about to push his buttons because I had been having a wonderful time with him this morning. Or afternoon. Oh crap, what time is it? Looking at the clock, I realized that I had less than an hour before I was supposed to be in class.

I inwardly frowned at the time, knowing that I had to get ready…which meant saying goodbye to Edward. "Edward, you are quite lucky that I have to get ready for class right now. Don't think that I let you off easy though; one of my first activities for your pledge class is for all of you to go around in a circle, introduce yourself, and tell everyone why you are joining the sorority. I'm not going to lie…I am quite excited to hear your answer."

I gave Edward a coy smile and turned on my heels to walk to my bedroom to get ready. Before I left the room, I called out to Edward.

"Hey Edward? Thank you for the breakfast! You are very quickly becoming my favorite pledge." I said with a smile. Oh, if he only KNEW.

"You are very welcome Bella. Anything for you."

I walked away, pleased with the amount of time that I was able to spend with Edward today and sad that I wasn't able to see him more than I already had. I think that I am going to enjoy my time as VP more than I really should…of course that had everything in the world to do with a certain bronze haired boy.

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Walking to class, I started getting anxious about my date with Jacob this Saturday. Surrounded by my friends and thoughts of Edward, it had been easy to decide to break up with my boyfriend. Now that I was alone with my thoughts, however; it was much more difficult to convince myself that I was doing the right thing.

Would I be breaking Jacob? My heart told me that I would be. What kind of friend was I to think that this would be okay to do to him?

Would a lifetime with Jacob really be that bad? I am sure that I could, in time, learn to love him as he loved me. But not the way I love Edward, I thought to myself.

What the hell am I thinking? I don't love Edward, I hardly know him!

Ah, I am so pathetic. I haven't seen Edward in almost a year and my mind is already betraying me. It's thoughts like that which are going to get me in trouble.

Reaching my classroom, I grabbed a seat in the back of the auditorium and sat down. Grabbing out my notebook, I opened it up and started doodling as I waited for class to start.

My concentration completely on my doodles, I was utterly unaware of the fact that someone had walked up and sat down right next to me.

"Wow. Fancy seeing you here. Are you stalking me?"

I looked up and met Edward's green eyes with mine. My stomach immediately filled with butterflies. "Excuse me, Mr. Cullen, but it seems to me that I was here first."

"Touché," he said with his beautifully gorgeous sexy grin. It seems as though there were not enough words to describe how attractive his smirk is.

"Okay, but really what are you doing here? I would think that I would have noticed you in this class before," I said, closing my notebook and devoting my attention to the beautiful man in front of me.

"Well Bella, it's not my fault that you are exceptionally unobservant; I have been in this class for as long as you have. But you see, I usually sit in the back of the class and you usually linger closer to the front, so we haven't crossed paths yet in the classroom," Edward said with a smirk.

Damn him. "You are saying that you have seen me in this class and never said 'hi' to me? Why?"

He was about to answer me when the professor walked into the room, waving his hand and demanding silence. Edward smiled at me again and pointed to the professor, shrugging. He was using the professor's presence to the fullest of his advantage.

I was starting to get sick of the amount of times Edward had been saved by minor interruptions. I was going to get my answers from him eventually, whether he liked it or not.