Sorry this took so long. I had two major family deaths and things just got really crazy there for a while. I'm sorry for the delay, but here it is! I hope you enjoy!

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I was late getting to lunch at the diner, but Alice was later, which wasn't really a surprise. Spotting Emmett at our usual booth, I haphazardly throw my purse and myself onto the seat opposite him. He already has a cup of coffee waiting for me. He eyes me curiously for a moment. Taking in my wild hair, which is only partially dry, the bags under my eyes from hardly any sleep last night, and my less than appropriate street wear of a baggy sweater and even baggier jeans. I'm sipping my coffee when he suddenly pipes up, "Did you skip out last night to get laid?"

I choke one my coffee, spilling it all over the table.

"Cause if you did, Alice is going to kill you. She was really excited to show off Edward, who is actually pretty cool by the way. He's a landscape architect. I think you would like him, he's cooler than any other looser Alice has hooked up with since Jasper wandered off." Emmett continues to ramble as he helps me clean up my spilled coffee. Our usual waitress brings over another cup for me, I smile at her apologetically because this is certainly not the first time she has done this for our regular Saturday table.

"Emmett!" My raised voice makes him shut up and look at me instead of the mass of soiled paper napkins that now sit at the center of our table. "NO, I didn't leave last night to get laid. I really wasn't feeling well and that glass of whiskey just made me feel worse." I'm stretching the truth, but it doesn't sound false to him. "And besides, I thought you never wanted to hear about your sisters sex lives." He makes a face and I go in for the kill. "But if you've changed your mind I can tell you all about this guy I was with the other night with the most AMAZING fingers." Emmett's face is turning green and he is starting to raise his hands to cover his ears. "He had to be a musician, because honestly, they are the only people on the planet with fingers that long and dexterous."

"Whose fingers are long and dexterous?" I hadn't seen Alice approach the table, and I choke on my coffee once more. I cannot talk about Green Eyes'—Edward's—fingers in front of Alice!

"Oh god, make it stop! I don't want to know about this." Emmett is pleading with us, looking sick to his stomach.

"No Em, I want to hear about Bella's new long fingered man, because she didn't get to hear about Edward last night since she bailed! No, Bella tell us about this musician. I have to agree with you about the fingers, I mean, yeah guitar players fingers are excellent!" Alice is fucking with Emmett too. Once Alice had lost her virginity we made a pact to torture Emmett with our sex-capades. It's pay back for having to hear him have sex with his various high school girlfriends. Every. Weekend.

"Ew, ew ,ew ,ew. Please stop, I'll do anything." Deciding to take pity on Emmett, I turn to Alice and smile apologetically.

"Sorry Alice, I just really didn't feel well. I didn't want to embarrass myself in front of your new boyfriend by throwing up all over mom's tablecloth." Alice's face scrunches up in disgust, if there's one thing Alice can't handle, it's vomit.

"Your not still feeling sick are you?" She asks while shrinking away slightly, her eyes roaming over me as if looking for individual germs on my person. I smile warmly at her neurosis and shake my head no. She releases the breath she was holding and smiles back at me. She pushes on Emmett's arm and slides into the booth next to him.

"So how did it go last night? It seemed like Mom really liked this guy before I left." I get the ball rolling, seeing what kind of information I can get out of Alice about Edward. Even thinking his name is weird. I realize that I kind of miss the anonymity of calling him Green Eyes, before he was jut some guy, not the man Baby Alice is seeing.

"Mom adores him! She just kept gushing over how handsome he is. But Edward's such a great sport that he just laughed it off, not letting her embarrass him. He was a little quiet during dinner, which is a little unusual for him but he was back to being chatty and charming by dessert! He and Emmett and Dad talked about baseball for a little bit while Mom and I chit-chatted about him and…" Alice has run off at the mouth by the time our standing order has come out of the kitchen. I dig into my blueberry pancakes, as Emmett attacks his waffle with grits, bacon, and home fries. Alice is still chattering as she fixes up her ham, cheese, and tomato omelet, covering it in salt, pepper and ketchup. She finally stops talking to take a bite. Emmett grins at me goofily, his cheeks stuffed full with waffle. Some things never change. It stays relatively quiet while we eat, nothing more than the occasional hum of gratification or the scrape of knives cutting through warm, flakey goodness. Alice puts down her fork and looks at Emmett and I with a tight face as I'm taking my last bite of pancake.

"Bell, Em, I—um—I need to tell you guys something. But first, I just don't want you to be mad at me. I wasn't intentionally trying to lie to everyone, but well, it just made Mom so happy, so I just kind of continued on from there. I should have told you a long time ago, but I didn't know how and now I just feel really guilty because I should have told you guys, but you can't tell Mom. Maybe Dad though, as long as he promises not to tell Mom, which he won't because they don't have secrets, so no, don't tell Dad." She's rambling, something that Alice rarely does, go on at length about something yes, but ramble no. Emmett and I share a look, and then he reaches out to touch her shoulder comfortingly. She looks so nervous, fidgeting with the hem of her black t-shirt.

"Alice," Emmett says, "We promise to reserve judgment until you have told us everything. We promise not to be too mad, just go ahead and tell us. It's better to have us know that not know, from there we an decide whether or not to tell Dad and Mom." I nod, agreeing with everything he is saying. I wonder what could have her so tied up in knots?

"Well, um, Edward and I aren't actually dating. He's just my friend. I asked him to pretend and he said yes, because he's a good guy and…" I feel like my world has just fallen out from underneath my feet, again. They're not together?! THANK FUCK! "He's only the second person I've asked to do this, but Mom just misses all of us so much, so I wanted to give her a reason to have us all over. I remembered how much she liked it when I brought my boyfriends over and when Emmett brought girlfriends over before he and Rose got together, and I just wanted her to be able to see all of use together at one time that wasn't a holiday because Dad says she gets lonely without us running around the house. I just don't want her to be lonely when we're all so close. Please don't hate me, I just wanted to make Mom happy." She's looking at us with pleading eyes, begging us to understand that she was doing it for Mom. She did it for Mom? She's done it before? Fuck.

"Everyone knows I'm waiting for Jasper to come back home," she continues quietly. "But I'm not going to sit around and pine until he comes back to Seattle. I'm young and have so much to experience. No one else will have my heart, but I'm not going to be a nun, while he's probably sleeping with a bunch of beautiful European girls. I miss him, but I can't stop my life while he's gone. Most of the guys I have brought over before were guys I had gone on a few dates with. I told them that family is really important to me, which it is, and that I wanted them to meet my family early on. Bella, you actually made it pretty easy for me to send them packing quickly," she says smiling sadly at me. "You're kind of hard to swallow when people first meet you and saying that you didn't like them for whatever reason allowed me to let them down easily. I told them I took your opinion very seriously and if you didn't like them, then they had to go."

Emmett and I are staring, gape mouthed at her. It's all been a lie? They've all been a lie? Shit… Emmett clears his throat and arranges his face into his stern, disapproving face. "Alice, you shouldn't have lied to us about that. We all know you're waiting for Jasper's dumbass to come back to the States and I'm sure Bella agrees with me that we appreciate what you were doing for Mom, but there was definitely a better way to handle this. You could have just told us and all three of us could have decided something." I'm looking down at my hands, lacing and re-lacing my fingers as Emmett speaks his wise words. All I can think is that I didn't actually sleep with my sister's boyfriend.

"I thought about talking to you guys, but I knew Bella would complain and whine about it and Emmett, you were too busy with Rose being pregnant and keeping the shop running when she went on bed rest really early. This was the only thing I could think of. Please don't be mad, I just wanted us to have some solid family time now that we're all grown up."

"We're not really mad Alice, " I say, "Surprised certainly. But why did you keep it up for so long? You could have told us, and I wouldn't have whined." I shoot her the evil eye for that one. She looks down, obviously feeling bad. I move to grab one of her hands, which has left the hem of her shirt to pick at her nail polish. She looks up when I touch her hand. "We forgive you, but next time you better tell us." An angelic smile breaks out across her narrow features and grin back in return. Emmett adds his large hand to the pile, but then slings his arm around Alice's shoulder and gives her a noogie with the other, completely messing up her hair and causing her to slap at his hands to make him quit. We laugh quietly, the good mood returning to our table.

"Yeah, Alice please stop bringing around fake boyfriends. It's sweet that you were trying to keep Mom occupied, but I think Bella was gonna drink herself into a coma if you brought another one around." Emmett laughs poking fun at me. I scowl at him.

"I wasn't going to drink myself into a coma, I was just going to buy stock in Jack Daniel's." They both laugh at my reply. I stick my tongue out at both of them.

Emmett jokes good-naturedly with Alice while I continue to sip my coffee and pick the cantaloupe out of my fruit bowl. Nasty fucking melon. Looking at them I realize that I should probably come clean as well. Explain why I left so suddenly last night. It's only fair seeing as Alice chose to tell the truth. Fuck…

"Well in the spirit of truth sharing, I have something to say as well," I interrupt them. "This however, does not leave this table, while we will be telling Mom and Dad about the fake boyfriend brigade." I eye Alice and she nods, before cupping her face in her hands and looking at me expectantly and eagerly. I blow out a breath and decide to just get it over with quickly, like ripping off a Band-Aid. "I wasn't really sick when I left last night. You see, I kind of already know Edward and I freaked out when I saw him. Well saying I know him isn't really right, we uh, we've had sex, uh, twice." Their eyes are getting wider and their mouths are dropping further open. As their faces continue to expand, I sink further into my seat. "I didn't know his name, I just ran into him a few times at Wolfe's. And I kind of lost it when I thought I had had sex with my sister's boyfriend while they were together. So I lost it and tried to leave without him seeing me, but I tripped and he saw me. He looked so shocked, almost terrified and I just had to get out of there. Uh, yeah. That's about it. Sorry I lied."

They keep gaping at me long after I've finished rambling. I've sunk about as far as I can in my booth seat. All of the sudden, Alice's shocked visage cracks slightly around her mouth, a snort hiking her shoulders up. Then she looses, laughing hysterically at me. Emmett follows shortly after, guffawing loudly and shaking the table with the exuberance of his laughter.

"This isn't fucking funny guys. I was really freaking out! I thought this asshole was cheating on my sister and y'all are just laughing at me?!" They start laughing harder, Alice slapping her had repeatedly on the linoleum covered tabletop. They finally pull themselves together, while my ire reaches a new height. How the fuck can they think this is funny?

"Fuck Bella," Emmett says while wiping his eyes. "This shit would only happen to you. Wait 'til I tell Rose, she's not gonna fuckin' believe it!"

Please review. Due to how tardy this post was I'm going to try and post another chapter this week as well as an EPOV. Thank you for sticking with me. And again, please review. I give teasers!

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