Okay, the moment you've all been waiting for, the explanation...
Nicole and Twilightzoner--God Bless You.
Twilight isn't mine damnit.
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I stood up and pulled my hood over my head. At this point it seemed like the right thing to do. I chuckled to myself as I did a gangsta lean all the way to the door. Okay, maybe I was still pretty drunk.
I opened the door, and there he was in all his glory. He was still wearing the same clothes from earlier today, but he could have worn them to a ball and wouldn't seem a bit out of place. He looked concerned—but sexy.
"Hey you," he said, tugging on my hoodie string. "Are you all right?" Damn him and his cuteness.
"Yeah, I'm cool. Haven't you ever been insanely and embarrassingly intoxicated before?" I asked as I shoved my hands in my front pocket.
He chuckled and ran his hand through his hair. "Of course I have, and I know how much it sucks coming down." He smiled that amazing smile at me. Guh, he was a panty dropper and he knew it. "So why don't you let me in," he said, holding up the bag. "I brought reinforcements."
I opened the door wider and stepped aside as he came in. He smelled amazing. It was like vanilla, fresh laundry, and tobacco all rolled together. Mmmm, delish.
We made our way to the couch where Jake was sitting. Internally, I begged him not to embarrass me.
"Jake this is Edward, Edward, this is Jake, my best friend," I said quickly.
Jake stood up and shook his hand. "It's nice to meet you Edward," he said with a wink. "I have heard so much about you."
Edward looked up at him and smiled politely. "It's nice to meet you too. I haven't heard much about you, I'm afraid to say."
Jacob looked at me, pretending to be hurt. "Bella, I am absolutely shocked. Why don't you tell everyone you meet about your sexy best friend? Especially ones that are this good looking…hmm," Jacob said, looking Edward up and down.
Edward chuckled nervously. "Uh…thanks," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets.
Now I was laughing at the both of them and the weirdness of this whole situation. We sat and made small talk for a bit, until I saw headlights pull into my driveway.
"Hmm speaking of sexy," Jacob said deeply as he stood. "I'm going to have to bail darlings, my ride is here."
"No you don't Jacob Black," I growled, grabbing his shoulder. "You promised me I get to meet him, so you just sit your happy ass back down!"
I heard Edward chuckle as I went to answer the door.
"Hi, you must be Sam," I said, shaking his hand. "My name is Bella; it's great to finally meet you."
"Hello there, gorgeous," Sam replied playfully. "It's great to meet you; Jakie here just never shuts up about you."
Jake walked up and started tickling me. "See! That's how a real best friend acts, bitch."
Sam looked over our heads eagerly, obviously noticing the liquor bottles. "Are you all havin' a party?"
"Nope," I said, popping the 'p'. "Just me, Jake, and that's Edward. He's come to save me from my drunken self."
I indicated to Sam that he should come inside and then introduced him to Edward.
"Nice work, honey," Sam whispered to me as he appraised Edward, shaking his hand.
I smiled and shook my head. If only it were so easy.
I gave Jake a glare that he obviously understood as they said their goodbyes and headed for the door.
Watching them walk away, hand in hand, I couldn't help but feel overwhelmingly happy for Jake. It was good to finally see him in a relationship.
"Bye Jakie, love you," I laughed as I blew him a kiss.
He pretended to catch the kiss and then 'threw' one back. "Oh quit it! You forget that it's impossible to embarrass me. I'll see you tomorrow when I pick up my car." I stood there on the stoop as he waved until they drove away.
I turned back and headed inside, letting out a heavy sigh. Here we were. Alone. In my house. I'd actually fantasized about this situation several times, but always under very different circumstances.
I sat next to him and took another deep breath.
"Are you feeling any better?" he asked quietly. I noticed the way his left knee was bouncing up and down at a very fast pace and couldn't help but wonder if he was as nervous as I was.
I felt a little better knowing that this wasn't the ideal situation for him either. "Yeah, actually I'm feeling pretty good," I told him. I peeked over at the package he brought and curiosity won out. "So what's in the bag?"
He picked it up and started taking things out one by one. "Let's see, I've got some Pepto, Advil, Fiji water, Tenacious D, they always make me feel better…"
I interrupted him. "Hold it, you like Tenacious D?!"
"Yeah," he answered sheepishly. "I'm sorry if they offend you, I know they're vulgar."
"I love Tenacious D," I said quietly. I couldn't help looking in his eyes.
He sighed. "God, do we have to have everything in common? Isn't this hard enough already?" He pinched the bridge of his nose and I looked at the floor.
"I'm sorry Bella." He sighed in frustration. "I'm not here to make you feel worse, I'm being a dick."
I looked up at him. "You aren't making me feel worse," I said simply. "You're making me feel wonderful, but I guess in a way that is worse," I chuckled sadly and a shiver ran through me.
He noticed and grabbed the blanket hanging off the couch. He brought it towards me tentatively and I nodded a bit before he wrapped me in it. He picked up a bottle of water from the bag on the floor, offering it to me. I leaned over and pulled it slowly from his hands before taking a sip.
"Are you comfortable?" he asked sweetly.
I nodded.
"Should we talk about this now or are you not feeling up to it?" he asked quietly.
I thought a moment and replied, "Well, I think we need to talk, because I'm really confused. So let's start with the facts."
"The facts," he stated. "Okay, well, for starters, I really like you. I haven't been able to stop thinking about you since the first moment I met you. Your face pops into my mind and I get butterflies in my stomach. I've even been listening to sappy music—I feel like I'm turning into a chick!"
I smiled at him. "Here's another fact. You have a girlfriend."
With those four words, his face fell, the same way it did that night at the bar. It hurt to see it. I'd do anything to make it go away. As bad as I felt for him, I had to remember that none of this was my fault.
"Another fact? I can't stop thinking about you either. And I have never felt like this before," I said shyly.
He grabbed my hand. "Bella, can I please tell you about my situation with Tanya? It won't make things better, and it won't excuse what I've done, but it might help you understand a little better."
Reluctantly I pulled my hand away from his and said, "I'm listening." I had to make some attempt at detaching myself from this situation. I just knew it could only end badly.
He crossed his legs underneath him and continued. "A few months ago, I started dating Tanya, just casually. After a few dates I realized there really wasn't any chemistry there, and was planning on breaking it off with her. She must have sensed it was coming, because something always seemed to come up. There was a wedding she needed a date for, or a date night with a group of friends that she couldn't possibly attend alone. I tried to be reasonable with it. I mean, at the time, I didn't really see any harm. There was no one else in my life, and what was another week or two? If I would have known you were going to walk into my life, there would be no question what I would have done."
He smiled sadly as he softly brushed my cheek with the back of his hand.
"So anyway," he continued, "I kept going to these things with her but finally decided I would let her know that I just wanted to be friends. I went over to her apartment, but when I got there she was crying, rather hysterically. It turned out her mother had died in a car accident." His voice got a little bit quieter. "She was very close to her mother, and understandably upset. So what was I supposed to do? I just couldn't bring myself to dump her when she got news like that. So I stayed with her, through the funeral, and a few weeks after that, without bringing it up."
"Once she started feeling better, I decided to let her know that I didn't want to date her anymore, but I would be there for her as a friend, and I would help her get through her mother's death any way I could." His face tensed up before he continued. "Well, she absolutely freaked out. She just started screaming, not crying, but screaming at the top of her lungs. She started throwing things, threatening to kill herself, just spazzing the fuck out. The first time I tried to break it off was a couple of months ago. And every time I have tried since then, she's thrown the same tantrum. I mean, if I broke up with her and she was to hurt herself…If that was something that I caused, I don't know how I could live with that." His voice broke on his last word, and he shook his head in disbelief.
I took a moment to let all that sink in. He was absolutely right. I tried to think about what I would do in his situation, and it would probably be the same thing. "Wow, I don't know what to say." My voice was meek. He gave me an honest and raw explanation and I really didn't see how he could do anything differently at that point.
"Don't you see, Bella? I'm backed into a corner. Ever since last Friday, all I can think about is what I would do if I weren't in this situation. Where we would go on our first date, all the fascinating things I would learn about you. How I'd be able to look into those gorgeous brown eyes without feeling guilty about it. Letting myself really comprehend the way you make me feel instead of suppressing it." The pain in his face was clear, and it caused an ache in my chest.
I started rubbing his back. I just wanted to make his sadness go away. "This is going to sound horrible, but do you think she's using her pain as an excuse to keep you from leaving?"
"Honestly, yeah I do. Usually she is really positive and feeling okay about everything but the second I start to pull away, it's like a switch is flipped. But how can I accuse someone of that who just lost her mother? There's just no easy way to handle this."
"You're right," I said with a sigh, "I have no idea what I would do in your situation. Have you talked to your siblings about this?"
"Well none of them have met Tanya, so the only ones I've really discussed it with are Alice and Jasper," he said. "They don't really know what advice to give me either. But I have told Alice about my feelings for you, and that made her bounce up and down like a pixie all hyped up on sugar." He smiled sincerely as I laughed. I could just imagine Alice's reaction to that bit of information.
"She promised me she'd try to think of a solution for me," he said when we'd gone silent. "A solution for us."
I furrowed my eyebrows, trying to wrap my head around all of this. He cautiously raised his thumb and reached over to smooth the spot between my eyebrows.
"Of course, I could be getting ahead of myself," he whispered. "I don't even technically know if you're interested in me."
I ran my hand through his hair, something I had been dying to do since the moment I laid eyes on him. "I'm interested," I whispered back.
We smiled at each other for a moment, and finally I broke the silence.
"Okay, so there's nothing we can do about this right now," I said matter-of-factly, "which means we're going to have to compromise."
"I can do compromise," he said firmly. "What did you have in mind?"
I looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. "Friends," I said, sharper than intended. "We'll have to be friends. We can't do anything more than what friends would do, because you can't cheat, even if you aren't happy," I stated, trying to convince us both, I think.
"Bella," he said with a smirk, "surely you've heard of friends with benefits." He was joking, but he had a smoldering look in his eye. I reminded myself how to breathe before smacking him playfully. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding," he chuckled, somewhat darkly. "I doubt my conscience would allow me anything such as that."
"You're hilarious Uncle E," I laughed nervously. "So during our 'friendship'," I said, using air quotes, "hopefully we will have some time to figure out your next step." I got serious before I went on to my next point. "And I really would rather not know what you two do," I said with a slight wince. "I don't think I could handle that."
He got a very serious look on his face as he took my hand. "No Bella, I'm going to tell you. I think I have to. I was with her a couple times, in the early stages of our relationship but, I haven't done a thing with her since, and I don't plan on it. She tries to jump me," he said, lightening his tone, "but I give her the ol' face palm and she backs off."
I couldn't help but giggle. "Well who could blame a girl, I mean really, have you looked in the mirror lately?"
"Ms. Swan," he said, looking up at me through his long eyelashes, "is that the way you would talk to a platonic friend?"
My heart was racing. "Uh, I suppose not. I might need some reminding from time to time."
He put his hand on my cheek. "We'll help each other through this. The road might be a little rocky, but I think things are going to work out, don't you?"
I yawned and smiled at him sleepily. "I do."
"You're tired," he said. "Here, you lie back and I'll put a movie in."
He put Tenacious D in the DVD player and came back to the couch, piling all the pillows against his side. I curled up against him and we started to watch the movie.
The last thing I remember saying is "You're my little baby sass." And the last thing I remember hearing is Edward chuckling at me.
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So there we have it.....let me know what you think about the situation, I'd love to hear your feedback via reviews. Questions/Comments? Don't be afraid to ask! :D love you guys. hard.
Oh and if you've never listened to Tenacious D, you should remedy that, cuz they are top quality entertainment. If you don't recognize the baby sass reference, check out this little slice of awesome....... http://www(dot)youtube(dot)com/watch?v=nKOucA27K-g
