The Twilight Twenty-Five

thetwilight25 dot com

Prompt: # 11

Pen Name: junejulyautumn

Pairing/Character(s):

Rating: T

Word Count: 495

That day we drove to the beach. Capital f Fun. Way too fast - amazing we didn't crash or get pulled over by cops or just take off airborne as if that long straight road was a runway.

Everyone says you shouldn't put any part of your body out of the window of a moving car and that's so nothing gets cut off. But you can only get bits of you cut off if there's something there besides air, right? I stuck my hand out to feel the breeze and that was so good the rest of my arm followed on and then fuck, my whole head was out too and I was loving the feeling.

Lee-lee, driving, squealed with delight at her first glimpse of the ocean, but you should have seen the state of the windscreen - dirt and dust and squashed bugs on it. The ocean was way clearer to me than her.

And then Lee-lee nearly swerved all the way off the fuckin asphalt. A hitchhiker, one o'clock and moving into the future - a moment later he was at two and we were closer.

"Are we gonna stop?" she yelled to us. She couldn't see as well as I could.

"You bet," I yelled back, despite our car already being full, because he was gorgeous.

Three o'clock and we braked next to him and I bet even through bugshit he was still gorgeous.

"Need a lift?" Lee-lee simpered.

"Thanks," was his easy smiling answer and I wriggled over as close to Chelse as I could without sitting on top of her while our new passenger swung himself in alongside me. It was half an hour to the beach, and half an hour of a rock-hard thigh pressed against my leg, and of having the breath squashed out of me by broad shoulders and an arm that felt like granite.

"I'm not crushing you am I?" he asked.

"No, I'm fine," I croaked, because, really, go ahead. Crush me.

And he smelled intoxicating. Like, good clean sweat and man and heat. Five females in a confined space with that smell - ten ovaries sat bolt upright and started to yodel.

He was given an inquisition he obviously enjoyed, laughing at our giggly attention which was probably the sort of thing he was used to. He wasn't shy and he didn't get uncomfortable.

"Edward. Chicago, just moved here. Architect. Intern. Supposed to be meeting my cousin but I guess we got our wires crossed and didn't quite connect. I figure he's already at the beach and I'll find him. Hey - you might know him. Peter Randall?"

"Pete said his cousin's name is Cullen," Jane said, from the front seat.

"That would be me, Edward Cullen, sitting right here," Edward answered.

"We're meeting up with Pete and some mates for a bonfire," Chelse said.

"Excellent," Edward grinned.

He glanced at me, then glanced away, but I thought I saw something. A flicker?

Capital e Excellent.