Author disclaims: STILL not mine.
Author says: I won't make excuses, but I got a job recently! It's been a while since I was properly employed full time with working hours and everything, so my life has kinda been in a weird transitory stage. This chapter, being a weird transitory chapter, just compounded and got more and more difficult to write. And without my awesome beta (I love saying that!) Rae, and a defining WC with littleclarestar, it just wouldn't have happened. Thanks, carinos. You both rock, and everyone should go read their stories. Now.
So enough of my rambling. On with the actual story part!
"It would eventually be his wife that would save him from the dark infinite void he was tumbling towards, and his wife who would finally make him realize that even he could not do it alone."
-Edward Masen; "The Insipid Doctor"
Chapter the Seventh – Someone Who Should Know Better Than That
"I just don't know why you wouldn't have told us sooner," Alice complained, dropping her napkin and reaching for her third or fourth glass of wine.
I sighed with infinite patience, picking up my wine and exchanging glances with Rosalie, who seemed desperate to fight laughter. "It's nothing to do with you, Alice. It wasn't mine to tell is all."
"I can't believe you've known for so long and just… neglected to tell me. I'm so mad at you!" She emphasized this by slamming her almost empty glass back on the table, spilling a little over her wrist.
Rosalie giggled, shaking her head and lifted her own wine glass. "I think congratulations are in order," she sighed, beaming proudly at me. You would have thought I'd been the one to achieve something.
"To Edward, and his brilliant new book," I responded, raising my glass. Alice rolled her eyes, but she couldn't completely hide the smile as she clinked her refilled glass with us.
###
August 21
"You're… what?"
He sighed, tugging on his earlobe a little, then scratched his scalp, avoiding my gaze. "I'm writing a second book."
My mind spun. "What's it about?"
He smiled a little, seeming almost reluctant, looking at me finally out of the corner of his eye. "Can't tell you."
I found myself smiling, despite myself, so elated my heart was hammering wildly with unbridled excitement at the possibilities. "Oh my God."
He shrugged, blushing lightly. "It's no big deal."
"No big deal? This is a huge deal! This could be the biggest literary deal since… since…" I floundered, looking for an appropriate example, and couldn't find one. "This is to books as Einstein was to science."
He chuckled. "I'd like to think I'm better looking than Einstein," he joked. I pinched his arm and he yelped, looking at me with an incredulous expression. "What the hell, Swan?"
"Oh my God! Oh my God, this is huge!"
"You pinched me!"
I threw off the covers, stumbling out of bed and ran to my schedule. Karen Millen slacks. Escada shirt. Dolce shawl. Perfect.
"What are you doing?"
"Getting dressed," I sighed, exasperated. "This could turn everything around! The Swan Ball could be the venue for your huge announcement, which of course won't mean much if we don't get a teaser campaign going, and we hardly have any time. I mean, forget Dan Brown, we got Edward Masen."
"My huge announcement?"
I stopped suddenly, pulled up short by the thick dread in his voice. His face was drawn with worry and a little bit of remorse. "You mean-"
"Listen, maybe this was a mistake." He stood up suddenly, scratching his scalp some more and looking around the room with frantic eyes. "Alice sent me here to cheer you up, and you're out of bed, so I guess-"
We stood in awkward silence, both of us still as stone, the awareness heavy in the air that the next move could have drastic far-reaching consequences. "You don't want to… announce it?"
He snorted a little, shrugging one shoulder. "No one knows. Not even Jasper."
"Oh." Moving slowly, I sat down on the arm chair near the closet. "So it's a secret."
"Sort of."
The silence extended, and I realized he was still standing awkwardly next to my bed. I felt ashamed suddenly, realizing how inappropriately I'd been behaving all day, the horrible assumption I'd made and the liberties I'd taken. "I'm so sorry." He looked at me, his expression somewhat surprised, and I blushed and looked away. "I shouldn't have jumped to any conclusions. Of course, you shouldn't be expected to put yourself out there for my sake. Whatever your reasons, you should have all the time you need."
"It's not like that," he muttered, sitting carefully back on the bed. "I mean, I want to help you. I'm just not ready to talk about the book yet."
I nodded. "I understand." I didn't understand.
There was an extended silence, and I desperately wanted to crawl back under the covers and send him away, and I was out of German chocolate and I wanted more, because the heavy situation I was in wasn't going to disappear through some magically convenient coincidence. This wasn't a book. This was my life.
There was no machine of the gods.
"Isabella, I'm sorry I can't help you with this." His voice was strangely heavy, with guilt I realized, and I shrugged.
"It's my responsibility. I'm the one who failed."
Failure…
"You haven't failed," he sounded annoyed. "You just hit a rough spot. It happens to all of us."
"Maybe." I didn't feel much like arguing.
He stood silently for all of ten seconds before sighing dramatically. I looked up at him, waiting for him to excuse himself because I was certain he had better things to do with his day than babysit a mess like me. "You need to get out of here." I frowned. Not what I was expecting him to say. "You're wallowing, and you shouldn't be allowed to wallow for more than a few hours. So come on, get dressed. Let's go get some burgers or something."
"You're not serious."
"As a Pulitzer."
I stood up, enraged by his infuriating calm. "How is getting a burger going to help me, or the Swan Ball, or-" Charlie. I clenched my jaw and swallowed thickly. Isabella Swan does not cry.
"Hey, relax. I could've suggested a roll in the hay. We are in a bedroom, after all." He smirked, and I glared at him, clenching my fist. His expression shifted and hardened, and the seriousness of his eyes shocked me a little. "Look, you gotta take care of yourself if you're gonna take care of all your problems. You're Isabella fucking Swan. You handle big shit like this. So just get it together and do it." I blinked, shocked by the seriousness of his tone and his lack of inhibitions in bossing me around. No one bosses Isabella Swan around. At least, no one had, not in years. And yet, there was a strange sense of comfort in allowing someone else to make the decisions for once, in surrendering this small part of myself to another person's decisions rather than constantly having to make my own. The comfort was only compounded by the fact that it was him making the decision, that it was him that was taking the lead. I liked it. For some reason the realization made me blush, but Edward seemed not to notice as he went on. "I'm gonna help you get it together – it's all I can do, because I can't do Dan Brown Swan Ball stuff."
Of course, he was right. I hung my head in shame. I needed to deal with things.
"Get dressed. I'll meet you in the living room."
He left quietly, allowing me my privacy to change and get my head together. With what little bit of determination left in my bones, I dragged myself off the chair and went to my closet. Rows and rows of stunning, expensive formal wear lined my closet, suits and dresses from every designer known – and some less known that would make a name for themselves when I wore them. In the very back, where they were neglected and forgotten, I had a pair of designer jeans and some fancy pullovers and less-dressy but overly pricey shirts. I went there now, pulling out the first thing I touched and changing quickly. I ran a brush through my hair, promising myself to get some coffee and fast, before my caffeine headache threatened to return me to my bed for the rest of the day.
Edward, as he said he would be, was standing in my living room, staring at the photos on my wall. "You've met a lot of people, he said without looking at me, and I glanced at the photos to see which might have caught his eye. Of course, they were all impressive, though not as impressive as the photos I kept in my office. These were slightly more sentimental. And all of them, dead authors.
"This one's my favorite," I murmured, standing beside him and touching one of the sterling silver ornate frames. "It was just a few months before his suicide. I never understood why an author like David Foster Wallace would want to kill himself."
"I can understand." I looked at him warily, and his expression was intent, resigned, almost ancient in its wisdom. I wondered if I should have been troubled by the morbidity of his statement, but it didn't feel like a warning sign; just a simple a truth.
"I feel like he spoke a language I couldn't hear." I looked at the picture again. "But I think you speak that language, too. He was just so… young."
He nodded, his lips turning up in a sad smile. "He was too young, wasn't he?"
"They were all too young if you ask me." I tore my eyes away from the picture and ran them over the rest. JG Ballard. Robert Jordan. Michael Crichton. Frank McCourt. That one had hit me particularly hard.
"Or too old depending on how you see it."
I didn't understand, but I nodded, allowing the moment to take its course. The loss of every one of those authors was personal to me in a way I could never fully explain. He turned to look at me after a moment when I said nothing, smiling a little and raising his eyebrows in surprised appreciation. "Look at you all dressed down and casual."
I rolled my eyes, but felt myself coloring slightly at his apparent approval. "I dress like this sometimes."
Liar. I had to take the tags off the jeans. He smirked like he knew this, but said nothing else. Instead, tilted his head towards the door as I picked up my purse and my phones. "No phones," he interjected, and I laughed outright. He frowned. "You can't relax with Alice constantly leaving you panicked voicemail messages."
He was right, but- "I never leave my phones. What if there's an emergency?"
He threw his head back and laughed. I blushed as I realized why he was laughing. I'd been avoiding calls all morning. There were probably tons of emergencies, and I wasn't even responding. Having my phone with me would only remind me of that, and leave me feeling constantly tense. He gestured to the door, and I followed him with my head down, annoyed at my apparent stupidity today. We rode down the elevator in silence, though he hummed at random tidbits with the skull-numbing Kenny G renditions of all my favorite classics.
In the lobby, he took long confident strides towards the street. I frowned, trying to keep up. "Are we taking your car?"
"I figured we'd walk."
I frowned again, opening my mouth to argue when he chuckled, the now-familiar sound of velvet being stretched over silk was oddly distracting. "What's so funny?" I asked, with none of the sting I had initially intended.
"I'm just glad to see you've rediscovered your crass rudeness."
"Rudeness?" I bit back the rest of my retort, realizing I was on the cusp of proving him right, and I would not stand for that. "I think of it as a charming straight-forwardness."
"I'm sure you do, Isabella, and I assure you you're wrong. It isn't charming at all."
He chuckled some more as I flushed, battling the urge to turn on him and give him a piece of my mind. We wandered, seemingly aimless for a while, before he finally steered me into a diner, looking very pleased with himself. I smiled a little at the atmosphere, so reminiscent of the diner Charlie used to like, then bit my lip to hide a grimace of pain at the thought of Charlie. I looked up to see Edward staring intently at me, and I quickly looked away and made a beeline for an empty booth.
I sat down heavily, hiding my face behind the menu and not really seeing the words. A waitress came by a few minutes later, snapping her gum and shifting her weight from one foot to the other while we ordered. She looked bored and slightly offended by me, especially when I ordered nothing but a coffee. We sat in awkward tension, and I stared at the plastic tabletop, tracing the colorful spiral patterns with the tips of my fingers and wondering how dirty they probably were.
"Isabella," he murmured quietly, his hand suddenly covering my own to still it, startling me into jumping slightly. "It's going to be okay."
I snorted without thinking, dumping packets of artificial sweetener into my coffee. "I'm sure. After all, if you say it will be, why on earth wouldn't it be?" I stirred the sugar in, getting angrier at him by the moment. "You sit there with your perfectly fulfilling job, with your name in history books and a second book in the making, with women falling into your bed at a crook of your finger, what do you know about it?"
I glared at him, clenching my hands into fists. He looked right back, a strange expression on his face, before finally retracting his hand and putting it in his lap. "Tell me how your father died."
What?
I stared at him, dumbstruck, but he held my gaze. I swallowed thickly, looking away. "He got shot."
"Why?"
"A teenager under the influence of a recreational drug of some sort. Paranoid. Jumpy. He shot his friend, and Charlie was the first cop on the scene. He was trying to talk him into putting the gun down when the boy put a bullet in his brain."
His eyes showed a measure of pain and sympathy, and I stared at my hands on the table so I wouldn't have to see it. I didn't want Edward Cullen's sympathy. "I'm very sorry." I nodded to let him know I'd heard him, but said nothing. "Your mother must have been devastated."
I ground my teeth. She should have been devastated. But when had Renee ever done anything she was supposed to do?
"Is she still…?" He trailed off delicately and I composed my features the best I could.
"She's alive. She lives with her husband in Jacksonville."
He stared at me a moment longer, before speaking. "She's a pretty shitty mother, isn't she?"
Then just like that, something inside me snapped. Maybe it was hearing it for the first time, finally someone had come out and said it - recognized it. Maybe it hit me so hard because he knew and he'd never even met her, or been there through anything. Maybe because I finally realized I was losing Charlie this time, and she still wasn't there - for me or for him. Or maybe because that the stupid floozy was running around the Southern US, playing infidel wife to the nobody she chose over her daughter. Perhaps, it was due to the fact things had gotten so bad and I had been just as stupid, blind and ridiculous as her.
He frowned, leaning forward and brushing my cheek. "Don't cry."
Which of course only made me want to cry harder. I hunched my shoulders forward, sniffling. "I'm not crying."
"Of course you're not," he soothed, and I swatted his hand away impatiently, picking up a napkin and hiding my face behind it.
"I don't need your pity!"
I heard him tap his fingers against the table, a disjointed nervous rhythm. "Come on, let's get out of here," he mumbled, standing up and pulling out his wallet. I watched him warily as he pulled out some crumpled bills and tossed them on the table. He saw me looking and scratched his scalp some more, looking away. But I saw thunder in his eyes. He was angry.
I stood up stiffly, picking up my purse and walking hurriedly ahead of him. "If anyone should be angry it's me," I growled, and he scoffed behind me, stopping abruptly when we were outside.
"Why on Earth would you be angry?"
"You come into my home, invade my privacy and push at matters you know nothing about. How dare you presume to speak about my personal life?"
He put on an infuriating smirk. "Don't you mean the lack thereof?"
I gaped, my mouth opening and closing like a fish, and briefly debated assaulting him with my purse. "My personal life is none of your business!" I screeched indignantly, and he raised his eyebrows with amusement though his eyes were raging.
"So what, I'm just the stupid bastard you kiss whenever you damn well feel like it?"
That pulled me up short, and I fidgeted, uncomfortable with his directness. He sighed, frustrated, then carefully put his hands on my shoulders, almost as if he were afraid I would resist his touch. The electric current I had come to expect was there, heightening my senses. When one of his hands reached up to cup my cheek, I nuzzled it unthinkingly, forgetting for a moment I was in public. "You're not just some guy I kiss," I mumbled, too embarrassed by my admission to look him in the eye.
He chuckled a little, and I shivered. "Good. Because you're not just some girl I kiss." He leaned forward and my heart bounced again.
"We're on the street," I sputtered, and he froze. He pulled back slightly to look at me, and his eyes were full of catlike green amusement.
"So we are," he murmured, releasing my face and shoulder to grab one of my hands. I stared at it for a moment, slightly stunned by his casual approach to… whatever it was we had. "Is this ok?"
I looked at him, nodding because I wasn't entirely sure if it was ok. But it felt ok. So I hoped it was.
We walked silently back to my building, though the quietness was strangely soothing. I still felt lost in my mind, and the feeling of being submerged that came with being around Edward Cullen was even more pronounced than usual. He walked with a slight spring in his step, though I noted he had shortened his stride so I could walk with him without exerting myself. His small consideration was touching, and I had to remind myself it wasn't that big a consideration.
As soon as we stepped into the apartment, he spun me around and backed me into the door. I yelped a little, alarmed by his manhandling though my body thrummed with anticipation. He had my back pressed right up against the door, and was hovering over me, his forearms on either side of my head, his nose trailing up my neck leaving goose bumps like wildfire in his wake. I breathed raggedly, waiting for his next move, dread and excitement and fear and confusion and a hundred emotions tumbling through me like storming winds.
"Is this ok?" he asked again, his voice husky and deep, no longer velvet over silk. Instead it was the low growl of a powerful vehicle, idling, waiting to come to life and propel itself forward.
Mesmerized, hypnotized and utterly captivated by his proximity, I nodded, my senses floating on the haze of his scent.
What are you doing? This isn't you…
But when his hands came down to cup my face again, my rationale left me, and I felt my body explode in immediate hyper-awareness.
His lips brushed mine, gently at first, before he released a sound of satisfaction mingled with defeat and crushed his lips to mine. The back of my head hit the door, making a hollow sound that took a backseat to the sudden heat that ran over my skin and licked at my being. He pressed his full body against me, and I felt him. His body was hard and perfect and so very hot. I felt like I was being pinned by an inferno, so overpowering that it nearly detracted from the very apparent lust I felt pressed up against my hip.
He wants you.
The thought baffled me. Edward Masen, the greatest literary genius of my generation, wanted me? Sure, I was successful, but he never seemed interested in that. He wanted me physically. He was attracted to me. Again, the thought stunned me, and I gasped into his mouth. He took advantage by running his tongue across my own, the sensation far more earth-shattering than it should have been, and I moaned unashamedly into his mouth as his hands gripped my hair, angling my head to give him better access, his long fingers running down the column of my throat and pressing against my collarbone, gripping the collar of my shirt as though on the verge of ripping it off.
"I want you," he growled, gravel and crackling firewood that echoed my thoughts. There was an embarrassing whimper that I couldn't believe came from me, but his lips curved into a smirk against mine and he chuckled deep and low in his chest. I felt it rumble against my own. The hand that gripped my collar released it, one finger loosening at a time, and he ran his hand under the material, grazing my shoulder and slipping his fingers underneath my bra strap.
Don't let him! This is absurd!
His hands trailed lower, and the voice of reason moaned with me as one of his hands gripped my upper arm and the other trailed ever so lightly over my nipple through. Even through my shirt and bra, the sensation sent bolts of lightning shooting through my bones, and I arched into his touch. Encouraged, he gripped me harder, and I fisted a handful of his hair to tug his lip between my teeth. I had been touched by men before, but never had my body responded so enthusiastically to the contact before. It came alive. The point of contact with his hand on my breast, sure and firm and kneading in just the right way, became the focus of my world. I whimpered again, wanton and uninhibited and practically a stranger because this wasn't me.
I threw my head back against the door again, the hollow thud sounding even more distant and removed now than it had the first time. The hand that he had gripped my upper arm with suddenly grabbed my thigh to hitch it over his hip. He ground himself against me, and I was again made aware of just how much he wanted me. I moaned with pleasure at the thought.
He wants me, he really wants me.
Sighing, he released my mouth and kissed along my jaw, down my neck, nuzzled my earlobe before catching it with his teeth. "Fuck," he hissed, his hand on my thigh beginning that rhythm again. Tight, release. Tight, release. Enchanting. Yes, that was it. "You're incredible," he said against the shell of my ear, his grip loosening on both my breast and my thigh, and I sighed at the loss. He heard it and understood it, nuzzling my neck some more and leaving chaste kisses as he found his way back to my mouth. "I don't want to stop. Believe me, I want nothing more than to have my way with you right here against this door right now."
And I believed him, because I could still feel his length pressing into me.
His hands moved slowly, almost tenderly back up to my face, and he pressed his lips to mine again, closed this time, inhaling deeply through his nose as he nibbled my lower lip. "But you're not just some girl I kiss."
Oh.
Oh.
Oh!
My heart picked up, hammering wildly in my chest at his words, and I blushed like a teenager at the implication. He kissed me once more, and I relished the thrill of the sparks in my bloodstream before he pulled away with a regretful sigh. "Not yet," he muttered, so low I almost didn't hear. I probably wasn't meant to hear it either.
He took several more deep breaths, steadying himself before he pushed away from the door slightly. My knees wobbled a little – thankfully he didn't notice. I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to assess the damage. I probably looked… unkempt.
With a lingering stroke of his fingers he released me, turning around and walking into the apartment. He stopped at the table where I'd left my phones, scooping them up, then picking up my keys, too. "What are you doing?" I asked with an unfamiliar breathless voice.
He looked up at me, looking flushed and pleased and extremely good. He smiled that crooked grin, and tossed my keys at me. I caught them awkwardly. "We're going into the office."
I blanched. "I don't know if-"
"You'll be great, trust me. You just have to keep it together." His eyes twinkled, and I stared at the floor, chewing my lip. "I'll be there with you, Isabella. The whole time."
I looked up at him, my hopes rising a little with his words. "Really?"
"Really." He smiled encouragingly at me, and I nodded. It would be ok.
Edward would be with me.
