Rating/Warning(s)/Note(s): T, Loudward
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Prompt: Move


"I'm not ignoring you, Edward," I lied to him as I continued to peruse my menu. "That would require thoughts about you," I turned the page, looking at the chicken choices.

"You are pretending I'm not here," he whispered back, holding his own menu open in an attempt to hide that he was speaking to me, staring at me.

"Again, that would require thoughts about you. I'm aware you are there, much the same as I'm aware the chair behind us is, but you don't see me speaking or interacting with it either," I quipped as I flipped another page, my mind only vaguely aware that I was now looking at beef dishes and that someone at the table was chuckling. I knew the menu was just a cover, I was going to order the lasagna like I always did, but so far it had given me something to do while I did exactly what I was denying.

"You know you are physically aware of me," he whispered lowly as he leaned over even farther into my space.

I put my menu down with a huff and turned on him. "Of course I'm physically aware of you; you're in my personal space! A space, I might add, to which you haven't been invited. Now why don't you look at your menu and decide what you're going to get and let me be?"

"Burn, dude," Emmett laughed from across the table. "You have crashed and burned!" He then made airplane moves and simulated an explosion, much to Rosalie and Alice's delight. Even Carlisle and Jasper were chuckling, but Esme only sat looking at her menu with a small smile on her face, proper as ever.

Edward ignored the rest of his family and leaned back in his chair, thankfully away from me. "I always get the same thing here, so I don't need to look," he said with a smirk.

"Oh? And what's that?" I asked as I stared angrily into his darkening green eyes. Somehow I knew they were getting darker because he was seeing me as a challenge and I had to remind myself to keep my heartbeat under control as I was caught in their trap.

"The lasagna," he answered with a smile. Crap, I had to change my order! Picking up my menu again I turned with another huff and just picked out the first thing I saw. Setting it back down I tried to find someone else to converse with. Based on the fact that she had felt the need to dress me I turned to Alice and asked her about her outfit. I was then regaled with far more information than I could possibly be after, with only small pauses when the waiter came to take our order.

Dinner was actually quite pleasant, despite feeling Edward's eyes boring into the back of my head when he wasn't talking to someone. I got to find out what each of them were doing and was surprised to learn that Esme knew of my work at the museum. Apparently she was very familiar with some of the art I was using in my dissertation. I almost asked Edward to get up and move so I could sit next to her as we both ignored our meals and talked. We did eventually eat, however, when Edward sat forward, blocking our view of each other and reminded us that our food was getting cold. I just rolled my eyes at him, but then popped another bite into my mouth, pleased that it was just as good cold as it had been when served hot.

It wasn't until dinner was over that I found out what Alice was up to. It seems she had told her parents that Edward should ride with them and that she would take him to his place with Jasper afterward, only now she was pretending a headache and begging me to give him a ride. She was sneaky enough to have even waited for her parents to leave, sitting and chatting with me in the lobby while the guys waited before the mystery headache suddenly hit. I glanced over at Edward and he wasn't buying it either.

"Did you forget that I have to go grocery shopping, Alice?" I reminded her with a glare.

"Oh, but that works out perfectly because so does Edward!" she trilled far too happily to have a headache. Grabbing Jasper's hand she rushed out of the restaurant calling, "Thanks so much Bella, I'll call you tomorrow!" My only consolation was that I knew she didn't have my phone number. Then again, I wouldn't be surprised if she had gotten it somehow.

Looking over at Edward, who was smirking as usual, I just said, "Let's go," and walked out with him following me. It was a quiet car ride to the store and I knew he was staring at me the entire drive. I tried very hard not to let it affect me but failed miserably. At one point I was fighting with a stray hair that was tickling my nose but couldn't locate and he reached over and smoothed it back for me. As soon as his fingers touched my cheek I felt it like a flash burn across my skin and when he tucked it behind my ear I couldn't keep from shivering. He just chuckled so I shot him a scowl.

When we got to the store I just got out of the car without looking at him, walking ahead quickly, but he kept pace with me. "Are you upset with me?" he asked as we walked through the door. "I honestly didn't know Alice was planning on doing this to you."

I was fighting with a cart by this time but it just wouldn't separate from the one it was pushed into. I tried shaking it, moving it back and forth, but it just wouldn't budge. My frustration level was already high to begin with and this wasn't helping. "No," I grunted as I began to get violent with the cart, "I'm not mad at you. I just," I shook the cart, "don't like," I slammed it up and down, "being tricked!"

Edward put his hands on mine, peeling my fingers off the cart and stepping between me and the offending basket. He lifted up on the back of the cart in front, freeing the one I had been fighting for, and handed it off to me. "Thank you," I said shortly as my face flamed with my combination of embarrassment and frustration.

"You're welcome," he replied, his smirk firmly in place.

I dug my list out of my purse as I pushed into the first aisle I came to. Why did it have to be the feminine products aisle? I looked over at him and his smirk had grown as he met my gaze. I just shook my head as I reached for a box of tampons and threw them in the cart. "Not a word," I growled.

He raised his hands in surrender and cried in protest, "I haven't said a thing!"

It wasn't until we got to the end of the aisle that I realized he hadn't gotten a cart or even a small basket. "I thought you needed to pick some things up as well?" I asked him.

"Oh, I do, I just figured I would use part of your basket." Of course he did. I just rolled my eyes and kept going, flinging into the cart the things I needed. Every now and then he would toss something in as well. It was usually junk food like Oreos, ramen noodles, macaroni and powdered cheese. He always just let whatever he wanted land wherever it fell in the basket so I was constantly stopping to separate his 'food' out, much to his amusement.

When he added a bag of candy I just looked at him. "How on earth do you stay in shape eating all that crap?" I asked.

"You think I'm in shape?" was his reply, but before I could retort anything a girl about my age came around the corner, still in her scrubs and wearing her name plate, announcing to the world that she was Jessica and an RN.

"Hello, Dr. Cullen," she said flirtatiously, causing me to chuckle once before it hit me. His last name was Cullen. That meant his parents were Carlisle and Esme Cullen. No wonder Esme had been so well versed in the paintings I was using in my dissertation; she was the one who loaned them to the museum!


Home with the flu. Leave me some love to cheer me up!