a/n: EverlastingMuse is my excellent beta. Neither of us own Twilight.

Chapter 9: Dizzy with a Dame

I'm sure my family would think I was being overly protective of Bella but they haven't had to peek into the minds of thousands of teenage boys, including the particularly repugnant teenage boy in question.

I drive the Volvo at an unsafe speed into town and walk around campus to the romantic Forks gymnasium. I decide that parking in the front makes me more incognito. It's hard to identify her scent in the swirl of perfume, shoe polish, hairspray and smuggled booze.

But I can see Bella's beautiful face in Mike Newton's filthy mind and I track them to his car, which is parked in the back parking lot. I try to move at an acceptable speed but it's difficult when I see that Bella is uncomfortable.

"You know, Mike, I really don't feel that way about you. Do you mind taking me home?" She is trying to be polite but I can see the discomfort on her face.

"Come on, Bella, just a kiss? It's not like I'm gonna get you pregnant." Mike laughs at his own joke. "Seriously, you owe me. Who else were you gonna get to take you to prom?"

I reach Mike's car and without a thought to appearances or propriety, I pull open his door and drag him out by the collar. I have him several inches off the ground and am growling in his terrified face.

"I could hear her saying 'no' from across the parking lot, Newton." It comes out in a growl. "You have a problem with your hearing?" Mike Newton is too scared to even respond. At least verbally. He does, however, wet himself and shake. Which tells me he got the message.

By which point Bella has gotten out of the car and come around to the driver side. And she's screaming at me. At me?

"Goddammit, Cullen, let him go! Are you crazy?" I lower Mike back to the ground and turn to look at her. She is furious, her nostrils flared and if she shot lasers out of her eyes I'd be a dead man. Well, an already dead man with serious laser burns.

"Get out of here, Mike," she says to Newton, barely even looking at him. He shakily gets into his car while Bella and I glare at each other. He only drops the keys three times before getting them into the ignition and driving off.

When he's gone she shakes her head at me disdainfully. "Jesus, Cullen, stalk much?" She looks beautiful, even pissed off at me.

"Oh, did you want me to leave you there with Newton and his…hands?" I can't believe she has no gratitude for my saving her from him.

"I know how to say 'no,'" she snaps at me. "Really?" I ask, lifting an eyebrow at her and glancing at her stomach. She almost laughs but then she looks around the parking lot.

"Where's your car? You didn't turn into a bat and fly here did you?" She looks at me with fake horror before rolling her eyes at me and starting to walk away.

"Bella, wait!" She stops and turns but comes no closer. "You're not going to walk home? My car's in front." I gesture towards the front of the school.

"You think I'm getting in a car with you?" Point taken.

"Let me walk with you." She looks at me for a minute. "Come on, Bella. If anything happens to you the wolves are gonna blame us whether we are involved or not."

"Ok, but don't talk to me. I'm hungry and crabby." She turns and starts walking again and I catch up to her.

We walk for a few minutes and then she says, "So is that why you keep showing up?"

"Yep," I lie.

"Well, I guess I'm sorry for accusing you of stalking me or whatever." She looks a little bit embarrassed. I could tell her that she's totally right but I don't. Don't judge me.

"Well, I guess I'm going to have to find a new job," she says.

"Really? Why don't I just apologize to Newton for making him…soil himself." I am horrified to be having this conversation with a lady. Yay, Victorian upbringing!

"It's not about that. I don't want to work with him after he was such a douche!" Bella looks at me with scorn. "Would you want to work with someone who was slobbering on you like that?" If it was her I would but I keep that tidbit to myself. Bella Swan is clearly, as they say, just not "into" me.

"Oh. Yeah. I guess you have a point." We walk for a few more minutes in silence. The sensation of being with another person and having it be silent was a delicious sensation. So of course I talk and screw it up.

"Can I get you something to eat? 7-11 is still open. I could get you ice cream and pickles or whatever." She looks at me curiously.

"How old are you, Edward?"

"One hundred and ten." I look at her for a reaction. She's nodding.

"Haven't really spent a lot of time with pregnant women, huh?" I shake my head. I've been inside the heads of countless women but I am beginning to see how different hearing what they think and actually interacting with them is. Throw in the added complication of not being able to read Bella's mind and I am really flying blind here.

"Yeah, uh, let me give you a little piece of advice. Don't." She falls silent again and I wait for her to finish her sentence.

"That's it? 'Don't'? What does that mean?" She looks at me and blows out a big puff of air and shakes her head.

"I just think that you could give a girl a complex. I mean, I'm already the size of a water buffalo and retaining water as fast as Forks can produce it. Then you show up and offer to feed me some more häagen daz before you go to your next fucking photo shoot and it makes me feel kind of gross."

I don't even know what she's talking about so I just walk beside her silently until we get to her house. She stops in front and faces me.

"Thanks for walking me home and for freaking Newton out. It's kind of funny now, you know, in retrospect." She smiles at me. I want to prolong our time together but I don't really know how to since she doesn't really seem to enjoy my company.

"It was my pleasure. Would you like me to pick you up tomorrow so you can get your truck from my house?" She frowns slightly.

"No, I'm cool. I'll see you around, OK?" She turns and walks into her house while I stand out on the sidewalk, watching her go, considering not watching her sleep. My sense of pride and I compromise on hunting first and then just watching her for a few hours. Quite a moral victory.

This incident, luckily for me, allows my sister and I to offer Bella the secretary job at our office. Not that there's a real need for one. I mean, our phone isn't exactly ringing off the hook. At least she can guard the office supply cabinet.

She agrees, because Alice offered her the job. All of Alice's visions where I made the offer Bella says, "No".

Yeah, she digs me.

a/n: Thanks for your hilarious reviews! If you want to read my awkward attempt at historical AU darkness I have a couple of chapters of "Howl" posted. I was going to call it "Making Edward and Bella Miserable for Like 6 Decades" but it didn't make a good acronym.

Also, there's a compilation being put together for Fandom against Domestic Violence. There are 130 authors, including some of my favorites. Go here: http:/fandomagainstdomesticviolence (dot) blogspot (dot) com/ (remove my spaces) to check it out. I have never participated in one of these but the cause is particularly compelling for me and I hope they can get a ton of support! Thanks! JuJu