Things are about to get interesting, y'all. The beginning of this chapter is pretty boring, I'm not going to lie. But I promise it gets real interesting toward the end ;)

Enjoy!

CHAPTER NINE:

BELLA POV

December 2015

"Ow, Alice! You're gonna dislocate my shoulder!"

"Bella, I don't have time for your complaining! I have a plan to execute!" The evil little pixie tugged on my arm harder, eliciting a yelp from me.

"Al! I have to work tonight, please do not injure me! This is the only way I make money!" She was pulling very hard, and I actually had to have function in my arms to be able to do my job.

We were in a the mall right now, walking surprisingly fast for how crowded it was. There was two weeks until Christmas, and the whole population of Portland might have been here. It was a Friday, and Alice and I were done with classes for the day, so we were at the mall to do some shopping for gifts, but so was everyone else. Alice, being the type of person she is, had a plan for how we were going to navigate the crowded shops today, which would be working out fine if she wasn't maiming me in the process.

"Fine!" she huffed, dropping my arm. Her tiny but strong hand latched onto the strap of my purse and started tugging on that instead. It was an improvement, since there was no longer an imminent threat to my joints, but it still wasn't pleasant.

"We've got so much to do before you have to get to work today, Bella. You can't fall behind," she urged. Alice was determined to get all of our shopping done in this one trip. I didn't doubt that she'd be able to do it, but I just didn't want to be along for the ride. She was much too intense for me when she was on a mission.

I just groaned and picked up my pace, hoping she would stop tugging on me if I kept up with her. The tugging lessened, but it definitely didn't stop, but I would take anything that I could get at this point. We had been at this for an hour already, and while I had gotten both Rose and Em's presents, I was not too keen to this fast pace shopping we were doing.

Alice allowed me to go off on my own to buy her present while she bought mine, but she was very adamant that we were to meet back in the food court when we were done so we could continue.

I trekked off to the shop that I needed to go to at my own pace, enjoying the release from Alice's tight grip. Once in the shop, I browsed around a bit, stopping to ask the employees questions about their products. I didn't know much about what I was getting Alice, beside the fact that I knew she would love it. Because of the nature of the present and the price tag on it, there weren't as many people in this store as there was in others. As I was holding a possible selection in my hands, I felt a tap on my shoulder.

I turned to face the person, expecting it to be one of the employees who was helping me, but instead I was pulled into a tight hug, long, coconut-smelling hair assaulting my face. I held on tight to the device in my hand, very wary of the chunk it would take out of my wallet if I were to drop it. I couldn't even imagine paying that much for something that would be rendered useless.

"Bella dear!" the woman shouted in my ear. I winced slightly, hoping my hearing wasn't damaged. "Fancy seeing you here."

"Hi, Esme, how are you?" I asked as she pulled away. She looked great as always in her grey peacoat and white infinity scarf. How this woman was nearly fifty and still looking like a woman in her early thirties was beyond me. If I looked half as good as she did at her age, I would be extremely content.

"I'm great, darling. Just visiting Edward for the weekend. He had the weekend off except for some meetings, so I figured I'd stay with him. I swear that boy hasn't had a real meal since he moved out." She rolled her eyes as my body tensed.

"Oh, is he here with you?" I wondered, trying to keep the apprehension out of my voice. This would be the least opportune time to have a run in with a client I would most likely be seeing in a few hours at the club.

"No, he has a meeting," she said, slightly pouting. "I figured I'd take the time to do some Christmas shopping. This mall is much less crowded than the one in Seattle."

I balked at the thought of being in a more crowded mall than this.

I hate shopping.

"Is Carlisle here, too?" I wondered, trying to get the subject even farther away from her son.

"No, he had a weekend conference in Massachusetts. That's another reason I came down here this weekend. I hate being alone in our house during the holidays." She sighed wistfully, probably remembering the times that she's spent alone. Being a doctor was never easy, especially on your family. Schedules were sometimes unpredictable and it was difficult to get the time off during holiday season. It was one of the most busy times at hospitals.

"Anyway, what are you doing here, honey?" she asked, a smile now gracing her face. "Besides, shopping, I mean." She chuckled.

"I'm here with my friend Alice," I said. "She has it in her head that she can get all our Christmas shopping done in one day." I rolled my eyes and Esme giggled. "She probably can, but at the expense of my physical well-being."
"She's a bit aggressive, I take it?" Esme asked.

"'A bit' is an understatement. I'm shopping for her present right now, and she's shopping for mine, otherwise she'd have a death grip on my purse strap."

"Well, maybe I can help, since you seem a little lost." She gestured to the object in my hand. "What type of work is she doing."

I described Alice's interests and the type of work she did inside and outside of school. Esme had me put down the one that I was holding and searched the store for something she had in mind. When she picked it up, she started describing the different features to me, and she sounded a lot more sure of herself than the employee who had been helping me earlier had sounded. The price tag on this one was even a bit cheaper than the other one, which Esme assured me didn't matter. She herself used this particular model in her own career, which was very similar to what Alice had her sights set on.

After I purchased the gift, the employee informed me that they could ship it in discreet packaging to my home, which I took them up on. I wasn't sure how I was going to hide this very obvious present from Alice when we met back up at the food court.

"Well, I'll leave you to get back to your friend now, sweetie," Esme said as we exited the shop. "I have some shopping to finish as well. I hope she doesn't hurt you too badly." She laughed at the grimace on my face.

I was dreading the next couple hours. I only had my parents left to shop for, so hopefully we could get out of her relatively quickly.

"It was good seeing you, Esme." I gave her a hug, which she was obviously excited that I initiated. She beamed as we stepped away from each other. Esme was an easy person to please, as long as you weren't her sister. "I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend."

"Should I tell Edward you said hi?" she asked, a mischievous glint in her eye. I didn't even want to know what she was thinking.

"No, that won't be necessary, Esme," I told her.

I'd be seeing him tonight.

As sure as the sky is blue, Edward walked into the club around ten that night. I was doing a set on stage when he first came in, so he took up a seat at the bar, ordering a glass of bourbon on the rocks while his eyes stayed trained on me. I locked my eyes with his when I wasn't busy trying not to fall off of the pole. He shot me a playful wink over the glass that was pressed to his lips. He licked them after he swallowed what was in his mouth, his eyes roaming my body,

I always felt more sexy with his eyes on me. Despite all the men paying attention to me at any given point in the night, Edward's was always the most important. Even though we had been getting to know each other on a more personal level over the last couple months, I still craved him in the most basic, instinctual way, and I had to suppress those feelings every time we were around each other.

You can't start anything with him, Bella. It won't go anywhere good.

I hated it, but I knew I had to listen to my rational inner voice. The other side was more frivolous, and it definitely wanted me to do more than dance on Edward during our private sessions. He was still a perfect gentleman every time we were together, always keeping his hands to himself and talking to me like we were friends instead of dancer and customer. The more irrational side of my inner monologue, the side that wanted Edward more than I had ever wanted another human being, wanted him to forget about the club's rules and put his hands on me. The only time I had ever had his hands on my skin was Halloween, and that was a month and a half ago.

Even though we were both intoxicated, I remembered the way his hands felt on my body. I could feel the warmth of his skin through the material of my costume. And I remember the way his neck felt against my tongue, the taste of his body present with the salt that I had licked off of him. Our lips had brushed against each other's when I had taken the lime from his mouth. I craved to have that with him again, and probably more.

Definitely more. So. Much. More.

When I was done with my set, I gathered the money of the stage, shoving it into the garter belt of my outfit. Since it was December, the club was in a festive mood, christmas lights had been hung around the bar and doorways, fresh fake snow was placed on the stage before every set. The girls and I had been wearing Christmas-esque outfits for every shift. Today I had on a red lingerie set, complete with a garter belt and red fishnets with bows in the sides. I had started off the night with santa hat on, but it had to come off when I took my place on the pole.

Edward met me at the bottom of the stairs that led down from the stage. I took his hand in mine, not saying a word as I led him to an empty room. We did this same thing every weekend he came in, going straight back to the room without saying a word until we were back there.

"How was your week, Edward?" I asked, closing the door after us. He sat in the chair in the center of the room.

"It was fine, Bambi," he responded, his voice sounding oddly tight. I raised my eyebrow. "It was just a little stressful. I was in the ER most shifts, and there were a lot of people coming in. The holidays bring a lot of injuries. I also had a meeting with the chief of the hospital today."

"Well, that's what I'm here for, Edward," I told him, straddling his lap.

Too bad we aren't naked.

Oh my God, stop.

"It's time to get some liquor in you, then you just watch me dance, talk about it if you want, or just sit back silently if you don't want." I put my hands in his hair, lightly tugging and smirked when I heard him growl. "Just relax."

"Easier said than done," he mumbled, his eyes trained to where my hips were moving over his.

"How so?" I asked at the same time he said, "I came here to talk to you."

I cocked my head to the side. "What about, Edward?"

He closed his eyes, his eyebrows furrowing. I wanted to reach up and smooth it out, but I didn't for fear of crossing some intimate boundary that I really wanted to cross. His own hands moved to his face, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

"I can't come in here anymore," he mumbled, eyes still closed.

I stilled my movements on top of him, dropping my hands from his hair to his shoulders. More neutral territory.

He's leaving me?

"Why not?" I asked, sounding more like a petulant child than the adult that I was, although I was a very young adult. "Did I do something wrong?" I had been careful to maintain a professional relationship with him, even though my body and my subconscious wanted more, but it was possible that I had crossed into dangerous territory at some point on accident.

"No, no. You haven't done anything wrong," he said, his eyes popping open. He placed his hands on my shoulders, a sad look in his eyes. He jumped and pulled his hands off of me, placing them in his hair instead. "Sorry, I didn't mean to do that." It was the first time he had done anything but hold my hand, and even I had initiated that. "If anything, I've done something wrong."

"Edward, it's not the end of the world if you touch my shoulders," I assured him. "The 'no touching' rule is there for perverts who want to assault us. You're definitely not one of them." I rolled my eyes. Stupid pervs, ruining it for everybody.

"No, that's not what I'm talking about, Bambi," he said, shaking his head. He released his amazing hair from his grasp, leaving the locks looking even more crazy and sexy than before.

"Then what is it?" I asked. I furrowed my eyebrows, very confused. What could possibly make him decide against coming in every weekend?

"I just…" he trailed off, taking a deep breath. "I've done something I'm not very proud of, and I'm lying to people close to me. I'm not that person."

"Then tell them you go to a strip club on the weekends," I told him. "You're not a bad person for coming here, Edward. People are a lot more accepting of the sex work industry than they were before." Plus, knowing his mother's attitude, she would probably just ask if she could join him at some point.

"It's more complicated than that, Bambi," he said, shaking his head. "I just can't come in anymore. I'm sorry. I'll pay you for tonight, but I won't be seeing you again." He placed his hands on my shoulders, gently lifting my from my place in his lap. I stood, letting him rise from his place. He stood still, looking unsure of himself before he leaned in, pressing his lips to my cheek softly.

He handed me a stack of six hundred dollar bills, like always. His eyes looked extremely sad when they met mine. I took my bottom lip into my mouth, trying to stop it from quivering.

I didn't want him to go, but it wasn't my place to ask him to stay. I had no ties to him, other than him being my customer. I enjoyed our time together, though. I always looked forward to it during the week. And I'd be lying if I said I hadn't liked to get to know him better.

"I hope you have a good life," he said. With that, he strode toward the door. My eyes were on his ass the entire time.

A girl can't help herself.

That weekend passed by in a blur. I may or may not have cried when I told Rose and Alice that Edward had left me. I wasn't really sure why I cried, since I only had a small crush on him and I really hadn't known him all that well. All we really talked about was his work, which wasn't exactly personal. I blamed the emotions on my impending period.

PMS is a bitch.

We spent Sunday having a movie marathon. We were all pretty into 80's movies, so Rose, Emmett, Alice and I got comfy and played all the ones that were on Netflix and one DVDs we owned. First up was Pretty in Pink, which happened to be Alice's favorite. Dinner that night was copious amounts of popcorn and the occasional spoonful of ice cream. I'd definitely classify this as a girl's night if Em wasn't here.

After Pretty in Pink ended, Rose popped in Sixteen Candles, so I guess this had kind of turned into a Molly Ringwald marathon. Once that movie had ended, we of course watched The BReakfast Club, because it wasn't the 80's without those five kids in Saturday detention.

Once we'd gotten Molly out of our system, I got to watch my favorite: Can't Buy Me Love. I had a serious obsession with Derek Shepherd on Grey's Anatomy, and my obsession extended into Patrick Dempsey's other roles. Young Patrick was just as adorably dorky as older, rugged Patrick. I couldn't get enough of him.

It was late by the time the movie was over, so we decided to call it a night. I stayed up until about three in the morning doing some work for my physiology class. For our final, we had a project due instead of a test, which I was somewhat thankful for. It saved me hours of studying, but it also took me a lot of time to get all of my project together. I was technically done with it, but I was just making sure everything was absolutely perfect. This week was finals week, and my project was due Wednesday morning. I had a near perfect grade in the class and I couldn't let it slip the last day.

The next day I had my test for my writing class, which was actually just an essay on the correlation of motifs in Macbeth and King Henry IV. I chose the women in the plays, since I had written a similar essay in my senior year of high school. I rolled my eyes visibly when the professor handed out the prompt at the beginning of the period. I had the essay written in an hour and a half, and I spent another fifteen minutes going through it to correct spelling and grammar. I knew it was fine as far as content went, so I handed it in and went to the library. I had my physics test in a couple hours, so I was cramming in some last minute studying, as if I hadn't been studying everyday for the last two weeks.

I grabbed some quick lunch before my test, hoping to not get hungry while I was sitting in class. Being hungry made it difficult for me to focus on tasks, especially boring tests. I had gone through finals week enough times now that I knew my downfalls and bad habits. I had mostly smoothed those out by now.

My physics test passed by in a flash. Considering how much a genuinely hated math, I was pretty good at it. The only reason I am even taking math classes is because I need them to graduate, and I need higher level ones to get into medical school. Which, I didn't quite understand, considering simple math was the only thing we needed to determine dosage of medications. Whatever, I was done with math after this semester.

I returned back to the apartment at around two that afternoon. I hopped on my laptop quickly, emailing my physiology professor to ask him if I could submit my project tomorrow instead of Wednesday. It wasn't like I had to actually give a presentation or anything. It was just a folder full of information we had learned over the semester assembled into a children's book, which seemed pretty elementary to me, but I wasn't going to complain. It made for an easy final grade.

He emailed me back about an hour later, agreeing to let me turn it into his office at any point before Wednesday afternoon. He admitted that the only real reason he made the due date Wednesday was to let the procrastinators get it all put together and turned in.

Tuesday, I got up and quickly got dressed. I planned to just go turn in my project and then come back to the apartment and watch Netflix all day. I was going to be the only one here for a while, considering Alice and Rose had finals and Emmett was at work. Alice was also going out with her study group tonight to celebrate as their finals were done today. Rose was going to be out tonight, doing some studying for her last final with a group of people in her law classes. It would just be Emmett and me for dinner tonight, so I was planning to make his favorite: chicken noodle soup.

Emmett had informed me of his unhealthy obsession with the soup when he first moved in with us. I had made it one of the first nights he was here, and he had nearly stolen the whole pot from the stove and took it for himself. He admitted his mother had made it as a comfort food and it was one of the only dishes she ever made herself. Otherwise, their housekeeper/cook, Zafrina, made all other meals. He begged me to make it once the weather began to get cooler, stating mine was even better than his mother's.

After I dropped off my project in my professor's office and bid him a Merry Christmas, I made a trip to the grocery store. I gathered the ingredients I would need for dinner. There was still several hours until I would need to start it, but I figured I may as well stop and do the shopping since I was already out.

Once I got back, I settled in on the couch and began a Netflix marathon, watching Grey's Anatomy from season one. I had already watched all the episodes, and I was currently waiting for the season to come back on TV, but I was missing McDreamy, so I decided rewatching the entire series was a good idea.

I was six episodes into season one when Rose came home, finished with her second to last final.

"How'd it go?" I asked her as she shed her coat and dropped her bag on the floor.

She groaned. "I aced it, I know that, but now I can stress about tomorrow's test," she said. She rushed off to her room and came back with her laptop and a very thick textbook. "I've been able to put it off to worry about other things, but now it's the only thing to worry about. I'm going to develop high blood pressure."

I rolled my eyes. "You can't get high blood pressure from a week of stress, Rose."

"I don't need your medical opinion," she snapped. "I just want friendly sympathy."

"Oh, I'll sympathize with you," I told her. "I just can't let you think your health is going to be compromised from this one test." I beamed at her and she huffed, but a small smile formed on her painted lips.

"Thanks, B, can always count on you to bring me back down to earth," she said. "Even when I don't want it."

"Anytime," I said. She laughed as she shrugged her coat back on.

"Em just texted me saying he was off work in an hour, so you might want to start on dinner." She pulled her bag onto her shoulder, placing her laptop inside of it. "He may be upset if it's not at least started when he gets here."

"Will do." I gave her a salute. "Don't study too hard. Remember to eat."

"Thanks, mom." She rolled her eyes. "See you tomorrow."

When the door closed behind her, I huffed and threw my blanket off of me. I had been very cozy on the couch for several hours, and I had only gotten up to go pee and make myself cereal for lunch. I was upset to have to get out of my little cocoon, but I knew dinner had to be made.

I set the chicken broth onto the stove so it could heat up while I shredded chicken. I had just bought a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store. I absolutely hated boiling chicken, so I avoided it at all costs. I'd rather pay the five bucks for a premade chicken than have to cook raw chicken.

Once I was done shredding, a took a break to finish my episode of Grey's, since it would still be a while before Em was home and it wouldn't take long for everything to heat up once it was in the pot.

Just before the episode ended, Em walked in the door.

"Is that chicken broth I smell?" he bellowed, slamming the door behind him.

"It is, my dear," I told him, smirking at him over my shoulder. He came over and hugged my shoulders from behind the couch.

"You're the best, Bells!" he shouted. "I love you almost as much as I love Rosie."

"I couldn't ask for more than that." I laughed and hopped up off the couch. "I just have to chop the vegetables and put them in the pot to let them cook. It shouldn't be more than half an hour or so."

Emmett took my place on the couch, pushing play on the next episode of the show. Along with his weird thing with home improvement shows, he also enjoyed the shows that I watched on TV, and he had no qualms about it. He sat down with me whenever there was new episodes on each week. He was definitely my show watching buddy.

I successfully cut up all the celery and threw them into the pot. I began on the carrots, and my mind wandered to Edward, as it usually does when I get a chance to let my mind wander.

Images of his perfectly imperfect hair and remembering how it felt in my fingers flooded my head, making me kind of swoon. I was content in my little Edward induced haze when an immense pain filled my left hand. I gasped and the knife dropped out of my hand, into the sink next to me.

Looking down, I saw the blood beginning to drop onto the cutting board. My first priority was to move the carrots out of the way, so they wouldn't be contaminated by the blood. I quickly grabbed a towel from the counter and wrapped it around my thumb, trying to stop the bleeding. The shock from the initial realization that I basically chopped my finger in half began to subside, and the pain associated with said wound started to hit me.

"Shit, fuck, mother fucker!" I shouted. The blood started to seep through the towel, so I wrapped more of the material around my injured digit. This was going to need stitches.

"Shit, Bells, are you alright?" Emmett shouted. He hopped up off the couch and ran to me.

"Yeah, just nearly cut my finger off," I griped. "I'm perfectly fine, though."

"Now's not the time for sarcasm, Bella!" he shouted. He grabbed his keys and wallet off the of the kitchen counter and slipped his shoes on. He brought my mocassin slippers to me.

"What are you doing?" I asked, my voice strained. My coping mechanism for pain was to hold my breath, so I was trying to do that and talk to Emmett at the same time.

"You're bleeding through the towel," he observed, pointing to where the thicker wrapping was showing signs of blood. "You're going to need stitches, and unless you have the means to do that here, you're going to the ER."

I groaned and slipped my feet into the slippers. I grabbed my purse and Emmett was kind enough to grab my jacket for me. I wasn't going to be able to put it on right now, but it would be nice once I got out of the ER.

"I thought I was done with trips to the ER," I grumbled once inside Emmett's car. I pouted, dreading being back in the hospital for my own clumsiness.

Technically, it was all Edward's fault.

"How did you even cut yourself? You're usually pretty decent with a knife."

"I was daydreaming and wasn't really paying attention," I admitted. Hopefully he wouldn't ask what I was daydreaming about. "Evidently I can't do those two things at the same time."

He shook his head and chuckled at me. "Get it together, B."

I flipped him off with my uninjured hand.

We arrived at the ER a short five minutes later, thanks to Emmett's unsafe driving. He was lucky it was a Tuesday and police weren't patrolling that heavily tonight. Good thing, too, because this bleeding wasn't showing signs of stopping anytime soon.

Em dropped me off at the doors so I could get myself signed in while he found a place to park. I walked to the check in desk. The guy at the desk nearly asked me what I was here for, but then he noticed me cradling my left hand to my chest and the blood soaked towel wrapped around it. He quickly jumped up and came around to the front of the desk.

"Have a seat," he instructed, pointing to the closest empty chair. "Let me look for an empty room."

I sat where he had indicated, next to a woman with her obviously sick child in her lap. I felt bad for the poor guy, having to wait to get some antibiotics. He looked like he had a sinus or upper respiratory infection by the copious amounts of yellow colored snot coming out of his knows. He was tough, though, only whimpering a little when whatever was happening to his body was definitely not pleasant. I would be acting like a little bitch if I was as bad as he was.

As it was, I was being a bitch, tears, slowly dripping from my eyes. The pain hadn't subsided at all, and I didn't want to know what my thumb looked like under the towel. I hadn't gotten a good look at it when I first saw the blood, so I wasn't sure how deep I had gotten it. I had to have done some serious damage, by the amount of bleeding that was going on, though.

Emmett joined me just as the guy came back.

"There's an empty room over here, ma'am," he said. Emmett grabbed me by the arm, helping me to stand, and we followed the man to an empty bed with curtains on three sides. I sat on the bed and the man handed Emmett a clipboard that my information would have to go on.

"A nurse will be in here shortly to do damage control and then a doctor will be in to fix you up."

I thanked him and he exited, closing the curtain behind him.

Emmett silently started filling out my chart for me, only asking questions when he didn't know the answer.

"Uh, last menstrual period?" he asked, looking slightly uncomfortable.

"Whatever three weeks ago was," I said. According to my birth control, I was due for my next one in three days. Thank god for the magic pill.

He quickly wrote it down and the curtain to the makeshift room opened, revealing a smiling man, probably in his mid-twenties.

"Hi, I'm Seth," he introduced. He closed the curtain behind him and sat down on the stool that was near the bed. "What happened here?"

"She had a fight with a kitchen knife," Emmett said, chuckling to himself as he continued to fill out my chart.

I rolled my eyes. "I obviously didn't win."

Seth laughed. "Well, let me take a look." He gingerly took my left hand in both of his. "There's a lot of bleeding. You must have gotten yourself pretty good." He grabbed some pads of gauze from a nearby table and began unwrapping the towel.

As soon as my finger was exposed, more blood began seeping from it, pooling into the already soaked towel. Seth pressed the gauze to it, trying to better clean the mess that was my thumb.

"You're not squeamish, are you?" he asked me, a little too late.

"No, I'm going to be a surgeon," I told him, laughing a little.

"Impressive," he said, making a face that showed his sentiment. "Where are you going to school. He began packing gauze onto the open wound, trying to control the bleeding as best he could. Em was right; I was going to need several stitches.

"PSU for undergrad right now," I responded, watching him go to work. "I'm a junior, but I'm looking for medical schools to apply to right now."

"Well, I'm probably biased, but I'd definitely recommend this fine establishment," he joked. "OHSU is a great school, or so I've heard. I obviously didn't go here for school, being a nurse, and all."

I blanched at his mention of OHSU.

This is where Edward works. Please don't be working today.

"Some of my doctor friends went here for school, though," he continued, not noticing my distress. Or he was just confusing it for the distress that was associated with my gaping wound. "They say it's rigorous, but they definitely get a lot out of it."

"I have been considering it," I nodded, trying to maintain casual conversation. Internally, I was freaking out about Edward. This is not how I wanted him to find out about my double life. Plus, he had just dumped the other me a few days ago.

Seth packed as much gauze as he could, then he wrapped more around my thumb before taping it all up. "That should hold you over until the doctor gets in here to clean you up and stitch you back together. Do you want any aspirin or anything for the pain?"

I shook my head. "I'm good, it's not too bad."

He smiled. "Alright, just touch the button on the side of your bed if you need anything or you start bleeding too heavily through the gauze." He turned to Emmett. "Just drop that off at the front desk when you're done."

Emmett shot him a thumbs up as Seth left.

"Hey, maybe Ed is working tonight," Em said, brightening up. He had been rather serious since he got here, besides his fight joke toward Seth. "I mean, he probably is. He basically lives at this hospital."

I shrugged, trying to remain my nonchalant outward appearance. "Maybe."

I was trying not to freak out, because this was a big hospital, and residents tended to hop around from specialty to specialty, especially the first year, in order to get a feel for all fields. What were the actual chances of Edward being on the ER shift tonight of all nights?

"So, Bella, are you pregnant?" Emmett asked, mirth present in his eyes.

I rolled mine. "That would imply that I've had sex recently. I haven't seen any type of action since senior year of high school."

"Well, isn't this quite the conversation to walk in on," a very familiar voice said, chilling me down to my bones. I stopped breathing, the air getting stuck in my throat.

Well, fuck me sideways. Please.

Who could it possibly be? ;D We get to see hot Docward next chapter, which should be up tomorrow or Tuesday. Expect another at least two chapters this week. I was even going to wait until tomorrow to post this, but I figured you guys deserved to finally get more Edward.

How do you feel about him leaving Bambi? What do you think was going on in his mind that made him do so? Leave me your reviews telling me what you think. They are always appreciated :)

(Also, sidenote, my favorite author left a review last chapter and I may have done a giddy squeal. For real, please go read First & Ten if you haven't already. It's a couple years old, but it's still so freaking good. And it's nice and long, and beautifully written. Just go do it. I promise you won't regret it. I've been obsessing over it for years.)

Until next time, lovelies!