Ello everyone!!! I'm sorry I haven't updated in a while—you know what? Screw that. I'm not sorry. These things take FOREVER to write. And it's not my fault. Blame her. NotOld I mean. She's why I'm being so slow. She distracts me in school. So go yell at her! So here's chapter nueve! (I don't actually speak Spanish. I can only say "your cat has a shiny butt" and I don't think that would be very helpful if I ever went to Spain.)

R&&R please!

Bellabookworm9

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"Hey!" I said as Edward did something tricky with the controller. "What was that for? "I was playing a video game and Edward had just stolen the controller from me.

"You were going to crash." He said, "I didn't want you to have to start over."

"Whatever." I said, driving my blue car into a tree. "Darn it!" I was much better at driving real cars. Edward grinned.

"Want me to take over?" he asked.

"Fine." I gave up. I wasn't doing so hot anyways.

"Are you hungry?" he asked, doing something with the buttons that made alerts come up on the screen and his heath and armor go up considerably.

"No fair!" I said, "You just cheated! And no, I'm not hungry."

"If I gave you the cheats, you wouldn't remember them. And you probably wouldn't be able to put them in fast enough anyways."

"Whatever." I said, getting up and going into the kitchen to get a glass of water.

"I was just kidding!" he called, so I could hear.

"Not funny!" I called back. I heard him chuckle from the other room. What did he not understand about "not funny"?

I brought my water with me and sat down next to Edward just in time to see him blow up at least twenty innocent bystanders with a rocket launcher.

"What was that for? Did they ever do anything to you?"

"They're fake people, Bella. They come back to life when the ambulance comes anyways." He said, gathering up the money icons that popped onto the screen on top of the heavily bleeding bodies.

"At least you can't smell them." I mumbled. Edward grinned.

"Yeah. They don't have a 'bloodsucking monster' weapon cheat. At least none that I know of."

"You're not a monster." I said, "You're an angel." I told him, speaking my mind.

"Wrong." He said, pausing the game and turning his captivating golden eyes on me. "You're the angel." He took my face in his hands, still boring holes in my eyes with his, and kissed me. This kiss was passionate but it didn't cross any of Edward's boundaries. That was fine with me. I didn't want to fight with him, so I would take what I could get.

"Hey lovebirds! If that's all you're gonna do, get away from the controller!" All hail Emmett the evil kiss-killer! I heard Edward mumble something that sounded vaguely like "And you're one to talk." I shuddered at the thought of what that meant.

"Fine by me." I said, getting up and bringing my glass of water to the kitchen.

"Leave it." Edward said, picking me up just as I was about to start washing the glass.

"But I don't want your—"

"I'll do it when we get back." He rolled his eyes.

I hadn't realized it until now, but Edward had carried me into his backyard. Its size would put any football field to shame.

"Mmmm." I said, breathing in the air that was thick with moisture. It wasn't raining…yet.

"No seagulls!" Edward said. This was a bit of an inside joke with us now. Apparently, with his enhanced hearing abilities, Edward had heard every seagull within a ten-mile radius of his person, along with the speech and mind-speak of all the humans.

"Yeah." I smiled.

Edward lay down, arranging himself so that I was lying on top of him with my head on his chest.

"Now," he said, "where were we before my brother decided to be the world's biggest party pooper?" I giggled.

"I think we were…here." I said, planting my lips on his.

"I think that's about right." He said when we broke apart, his eyes twinkling.

I pouted, missing the feel of his perfect, cool lips on mine. Edward smiled and started to lean in again.

"Edward!"

Edward growled.

"What, Emmett?"

"Do you know where my—"

"Oh my God Emmett! Why would I know where that is?"

"I don't know. Maybe you stole it."

"Why would I want to steal something like that?"

"Well I don't know how your mind works."

"Unfortunately, I do know how yours works and—EMMETT! You know I…we…" And suddenly Edward was in the air, leaping towards Emmett with a look on his face that could have melted Mount Everest. I would have killed to know what Emmett was thinking.

I sat up, watching the two boys. Edward was in Emmett's face growling something too fast for me to hear. It sounded like profanity was involved, though. Emmett looked like he was going to run away screaming. I'd never seen him look so scared. I gulped.

"Edward?" I tried to say. It came out in a whisper.

Edward's head whipped around and his anger-hardened eyes melted into pools of liquid topaz. "Sorry." He said before turning to give Emmett one last verbal lashing. Then Emmett really did run away, but he didn't scream.

"What was that about?" I asked as Edward walked at a human pace towards me.

He growled. "You don't want to know."

"Yes I do." I said. He sighed and ran his fingers through his beautiful bronze hair.

"I guess we do need to talk about this."

"About your brother making you mad? I mean, I know you're dangerous and everything, but—" He cut me off.

"Bella, it's not about me getting mad. It's what I got mad at Emmett about." He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair again.

"Oh." I said. I still had no clue what that was.

"You see, Emmett thought I might have stolen some of his and Rosalie's…personal stuff." My cheeks flushed at what that implied.

"Oh." I said again.

"To use with you." My cheeks burned even redder. "But…" He seemed to be struggling with this. It definitely was an embarrassing topic, but I had a feeling he wasn't suffering because he was embarrassed. "He doesn't understand that…" he looked up into my eyes—he was sitting down now—looking like the sadness of all his hundred-and-nine years was pouring itself out through those golden portals, "We—no, I cant do that." He looked so sad. Like he had just denied me my very existence.

I reached out and touched his arm. "Why?" I asked simply. I thought I knew, but I wanted to hear him say it.

"Bella…it's not because I don't want to—I do—it's just that…if I lost control for even a second…" He trailed off, his eyes coming back to rest on me, still with that infinite sadness emanating from them.

"It's okay, Edward." I said, and it was. As long as he was here, with me, I would take whatever he was willing to give.

I walked over and sat in his lap, wrapping my arms around his neck and resting my head in the crook of his neck.

"I still wish I could give that to you, but I don't think I could be strong enough. I just don't want to hurt you."

"Edward," I looked up into his eyes, pausing, "our love goes deeper than just the physical things. Sex is just a way to show that love. We can live, and love, without it." Until you change me. I added in my head.

"I just wish there was some way…"

"There is." I said.

"Bella, no. How many times do I have to tell you? I won't curse you like that."

And here came that impasse again. It was the single thing in our relationship that Edward and I couldn't agree upon. Okay, maybe it wasn't the only thing, but it was the most important.

"Can we please not argue about this right now? We just got home."

"Whatever you want, my love." He said, kissing my hair.

We lay there for a while. I couldn't really concentrate on how long—Edward was too much of a distraction.

"It's twilight." He said, breaking the peaceful silence. It was our time of day. The one that brought the most memories with it.

"How long have we been here?" I asked, snuggling closer to his body.

"Only a few hours." I shivered and then blushed. My humanity always had to ruin things. Well, my humanity and Emmett.

"Let's get you inside." Edward said.

He carried me into the house and as he was walking up the stairs, he quietly growled, "Stop it."

"What?" I asked, stiffening.

"Not you." I relaxed.

"Oh. What then?"

"Emmett." He answered simply.

"Oh." I said again. "What's he doing?" Edward chuckled.

"Will the questions ever end?"

"No." I said, still waiting for the answer.

"Fine. He's thinking of Rosalie very…inappropriately."

"Oh." I said.

By now we were sitting in Edward's room and he was searching through his never-ending music collection. He pulled out a CD and stuck it in his incredibly complex stereo system. The wonderfully soft music calmed me as Edward came to sit with me on his couch.

"Tired?" he asked, pulling me into his lap.

"Not really." I said. I really wasn't. It was impossible to feel lethargic when he was around me.

"You should sleep."

"Edward, I can sleep tomorrow. Charlie doesn't get back until Wednesday." At least that was what Edward said. Charlie hadn't called me when I was at Renee's to tell me about his fishing trip. It all seemed a little…fishy (corny pun intended) but I was willing to go along with it—it gave me more time with Edward.

"So what do you want to do?" he asked, nuzzling my neck. I shivered, loving the feel of his protective stone arms around me.

Just as I opened my mouth to ask him what he wanted to do, my stomach grumbled. I felt the blush creep over my face. Stupid humanity.

"I guess that settles it then." He said, trying, and failing, to contain his laughter.

I just got up and started walking toward the door, but a cold arm stopped me from taking more than a few steps.

"I'm sorry." He said, his beautiful fulvous eyes showing his sincerity as he spun me around to face him. "Have you even eaten today?" he asked, his eyes widening in horror as if it was his fault.

"No." I said, quickly adding, "But I wasn't feeling all that hungry."

"Stop lying, Bella." He said, with my favorite crooked smile, "You know you just forgot."

"Fine," I said, "I admit it. I forgot to eat because you were distracting me too much."

"Hey!" he was just teasing me now, I could tell, "Don't you try and blame this on me!"

"You would have blamed it on yourself anyways." I said, going for the door again. Now that I was paying attention to myself, I was really hungry.

"No, I would not have." Edward said.

I just rolled my eyes and walked out of his room. I tried to walk down the stairs, but I tripped over my feet and I watched the light-colored wood come unusually close to my face. But just before my face connected with it, something caught me. Edward, most likely.

"Do you have to trip over everything, Bella?" Came his voice from right above my ear.

"Ask my feet." I said, "They're the ones who do this to me." He chuckled and lifted my body so that I was in a standing position.

"Now. What do you want to eat?" he asked.

"Food." I said, trying to annoy him. He rolled his eyes.

"Well, yes, but what kind of food?"

"I don't really care." I said, giving up.

"Well, how am I supposed to feed you if I don't know what you want?"

"Just drive me to the grocery store. I'll buy myself something and we can come back here."

"Uh-uh." He said. "I'm taking you out." He was grinning now.

"No you most certainly are not!" I cried, "I'm tired of your spending money on me. And…" I said with a flirty smile, "I don't feel like going out tonight."

"Fine. We'll go to the grocery store. But I'm buying." I tried to protest, but Edward just placed a cool finger on my lips and smiled. "And there's nothing you can do to stop me."

"Fine." I acquiesced. It would be completely fruitless to try and get him to change his mind.

We made our way out of the house and into his Volvo. We were at the store within minutes.

As I meandered through the aisles, trying to decide what I wanted, Edward was holding my hand and making faces at the items on the shelves.

"What?" I asked, choosing a box of granola bars off the shelf.

"All of this looks completely inedible." He said with another grimace.

"Well, you're not the one who's going to be eating it, are you?" I asked, staring up at him.

"No, I'm not." He grinned and took my face in his hands.

And then he kissed me, under the glaring fluorescent lights of the Thriftway.

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Happy Mother's Day! Sorry, I had to say that. I cooked dinner for my mom, and now she's yelling at me to get off the computer and clean my room. Grr.

Okay, so anyone who can guess what video game they were playing at the beginning of this chapter gets….a box of Froot Loops! Just kiddin. But I might give you…a free review!

I'm quite proud of how this chapter turned out, actually, so review if you liked it too. (Actually, review even if you didn't like it.)

Bellabookworm9

(Sorry for any grammatical mistakes. I didn't check this over before I posted!)