Inked

Summary: Edward, an aspiring tattoo artist, never thought he could lose so much sleep over some ink he left on a stranger's back. Well, I guess he's never met Isa-freaking-Bella Black. AH, Canon Couples...eventually

Disclaimer: All publicly recognized characters, quotes, references, or anything else associated to Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga© are not of my own creation.

~~Inked~~

"Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend." ― Albert Camus

~~Inked~~

"Damn New England weather-men. You know, people say that the weather up here is unpredictable, but seriously, if you're going to be like some type of weather expert, you should be able to tell the difference between snow and sun.? I get that it's December, but still. About half-way through the movie it started getting really cold in Bella's apartment. We thought perhaps there was just some type of draft, and we ignored it. As soon as I went to walk out the door I see she left a window open and there's snow on the ground! Together Bella and I concluded that it was indeed snowing outside.

"Well, finally someone with my point of view. Though, you've got to give these guys a break, they aren't superhuman. New England is just…a challenge I guess. But, I was hoping for sunny skies on my New Year's, and the way things are looking now the roads are going to be real bad for a while," Bella sighs.

"Yeah, well, I'm gonna get going. Bye Bella." I said, fully prepared to make the five mile jog home in the snow. In all honesty, I really didn't want too, but I didn't want to overstep my stay.

"Are you kidding? It's who knows how many degrees below zero and you think I'm going to let you leave? Oh no, you're stuck with me," Bella laughs.

"You're sure? My house really isn't all that far from here," I offer, hoping Bella declines.

"I'm positive. Sit down in the living room, let me call Rose and see where she is, okay?" Bella asks, going into her room with her phone obviously not caring for an answer. Bella's cute like that.

I smile to myself. This night went a lot better than planned, and although I can't say I'm 100% happy with our 'friendship', I'm content as of now. Though, I now realize I've got to break it to my mom that the girl I like refused me, and that I most likely will not be attending her 'family thanksgiving', and I know she'll be crushed. I think I can live with that, though; not that I don't care what my mother thinks, but I just know family get-togethers are a bad idea.

Bella walks into the room. "Rose says she's going to be staying with Emmett, because the roads suck. It's just going to be me and you. Our rooms are kind of a mess, so we can sleep in here. You take the couch, and I'll go grab an air mattress," Bella offers.

"No way. You can sleep in your bed, and I can take the couch. You don't have to babysit me. I'm a big boy and I can handle sleeping on my own. Trust me, Bella, I'll be fine." I smirk.

"Oh, no. That's rude. I'm not going to just go to my room and let you stay out here by yourself. What kind of friend would I be if I did that?"

"A normal one. I'm serious, Bella, I'll be fine." I'm not about to lose this one. I'm stubborn, that's like my thing.

"Well, I'm not normal," trust me, I know, "and I'm not letting up on this, so you might as well drop it. I'm going to go lock my bedroom door from the inside, and then come back through…a way that I'm not going to tell you, that way as far as you know I can't even get in my room." Bella skips to her room, locks the door and then somehow comes back through Rose's room.

"There."

"Fine, well then you can take the couch, and I'll blow up an air mattress for myself. I've already made you uncomfortable enough."

"Edward, you idiot, you're not making me uncomfortable. I love the air mattress. I'll be good. Now you get set up on the couch." She lifts an eyebrow.

"Or, you get set up on the couch, and tell me where the air mattress is so I can set it up for myself. That sounds so much better."

Bella sighs. I laugh.

"You're not letting up on this?"

"No," I reply with a smile on my face.

"Then consider victory to be yours, Mr. Masen. I think I've met my match."

Now, if I could get Bella to say those exact words in a different context, than victory truly would be mine.

And so Bella got me the air mattress, a blanket and two pillows, and we both went to sleep in the living room.

Or, at least Bella did.

You see, our dear Bella is quite the sleep-talker. Her murmurs stop me from even getting close to falling asleep. I tried to ignore her; it seemed like an invasion of privacy not to. Then she started talking about dancing chickens and other random things. How fun it would be to be able to read her mind at this moment? But then, her dream seemed to be getting darker, more full of angst.

"Fay, don't," Bella whispers. Fay's a name Bella's said on more than one occasion by now, and she still hasn't given me enough clues to figure out what Fay's relation is to Bella. "Fay, come back to bed."

A lesbian lover? Didn't seem likely, but that's where the signs were pointing.

"Fay, Fay, where are you?" Bella asks urgently, peaking my interest.

"Jacob, where's Fay? Jacob? Jacob? Are you in the house?" Bella's voice gets progressively louder.

"Rose? Royce? Where is everybody? Wait, what are you doing here? No…no, NOO!"

With the sudden realization that Bella's having a nightmare, I wake her up. Groggily Bella looks at me.

"Oh, thank God you're here. I had the worst dream, that both you and Fay died, and your rotten friend Royce. I love you, Jacob." She says, and closes her eyes and resumes her sleep.

What the hell? First of all, I don't even know who Fay, or Royce is. Second of all, my name is not Jacob, and third, I'm almost positive Bella does not love me. Hallucinations, I conclude. She must've thought she was seeing her Jacob. Perhaps he was a lover of hers? I don't know.

I do know that Bella is a weird chick, though.

~~Inked~~

The next morning the roads are paved, and I'm all set up to go home. I decide to go to work in my pajamas straight from Bella's, as in Emmett's manual (which I've read over quite thoroughly) says nothing about a dress code. It's not like I work in an office or something like that.

I leave Bella a note:

Had to go to work, didn't want to wake you. Last night was a blast, hope to hear from you soon—E

When I get to work, Emmett is there along with the company of Rosalie, looking perfect as ever.

"Why hello there, sleeping beauty, you're late. I'll forgive you under the circumstances that you covered for me yesterday, and the roads suck today." Emmett says.

"Oh shut up, Emmett. So what happened with Bella?" Rosalie asks, very interested. "Last I heard she hated you. Or, the idea of you I guess, I don't really know. That girl gives me a headache."

"Rose, I think I'll let Bella dish out her own drama thank you very much. All I'll say is that we're friends as of now." I frown internally. Friends.

"Friends?" Rose mimics my thoughts. "Ooh, that must stink, bro. Hang in there." Rose laughs.

"Is it bring your annoying sort of girlfriend to work day, or what, Emmett?" I tease.

"Oh shut up, you wish. I brought Rosalie with me under the grounds of neither of us were confident in Rose's car's ability to bring her home safely. I'm sure you'd understand if the roles were reversed, wouldn't you, little man?"

I rolled my eyes. It was bad enough Emmett called me 'little man' in private, but in front of Rose? Now she's going to laugh, and call me that too…and I'd be surprised if this little name doesn't get passed onto Bella.

"Yeah, lay off," Rose says, then whispers under her breath with a slight chuckle, "little man."

"Thanks Emmett. I really appreciate your spreading the worst nickname a guy could possibly have around. Really, thanks." I'm pretty good at sarcasm.

"You're welcome." Emmett is too.

Emmett and I then get down to business, and he tells me my clients, their names, and their desired tattoo, blah blah blah. It looks like this Saturday's going to be busy.

~~Inked~~

"Oh hey, Edward," my name sounds weird, almost, coming from Emmett, "before you leave, my family's having a New Year's Eve thing. I don't know, it's kind of a formal event and it's awful every year, not to mention terribly boring – but you should come! I have an invitation for you, and it's plus one," Emmett winks.

"And why do I want to go to your family's terrible party that's, oh my God dude, $30 a plate?" I could do a lot better things with $30 than go to a terrible party.

"Because, I'll be there, and Rose will be there, and Bella will be there, most likely. Who knows, maybe this year the party will be tolerable! And, if you're lucky, you can win over Bella; just saying, I bet you look good in a suit."

"You think so? I do have the torso for it, don't I?" I look down at myself approvingly. I'm not going to lie, I'm hot.

"Definitely. So, are you in or out?" Emmett asks.

"I don't know, let me check and make sure Bella's down for it, and then let me see if I own a suit."

A/n: I have a lot of excuses as to why this chapter was so late but I'm not going to waste your time with that. Cough *emails such* cough cough *new laptop* cough cough *RL* cough cough *couldn't find my activation key for Microsoft 2010 cough*, wow I must be coming down with something. If this gives you any idea how late this chapter is, when I wrote it, it was originally a Thanksgiving 'thing'. One last note I'd like to thank and congratulate my wonderful beta 4MeJasper, who's story, Her Keeper, has just reached 1,000 reviews (actually now I think it's more like 1,100 or something)! It's JxB which I don't usually go for, but it's really good and I think you guys will enjoy it. And I'm sorry this chapter was so short :(

REVIEW: I'll answer one question you have about the story. Example: Why is Bella's last name Black? Answer: ****

(I'm not giving anything away for free, hence the stars, though I think the answer's obious ;)