Guys, I suck. I'm sorry for not responding to reviews yet but you're in my heart, I swear. I appreciate all of them very much :)

disclaimer: I don't own Twilight but I do own Balletward.

I'd been twenty-one for nine months by the time I moved to New York.

In those nine months, I'd had exactly six drinks. Four of those drinks took place on the night of my birthday with Alec and Jessie. The other two drinks were a month later when I saw Riley for the first time since my birthday and he took me out to a bar with two of his hockey player friends.

Neither one of those nights ended successfully.

The first night ended with Alec holding my hair back when I puked inside his truck. Repeatedly.

The next night went along different lines. I made out with Riley's hot hockey player friend when he went to the bathroom and his friend ended up with a black eye courtesy of my brother four minutes later. To this day, I still tell poor Felix that I'm sorry but he shrugs it off and tells me it was worth it. On that note, he never made another move on me again. I don't blame him for valuing his balls.

So, I should have known better than to drink two long island iced teas within an hour. By the time Alice and her tall and cute boyfriend, Jasper, made it, I was hanging off my stool — and the table — and cackling over Emmett's hysterical explanation as to why he didn't date dancers anymore.

"She asked me if I really needed to eat the other half of my burger!" he hissed with wide, drunken eyes. "I'm not fat."

Alice had pulled up a chair to sit right next to me, shaking her head. "Oh boo-hoo, are you telling Bella about that twat telling you that you were chunky?"

Something about her words rang familiar in my head and I frowned. "Wait, Rosalie is the queen of the twats?" Rosalie was the name of the girl that Emmett had just finished telling me all about. The bitch-dancer that had ruined him for all other females that weighed less than one-hundred and twenty pounds.

I didn't bother tell him that I weighed just a couple pounds over his limit.

"Yes!" she nodded all too eagerly, snatching a glass of crown and coke that Jamie was nursing. "She's not just a bitch with us, she's a bitch to everyone in general."

"Just thinking about her makes me want a drink. Ladies.. and... ladies? Anything?" Emmett mumbled, standing up to head to the bar.

Grumbles and I'm pretty sure someone shot him the finger answered him. And with that, I was found drinking something with the word sour in it. It might have been the alcohol I'd been chugging down to avoid the green eyes I felt on me the entire night. Watching, watching, watching. The green eyes that stayed on me were also the same green eyes that didn't want me for who I was, for who I'd worked to be.

Or, maybe I was too drunk to really know what the hell was going on. Everything seemed to have gotten a little fuzzy around the edges at some point.

When my phone rang from somewhere deep inside my purse, I couldn't find it. It rang again and I still couldn't find it. A hand with long, slender fingers plucked my purse from my lap and rummaged through it before handing me my battered phone. I looked up to see that it was Edward holding it out and I gave him a lazy smile. I'd barely said "Thanks" when my phone started ringing yet again, 'Carmen' flashing across the screen.

"Hello?" I answered.

"Duck? Are you okay?"

I kept looking at Edward who was staring at me intently. "Yeah, I'm fine."

She didn't say anything for a moment. "Can I talk to one of your friends, please?"

"Which one? There's Edward, Alice, James... I think Emmett is my friend now..." The same hand that passed me my phone was in front of me again, opening and closing his up-turned palm. "Oh wait, here's Edward."

He took the phone from me and spoke softly into the receiver for a minute, grinning a couple times throughout the conversation, before he grabbed my purse and slipped it back inside the largest pocket. Edward stood up and tugged on his black jacket over his emerald green hoodie. "We're leaving, guys."

"Who's we?" Emmett bellowed from across the table, looking around like someone new had joined our table without him knowing.

Edward smiled and shook his head before moving around his stool to come stand behind me, resting his hands on my shoulders in a way that made my heightened — and drunk — nerves tingle. "I'm in charge of making sure Bella gets home safely or else I'll be risking the safety of my genitalia," he laughed.

I was a little too gone to care that they were treating me like a kid but I wasn't all there. I'd probably get on the wrong subway and end up on the wrong side of the island in the state I was in. So, when Edward started getting me to put my jacket on, I didn't fight him. His hands brushed up the lengths of my arms once it was on. That I could remember but the rest I couldn't. I couldn't focus on whether I told them all bye or not but hopefully I did, but I was all too aware of Edward and his pretty face leading me toward the doors of the pub and outside to the street, while his hand wrapped around my forearm as a guide.

He was whistling too loudly at some point and then pushing me on my lower back to get into the back of a cab. My head hung back against the seat, limply.

"Bella? Tell me if you start to feel sick, okay?" his low voice murmured in the dark cab.

I think I nodded but I probably didn't. "My head just feels funny," I replied.

"You're not used to drinking that much, huh?"

I don't know why I laughed but I did. "Yeah."I rolled my head to look at the handsome man sitting next to me. The handsome man who probably only dated girls with huge boobs and college degrees. "Did some dancing girl break our heart, too?" I slithered out like the drunk I was.

He blinked straight ahead before turning to look at me out of the corner of his eye. "No, Bella. No one's broken my heart."

I swallowed hard, fighting the gross taste in my mouth. "Oh."

"Bella?" he asked me, keeping those almost glow-in-the-dark eyes in my direction. "Why does the girl on the phone call you Duck?"

I giggled and rubbed a hand over my face, and took a deep breath. "My nickname."

"You'll have to tell me about that later."

I nodded before turning to glance at him again. "Mm'kay." I smiled and swallowed hard again. "Thanks for making sure I get home."

He gave me this grin that I could later on, when sober, consider as tender and playful. "Sure, Duck."