Chapter 22: Don't Put All Your Ovaries In One Basket
note: This is part one of a two part chapter-I'll have the other part up tomorrow. This chapter sorta has to set up the situation for the next part.
note: re: the characters Emmett and Seamus. I'm actually am basing them off some nice, foreign, rugby playing Mormon returned missionaries I've known(and dated...), so there are really boys out there like them. lol The funniest thing about the returned missionary boys I knew was that they really were in "priest mode" after their missions for a good several months.
last chapter synopsis: Bella found out about Rose's sad past, Jasper showed his true colors to Bella in terms of his feelings for Alice, Bella finally appreciates Edward's insistence on picking her up at night from work, Edward prods Bella into considering forming a band to take over the Wednesday night gig at her sports bar job.
BPOV
"Oh hell, Bella, look at this!" Edward and I walked back into the dorm room to find Alice and Jasper at a family photo album. "Look at Edward in this portrait-he couldn't have been more than 11. Doesn't he look like a ventriloquist's dummy with that bow tie?! You were such a dandy, even back then..." Edward shot her a death stare as I checked out the picture. He was sitting at a piano with a very serious look on his face, decked out in a suit. There was a candlebra on top of the piano that gave an air of Liberace-ness-- I couldn't stifle the giggle that came out reflexively. A little girl was sitting next to him, looking like an angel in a flowing white dress. She was holding a mini-sized cello.
"Aw, you two were so beautiful, even as children," I marveled as my finger brushed over their images.
"We look like dorks!" Alice barked back. I cocked my head to the side, my wheels working overtime.
"You play the cello, Alice?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "Not anymore."
"She should, " Edward interrupted. "She has more natural talent than I do. I just practiced more and I didn't give up on it in high school like Alice did. Apparently cheerleading was of greater importance." He shot her a disapproving look.
"Hey-we went to Nationals, and who else could be on the top of a 4 person high pyramid but me and my fabulousness? Let me see some cello players pull THAT off." Edward shook his head in response.
I was so used to seeing Edward being chastised by Alice, it was almost unnatural to hear him use that authoritative tone with her.It as the first time I had ever seen him act like the elder brother he was."Why haven't you ever played for me, Edward?"
He chuckled. "You've never asked, Bella. Oh-and I"ve known you approximately one month--and for that month we weren't suppossed to see eachother."
I shot him a pointed glance. "Well, I'm asking now. I would like to hear you play sometime. Soon."
"You got it." He smiled crookedly in my direction.
--
Once Jasper and Edward finally left, I got straight to business.
"Two things Alice: Jasper's falling for you. And um, I want you to be in a band with me."
I explained to her what had happened in the car with Jasper. How he was trying to act simply like an overprotective brother. But when push came to shove, he wouldn't own the "brother" label in the end.
"He mumbled, "I'm not her brother," Alice, when I said what more could a brother hope for in a gentleman like Seamus for you."
Her eyes grew wide, but she quickly tried to dismiss it. "Oh, he probably didn't mean anything by it."
"Yes, he did, Alice. You weren't there. You didn't the look on his face when I said Seamus made you happy. You didn't see him walk in on you and Seamus asleep side by side, drop his jaw and utter, "shit." This morning."
She tried to deny it, but I could tell it was an act. She didn't want to get sucked back into hoping on what she concluded was a lost cause. I didn't push it though. I even gave her a way out.
"Well, maybe he's too late anyways, Seamus and you seem to be getting quite close..."
Alice looked at me seriously. "We are actually, cause we understand eachother very well. We both are in love."
I sat up quickly. "What?"
"Just not in love with eachother."
She elaborated on how they had bonded in the first place, before I even knew Seamus existed. Alice had told him about Jasper pretty much from the start of knowing eachother. I shouldn't have been surprised-Mike told me she had detailed the "Jasper Chronicles" the night they met at the club as well. Alice was very young that way. Whereas I kept almost everything to myself self protectively, Alice seemed to share herself freely with others emotionally. I couldn't help but notice Edward and her were similar in that way. I almost envied them for being that trusting of others. I certainly wasn't.
Alice explained why he understood where she was coming from: Seamus' Mormon girlfriend was on a mission herself and wouldn't be back for almost another year and a half. They were taking a break while she was gone, but he was still in love with her. I could tell she felt almost ashamed for pouring her heart to Seamus so unguardedly when they first met; but it only made me think of how I did the same thing with Emmett just the day before.
I shook my head and laughed. "You have no idea how prophetic your words were when you said Emmett and Seamus were only a step down from being priests. They are like takeout priests-they deliver blessings to your door and don't even expect a tip!"
She cracked up while she sat up slightly to meet my eye. "But Seamus is a priest with benefits." Her eyes were twinkling. "I can schedule in confession time and makeout time for the same hour..." She let her sentence drift off lazily as she twirled a piece of hair.
"You kissed him yesterday, Alice?"
She nodded while giggling.
"And?"
She shot me an overly mischievous smirk. "You know...my heart may belong to Jasper; but I have to say, after the way he kissed me? My libido defected to the land of Seamus..."
"Hey, sister, nothing's wrong with that. My mom always told me, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket." Alice looked at me with an arched eyebrow. "Or in your case, ovaries..."
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APOV
Bella had been sleeping for several minutes now, snuggled up in my bed with me. We had spent the last three hours talking about two things: boys and bands.
The band part was easy enough to deal with. She blurted out to me quickly about Edward's idea. I didn't get how I worked into the equation initially.
"Alice, you play cello. You are more musically inclined than Edward. Bass, Alice-you could play the bass! Same principles, just some tinkering here and there..."
What sounded like a desperate, insane plea in the beginning started sounding like a real possibility after consuming a box of Red Vines and more flattery from Bella.
"The songs will be no brainer covers--musical comfort food for drunken college students. But think of it Alice-you and me onstage together, bringing Jem and Holograms to life...you could even coordinate our clothes and hair! Do you know how freaking fantabulous we are going to be up there together on stage?" She knew she had me at "coordinate our clothes and hair."
"I'll give it a shot and see if it's possible. But I'm not giving you any promises, Bella."
"That's all I'm asking for." She quickly started on how she was going to contact Laurent and figure something out, when I cut her off.
"And one condition-I don't want Edward or Jasper to know about this. That way if it doesn't work out, they'll be none the wiser for it."
Bella's face was beaming. "Deal. And how much hotter will it be if this all works out and Jasper first learns about it while you are working it onstage?"
Which leads me to the "boy" part of our conversation. We both decided we were at an "impasse" with Edward and Jasper. Time would only tell if anything would come of it. And yet, time was all I ever had with Jasper.
"Bella...Bella...sorry to wake you up..." Obviously not too sorry since I was still pushing her shoulder somewhat enthusiastically.
Her eyes opened. "Oh, sorry Alice, I didn't mean to crash on your bed--" she was jumping up as I stopped her in midmotion.
"That's not why I woke you. I think I need to renegotiate the terms of me becoming a part of the Holograms."
"Wuh?"
"Negotiations. Don't think you are going to make me learn a new instrument and become the band stylist for nothing!"
She eyed me suspiciously. "Go on."
"Here are my terms. You will go with me to Jasper's and Edward's frat house party this weekend."
"I work. And Edward isn't going either-he said he was going to come to my work and have a three hour dinner there while studying while he waited for me to get off." Edward was becoming whipped to the point of nauseousness.
"Get the shift covered. AND...you will wear boots and a dress. Of my choosing."
"That's it?"
I nodded.
"Those are lame terms honestly Alice. I have bunches of boots."
"No they aren't. You'll see what I mean. We are going to open the floodgates on the "impasse" to see what happens."
"And these boots-- are the floodgate raisers?" She looked at me in complete confusion.
I shook my head sympathetically in her direction. "Honey, you would have to see the boots to understand."
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