LL Chapter 26
Dinner and Bowling and Stalkers…oh my!
The next morning Bella was surprised that Alice was not in the car with me when I arrived to pick her up for school. I told her that Alice usually drives herself to school on the days that she has to work. That is unless she has plans with Jasper afterwards. My sister being my sister we still beat her to school. We were all sitting on the picnic table again, waiting for the bell to ring when she finally arrived.
Bella asked Alice immediately about joining a Judo class together and Alice damn near busted all of our eardrums with her squealing. She was talking a mile a minute about where to take the class what nights worked best for her, stopping for dinner after classes, etc. Bella took a step back in her surprise at Alice's overzealousness and bumped into Jasper who was walking up behind her, "Ok, who set her off?" he asked.
We all pointed at Bella who started stammering, "I didn't know…I just asked…it was his idea…" she ratted me out. I explained about the Judo class and Jasper just laughed and then grabbed Alice's hand and started leading her away amid complaints from here that she and Bella still needed to discuss specifics. He knew that there was only way to really shut her up and he also knew that I did not want to have to watch the two of them kissing.
At lunch, I reminded Bella that while I would still be picking her up for school in the morning, I would not be able to drive her home as I was scheduled to work at the NICU. Alice volunteered to take her home but Bella asked that she drop her off at our dad's office. He wanted to check her wrist again and see if she was able to resume driving again. The idea that Bella would not need me to pick her up anymore was depressing to me.
Rose must have noticed the change in my attitude because she changed the subject to something that I had texted her about this morning, "Ok, we need to talk about Saturday and the driving arrangements." I had thought about offering to pick up Bella for the dinner but then I thought that that could make it seem date-ish and could end up scaring Bella.
"I have to be at the hospital on Saturday afternoon til three so I thought that I would just bum around PA until it was time to meet for dinner."
"Alright girls, I was thinking that we could make an afternoon of it and go for mani's and pedi's before dinner. How does that sound?"
The first person that spoke up surprised us all, "I'm so in. I haven't done that in so long. It will be nice to do something girly again," Bella sighed.
"Are you kidding me?" Rose laughed, "You are the one that I thought that we were going to have to drag out of the house kicking and screaming!"
"Oh no," Bella replied, "My friends and I were always getting our nails done in Phoenix. I like to do girly shit; it is just harder to get time to do it these days with a newborn. But I know Dad will be absolutely thrilled about it he has this thing about me still being young and having fun."
After Angela and Alice agreed to the pre-dinner excursion, it was agreed that Rose would be driving the girls and Emmett would be picking Jasper. Ben who had to work Saturday too, was going to drive himself as well.
Saturday afternoon I arrived at the NICU dressed a little better than I normally would and the two nurses on duty that afternoon were enjoying teasing me about the 'hot date' they were sure that I had planned. The irony was that I wished that it was a real date and not just a group dinner. The fundraiser dinner was now two weeks away and I did need to ask her soon if she was going to have time to find a dress and a babysitter for the night. I resolved in my mind that I was going to ask her tonight…well this weekend…definitely this weekend…maybe…
After my shift was over, I roamed aimlessly around Port Angeles until it was time to meet everyone at the restaurant. Emmett loves the Japanese restaurant in town so that is where we had reservations. When the showed me to the table I deliberately took the seat on the end. My goal was to get Bella to sit next to me and Angela hopefully would be at the other end.
The girls were the first to show up as they approached the table I saw Angela pick up speed as if she was going to beat everyone to the table and get the only seat next to me. Rose, bless her heart, stopped her and started fidgeting with Angela collar as if it needed fixing. Meanwhile Bella and Alice continued toward me. To my immense surprise, Bella automatically took the chair next to me. That had to be a positive sign that she liked me, right?
When the waiter came to take our order, I was surprised when Bella ordered a diet coke with grenadine and I raised my eyebrow at her, "While your father was checking over my wrist Wednesday, I got him to give me permission to have some treats tonight. I get one soda and fried rice!"
"So the blood pressure is doing better?"
"It's still a tiny bit high but it is a lot lower than what it was. It's considered borderline hypertension right now, but your dad said that since I am always so strict with my diet, I deserve to have a treat every now and then. So, what are you going to get?" she looked back at the menu, "I am totally going for the steak and shrimp combo."
"I guess great minds really do think alike because that is exactly what I was going to order."
Angela who, sullenly, ended up half way down the table was desperately attempting to get my attention throughout dinner. Rose had texted me when they sat down that Angela had asked how to get me to ask her out. Rose told her, again, that I wasn't interested and it wasn't going to happen. Angela just shrugged her off and muttered something about how she was just going to have find a way to be more obvious. As if she hadn't been completely obvious to this point. The only way she could be more obvious would be asking me out directly. What really concerned me was that Bella had lost all of her friends over what happened in Phoenix and I did not want her to have to deal with anyone else turning on her because of me. But damn it, we both had the right to be happy and whether or not Bella had ever come to Forks I was not going to ever consider going out with Angela.
Angela was getting more and more annoying throughout the meal trying to get my attention. Rose whispered something in Angela's ear, to which Angela rolled her eyes, and then she asked Bella if she wanted to switch seats with her and I couldn't help but laugh when Bella replied, "No thanks. I'm fine right here."
As the dinner progressed Rose pulled out a camera and started snapping pictures of everyone. At one point she had Emmett come to our end of the table and stand behind us so she could get one of the three of us.
After Rose and I settled the bill, Bella agreed to ride over to the bowling alley with me. I stood up taking Bella's hand and pulling her up with me and told everyone that we would meet them there and then we hightailed it out of the restaurant before Angela could invite herself along.
I had to stop at the gas station on our way to the bowling alley so while I pumped the gas she called her dad and checked up on Tanya. The other managed to beat us there and thankfully Ben was managed to distract Angela into a conversation with him. We grabbed two lanes and decided to pair up and play two couples per lane. We were going to switch up each game where winners play the winners and losers played the losers.
Of course I managed to claim Bella as my partner. Our first game was against Emmett and Rose. There was no way that we were going beat them, they were here so often they were on a first name basis with the shoe rental guy.
It became obvious that Bella had never been bowling in her life when on her first turn up she got really excited when she managed to knock down one pin. She threw, and I mean threw, her ball down the lane two times and only managed to get one pin and what ecstatic about that? One the second frame, she managed to throw the ball behind her hitting Emmett square in the gut so hard that he fell to the floor with the wind knocked out of him. She was so horrified that she was about to start crying until Rosalie fell to the floor laughing her ass off at the whole thing. Professional bowling was not in this girl's future that was for sure.
After that spectacular loss to Emmett and Rose we had a few minutes to wait for the others to finish their game so we wandered over to the snack shop. Bella and I both got unsalted soft pretzels and, well, Rose and Emmett each got what only could be considered another meal with burgers, fries, and candy. We took the food back to the where our lanes were and waited our chance to start another game.
Alice and Jasper ended up losing to Angela and Ben by two points. The girls decided that a small bathroom break was needed before we started the next game. When the girls returned Angela appeared upset about something but I didn't really care. What I did care about was that Bella looked a little agitated. When I asked her what was wrong she smiled and told me it that nothing and she seemed fine after that. But something must have happened or something was said in that bathroom.
Jasper and Alice managed to annihilate us quite well as well. Although in Bella's last frame up she shocked all of us, herself included, when she managed a strike. It was so cute how excited she got; she was jumping up and down screaming "I did it! I did it! Look what I did!" Then she ran at me, jumped in my arms, and gave me a big hug. Then she proceeded to hug everyone else in the group, including Ben, dashing my hopes that the hug was another sign that she liked me.
We decided to take another small break between games again. Bella, Rose, and I stayed at the lanes while everyone else ran to either the bathroom or the snack bar. When Bella could not stop yawning I asked her if she was tired and wanted to go home.
"I am tired, but Rose is my ride and I don't want everyone to have leave early because of me."
"I'm ready to call it a night myself so I could drive you home," I offered.
"Really?"
"Really."
"Let's at least say goodbye to everyone and wish Emmett a happy birthday again before we go."
"I'll tell him for you. You guys need to get out of here before Angela gets back."
Ok, I thought on the way to the car. It was time for me to man up and just asked her. I had made sure that I was a perfect gentleman all night and very attentive to her. I must have opened my mouth to ask her a dozen times on the ride home but I could not get myself to speak the words. If I asked and she said no the rest of ride home would be very uncomfortable.
Then the perfect opportunity presented itself. We were just entering the city limits of Forks when it started raining…again.
"Damn it!" Bella complained, "I left my umbrella in Rose's car."
"I guess that just means that I get to walk you to the door again."
"You don't have to Edward."
"I know I don't have to, I want to. There is a difference."
When we pulled into her driveway, I grabbed my umbrella off the back seat, ran around the car to open her door for her and started to escort her to the porch. I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her close to me to ensure that she was under the umbrella with me. Yeah, that's the only reason I did it.
"Déjà vu," she said as we reached the door.
"What?"
"It's déjà vu. I mean didn't we just do this the other day?"
It was now or never I thought, "I would do this for you every day, Bella."
"You would?"
"Yes. I would. Bella, I need to ask you something."
"Ask away."
"The hospital fundraiser is coming up in two weeks…and …uh…I wanted to know if you would be my date."
"Like a real date?"
"Yes, a real date."
"You want to go on a date with me? Even though I am a teen mom?" And at that moment, I thought that I was going to throw up everything I ate tonight, right here on her porch.
A/N:
Yes. I ended it there. I've never done a cliffy before. BUT, I am going to do something else that I have never done before and I will probably never do again. I am offering a bribe in exchange for reviews. I wrote a 750 word drabble from Rose's POV and anyone that reviews will get that. I want to keep this story completely EPOV but I couldn't help writing this. It's something that he is not present for. OH! And Bella's answer is in the drabble. The next update won't be til Monday, probably, because I really need to work on the FYH update and we are celebrating my mom's birthday this weekend. She's finally old enough for Medicare! She's excited to have health insurance again!