A/N -I'm baaaaack! Thanks for continuing reading - there are about three chapters left (after this one) but they'll be good, I promise.

Things I own: As of today, 2 new lacy bra and pantie sets from the Gap and silver high-heeled boots

Things I do not own: Twilight. Sadly.

Chapter Twenty Nine: Trouble

APOV

I was on my way to Lit when I saw Edward chasing Bella down the hall. Shock flitted across my face – how hadn't I seen this? – before it was replaced by joy. Edward!

I watched their interaction in silence controlling my desperate urge to run up to him, hug him, and smack him so hard that it would make his ancestors dizzy. I had practice dealing with other, greater needs, so this was fairly easy to accomplish.

I hadn't expected her to turn him away; I kept my cool for fifteen whole seconds by mentally cataloguing every wedding dress I'd ever seen by fabric, designer, silhouette, and embellishment. Then I pounced.

"BellaBellaBellaBella – oh, hi Coach."

"Alice," he seemed surprised to see me. I used his temporary lapse in attention to pop out my dimples and bat my lashes. Usually I hated the fact that I was "so damn cute" and that Rosalie got whatever she wanted through pure sexual appeal, but cuteness got me farther with both genders. In this instance, puppy-dog eyes would be more effective than sex-me eyes, as Coach swung for the other team.

"Oh, Coach, I'm so sorry to interrupt your class, but I really need to speak to Bella," Blink blink blink.

His face, so often filled with expressions intimidating enough to motivate the football team into a few extra laps, softened at my less-than-resistible charms.

"Of course, sweetie, you go right on in." He smiled, and I resisted the urge to wrinkle my nose. If he could only see what "sweet little Alice Cullen" was like behind the scenes…

"Thanks, Coach," I chirped, skipping into the girl's locker room to find Bella huddled on the floor in fetal position. "What – ?"

She picked her head up. "He's back."

"I know! Why aren't you happy? I'm happy. Be happy," I threatened. I sincerely hoped that this mopiness was a product of her temporary confusion. Come hell and high water, there was going to be no more bullshit from either of them if I had anything to say about it. But…it was best to start off slow. Good cop.

I slid down in a crouch next to her. I would have sat down on the floor, too, except for three things: bacteria, fungus, and my favorite designer jeans. Not an ideal mixture in my book. "Do you want to tell me what happened?"

She shook her head, but started talking anyway, in gulps. It was like she had either finished sobbing or was about to start, but was trying to pretend that she wasn't a crier. Such a lie. Humans always surprised me by how weepy they were, but even by their standards, Bella was a hose.

"He-he just left for no good reason, and then out of the blue he just – just turns up! There I was, waiting for Bio, and he was just like, 'Oh, hi, Bella, enjoying the rain?' I mean, who the hell just leaves, and comes back to talk about the weather!"

My eyes widened as Bella's voice escalated to a near shout. It was pretty echo-ey in the now vacant locker room, so I considered shushing her. No, that would make her clam up altogether.

"What did he say?" I probed.

"Not much. Not that I really gave him a chance," she admitted. "I think he's sorry he left."

No, really? "Bella, I don't understand –what's the problem?" I sighed.

She bit her lip, looking embarrassed. "I'm mad at him for leaving."

Aren't we all?

"But more than that, I'm mad at myself. It…scares me how I react to him. Looking back on my behavior over the past couple of days, I was downright depressed. He shouldn't have that effect on me – what if he leaves again?"

I patted her head as her voice veered higher in desperation. "He won't," I said confidently. It was true. All I could hear in his thoughts right now was Bella, how beautiful Bella was, how sad he was that she was upset, and how adorable her anger was. Bella, Bella, Bella, every day, all the time. She was like air to him.

"You don't know that," she whispered. Wrong.

"Um, excuse me, did you forget that my predictions are just slightly more reliable than yours?"

"Well, I know, but there are holes, too. What if something like the Mike thing happens again? Anyway, I don't know how to act around him now. He left me, but not really, because it wasn't like I was his to begin with."

Um, wrong again. I'm pretty sure that the fact that Edward's thoughts refer to her as 'My Bella' negates that statement.

"That is a bit of a pickle. Just act the way you normally would. I would let him explain, since you apparently asked him to, but then ran into gym?"

She blushed heavily. "I'm sorry, I'm being pretty petty and stupid, aren't I?" she mumbled, looking ashamed.

"No, I'd be pretty pissed, too," I informed her cheerfully. "In fact, I am pretty furious. But he's still my brother, so even if I rip his arm off, I'll reattach it at the end of the day. I'll make sure to tell Jasper to keep the lighters away from me just in case things get out of hand."

Her eyes widened and she opened her mouth to say something, but the bell rang just then. Just when I finally had her distracted, she got vaguely panicky again.

"What do I do? I can't face him right now. I need time to think," she whispered, as girls poured into the locker room, sweaty, pink-faced, and giving the two of us weird looks.

I sighed. "If you can run to your truck without tripping, I'll hold him off."

Bella's face lit up and she threw her arms around me in gratitude. "Thanks!"

"Yeah, yeah. Go, go, go!" Even at her fastest, Bella was like a snail, and Edward's predatory senses were all over her scent.

I gave her a three second head start before I meandered out into the hallway, searching for that tousled bronze haired head of my favorite and most irritating sibling. I checked my vision, and there he was: stalking past the lockers like a panther in pursuit of some small animal of prey. It was a jungle cat walk that any runway would be happy to be graced with. As it was, each sophomore and freshman girl he passed sighed with hopeless lust and delight that the "sex muffin" Edward Cullen had recovered from his mysterious illness.

I swept in front of Mike Newton and his crew, ignored Tyler Crowley's whispered comment about how "fuckable" my ass looked in these jeans, and cut across the hall to where Edward was exiting his Lit class.

He was already out the door; Bella had been too slow – he had spotted her. Smelled her, more like. I was sure that his absence had strengthened his awareness of her. His pace was alarming, now that he had her in his line of sight. It bordered on conspicuous. Mayday, Mayday – Bella, move, you freaking human snail!

The one good thing that could be said for the situation was that he hadn't yet spotted me. He was so engrossed in his target that he likely couldn't hear me, either, else he would have bolted long before now. His mask of concentration broke into relief as he touched the main glass doors and stepped out to the parking lot, where Bella was picking her dropped keys up from the asphalt, fumbling with the lock on the truck.

I hopped in front of him. "Hello, brother dearest."

He stopped short in surprise, his focus broken momentarily. It was enough time for me to glance over my shoulder to see Bella jam her foot down on the accelerator and chug out of the parking lot; her truck couldn't zoom or tear off anywhere.

I leaned in with a satisfied smile, rising on the balls of my feet to whisper in his ear: "You, are in so...much... trouble."