A/N: Hi! Sorry that I didn't get to respond to any of your reviews, it's been a crazy week again and it was between responding to reviews or writing this chapter. I'll assume that I'm correct when I say you would prefer the chapter. I read them all though, and love hearing your thoughts on the story! Sorry about any grammar mistakes in this chapter. It's 3:30 am, and I'm tired. I tried to proofread, but I may have missed some things. So here's the chapter. I'm off to bed!

Disclaimer: Twilight and characters belong to Stephanie Meyer, only the plot is mine.

Chapter 9

EPov

God, I'm an idiot. What possessed me to say that out loud? Well, that's an easy question: Jasper wouldn't leave it alone. Was I ashamed of how I felt? Not exactly. Surprised would be more like it. I shouldn't have been. I had already admitted to myself that I loved him. I had already considered him part of my family, at least a family that consisted of him and me. But to have my sister say it, to welcome him in and accept him after us only dating a week? That was beyond all my hopes.

But what would Jasper say? Would he freak out and say it was too soon? Because it was too soon, even I knew that. People, normal people, don't fall in love with someone in a week. Even if they do, they don't consider that person as a part of their family in a week.

And he was my family. I had told him more about my career and dreams then I had ever told Alice or my father. Alice and I were close, after my mother died we were all each other had. Dad was always working, trying to keep things together and forget about mom. I love him, but too many years of being in the background of his life behind the ghost of my mother, had created a distance. Alice and him weren't this way. Alice was his little girl, looking for the best in everyone. He worked so that she could have a prom dress, go to the movies every weekend, and become a woman who acted exactly like our mother. I was quiet and focussed on my music. I was also gay, which was something that he didn't know how to handle. He tried, though, and I loved him for it. He did the best he could as a single father. Financially, we were a successful family. Where we suffered was the emotional part.

Jasper was the first person that had made me feel important. I never felt like a background with him. In fact, Jasper made me feel like I was the most important person in his world. And he was slowly becoming the most important person in mine.

I wanted Jasper to know everything about me. I wanted him to know more about me than anyone before. I wanted Jasper to love me as much as I loved him.

"I—I. I mean, well," I sputtered. Just fucking explain, my mind screamed.

Jasper was looking at me with an emotion I couldn't decipher. Horror? Anger? Something inside me screamed: hope, but I pushed it away. He wouldn't hope, he was too confident to hope for me. Right?

I took a deep breath. My hands had involuntarily tightened around the steering wheel, my knuckles white from the pressure. I loosened them, giving myself time to think of something to say.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. It was all I could say. To explain it away would cheapen it, regardless of Jasper's reaction.

"Sorry? What are you sorry for Edward?" He didn't sound mad. He sounded confused. What was he confused about? My apology?

"I'm sorry. F—For saying that. It's weird, I know. I don't know why I said it."

"Did you mean it?"

What could I say? I didn't want to lie to him.

"Yes."

Jasper nodded, bit his lip, and looked out the window, watching the city lights go by. His silence was deafening and I was sure I could go crazy if he didn't talk to me soon. Maybe if I could explain why I liked it… but no, that wouldn't solve anything. At this rate, I would only admit to loving him. That would be sure to have him running. I was fucked. Completely fucked. So I decided to say nothing. At least, not until Jasper said something first.

It was a long car ride.

I pulled into my driveway, shut off my car, and turned towards Jasper. I couldn't take it; I had to know what he was thinking. And if he wasn't going to tell me, I was going to force it out of him.

"Are you going to speak to me?" He didn't respond. He continued to stare out the window, but when I spoke I thought I saw a small flinch. Like he was finally remembering that I was there.

"I have to know what you're thinking." More silence. "Jasper please." I could hear the desperation in my voice.

"Are you going to leave me?" I whispered. That got his attention. Jasper's whole body swivelled in his chair to face me, his face full of anger.

"What?" His voice was quiet, his anger flowing beneath the calmness of his voice.

"I'd understand if you, you know. It was too soon. I know that." I looked down at my clasped hands in my lap, bracing myself for what was going to happen.

"Edward, look at me." His hand cupped my face, turning it towards him. I looked at him to see Jasper looking into my eyes. All traces of anger were gone. His other hand came up to cup the other side of my face.

He leaned over and captured my lips between his. I closed my eyes and immediately responded, opening my mouth to let him in. But he made no move to deepen it. When he pulled away I left my eyes open for a moment.

"Look at me," He whispered. I opened my eyes and drank in his beauty. If this was the last time I ever looked at him, I considered myself blessed that he would always remain this beautiful in my memories.

His hands dropped from my face, "lets go inside."

Go inside? What the fuck? So he can't break up with me in the driveway, fine, but does he need to prolong this anymore? I followed though. I'd follow Jasper anywhere.

"Wanna beer?" He asked, walking into my kitchen. Well now he was just pissing me off. I stormed after him and watched him as he got a beer out of the fridge.

"What are you doing?" I asked, hoping he could feel my glare on his back. He stood up straight and turned around, surprised.

"What are you talking about? I'm getting us a beer."

"I see that, what I want to know is why."

"I'm thirsty and I wanted to watch the news' sports recaps with a beer." He said, as if that explained everything. I didn't understand how he could act as if the past twenty minutes hadn't just happened. Did he not care, one way or the other? Was I that unimportant to him?

"Stop this," I tried to hold the tears at bay, "Just fucking stop. You're being cruel."

"What the hell are you talking about, Edward?"

"Just break up with me!" I yelled.

Jasper raised his eyebrows and studied me for a while, and then he held a beer out to me, "No."

That wasn't what I had expected. "What do you mean?"

"I mean no. Now I'm going to watch the news. Are you coming?" He asked. He walked out of the room, but my body refused to follow him this time. I heard the TV turn on in the next room. I leaned against the counter, listening to the mummer of the TV and Jasper's occasional comments on whatever story they were covering.

He was still here.

Even after I had practically confessed that I liked that he was considered part of my family, freaked out on him, and accused him of being cruel, he was here. Watching TV as if nothing had happened. I wasn't sure if I was happy or annoyed. After some thought, I settled with relieved.

I walked into the living room and sat next to him on the couch. The sports recap didn't hold much interest for me, but I knew that Jasper would want to know what happened. I waited for the weather to begin before I started my new round of apologises.

"I'm sorry." I said again as soon as the weatherman launched into the forecast.

Jasper heaved a heavy sigh and took another sip of his beer, "What are you sorry for now?"

"I'm sorry I freaked out. And I'm sorry I called you cruel." I distracted myself with rolling my bottle between my hands.

"That's it?"

My head shop up to look at him. The anger was back in his face, but even more so, he looked hurt. I had hurt him. I knew that he would be able to hurt me with a simple harsh word, but I would never have imagined that I had the power to hurt him. Jasper was carefree, loving, and let the world roll off his shoulders. How could I have any impact on him?

"Isn't that enough?' I asked, timidly.

"No that's not fucking enough," Jasper roared. He leapt from the couch and stood directly in front of me. "Do you think so little of me, that you think I would leave you? For what? For saying what's on your mind?"

"No I just though—" I shrunk back into the couch when Jasper took a step forward and towered over me.

"I think it's pretty fucking clear that you didn't think Edward." He spat out. I wasn't sure where this anger was coming from. When he had left the kitchen, he hadn't seemed this mad, apparently the news had given him time to think about the situation.

I had never seen him angry before, and while part of me was terrified about what he would do next, another part of me thought he looked ridiculously hot when he was angry. That thought helped to lighten the serious mood for a bit, at least until Jasper started yelling again.

"I thought that I had been pretty clear about where I stood in this. From day one, I knew I wanted you. I told you I wanted you. When I finally think I fucking have you, you call me cruel and accuse me of trying to break up with you. From where I'm standing, Edward, you're the cruel one here."

His words stung me, because I knew that they were true. It was cruel of me to assume that he would leave me when he had shown me nothing but friendship, generosity, and love. I had done him a disservice. I had distrusted the one person that moments before I had seen as my family. I had to make it up to him, but I had no idea what to say to right this.

"I'm so sorry, Jasper. You were just so quiet in the car."

"I was thinking Edward. God, you do enough of it, you should recognise what it looks like." His lips twitched upwards when he said that, and immediately I knew that I could save this. I would save this.

"I'm sorry," I said again. That was the wrong thing to say. Immediately Jasper's face shut down and his eyes turned cold.

"Stop saying that."

"I don't know what else to say," I yelled. I got up from the couch so that we were even height. If this was going to turn into our first real fight, then I at least wanted to remember looking him straight in the eye and not him leaning over me like a child.

"You could explain! Why would you think that? What the hell would make you think that?" He yelled back.

"You didn't say anything!" I could feel my face growing red with the combined force of my anger and trying to hold back the tears that refused to leave, "I told you that I liked that my sister called you family. I liked it. And you fucking stared out the window letting me fester and panic. For all I knew, you were going to bail out of the car whenever I hit a stoplight. What else was I supposed to think?"

"Maybe you could have waited before you concocted whatever bullshit notion you had in your head."

"I did wait. The entire car ride. And you said nothing." The tears were flowing now. I could feel them roll down my cheeks and under my jaw, but I wouldn't acknowledge them by wiping them away.

"Yeah, but then I kissed you. Would I kiss you if I were going to break up with you?" He asked. He became less angry when he saw my tears, but his voice was still raised and there was still a fire in his eyes.

"How should I know? Maybe." He scoffed, and that pissed me off even more. "What were you thinking about then? You ignored me. What were you thinking if you weren't thinking of how crazy I sounded?"

Jasper took a step closer to me until our noses were almost touching. In a low voice, filled with passion, anger and betrayal, he said, "I was thinking about how happy I was. I was trying to decide how to tell you that I liked it too. That I thought of you as my family too. It hurt when you seemed upset about what Alice said. I didn't expect you to feel the same way, and when you did… One of the fucking best moments of my life and you fucked it up." His eyes filled with tears as he spoke. He turned his back to me and wiped the tears away with his hand.

I wanted to touch him and comfort him. I wanted to hold him and tell him that everything would be all right. I walked over and placed my hand on his back between his shoulder blades, but he flinched away from me. I took a step back and waited, determined not to do anymore damage than I had already done.

I sat back on the couch and stared at the floor, counting the fibres one by one. After ten minutes, Jasper sat down next to me, his weight shifting the couch and breaking me out of my meditation.

"I'm not breaking up with you," Jasper finally said. "You're going to have to do a lot worse to make me leave you."

"Worse than this?" I said. I smiled a small smile at him, and my heart leapt when he returned it.

"Yeah, worse than this."

"I really am sor—"

"I told you not to say that. It doesn't help." I nodded, and tried to think of another way to show him what I really wanted to say.

"I love my sister and dad," I started, not knowing where I was going with this, "but it's always been them, and then me. They didn't try to do it. Most of the time, they didn't notice. But I felt it. I was in the background. Not ignored, but not relevant. Alice is more like my father, so they had more to talk about. I got used to being in someone's background.

But with you, Jasper. You always make me feel important. Sometimes I think there are days when you don't want to leave me. I did like that Alice called you family, because you've been more of a family to me than my own has ever been. You know more about me than they do. And I like that. Even if you think it's too soon, that's how I feel. And I didn't want to tell you that right now. I wanted to wait until we had been dating a few months before I told you. But there you have it."

While I had been talking I started drawing nervous patterns on my pants leg. Jasper noticed and placed his hand over mine, halting my actions. I quickly covered his hand with my other hand, making sure he couldn't pull away.

"I don't want to leave you, Edward. Why do you think I made it a habit to stay until late at night? Why do you think I'm still here now? It's because, regardless of what you do, I still want to be here. You are important to me. In fact, you're the most important thing to me. I fucking love everything about you Edward, and to have you question that hurt. I'm not afraid to admit it. I liked being called your family because I already thought of you as family. And I'm not afraid to admit that I love you. Even if it is soon, it's there nonetheless."

I wanted to respond. I willed my vocal cords to work, but nothing came out. I wanted to tell him that I loved him too, but stopped myself. Later on, I wanted there to be no question in Jasper's mind about why I told him. I didn't want him to think that I had said it because he did, or that I was trying to appease him, or even trying to keep him with me. When I told Jasper I loved him I wanted there to be no doubt about how I felt.

"Does it freak you out that I just told you I love you?" Jasper asked. His calm had returned and while I found angry Jasper sexy as hell, this was my Jasper. The one who was confident and happy. Whose grin could brighten my whole day.

"No," I replied honestly.

"And it doesn't freak me out that you consider me family or that anyone considers us family. Because I love you and you are my family." Jasper stated with complete resolution. A thrill went up my spine every time Jasper said he loved me, and I knew that I could spend the rest of my life listening to him say those words.

"Okay." There wasn't much more I could say. I desperately needed to lighten the mood though. "But if any of those random people who consider us family say that we're brothers, I'm out."

Jasper threw back his head and laughed, and I knew that everything would be okay. We had survived our first fight—and it was a helluva first fight—and we were still talking and laughing. Oh, and one of us admitted our love for the other. Mustn't forget that.

When Jasper stopped laughing he looked at me with the most breathtaking smile on his face. I reached out my hand and cupped the side of his face, tracing his lips with my thumb. He sucked my thumb into his mouth and circled the tip with his tongue. I couldn't stop the moan that left my throat.

Jasper smirked, "a bit hot, are we?"

I nodded, feeling my cock harden as I saw the lust on Jasper's face. I grasped the back of his neck and pulled him towards me, lying down on the couch myself until Jasper was above me.

"Do you want to know what I learned today?" I asked, absentmindedly playing with the cuff of his shirt.

"What did you learn, love?" His nickname was so much more special now. I couldn't imagine wanting to be called by anything else ever again.

"I learned that angry Jasper is very, very sexy." I grinned, and licked my lips, laughing to myself as I watched Jasper's eyes follow the path of my tongue.

"Oh really?" He growled out.

"Yes. In fact, I wouldn't mind angry Jasper every once in a while." I pulled him down to meet my lips. Both of us were moving forcefully. This kiss was like nothing we had had before. There was nothing delicate about it. This kissed served one purpose: to remind the other, so there was absolutely no doubt, about whom they belonged to.

I opened my mouth and Jasper's tongue swept into my mouth immediately. No, I would never get sick of this. I was addicted to the taste and feel of Jasper, and I didn't mind a bit.

I unbuttoned Jasper's shirt and pushed it off his shoulders, throwing it onto the floor. Next I attacked his pants, unbuttoning and unzipping them then pushing them off his hips with his boxers. I grasped his hard cock in my hand and began pumping him before his hand stopped me.

"No, not now," he whispered. He dropped his face into the side of my neck and I heard him try to get his breathing under control. He sat up and looked down at me. He reached out a tentative hand to brush some hair out of my eyes.

"I love your hair," He said, "when I first saw it, I wondered if it was dyed," He smirked, and undid my pants pulling them down. He looked down at my aching cock, "Of course now I know it's natural."

I lightly smacked his chest, "pig," I said. That earned me another smirk.

He pulled off my shirt and ran his hands down my chest, stopping to roll my nipples between his hands. He leaned over and took one of them between his lips, sucking and nipping until my breathing was laboured.

"Jasper," I groaned. He looked up at me with a very serious expression on his face.

"Can I show you how much I love you Edward?" I was so horny, I would have agreed to anything, but after this evening, I trusted him. I nodded and watched as Jasper crawled down my body until his head was above my cock.

"Fucking perfect," he muttered before placing kisses on my inner thighs. His hair brushed my cock and it took every ounce of self-control not to grab his head and shove him down onto me. He ran his hands up and down my thighs, spreading them farther apart.

"Jasper, please," I moaned, unable to help myself.

Jasper laughed, "God I love you," he said before taking the head of my cock in his mouth. I once again had to fight against my urge to thrust into his mouth. His tongue licked the slit, and travelled up the underside of my cock, and I couldn't think anymore. I lost myself in the feel of Jasper's mouth around my cock. When he fully engulfed me, then rose up to just the tip before plunging back down to the base, I saw stars behind my closed lids. He left my cock, batting away my hands when I tried to force him back, and instead took one of my balls in his mouth, swirling and massaging with his tongue. Then he moved on to the other one.

"Please," I whimpered. I grasped my fingers in his hair, pulling slightly, silently begging for him to finish what he started.

Finally he listened to me and his sweet warmth once again surrounded my cock. He ran his tongue along the base of my cock as he pulled back. His hand found my balls at the same time as he lowered himself onto me. He swallowed around me, and any ounce of control I had was gone.

I was so close that I wasn't able to stop my thrusts this time. He held my hips down at first, but soon he let go and wrapped his own hand around his cock. He began pumping himself to the same rhythm he was using on me, and that was the breaking point. I thrust up, feeling his nose his my pubic hair, I pulled back until my cock was almost out of his mouth, he once again licked my slit, before I thrust back into him. Our rhythms matched, his hand and my thrusts and soon we both released.

I lay back against the couch, breathing heavily. Jasper grabbed a tissue to clean himself off before kissing me. This had none of the previous kisses desperation. This wasn't about claiming or assurance. I tasted myself on his lips, and loved that it was a small part of me that he had claimed. Or I had marked. My brain wasn't functioning too well at the moment, but any doubt about the other would be left at the door after this night.

We broke our kiss, and Jasper lay on top of me, burying his face into my neck again. I watched TV before I noticed his heavy breathing. I turned to look at him and saw his eyes closed and his mouth partially open. He had fallen asleep.

I evaluated the situation. I didn't want to wake him up; he looked so sweet with his mouth open. But pretty soon I wouldn't be very comfortable. And I was tired; it was time to go to bed.

I reached for the remote of the coffee table and turned off the TV. I lightly shook Jasper, trying to wake him.

"Jasper," I said, when he didn't stir I said his name louder. He snorted a little as he woke up, and looked around. I was about to tell him that he needed to go home. It would have been wise, considering all the emotions that had gone around tonight. But then he looked at me, his hair rumpled from my body and the couch, barely able to keep his eyes open, yet he still looked at me as if I were the most precious thing he had ever seen. I couldn't send him home. I didn't want to send him home.

"Will you stay the night?" I asked.

He grinned drowsily and nodded, "Always love."

"Then we have to move to the bedroom. My couch isn't that nice." He nodded again, too tired to say much, and walked in the direction of my room. I lingered behind, picking up our clothes. When I got to my room, Jasper was already in my bed, sound asleep. I smiled down at him and quickly folded our clothes into neat piles, placing them on top of my dresser before crawling into bed.

I pressed myself against him, slipping my arm underneath his and around his waist. He pressed back against me. I listened to his breathing in the quiet of my room. Before I fell asleep I whispered into his ear, "I love you Jasper," and closed my eyes.

A/N: Please review, they make me happy! ~AJ Kelly