I know, I know, I'm late again. I'm very sorry. Rather than risking being late constantly (especially since I'm about to have midterms essays), I'm officially announcing I'm switching to every other Friday. There will not be a post next Friday. There will be one the following week.

I have every intention of catching back up with myself and going back to every week, but for now, this is what I've gotta do.

Thank you for all the reviews, I haven't had time to respond but I have read them all and I'm so grateful you all like this story as much as I like writing it!

Thank you to my beta, Sunflower Fran, and my prereader Mariel. I totally tweaked, added, and subtracted since either of them has had eyes on this, though, so mistakes are on me. Especially since there are always a few suggestions I ignore!

I own a MacBook Air and an iPad but not Twilight.

"Can I see some of your paintings?" Edward asked.

It was midday, and we were sitting in my living room, reading quietly, once again feeling very domestic.

"Um, yeah, if you want," I hedged before leading him to the big shelving unit on the side of the room. Most of my completed paintings were here, plus some piles in my room. I kept some sheets draped over each shelf to protect the canvases. I used to use a lot of plain white sheets and table cloths I'd found in a thrift shop, but that had left a slightly eery impression. I'd eventually replaced the sheets with some brightly colored ones, giving a much livelier and, more importantly, a much less 'dead Victorian children live here' appearance.

We poked through the shelves and piles of canvases. He oohed and aahed over a few, enough to it make clear he truly did like my work, yet not so many as to make me think he was faking. He was particularly enamored of the one I'd done of his photo from Botswana.

"Can I buy this one?" he asked, gazing at it.

I hesitated. I rarely gave my work away, but it didn't feel right to take his money. Angela and Mrs. Cope both had pieces from me, but they'd commissioned them. It was very clear when they first asked that they intended to pay for the paintings. I supposed Edward had too. It still felt weird.

"I've been trying to find your shop," he commented, before I had a chance to answer. "Why don't you have it linked on Insta?"

I shrugged. "My Insta is personal. After Mike, I kind of … wanted to distance myself from my art a bit. I always signed my work IS, so I thought if I want to make it a brand I was more disconnected from, then I should use a pseudonym. I totally revamped my shop and changed my name. My shop is Isadora Stewart Paintings."

"Isadora?"

I laughed. "Yeah, I dunno. It caught my eye. I do have a professional account on Insta, by the way. It's just paintings, no selfies or cakes or anything. I have a small but decent following."

He grinned. "I'm gonna follow you! What's your handle?"

"IsadoraSPaints."

Edward pulled out his phone. I grabbed mine too, rolling my eyes. By the time I had it opened, I already had two notifications. One, I had expected.

MasenAroundTheWorld started following you.

CullenE1918 started following you.

"That's your public account?" I said, my voice full of question.

Edward nodded.

My eyes narrowed. "I don't want your fame selling my paintings."

He shook his head, looking terrified. "Oh, god, no, baby; I didn't mean to suggest that. I'll happily publicize your work if you want, but I didn't for an instant think you wanted me to. I just … this is a tiny step. I'm not going to hold up your art and announce my girlfriend is a painter, not if you don't want me to. But I want to make it accessible, if not actually … totally public, knowledge that there's a painter whose work I like."

I huffed. "Whatever I'm doing, I want to do it on my own merit."

"Of course!" he insisted. "I just … I'm here for you, okay?"

I nodded slowly.

"All right. On another note, your cake still needs assembling. So you have to leave for a while today. I was thinking you and Rose could go out and get to know each other a little?"

"Sure." He looked thoughtful for a moment. "We can go shopping to find you a present."

What? "Why do I need a present?"

He grinned, a big gorgeous grin. "Because I want to give you something."

I sighed. I didn't need anything from Edward. Like, really didn't need anything.

There was something I wanted, though. Something I'd been considering all weekend but so far had refused to put into words.

"CanIpaintyou?" I asked, rushing out the words.

"What?" Edward jolted a little. "Did you ask if you could paint me?" he asked gently.

I nodded. "I don't usually do people, but … I want to paint you how you are with me. I haven't been able to get your eyes out of my head ever since I saw that first interview last week."

It had felt odd, almost creepy, to use a publicity photo of him as the basis for a painting. I wanted to paint him as he was with me. Soft, adoring, loving.

He smiled. "Of course."

I grinned, excited. "Now? Is that okay?"

Edward nodded. "Sure. Where do you want me? Should I pose? Do I need to hold still? Should I change?" He gestured at his jeans and T-shirt.

I laughed. He sounded so excited and nervous.

"You've done photoshoots, haven't you? What do you do for them?"

"Panic, mostly."

I rolled my eyes. "Seriously, Edward."

"Okay, for photoshoots, you usually kind of move through poses. You're moving and posing, and I don't know how to describe it."

"A photo captures a single instant in time, but if you're frozen in that instant, it doesn't usually photograph very well," I said. "A painting isn't moving, but it usually captures more than a photo. You know how a gif is made of a bunch of frames and all together it looks natural, and maybe the smiling person in the image looks pretty, but when you pause on any of the frames, it looks distorted and freaky? And you can keep trying to freeze on a different and non-bizarre-o frame, but you can't find one that isn't wild? That's just how movement is most of the time. When I paint from a photo, I always imagine what the frames in the instants right before and after the photo would have been if I had a few seconds of video instead of one still photo."

"Huh." He considered my words. "Okay, so that leaves me…?"

"You don't need to pose or change or anything. Just sit on the couch and talk to me, and I'll work."

He shrugged. "Okay."

Edward settled on the couch, and I grabbed a canvas, a decent selection of acrylics, my good brushes, a few pencils, my easel, and water.

When I was situated, he spoke again.

"How much can I move?"

I shrugged. "I mean, don't get up and dance, but you don't need to sit totally stick straight." I considered. "Have you ever been in a bridal party?"

"What?" he laughed.

"I don't know if this is how most photographers work, but I was a bridesmaid when I was in high school, and we didn't pose frozen for the photos. They'd tell us where to stand and then say to talk while we smiled and looked in whatever direction they wanted us. We were posed, sure, but they captured instances while we were acting natural. I guess how you just described photoshoots." I shrugged. "Sit still, but you can wiggle, talk, scratch your nose…"

He chuckled before we lapsed into silence, the only noise my pencil scratching lightly across the canvas.

… For a few minutes at least.

"You start by drawing?"

"Yeah, it's the simplest way to plan out what's going where on the canvas," I said with a nod. "Sometimes all most of what I'm doing is a horizon line and marking the vanishing point, maybe sketching out the shape of trees or the shore line. Here, I'm marking out most of your features, though. People are … complicated."

"You got that right," he chuckled.

"I meant visually," I rolled my eyes. "But, yeah. That's true."

We fell silent again, and I could feel his eyes on me as I worked. Finally, finished with the pencil work, I started lightly filling in the background wash. My plan was to do his head and shoulders, but none of my apartment behind him. I wasn't capturing a scene—I suppose it would be called "Edward, relaxing in the artist's apartment"—I was painting him. To make sure the painting felt finished, I had to add a little something to the background; he couldn't just be a guy on a blank canvas. I used a green that matched his eyes but watered it way down, almost to a watercolor instead of acrylic.

When I had the background colored and textured how I liked, even but not too even, I ran into Rose's bathroom and grabbed her hairdryer.

Edward laughed when he saw what I was holding. "What's that for?"

"I need a dry canvas. You wanna sit and wait for the layer to dry?"

He shook his head. "No, I guess not."

We fell into an easy silence again as the sound of the dryer took over. After a few minutes, I deemed the canvas dry enough and set about mixing colors.

"Do you know how many colors there are in your hair?" I asked, gazing at it. It could only be described as bronze, but it was comprised of so many shades, mostly reds, but there was a lot of blond and brown peeking through.

It was mesmerizing.

He shrugged. "No idea. Honestly, I just sit in the chair and let the hairdresser do whatever they've been told to do."

"Is it dyed?"

"Nope," he shook his head. "This is all-natural, baby. My agent keeps telling me I could make a fortune if I could find a way to bottle the color." He shrugged. "I dunno, I don't usually think about it."

"Well, I think it's gonna be fun to paint."

"So," he began. "You never said if I could buy the Botswana painting. Unless you already posted it, and it's sold?"

I shook my head. "No, I haven't yet. I meant to, but …" I shrugged. "I can't take your money."

"What?" he looked surprised.

"I just … it doesn't feel right. But you can have it."

"No, I couldn't," he said.

"Artists should be paid. And people shouldn't take advantage of them."

I smiled, thrilled he had that outlook. It would be so easy for a rich, famous, handsome guy to accept any handout that came his way.

"Yes, and I rarely give my work away, but … call it a birthday gift if you need to. But I couldn't sell it to you. I don't think I could sell it to anyone."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I mean. Like I said, I meant to post it and I really want to say I just haven't gotten around to it, but I think if I tried, I might find I … couldn't." I pursed my lips, frowning slightly. "You should have it. I didn't mean to, but I think I did it for you."

That earned me a grin, which made me flush … which made the grin widen if that was even possible. Damn boy with his heart-stopping smile.

"Can we change the subject?" I asked. "I feel like I'm on the spot, and I don't like it."

"I'm going to have to make my Instagram private," he said, kindly following my request.

"What? Why?" I asked.

"If people find out who you are, they'll eventually find MasenAroundTheWorld. Even if we don't say how we met, it'll eventually come out somehow. We'll slip up, or someone who knows you were talking to a guy on Instagram will sell it to a tabloid or something."

"Oh."

"I don't want to bring up his name, but … Jacob knew about Masen. You know him better than I do, but in my experience, people can do some wild things when fame or money is involved. I don't really trust him not to sell the story to a tabloid."

"Yeah," I murmured. "He definitely might."

He shrugged. "I'll have to check if it's is possible, but if I lock it down, block him, and change my handle, I might be able to keep it anonymous. I might even be able to unlock at some point. Or I can start a new anonymous photo account. You should lock all your social media accounts too. I'll protect you as much as I can, but if your name gets out there, people will find you."

I froze. I didn't usually think about how I was suddenly dating a superstar. As much as I was constantly in awe of Edward, he still felt like, well, my Masen. My awe was entirely about how gorgeous he was. I reveled in how much he seemed to adore me. But he felt incredibly normal to me. We'd settled into an easy routine together, and it was easy to forget he was The Edward Cullen. And I wasn't thrilled to think about how eventually dating him would lead to being out in the spotlight with him … unless we broke up.

Oh shit.

"What's wrong, baby?" Edward's voice broke softly into my reverie. "You went from petrified to broken in about three seconds."

"Um…" How much should I tell him? "I had kind of … forgotten … that you're you. You were … well … my Masen? Again? If that makes sense?"

Edward shrugged. "I might understand. Maybe."

"I just mean, it feels normal, comfortable, being here with you. I'm not a person who usually would give my phone number to a stranger I met on Instagram, but you felt safe as Masen. And you still feel safe. I trust you. I guess I always did."

He beamed at that. Goodness gracious, what he could do with a smile.

"Anyway, um, I guess I forget that you're this famous actor and I kind of remembered, I guess. And that was jarring."

"Why did that make you sad?"

I shook my head. "It's nothing." We'd been together officially for less than a day. Way too soon for him to know how much breaking up would destroy me.

"It can't be nothing if it makes you look like that," Edward murmured. "Please, baby. I'll fix it. Whatever it is."

I squeezed my eyes closed, shutting out the rest of the world.

"Will you look at me, sweetheart?" Edward asked softly.

I opened my eyes and saw his looking at me, concern swimming in the green depths.

I ran my tongue along my lips before sucking them both nervously between my teeth.

"I just…" I began, my voice trembling a little. "I realized that inevitably at some point, we'll have to come out, and people will know who I am. And I tried to imagine a version where I wouldn't have to be in the limelight … and I didn't like what I came up with."

His brow furrowed, concern lining his face.

"What did you come up with?"

"If we broke up."

I didn't mean for the words to come out. I meant to … well, I didn't know what I meant instead. But I didn't mean for him to hear them.

In an instant, he was off the couch and kneeling at my side, arms around me.

"You planning on dumping me, Swan?" he asked, his joking voice at odds with the tender way he held me.

I tucked my head against him as he went on.

"Baby, I know it's fast, but if you want out, you'll have to do it. I can't imagine ever walking away from you. I've had thirty years of life without you in it, and that's quite enough for me. I don't plan on going back.

"I know my life has a lot of complications, and like I said, I'll do everything I can to protect you from it. If you want, I can hide you forever. It would be complicated and difficult, but there are ways. I tell the right people, and only the right people, and I'd never bring you anywhere as my date. We could go in public very carefully, and I'd cut down on talking about my personal life in interviews. It's not like I've ever talked about it a lot anyway."

"Is that something you would like?" I asked, fear plummeting through me. The idea of being Edward's secret forever was far less appealing than the inevitable tabloid drama that would accompany being his public girlfriend.

Honestly, it, well, it sounded like being his dirty little secret. Like we were having an affair. Constantly hiding, never knowing who to trust. I'd never be able to post a photo of us together.

And what if a studio wanted him to go to an event as a costar's date? I could never celebrate his accomplishments with him, and I'd have to watch gorgeous women, draped in dazzling gowns, all fawn over him.

But what if he wanted it to be that way?

"Would it be easier for you if I wasn't with you in public?" I whispered. "Is it better if I hide?"

"What? No, of course not!" Edward said adamantly. "I told you, ages ago, that if I could, I'd shout about you from the rooftops, baby."

"Yeah, but you said that as Masen," I said. "I thought maybe … maybe you meant if you really were Masen."

"I couldn't stop talking about you in the interviews, Bella," he said quietly. "If I had my way, everyone would've known I can't stop thinking about an artist from Washington the day I first saw you laughing on Instagram—the first photo of yours I liked. I was mesmerized by you from the beginning, and I've never wanted to keep you a secret."

"You wouldn't be ashamed to be seen with me?" I asked haltingly, not entirely sure I wanted to be revealing so much, but unable to stop myself.

"Of course not," he scoffed. He sat back on his heels, cupping my face in his hands. "You are the most beautiful woman I've ever met, and I want nothing more than to have you at my side for every event I ever need to attend. Ashamed is the very last thing I would ever be."

He paused, thinking.

"I don't want to add more stress than necessary, but I also don't want to paint the world kinder than it is. People will say things about you. But I want to be very clear. People would say things about anyone I dated."

"They'll ask why you're dating the fat girl," I whispered, not meeting his eyes.

"Maybe," Edward conceded, his voice gentle. "Or, they'll focus on why I'm not dating someone in the business. They might decide you're incredibly lucky to be my girlfriend and all the coverage will be about how I'm the greatest catch and you're such an amazing fisherwoman."

"Well, they'd be right about one thing," I mused.

"What's that?"

"That I'm lucky."

"Oh, no, baby. I'm the lucky one."

And with that, he kissed me softly.

So? I hope you think they're as adorable as I do!

I should probably make clear at some point: I am not a painter. I have taken a few art classes which I very much enjoyed and Bella's art is largely based on my favorite project I did in an art class I took a year or so ago. I painted a jetty and boat ramp in acrylics attempting to imitate Monet (the project was to pick an artist and emulate them in a landscape). When I paint landscapes, I do the major shapes in pencil and mark the vanishing point etc. I have no idea if "real" artists do that, but we're gonna say Bella does!

I forgot to say last chapter, but the "yes until no" and "no until yes" I learned from a real sex educator on TikTok. I don't know if I defined it quite how she would have, but this is how I understood it!

I have some things I have to decide on because I have two versions outlined and ya'll can weigh in if you want: tomorrow (in fic time) is Edward's birthday and they are gonna have birthday dinner (with Emmett!). Should they have take out or should Bella cook? (I'm also accepting suggestions on what they eat)

Also-I'm pretty sure I know what Edward and Rose are gonna buy on their little excursion, but if you have suggestions, you may sway me. That scene, btw, will definitely be in the EPOV version of the fic. Whether we get RPOV here I'm not sure yet. You can sway me there too.

Ok, I'm done with my ramble. Have a great weekend and Happy early Valentines! Have a chocolate truffle and be well :)