Chapter Four

Alice kidnaps Bella from her house at one in the morning on a Saturday to give her a piggy back ride all the way to the Cullen mansion. Bella squeals in terror the whole time on the ride, holding onto Alice for dear life. When she gets to the place she finds the Cullen kids have built a bonfire outside and are singing. Drunkenly.

Alice deposits Bella onto her bottom, both the vampire and human lacking grace. Not out of the ordinary for Bella, but out of the ordinary for Alice. "Are you all...drunk?" Bella gasps out, shivering in the cold. It may be April but it's chilly as fuck and Alice didn't let Bella grab a jacket to put over her pjs.

How can vampires even get drunk?

"Bella bear!" Emmett calls out, lumbering over to her and swooping her up in a hug. He reeks of whiskey- they all do. Bella doesn't need super smell to be able to tell.

"Alice, what the hell are you doing?" Edward angrily slurs out and jolts at her. "We're drunk and we're vampires."

"So? I wanted Bella to come join us and have fun now that mom and dad aren't home!" Alice giggles, waving off any concern.

"But we're vampires," Edward stresses, looking distraught. "If she hurts herself? Or if we lose control of our instincts?"

"We all hunted. We'll be fine," Jasper said, he looking the most sober out of all of them and rising to the defense of his girlfriend. "I'll be fine. Promise. I'll even stop drinking now," he added on to sweeten the deal because they all knew his control was still shaky sometimes.

Emmett finally stopped spinning Bella around and set her down. Bella stumbled forward a bit, trying to regain her balance. "Oh shit, you don't have a jacket. You must be cold," he deduced. He zoomed off to get her one, only knocking down one small tree in his way before he handed her a jacket. Bella immediately knew it was Rosalie's. She could smell the roses radiating off of it. She was going to refuse but Emmett already draped it around her and indicated at a log for her to sit on before handing her a beer.

Edward sat down by Bella, a possessive hand on her waist to make sure she was okay. Jasper and Alice kept their distance in case the southern boy had any troubles. It seemed it would be alright for Bella to be here, for now.

This close to the fire and with Rosalie's jacket on, she felt warmer. She pried open the beer and took a gulp. It was bitter.

"What are you all celebrating?" she asked, wondering where Rosalie was. Probably holed up in her room as soon as she got a whiff of Bella coming this way. Bella wishes Rosalie were here.

"Being young. Parents being out," Emmett said, raising a shot glass filled with whiskey.

"Our parents don't let us drink," Jasper explained. "Not usually a good idea to let vampires drink because we absorb alcohol so easily since we don't have our own blood."

"Can you get sick from it?" Bella asks, curious.

"Not really. Just get a bad headache. We can have a blood level equivalent to 100 BAC and be fine," Edward adds. "It won't kills us, cuz you know, we're already dead."

Morbid. But kinda cool.

Bella and the Cullens chat about everything and anything and Bella steadily finds herself draining bottle after bottle, Emmett never letting her be empty handed for too long.

After five beers, Bella has to pee, badly, and she rises up with her unfinished sixth bottle and goes to find the restroom. She's a bit tipsy but not too bad that she'll have a hangover tomorrow. She declares this human need loudly and goes off, waving off Edward's offer for help.

She stumbles into the house clumsily, finding the light switch and flicking it on. She catches Rosalie in the kitchen, covertly hiding the bag of blood she'd been drinking into the fridge. She looks only mildly horrified that Bella nearly caught her drinking blood but to Bella, she doesn't care right now. Because Rosalie's beatific features take on that familiar scowl whenever Bella's around.

"Emmett gave me the jacket," Bella explains, only slightly slurring her words. "I'll wash it and give it back."

"Keep the jacket," Rosalie sneered. "It has your disgusting germs on it that can't be washed out anyways."

Ouch, talk about hurtful. But Bella knew this was the way Rosalie operated. With mean jibes. Bella just gave as good as she got.

"I'm surprised you even own such a cheap jacket like this." Bella sniffed in affected disdain.

"Cheap?" Rosalie growls out and steps closer to Bella, making the brunette startle and the opened beer slips from her hands. Quickly Rosalie snakes forward and grabs it. This results in her crouching down slightly to get it. Rosalie's face is now even with Bella's chest. They both freeze momentarily, the breath hitching in the back of Bella's throat as the moment extends. Bella looking down at Rosalie, Rosalie looking at Bella's chest before she looks up, their eyes locking. They stayed locked as slowly, Rosalie straightens up, finding that the two of them are too close.

"Be careful with the bottle," Rosalie settles on at last, dark eyes averting from Bella. She sets the bottle on the counter behind Bella and then leaves, leaving a confused Bella behind.

"You really are making this hard, aren't you," Bella puffs as she straddles the tree branch she climbed up in order to find Rosalie. The vampire is huddled in the tree, tucked up with a good book. It's dark out but she doesn't need the light to read in the night.

"Some people would get the hint and stop," Rosalie stresses and her hand reaches out to steady Bella when the brunette goes off balance a bit. Rosalie doesn't mean to and she retreats her hand immediately like Bella had burned her, the casual touch making both of them surprised.

It felt...nice. Bella swallowed, finding her throat dry. She wanted Rosalie to behave more freely around her. Alice was all about touching and Bella found she didn't mind it. Because it meant they were friends. Bella just wanted to be friends with Rosalie and have that same physical closeness.

"What's the book you're reading?"

"Read the cover," is the short response.

"It's too dark."

"Too bad."

A beat of silence as Bella hugs the tree. She looks down. It's kind of high up here. Maybe coming up here was a bad idea.

"You are a literary snob," Bella goads, hoping this will get Rosalie to speak with her.

"I am not. I just enjoy reading unlike you modern teens," Rosalie shoots back.

"I bet you ten dollars that you're reading a classic lit book, not even a contemporary one, because that's how much of a snob you are to modern literature," Bella wagers playfully. Rosalie doesn't look up from the book. Bella pretends she's looking at the book except she's really looking at Rosalie's hands. The way they are curled up, holding the covers. The way the nails are painted a pink coral. The way the golden rings sit on her fourth and second finger of each hand.

Edward's hands are cold and surprisingly slim for a man. They're gentle and hold Bella's hands like they are made of the brittlest material in this world. Bella wonders how Rosalie's hands would feel in hers. Cold, definitely. But soft. Would they hold Bella's hand tightly like she would never let go? Bella only has that one dance to reference them by and that hadn't counted, because it was a dance. Hands had to go into specific positions for that.

Bella blinks her eyes, wondering why she's thinking of this. Rosalie's speaking, flipping a page crisply. "I doubt you even have ten dollars to spare."

"I'm not that poor."

This time Rosalie gives Bella a cutting look, raking over her clothes. The big hoodie, the band tee underneath, the ratty ripped jeans and the converse scribbled with stars in pen ink. "I somehow doubt it."

"Not all of us can be rich vampires," Bella shoots back and Rosalie rolls her eyes.

"I'm going," she announces with her usual drama, closing the book and hopping off quietly and smoothly like a cat.

"Hey, you can't just leave me here?!" Bella cries out.

"Just jump down, it's not that high up," Rosalie calls up to her.

"Easy for you to say, you're a freaken vampire. Knowing me I'd jump and twist my ankle."

"Then you shouldn't have come up there in the first place," Rosalie states irritably, folding her arms across her chest and glaring up at Bella. Bella squeezes her eyes shut as sudden vertigo hits her.

Oo. This was a bad idea.

Her short nails scrabble at the bark. "Can you get me down?" Her voice is shrill.

A loud snort. "Are you kidding me?"

"Please?"

"I'll go get Edward to do it. He's your knight in shining armor anyways."

"Nope. That's going to take too long."

"I'll literally take ten seconds with my super speed-" Rosalie cut herself off because Bella was talking. "And what if I fall in those ten seconds it takes?" A strong breeze rippled through the air and Bella felt the branch sway under her. Her heart lurched.

"Oh my god, you are so annoying," Rosalie growled out. In the next second she was climbing up the tree like a spider, holding out one hand to Bella. "Take my hand," she said with some visible disdain.

But Bella found Rosalie was too far away for her to scoot forward and grab on. "Nope."

"Bella..." Rosalie trailed off threateningly. "If you don't take my hand I will push you out of the tree myself."

"How do I know you won't do it anyways when I take your hand?" Bella fearfully countered.

Muttering what sounded like curses in another language, Rosalie shifted expertly to get on the branch with Bella. Then, like one might grasp a kitten, she pulled Bella up and into her arms, standing on the branch before simply jumping down.

Bella's stomach lurched and she yelped, out of reflex holding onto Rosalie's shirt.

"You can let go," Rosalie said in mild annoyance and Bella opened her eyes and found them to be on the ground, safely.

"I am never doing that again," she announced, her heart thudding in her chest. She had been so nervous it wasn't until now that she realized Rosalie was carrying her like she weighed nothing. And this close, Bella was enveloped in Rosalie's scent. It was heady and she couldn't help from inhaling it. Rosalie smelled so feminine and yet so masculine. So different from Edward who smelled faintly of clean soap and wood.

And her arms...Bella felt safe in them. Rosalie was a vampire and those same arms could tear her apart but yet, they were holding her so softly. Tenderly, almost.

Without warning Rosalie dropped Bella onto her ass. "And I am never rescuing your ass again," Rosalie said coldly as she walked on back to the mansion. Bella huffed in annoyance and got up, wiping the grass from her jeans.

Whelp, never mind about the tender comment.

But no matter how rude Rosalie was to her, something inside Bella just could not stay away.

She rushed to catch up. "Hey, you never told me which book it was!" she called after the annoyed blonde.

"Something's wrong with my truck," Bella announced as she simply opened the door to Rosalie's room. If the blonde was going to be annoying to her, Bella would be downright annoying right back.

"Again?" Rosalie growled out from where she was on the window seat, reading another book. "And who gave you the right to barge into my room-"

"I brought the truck in. Can you have a look?" Bella cuts in breathlessly because her stomach is churning in nerves and excitement.

Rosalie utters a low growl. "I'm not your personal mechanic."

"No, but Edward would want you to do this," Bella urges from where she smartly stands in the doorway. Opening the door is one thing but entirely entering the room would be suicide. Alice warned Bella about how territorial vampires get.

"Edward would also like to continue having a girlfriend which he won't if she keeps annoying me," Rosalie bared her fangs, hoping to intimidate Bella but Bella's past the point of being scared of her. Rosalie is all talk and no action.

"Yea, so how quick do you think you can do it?" Bella asks, dismissing Rosalie's threat.

"Get out!" Rosalie yells and Bella ducks the book thrown her way.

Naturally Rosalie does it. She can't resist working on cars. Bella just has to go downstairs and play video games with Emmett for a bit before Rosalie slinks past them to the garage. Emmett, with his sharp hearing, notices and informs Bella. "Yup, she's going at it."

"I'm gonna go see what she says," Bella rushes up from her seat, allowing Emmett to crush her character and as silently as she can she walks over to the garage. Rosalie is in her usual outfit and begins berating Bella as soon as she walks in.

"What the hell happened to your truck? None of these problems make sense!" Rosalie asked Bella. The brunette shrugged. In truth, Bella had gone home, googled what made up her truck and then purposefully sabotaged parts of her truck just so she could spend more time with Rosalie. She may not have known exactly what she was doing, leading to random missing or ripped parts.

Was it...wrong to do this just to be with Rosalie? Bella knew she didn't go out of her way to do this to be with Edward. Though, to be fair, Edward wanted to be with her and didn't avoid her.

"I don't know, you're just going to have to fix them."

Rosalie grumbled but she turned to her work and while she worked, Bella pretended to read her school book while stealing glances at the blonde and trying to figure out how to get through to her.

A/N: I'm having way too much fun writing a grumpy Rosalie who grumbles but still does things for Bella.