Twilight and its characters belong to Stephanie Meyer.

My morning workout was actual torture.

After Bella had revealed that her sister approached the two of us on the beach for me, she planted her lips onto mine. Then, instead of offering up an explanation as to how on earth her sister knew I existed to even want to seek me out, Bella removed her cardigan, stripped off her sundress, and shoved them into my hands. When I grabbed her by the waist to slow her down, she pushed my hand away and signed, "You're going to be okay."

The resolve in her eyes silenced any fight I had in me, so, instead, I offered out my hand to hold onto her ponytail holder for her and watched her run into the waves after her sister. Needless to say, I didn't sleep a wink after that. The thought of Bella swimming towards her animalistic sister to do god knows what kept my mind whirling with one horrific scenario after the other all night long.

On top of all that, my real life insisted on continuing despite the resurgence of mermaids. Emmett pounded on my door for our workout, unaware of my sleepless night. When I trudged into our basement gym, Jasper was already down there, running on the treadmill—a cruel reminder that I didn't only have Bella's sister to worry about, but also my own. He threw me a side-eyed glare, and I was certain that he was as mad at me as I was repulsed by him.

While I warmed up, Emmett rattled off the list of what he expected the morning to look like. A few ab wheel rollouts, kettlebell angled presses, cobra pulldowns. All to get my back and chest ready for some barbell holds. "You and Jazzy will spot each other."

I sputtered. Across the room, Jasper tripped on the treadmill and had to catch himself on the safety bars so he didn't fly off.

"You're my spotter." My voice was almost pleading.

"Sorry bro, I gotta date a tonight and I have to do my Lucky Pre-Date Workout to Get Lucky." Without breaking eye contact with me, he used the speaker remote to bump Beyonce, as he did every morning. He turned and went right to it, and I knew he expected Jasper and me to do the same. I frowned at his back as Emmett hopped up to the bar over the door to start with pull-ups.

With a deep sigh, I turned to face Jasper. We stared at each other like territorial beasts deciding whether we wanted to attack the other or not. I had upset both him and Alice last night, and my anxiety over Bella's wellbeing and sleepless night left me devoid of the energy I would need to fake a smile and appease him.

I half expected Jasper to ignore Emmett and let me fend for myself, but he wiped down the treadmill and asked, "What do you want to start with?"

Perhaps he was big enough not to let our minor disagreement affect our relationship. Or perhaps he simply didn't want Emmett to pick up on any tension between us and start asking questions. Either way, my answer was the same. "Kettlebell."

Jasper and I motioned through Emmett's planned workout without any of the jokes or roughhousing that made this hour together in the gym worth waking up for. Still engaged in his pull-ups, Emmett removed one arm from his pull-up bar to fiddle with the remote and cranked the music every so often.

When we were finished with our first few sets, Jasper and I stepped over to the rubber-padded section of the floor where the barbell was already waiting for us for our holds.

"You go first." It was the second thing we said to me that morning, though we've been down here for about forty minutes.

Under his gaze carefully devoid of any emotion, I double-checked the weights on the bar to make sure I would be able to lift it. I stood in position behind the bar and lifted. The goal was to hold the weight as long as possible, and Emmett usually requested a few pulses.

"Alice cried all the way home last night," Jasper stated in a monotone voice, adding another five-pound weight to each side of the barbell that I did not ask for.

I grunted in pain. From where he was hanging upside down to do his crutches, Emmett instructed me to correct my form. The guy was the most easy-going, laid-back dude until we stepped into the gym. Then, he was a dictator.

"Because she realized the two of you are a mistake?" I retorted through gritted teeth.

Jasper was usually the pacifist of the family. Apparently, Alice brought out a protective side of him that should have remained hidden. "She was hoping for your support on this," he added another five pounds. I whimpered and shook under the added weight. "She considered breaking up."

"Good," my voice shook as much as my legs.

"I don't see any pulses!" Emmett called out. Under the heavier weight, I pulsed my arms a fraction of an inch to appease him.

"She expected you to be the one to understand—to be the one who would be able to look past what everyone else would see and be happy for us. But you let her down."

Determined not to be affected by him and his stupid games, I gritted my teeth and held strong onto the barbell. Jasper stood behind me and copied my stance, ready to assist when I no longer could bear the weight.

"Just like we can look past what all the others think when they see you and Bella. Like how your sad upbringing made you think you had to settle for her instead of a normal, pretty girl."

I dropped the barbell. "How did you hear about that?" It was the rumor about us that almost got a reaction out of me.

Jasper licked his lip, the anger in his eyes soon faded into sympathy. "Bella tells Alice all the rumors people spread about you two." A choking whimper snuck through my lips—but not from the pain in my arms. I had to remember there were more monsters out there than just the mermaids lurking in the ocean.

Jasper pulled up the barbell for his set. I stood behind him to spot him just as he—sort of—did for me.

"Alice and I are looking for the same encouragement we've given you," he continued when I said nothing.

Too exhausted to put up an argument, I kept my mouth shut until he lowered the bar to the ground.

"I'm going to cool down; I hope you're done," I grumbled, even though we still had two more sets of this. He said nothing and I hopped on the treadmill; frustration causing me to run far too quickly to be considered a cool down. Jasper and Alice's relationship was completely different from mine. The problems people had with my relationship with Bella were based on nothing—the issues I had with Jasper and Alice were very, very real. When I was finished, I trudged up the stairs from our basement gym—sore and sweaty and miserable.

So, the sight of Bella perched on a stool at our kitchen island was like seeing the sun in Forks. I shook off my painful workout and my painful conversation with Jasper and greeted her, grinning like an absolute fool "Good morning," I pulled up the hem of my shirt to wipe the sweat dripping off my face before leaning down to kiss her, "You look pretty today."

Her returning smile turned my legs into jelly in a way no workout ever could.

I greeted Esme, as well, who stood at the opposite side of the counter, flipping through a book. On closer inspection, I could see it was a book of sign language translations and Esme was looking for something specific. She gave up momentarily and looked to Bella, pleading, "What letter does it start with?"

Bella smiled and signed, "B."

Esme stared at Bella's hand blankly for a moment before going right back to the book and flipping through the pages. "Alphabet… alphabet…" she muttered to herself.

While Esme was busy with that, I cupped Bella's cheek in my hand and marveled, "I am so glad to see you."

"I'm sorry about last night," she signed, "I panicked."

"It's okay; we can talk about that later."

"Bagel!" Esme exclaimed. "You had a bagel for breakfast."

Bella smiled and nodded her head, even though it was a bald-faced lie. Her breakfast most like most likely included krill and guppies.

"Do you need breakfast, Sweetie?" Esme regarded my red face and sweat-drenched shirt with sympathy.

"Thanks, mom, but it's okay. I'll figure something out after I shower." I kissed Bella's temple. "I'll be right back."

"Alright, Bella. Let's try another one," I heard Esme say to Bella on my way out of the kitchen. "What's your favorite color?"

I showered and changed as quickly as possible while still being thorough, desperate to get back to Bella. Back downstairs, Esme was gone, but Bella was still perched on her stool. She had two plates of food in front of her, both untouched. When she heard me approach from behind, she pushed one of two towards me. It was one of Esme's extravagant toasts she prided herself on.

"Esme said this was your favorite," Bella signed.

I smirked. Esme thought every meal was my favorite because I would say it about anything she fed me. I used a fork to pop the poached egg on top and let the yolk drip over the toast. I reached over and did the same to the piece of toast on Bella's plate, knowing I was going to eat that one, as well. Bella's face pinched in disgust at the yellow goop that was now leaking everywhere on her plate.

I laughed; she pouted.

Before sitting to eat, I walked around the island to fetch a cup of water. As I reached up to one of the floating shelves to grab a glass, I caught Bella staring at the hem of my shirt, where my skin had just been exposed. Then, again at my bicep when I turned on and off the faucet. Both places on my body she had seen exposed and shining with sweat earlier that morning.

Grinning at her flushed cheeks, I stalked around the counter back to where she sat—like a cat to its prey. I spun her stool so she faced away from the counter and towards me. "You liked seeing me like that this morning, didn't you?"

Her tomato-red face was the only answer I needed.

I gipped the counter on either side of her and leaned in. "You liked seeing me sweaty," I nipped at her bottom lip. "You thought it was attractive."

Her feeble attempts at pushing me away told me she was enjoying our game. If she didn't want me looming over her, she had more than enough strength to actually push me away.

"You little vixen." I barely kissed her bottom lip, just letting my lips ghost against hers. "You wanted me. Right here in this kitchen." She tried to catch my lip between her teeth, but I backed off and she missed.

"Lucky for you, every part of me is yours," she tried to kiss me again, but I dodged her., "Any way you want it."

When I finally gave in and let her kiss me, her lips were exuberant against mine. She used both hands to take a thorough inspection of my hips and butt. She moved her hands up to my chest, lightly pushing. Another playful attempt at being coy. I let go of the counter and cupped her face in both of my hands, deepening the kiss.

"Can you guys get a room?" Rosalie's voice sent me jolting straight up. "People eat here."

"Sorry, Rose." I glanced down at Bella, whose still-red face and raised eyebrows said that's what I was trying to tell you.

Rosalie said nothing. She crossed her arms and tapped her foot impatiently.

"We'll go upstairs?" I guessed, hoping to please her and rid her face of that grimace.

She nodded. As quickly as possible, I helped Bella down from her stool and grabbed both plates of toast off the counter.

"Sorry," I apologized again on our way out, to which Rosalie rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue.

Surprisingly embarrassed, I led Bella through the house and up to my room. I set the plates of toast on the desk, noting two pieces of paper that weren't there before.

"Ugh," I groaned after I picked them up and read a few words. "I forgot that we were going to see Tracy with Jasper and Alice."

I handed the printed-out tickets to Bella, who already made herself comfortable on my bed. She glanced at them for a second before putting them down to sign, "Looks like we're not anymore."

I frowned and took a bite of toast. "They're mad at me."

"They have every right to be. You acted like a—," Her comparison was lost in translation, but I figured it was insulting and fish-related, as her metaphors often were.

"Speaking of sisters and arguments," I crossed the room and sat on the bed where Bella had made herself comfortable. "Let's talk about yours. And why she was looking for me."

Bella's cheeks reddened as her gaze flitted down to the comforter and stuck there. "It was a misunderstanding. I freaked out and jumped to conclusions. I'm so sorry."

"It's alright," I ducked my head to encourage Bella to look back up. "If your sister—what's her name?"

Bella spelled out the name, "A-L-A-N-A"

"Alana," I repeated to myself to stick the name in my brain. "If Alana wasn't there for me, what did she want?"

"Nothing. My sisters recently returned to this part of the ocean and found out that I was spending time with a human male. Alana wanted to see if it was true."

That didn't seem right; the conversation I witnessed seemed too mocking and aggressive to simply be confirming a rumor. But Bella would never lie to me, especially if there was danger involved.

"Will the others want to see me as well?" I tried to recall if Bella ever stated how many sisters she had, but all I could remember her saying was that she had too many.

"No," she answered immediately. Again, it felt like a lie. It was too quick—too certain—about something that was so far out of her control.

I put my arm around her and drew her closer to me, trying to think of something she would want to hide from me. Thinking through the conversation I couldn't hear, I recalled her sister's mocking grin and midnight eyes sparkling with joy in her cruelty—clearing taunting Bella about something.

Then, something dawned on me. A reason behind all of it that Bella would want to keep from me. The same reason why she was so determined for me to forgive Alice.

I rubbed soothing circles on her back, coaxing her to melt even closer to me. "Bella? Are mermaids allowed to have relationships with humans?" Mermaids must have rules in place to keep their existence hidden from humanity. I very much doubted telling a human about her existence with no plans to eat them was okay in mermaid law.

And here I was judging Alice and Jasper for their relationship when mine might actually be illegal to a different culture and could get Bella or me seriously hurt.

Before I could really start spiraling, Bella signed, "Yes. Mermaids often take human lovers."

Something was still off about her answer—like she wasn't giving me the full story.

The bed shifted as Bella stood abruptly on her knees. As if she could sense my doubt, she took my face in her hands and pulled me to her for a deep, convincing kiss. Only after she was certain I had accepted her story, she broke the kiss but didn't let go of my face.

"So, there's no reason for me to worry? Your sisters are going to leave us alone?"

Stroking my cheekbones with her thumbs, she nodded.

"Okay," I whispered, turning slightly to kiss the palm of her hand. Something still felt off, but I trusted her more than I trusted my gut.

Searching for a new topic of conversation, I picked up the tickets from where Bella had placed them on my bed. "Now, with that settled, what are we going to do about these?"

Bella dropped her hands from my face to sign, "You can apologize to Jasper and Alice."

My smile tightened. "Or, they can admit they're wrong and apologize to me."

"For what?"

"For emotionally scarring me."

We exchanged matching, sarcastic grins.

Bella plucked the tickets out of my hand and studied them for a moment. "Emmett?" she suggested.

"No. He already declined. Plus, I'd have to explain why Alice and Jasper weren't coming anymore and I don't want to make up a bunch of lies."

"Your parents?"

I was brand new to having a family, but I was still well enough aware that I didn't want to double date with my parents. "How about someone outside of my family?"

"Angela?"

"Angela!" Why hadn't I thought of her before? My brilliant Bella always came through with the best answers. "She'll definitely say yes."

oOo

"No, thank you," Angela said tightly, fiddling with her fries. She hated saying no to anyone ever—doing so made her extremely uncomfortable. During lunch, Bella and I had asked her if she wanted to attend the concert. She pretended to consider our offer for a polite amount of time before she ultimately rejected us.

"Please? Don't make me go alone." Bella signed, using the same reasoning that originally convinced Alice to say yes.

Angela smiled apologetically and signed back, "I don't think I can third wheel with you two."

I wasn't sure if I was supposed to understand what she signed to Bella or not, but I answered out loud anyway, "Then all we need to do is get you a hot date,"

Next to Angela, Ben choked on his quesadilla. Sputtering, he reached for his water bottle and noisily gulped it down.

Politely ignoring her friend's struggle, Angela rolled her eyes at me. "Oh, yeah. I'll just select one from my endless pool of suitors."

"What about Ben?" I suggested. My tone was teasing, but it was a sincere suggestion. Ben's crush on Angela had been apparent since the first day I met them. I turned to wink at him encouragingly and was surprised to see him glaring back at me. He looked as if he wished he could fire laser beams like the character in the comic he currently read.

Angela merely laughed. "Sure." She put her arm around Ben's shoulders, causing his face to flush and his glasses to fog up. "Ben and I will drop ten years of friendship to double with you to a concert my grandma would attend."

Ben coughed a fake laugh, and quickly shifted the conversation to something that happened in one of their earlier classes. For the rest of lunch, I received a few more of his dark glances, but he waited until our shared Spanish class to confront me.

"Why the hell would you say that to Angela?" he hissed when I sat down in my seat in front of his.

The answer was simple and honest. "Because I think you should take Angela to the concert as a date."

He was briefly thrown by my automatic, blunt response, but shook it off and furrowed his brow once more. "Why? So, Angela could spend the entire time wishing she was there with you instead of me? No thank you."

I blinked. I didn't expect brutal honestly from Ben. It made me like him more.

Our Spanish teacher cleared her throat to start class, ending my conversation with Ben and others around us. As she began going over the verb conjugations for the day, I considered what Ben had said. I knew Angela has feelings for me in the past—at one point I hoped to return them. At first, she was upset when I started dating Bella. But after she accepted Bella as a friend and us as a couple, I figured she got over her feelings for me. Feelings didn't always turn on and off at the opportune moments, I supposed.

Leaning back in my chair, I covered my mouth and stroked my chin like I was deep in thought about the present tense of verbs so I could whisper to Ben without the teacher noticing. "Even if that was true, wouldn't the best way to help her get over her feelings for me to show her what's right in front of her?"

"Shhhut up," he hissed.

The teacher instructed us to break up and complete the conjugations in pairs. I whirled in my seat and slammed my notebook onto Ben's desk, claiming him as my partner before he could avoid me.

I dove right into my next argument, "Everything she liked about me, you already offer her."

He snorted, "Oh, right. I forgot I was actually a six-foot-two, muscled up ginger." He slapped my forearm with the back of his hand.

"You know Angela better than I do, and even I know those things aren't important to her."

Ben's lips pressed into a hard line as he began the assignment.

"You already know everything she likes and how to make her happy." When he ignored me, I tried again. "Doesn't every girl dream of falling in love with their childhood best friend?"

He kept writing, pretending that he didn't hear me. Accepting my loss for the moment, I started as well. I completed three of the eight verbs when Ben muttered something under this breath.

"What?" I asked.

He didn't look up from his notebook or even stop writing as he repeated himself a bit louder. "I'm shorter than her."

"What?"

He threw me an exasperated look that made it clear he absolutely did not want to repeat himself again.

I switched questions. "So?"

His expression pinched in further irritation. "Girls don't want to date guys that are shorter than them. Especially guys that are six inches shorter than them."

"Says who?"

"Everyone."

"And you really believe that's true?"

He went right back to conjugations.

"You can't let something like that stop you from pursuing Angela, man."

He took a deep breath. "Can we just drop it? Go find some other tall guy to make Angela happy and leave me alone." I watched him as he completed the assignment I should have also been working on. He looked…devastated.

The last time I had given this advice, Alice started dating our brother. I hoped this time it wouldn't bite me in the ass. "I get that social norms are holding you back, but you shouldn't let them. If something feels right in your gut, you gotta go for it. Any hoops you might have to jump through, any wayward glances you might receive, they're going to be worth it. So, ask Angela out. Open eyes and let her see that you're an option for her, and a damn good one, too."

Something I said clicked in his mind. Ben lowered his gaze, and his glasses slid down his nose as he did so. "Is that how you can be with Bella? Even though she's…" His sentence trailed off when he saw my expression.

"What is she, Ben?"

The smart guy he was, Ben didn't finish what he was going to say and started over. "Have you heard what people have been saying?"

"Of course, I have. But, I've never cared about what anyone said about her, or me, or us. She's worth it. And I bet you and Angela would be worth it, too."

"And none of it bothers you?" he confirmed.

"Not at all. No matter what anyone says, falling in love with Bella was the best thing that has ever happened to me."

Ben started speaking, but I didn't hear what he said, because something I said had finally caught up to me.

Falling in love with Bella.

I had fallen in love with Bella. And I had just confessed my love for Bella to Ben.

Now that I had spoken the words, I realized how true they were. I did love her. I loved her so much.

It was strange that I didn't feel any different. I had expected this sort of realization to be crushing or blinding. Perhaps love was a gradual thing, that built so slowly that I hardly even noticed it. Or maybe I had fallen in love with her all at once, the first moment I saw her, and only realized it now. It didn't matter how, really. All I knew now was I loved her, and I never wanted to stop loving her.

"Edward?" Ben said.

"Yeah, yeah," I agreed, even though had no idea what Ben had just said. My mind had melted into a pool of love for Isabella Swan and nothing else seemed worthy of any thought. I fished the tickets out of my bag and slid them onto his desk. "You can either man up and ask Angela out or stay miserable. Your call."

I turned back to my own desk even though we were still supposed to be working together and basked in my newfound love.