Rosalie wakes up feeling surprisingly well-rested. It's been a while since she's last been able to sleep in and wake up to daylight.
Emmett's lips press against hers, kissing her good morning.
"Sleep okay?" he asks against her cheek.
"Mhm."
His hand runs over her hip and she lets her eyes close again. She kisses him, her heart fluttering and her skin warm from his proximity. Seizing the moment while she still can, she takes his hand and moves it lower to the place where she wants him most.
"Rose," he groans.
The gala last night was fun. They had a great time wandering around the garden, talking, drinking, and dancing.
The beautiful bouquet of Casa Blanca lilies he brought when he picked her up sits on his desk in a vase. He's been very sweet the past weekend.
She wants things to work out with him. She wants him to want what she wants.
Emmett ducks his head under the covers. She glances over at the morning sunlight starting to pour in from behind the window blinds. Rather than traffic or noise from neighbors, all she hears is the sound of birds chirping in the trees.
She's had some time to think over their conversation last week, and he might be right about her rushing things.
Moving to Seattle hasn't been half as bad as she thought it would be. Her current coworkers—though annoying—would probably die to be her even in her imperfect, unmarried, emotionally unstable state. If life's giving her lemons, maybe she should try to make lemonade for once instead of sending them back to the kitchen and demanding the orange juice she ordered.
If she could push herself to be a little bit patient and flexible, maybe she can have her cake and eat it too. She's just not sure how to do that.
She takes a deep breath.
All things considered, it feels good to be Rosalie Hale.
It feels really, really good.
"Oh my god!" she gasps, tensing. "Emmett!"
He pauses. "Is that a good 'oh my god, Emmett,' or..?"
"Yes! Good! Very good!"
He resumes his previous ministrations and her body goes back to feeling like it's melting in the best way possible. She hears him chuckling out from under the duvet.
Emmett eventually crawls his way back up to the top of the bed, popping his head out from under the blankets with a grin. "How's my time?"
"Is this like a pizza delivery?"
"Sure, you can have a refund if it takes more than half an hour," he says with a laugh. He kisses her cheek, lying on top of her with his messy head of curls tickling her face.
It doesn't last.
The nice, buzzy feeling in her body fades even quicker than it arrived, and an empty, melancholic gnawing in her stomach starts back up in its place. She hasn't felt it in a few days, but it always returns regardless of how much she tries to shove it out. Little, cold prickles spread from her fingers down to her toes.
She makes a mental note to get her bloodwork done—just in case—and to look into getting her birth control prescription adjusted.
"We have all day. What do you want to do?" Emmett asks, wrapping his arms around her, his bright eyes looking at her dotingly. He's right in front of her, but it's hard to focus on what he's asking.
She squirms away and sits up. Emmett's room is messy, as usual. There's a stack of textbooks, a catcher's mitt, loose papers, sports tape, and a Nerf gun with a few dozen little orange darts strewn across the area surrounding his desk. A water bottle and a box of Cheeze-Its sit on his closed laptop just beside her bouquet.
There's something very wrong with her, and she doesn't know how to fix it.
Her mother would probably tell her to go get medication. A lot of her uppity friends from the city enjoy their pick of uppers and downers and gratuitous Botox to erase the worries from their faces. Life's too short to waste on not being fabulous, after all.
But her mother would also likely tell her to dump Emmett.
And the idea seems a lot less appealing when she knows that Jasper was practically taking Xanax by the handful for who-knows-how-many months. He looked awful the first time she saw him in the fall. She doesn't want to be like that.
"You okay? Looking for something?" Emmett asks.
The only thing she's looking for is the solution to the impossible dilemma of wanting to be with him while being simultaneously bombarded with misery and anxiety about their relationship. It's confusing and exhausting.
She wonders if it means he's not the right one. How would she even know if he was? She's chosen wrong before. He's not bad, but maybe he's also not the best person out there for her.
They're supposed to be having a lazy Thursday in. She slept over and doesn't have work. His morning class was canceled and his afternoon one offers recordings of all lectures for people who can't attend.
She's young, beautiful, and she's in love—at least she thinks she is. This isn't supposed to be happening. She shouldn't be so worried.
"It's nothing," she says.
"What kind of nothing?"
When she doesn't answer, he frowns. Guilt weighs down on her like a thousand tons of ice. She feels even worse than she already did.
"It's not your fault," she says, pulling away. She sits across from him with the navy bedspread pulled up around her. "I just have a lot on my mind. I ordered a new couch and a bed frame...dresser...everything. I have so much to do, and I feel like I'm going insa—can you stop trying to hug me for a second?"
"My bad, I'm trying to help." He flops back down on the bed, resigned. "If you need me, I'll be laying here not hugging you. Admiring my beautiful angel from afar. Thinking about how much I love you."
But she's not lovable. Especially not right now. She's a terrible girlfriend.
Emmett's making a goofy smile at her.
She takes a deep breath and lays back down next to him.
She wants to feel better. She wants to enjoy the moment and forget about everything else.
"So should we get dressed and go out someplace?" he asks. "Movies? Park? Couple's yoga? I heard that can be fun."
"Can we just stay here like this a while longer? Please." It's impossible for her to handle much else.
...
Edward flips through his notes for the Bar Exam while he streams a lecture on his laptop, a cup of black coffee sitting on his desk for support.
The time on his phone says he's studied through the entire morning and it's now nearing three in the afternoon.
The seven hours certainly didn't fly by, but he thought it only felt that way because he's been waiting on Bella to arrive. She said she would come over after her morning shift at the cafe—a shift that ended at noon.
He hasn't received any new messages from her explaining the delay, so he dials her number.
"Hey!" she says. "I'm...almost there..."
He frowns. "Why do you sound winded?"
"I'm coming up...the...hill..."
"Your truck still isn't working?" He's already hurrying out of his room and down the stairs. "I told you before to let me know if you needed a ride."
"I didn't want to...disrupt...your studying...so I took...the bus..."
"The bus?" He sees her trekking up the steep hill to the house and tries to think of where the nearest bus stop is. He can't recall one on the block. "Like a city bus? Bella, if your truck doesn't run, then you need a new one."
"It's working! Just not...right now!"
She's being stubborn, but he's already thinking of possible candidates for her new car. "What about a Ferrari?" he asks when she finally makes it up to the house.
Her cheeks are pink and her hair's messier than usual. She's wearing a hoodie with a cactus graphic across the front that reads Arizona along with jeans and Converse. "A what?"
"Hm, maybe that's too flashy...something safer like a Volvo XC60 or an Audi Sportback? Or would electric be better? A Model Y like Esme has?"
"No-no-no-no-no. No! I don't need a new car," she protests, shoving past his hug into the house.
He follows her back up to his room where she throws her backpack on the floor.
"You need a way to get around town that isn't going to take hours. It's the obvious solution."
"I knew you'd do this," she says in a tone that suggests he betrayed her. She sits down on his bed and gives him a heart-shattering frown. "I'll fix my truck. It's just taking longer than expected."
He pushes a stray hair from her face and smiles as reassuringly as possible. She's extremely frugal and materialistically averse, which is a commendable quality to have in most circumstances. "I wish you would let me help."
"You can help by not buying me a car," she retorts. She her face up toward him and he meets her halfway in a kiss. Her tone softens slightly. "I'm serious."
"I won't," he says to appease her. Their lips meet again and his skin feels like it's thrumming with electricity. His vehicle-related thoughts are replaced with ones urging him to touch her.
His hands find her waist. Bella climbs into his lap and pushes him back onto the gold duvet.
"Oh, did you need to study?" she asks, glancing over to the Bar Prep books sitting on his nightstand. He can't tell if she's being facetious.
He kisses her neck, the nearest stretch of skin he can reach with how they're positioned. "That can wait."
She pulls one of his hands up higher, toward her breast. He feels his face get hot and slides it back down her torso, overcompensating and inadvertently skimming past her hip to the back of her thigh.
Her hips move against him and it does something for him. Suddenly his face isn't the only hot part of him.
Without thinking, he flips her over onto her back so that he's leaning over her. She lets out a little startled "Eep!" and he regains a sliver of mental clarity back.
He's waiting. They're waiting. He needs to cool off.
"Sorry," he exhales, rolling off of her.
An odd sound stilts the conversation before he can think of what to say next. Bella looks at him with a curious expression.
"Ah!" It happens again, but this time it's more clearly a woman moaning.
Bella blushes. She looks around the room with a puzzled expression. "Um...is that what I think it is..?"
He grimaces. "Emmett's room is right under mine."
There's never been a noise issue in the past, but Emmett's never had anyone over besides Rosalie. And usually she doesn't spend the night. She's practically moved in with how often she's been around the past week.
"Stay here," he says, getting up and heading out of his room.
...
Click. Jasper opens up the Excel spreadsheet of survey results and scrolls through the rows of data, typing in a few formulas and making a basic pivot table and graph.
The sound of the two other interns in the office typing away at their keyboards is the only sound he has aside from his own thoughts.
He's a month into his research internship with the psychology department, so the daily workflow has become routine. He's mostly pulling together materials for graduate students, which isn't the most exciting thing on the planet, but it's experience and money.
He saves the file and clicks through some emails. There isn't a whole lot to do at the moment and their supervisor is in the other room.
He's thirsty.
Grabbing the water bottle to his left he takes a sip of plain, bland, unexciting water. It doesn't quench his thirst in quite the way he wants it to.
"Do you guys have a lot left to do?" asks the intern girl across the room.
"Not really. I've been reading Twitter for the past half hour," the junior guy on the other side of her answers. "Did you hear about the weird messages someone scribbled all over the undergraduate library?"
"No, like they put up flyers?"
He shakes his head. "Paint marker I think. One of my friends works there and was scrubbing brick all morning. I guess someone's pissed at Edward Cullen."
Jasper's ears prick up at the mention of someone he knows. "What did the messages say?"
The guy looks surprised he spoke. "Uh...the pictures online looked like they were things about him being stuck up and having 'dead yuppie parents.' There was something about his girlfriend, too, I think. The roasts were pretty weak if you ask me. If they're gonna act all Gossip Girl and try to expose someone, at least make it juicy."
"You know, one of my roommates was obsessed with him freshman year. She had a biology class with him and he was always showing up late to class. You'd think he would be on time with one of his half dozen sports cars he has..." the girl continues to chatter. "She tried to ask him out and he told her he would rather drink undiluted hydrochloric acid."
"Can I see?" Jasper asks, nodding toward his phone.
The other intern hands him it and there's a set of four images attached to the tweet. The interior and exterior brick of the library as well as several windows and tables are scrawled with messages mostly regarding Edward, but also mentioning Bella, Alice, and Emmett.
Jasper frowns and hands back the phone.
It's extremely odd that anyone—even an extremely bothered, angry, impassioned student—would think to graffiti an entire library just to target a handful of undergrads in a campus of over thirty-thousand. It's like singling out a needle in a haystack.
"Hey, isn't this you?" the girl asks, holding her phone out.
Another image from Instagram is displayed on her screen. Jasper Hale should be in jail is scribbled across a window in blue paint right under Emmett McCarty sux football and Alice Brandon is an ugly, little troll. He's seen grade schoolers make better insults.
Jasper's phone rings. Alice's picture flashes up on his lock screen. "Must be a common name," he says, exiting out of his computer and grabbing his bag off the ground. "I'm done with my work, so I'm going to head out. I'll see you both tomorrow."
As soon as he's back out in the hallway, he answers the call.
"You really think it's Victoria?!" Alice asks skeptically as if he just told her the shocking ending to a brand new movie she hasn't seen. "Why didn't you say something sooner?"
"I just thought of it. I could be connecting dots that don't exist, but. I can't imagine anyone else is behind this," he says. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but Edward's been high profile for a while now—"
"Oh, yeah. Super popular."
"—And he's never had issues with his public image or people wanting to blatantly harm him until James showed up. It's too convenient that Laurent was your French professor and showed up at the Gala with Irina. And he mentioned her still being upset about everything."
"You think he and Victoria helped James gather info, and now they're using that to get revenge."
Jasper pushes open the front doors, stepping out into the warm sunlight. "Along with others. Two people with their own jobs and class schedules to worry about wouldn't be able to follow all of us and keep track enough to make a convincing plan of action—not that it's particularly good or subtle as it stands. I think they have other students helping them."
Alice is sitting in her Porsche with the windows rolled down, giving a troubled look from behind her big sunglasses. "I don't like this. We have to let the others know," she calls out, hanging up her phone now that they're within speaking distance. "I don't want to find out how far they'll go to get back at us."
"Yeah, me neither," he replies as he walks around the car and gets in on the passenger side.
Her phone buzzes and a picture of the two of them at the Gala lights up her lock screen. She taps into a text message and squeals. "But there's good news! Charlotte found a lead on Cynthia—or Cyndi, I guess, according to her Instagram account. She was tagged in a group photo at her junior high's spirit rally. Aww, she's on the dance team!"
He didn't think Charlotte would have much luck digging around for information on Alice's kid sister, but he was wrong. She found her through a friend of a friend who substitute teaches at her school. "That's great."
"Should I try to send a message request or just friend request her? Her account is private..." she worries aloud.
"You don't have to reach out right yet. You can sleep on it if you're not sure."
"No, help me!" She tosses her phone into his lap, her pastel yellow nails flashing across the center console. "Say something like hi, it's Alice, don't hate me, but better."
He looks at the profile pulled up on her phone. Her photo is of the balding cartoon doll from Rugrats. Cynthia. The bio is just an assortment of emojis and abbreviations that he guesses are different extracurriculars and clubs.
Alice puts the car in gear and drives into the street while he tries to draft something up.
"How about...Hi, it's Alice. I'm sure it's a surprise to hear from me after so long, but I was hoping we could talk. No rush—message me when you're ready?"
"I want her to rush, but that sounds a lot nicer. Can you give her my phone number, too?"
"Yeah." He types in the ten digits he has memorized by heart and presses send.
...
Edward clears his throat and takes a seat at the head of the dining table. "I know you're all probably wondering why I've called a last-minute house meeting, but I have some important issues to discuss."
Carlisle, Esme, Alice, Emmett, Jasper, and Rosalie are seated around him, watching and waiting, some clearly more patient than others.
"Half of the people here don't even live in this house," Rosalie points out.
"That's also the topic of today's meeting," he says with a sigh. "As of late, there's been an increased traffic level in the house, as well as an increased noise level. It's getting out of hand."
Esme tilts her head in confusion, looking to Carlisle for input, but he seems equally as clueless as her.
"I haven't really noticed, myself. I'm not sure how that's bothering you, though, when you've also had a guest over almost every day," Carlisle says.
Edward's being betrayed. "My guest isn't causing public disturbances."
"Could you please be more specific?" Esme asks, looking around at everyone with a concerned expression. Her eyes keep landing on Alice and Jasper, but they're not the parties of interest this time. "I don't know if anyone knows what you're talking about, and I'm sure it's not intentional."
"I thought this was a meeting about the new stalker and library graffiti," Alice says. "They wrote that I look like E.T. wearing fake designer. I don't even wear fakes."
Rosalie cackles.
Edward gives Alice a sideways glance. "No, I don't care about that. What I want to talk about is how Emmett and Rosalie are too loud. It's ridiculous."
Esme frowns. "Haven't they been in Emmett's room this whole time? And, Alice, what do you mean by new stalker?"
"Jasper thinks—"
"No one cares." Edward cuts her off before she can answer. "I can hear Rosalie and Emmett having sex from all the way upstairs!"
Emmett bursts out laughing, but Rosalie and Esme both look mortified. Carlisle presses his lips together awkwardly, clearly regretting ever attending the meeting.
"And you're always going at it in the communal spaces. I don't want to see you guys making out every time I go to get something out of the kitchen or walk through the living room," Edward continues. "I came downstairs last night to get a glass of water, and you two were practically devouring each other."
"You're just mad you're not getting laid," Emmett says, a hint of laughter still on his voice. "Chill."
"I am not!"
"Then play your music louder or something if your superhuman hearing is offended. It's not a big deal."
Carlisle tries to put an end to the discussion. "Couldn't you have discussed this privately? I'm more concerned about what Alice just said."
"So am I," Jasper agrees. He and Alice barely arrived at the house when Edward was gathering everyone, and he's still dressed office casual in a button-down shirt, grey quarter-zip sweater, and trousers from his research internship. "We think that Vi—"
"Of course, you would want to change the topic. You're part of the problem. I might not be able to hear it, but I know it's happening," Edward says.
Alice gives Edward an irritated glare. The ridiculously large puff sleeves and frilly gathers on her yellow sundress make quite the juxtaposition with her expression.
"If you can't tell if something's happening, then it's not a disturbance," Jasper says with a sigh.
"I agree. I honestly don't notice when Jasper's here or not unless I see him," Esme says quietly. Carlisle seems to side with her, nodding.
How they've missed him stumbling in hungover and drunkenly running into furniture and walls all this time is still a mystery to Edward, though he supposes it hasn't occurred recently. "If someone's going to basically be living here, they should be following house rules. We have dedicated quiet hours for a reason. All premarital debauchery should be kept to reasonable levels," he says.
Emmett's howling now. "What about post-marital debauchery? Are Carlisle and Esme in the clear?"
Carlisle coughs, stifling a chuckle. "Maybe you can spend more time at Bella's apartment instead, Edward."
"Yeah, fuck off to Bella's apartment, man. Or get your own house since you're getting married," Emmett seconds. "Where is she anyway?"
"She's upstairs still."
"Waiting to hear the encore?"
Rosalie punches Emmett in the arm. "Stop," she laughs.
Finally losing patience, Edward hurls a lemon at Emmett from the fruit basket in the center of the dining table. Emmett catches it and takes a bite out of the peel with enthusiasm.
"Okay, okay, settle down both of you," Carlisle says over them, standing. "This meeting's been sufficiently uncomfortable for everyone involved...and not involved. I'll look into what can be done with the...air vents, and until then, figure out how not to bother each other. You both have other options of places you can spend your time."
"Just please stay in the country this time," Esme adds.
"We aren't even doing a vote?" Edward asks.
"A vote for what? Who gets shipped off to Europe?" Alice asks. "I vote we all go. I'd like to avoid Italy this time, though."
Emmett jumps up from his seat. "Alright, Eddie-kins. I'll fight you in the yard for who gets to stay and who gets to go."
"Get him, Babe," Rosalie says, egging him on.
The group has rapidly dissolved into chaos.
"No fighting, please!" Esme says. "Not in my house, and not in my yard!"
"But Jazz got to fight him. I want in on the fun," Emmett protests.
"They didn't fight," Alice says before Edward has a chance to make the same distinction. "They just gently shoved each other while exchanging words. Speaking of words, since we're all here, I want to take this time to make an announcement."
"I'll kill both of you if you say you're engaged too," Rosalie says with a menacing smile.
Jasper gives her a look that's both confused and concerned. "We aren't."
"The Saturday after next I'll be featured in the Henry Art Gallery. The grand opening starts at seven. You're all invited, including Esme and Carlisle's unborn child and Bella. Please come and support me, thanks," Alice continues. When she finishes speaking, she gets up from the table and leaves without waiting for a response or Jasper.
"Will there be food?" Emmett calls out after her.
Edward sighs. "Yes, and drinks."
"Is she doing a full installation?" Esme asks.
The topic's very quickly shifted to being about Alice's project. It's annoying. "Yeah. She has a studio class right now where they do exhibits and window displays and stuff."
"Wow! That's so much work! I can't wait to see it."
"I'll be late, but I should be able to make it this time," Carlisle says. "What was she going to say about the stalker?"
"That also worries me," Esme agrees, but Alice is already long gone.
Rosalie looks at her brother. "I don't think she's coming back, Jazz."
Jasper looks like he wants to say something, but he gets up without a word and leaves instead.
