Bathrooms and Playrooms: What Shouldn't Have Been

by Achlies

D/s. One of them I hated, the other I loved, and I needed both inexplicably and sometimes dangerously. Freud would probably have something witty but chauvinistic to say about this. Or he'd laugh at my stupidity. I'd accept either right now. BxE BxJ AH/OOC

2. Day 1, Part 1: The Arrival of Jasper

Day 1: Part 1

The Arrival of Jasper, Supreme Ruler of Doms

I spun the tumbler around in my hand again, flicking my wrist hard enough so that I could hear the ice cubes hit the glass. There weren't many cubes left. There had only been two to begin with, but all that remained were a few shards that had broken off from their respective homes. Little lost shards of ice, swirling precariously in a Bella-made brown vortex of alcohol.

I hadn't read the brand or year of the scotch when the drink was poured for me. I recognized the green bottle with the yellow placard, but I didn't really know enough about scotch to properly infer what it was. All I knew is that it burned my eyes as I drank it and burned my throat as it went down. And as far as scotch was concerned, that's all I was looking for.

I took another sip and looked around the room. My stomach flipped uneasily.

Breathe. In one, two. Out one, two. In one, two. Out one, two.

I took a bigger sip this time after I realized that the burn was pretty muted. I wondered, for not the first time tonight, why the hell I had asked for it on the rocks. Scotch by itself was a wondrous thing, but I always nursed the drink and was now only left with the water-downed remnants of its previous glory. I crinkled my nose in disgust.

"So, when did you become a sixty-year-old man, exactly?"

I looked up without moving my head. Emmett and Rosalie sat across from me on a burgundy leather love seat in their over-decorated living room. His arm rested on her shoulder and he had pulled her towards him in a sort of awkward half-hug. She looked comfortable enough, though her skin-tight patent leather dress may have suggested otherwise. He was absently playing with the leather spaghetti strap that held her ridiculous outfit together, his thick fingers working the small fabric, touching it without moving it.

Rosalie adjusted her weight and I flinched at the squeaking sound her outfit made against the leather couch.

"Scotch is not an old man's drink," I said, raising my glass to Emmett. The remaining shards of ice tinkled on the side of the tumbler and my stomach flipped uneasily again. "It's a classy drink and I scream of old fashioned class."

He saluted me. "Damn straight you do, kid."

"Kid," I scoffed. "Please."

The silence fell quickly and tensely and I was sure it was in no small part due to the fact that I was absolutely radiating nervousness. In response to my flailing emotional climate, generally laid-back Emmett was fidgeting uneasily with Rosalie's strap and I wanted to tell him to knock it the fuck off so I could focus on not vomiting back up the small amount of scotch I had managed to suck down.

I had taken residence in the only one-person chair in the house; a gaudy, 19th century Victorian piece with a straight back and dark cherry trim. I had winced when Rosalie offered it to me. There were big buttons all over the chair and they pressed uncomfortably into the backs of my thighs, just as I knew they would. My knees were pulled to my chest to compensate and my left arm was wound tightly around them, my sleeve balled up and around my fingers. My jeans were well worn, and the thin material around my knees made a calming scratching sounds as I ran my chin over it. My right hand held my drink.

"So," I said, taking another large sip. "What time are Tanya and her Dom getting here?" The question was meant to be casual, but my voice squeaked on the last word. Emmett grinned at me.

Rosalie craned her neck a little towards the kitchen, probably so she could catch the time on the stove. "About five minutes or so."

"Have you thought about what you're going to ask her?" Emmett said. He was grinning at me in a lazy way, but he picked up one of Rosalie's straps and snapped it against her skin. She gave him a reproachful look.

Of course I had. One year out of the culture and I had already lost my grip on proper etiquette protocol when it came time to attending house parties. Rosalie was already fully dressed in her burlesque get-up and Emmett had donned in an all-black outfit, though he had foregone the leather and chosen jeans and a button-up instead. I hadn't known what to wear but I'd gotten it half-right with a pair of black jeans. My red t-shirt might have been a problem, but Rosalie hadn't offered anything else to wear so I figured I was in the clear.

Emmett had taken the liberty to help reacquaint me with the culture by calling up an old friend and his sub, so I sat, with quite the bated breath, waiting for Tanya to arrive. I had made a list of questions I was going to ask her when she got here, written with a new purple pen in a new purple notebook, but had forgotten it at home. I had spent a good portion of the past hour trying to remember what I had written, but the only images I was getting were the endless trips I made up and down the notebook aisle at the office supplies store, trying to find the notebook that best reflected me, as a person.

I had gone with purple out of blind indecision.

Fuck. In one, two. Out one, two.

"Have you told her about James?" I croaked, trying to keep my tone light. I took one, deep breath to try to relieve the bubbling in my stomach. It had been an all-out war today, battling to force the contents of my stomach to stay in my stomach. I had succeeded thus far, but I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be able to last the night without vomiting at least a little.

"Nope, that's all you," Emmett said, giving me one of those sad faces reserved only for when you feel sorry for someone. I frowned back.

"I'm fine," I said.

Rosalie shifted her weight again and I cringed.

"Something the matter, dear?" she asked.

"I'm fine." And I was, in the literal sense of the word. My nausea wasn't completely under control, but I wasn't ready to hop up and book it the fuck out of here quite yet. I had come over way too early, too fraught with nerves to spend any more time at home, and too anxious not to stay away.

It was probably best that I reign in the dramatics; I was, after all, a guest in their home. A guest who was trying viciously to remain calm. I looked up at them, ready to flash a fake grin, but they were both staring at me with the same, shared expectant look; the one two people have when they've known each other way too long and begin forgetting they started out as two different people. Something was telling me that my eyes should be misting at the sweet sight, but my stomach rolled and I shook my tumbler instead.

I wanted to talk about James, but the whole thing made Rosalie very nervous. Instead, I resigned myself to counting down the minutes until Tanya was supposed to show up. I had spent the better part of the evening with my forehead pressed against the cold window of my car before I finally got the moxy to get my ass over here. I wasn't about to blow it so easily.

In one, two. Out one, two.

I was determined to remain calm. Which is why the scotch had so quickly been introduced to me. A history of a few moments of panic and Emmett was suddenly unwilling to let me in the house without at least a little alcohol in me. Said that vomit was almost impossible to get out of an Oriental rug or some such.

The doorbell rang and I was successful in not squeaking in protest, but I couldn't stop my stomach from contracting. In one, two. Out one, two. Rosalie flashed me a very excited smile and hopped off the couch, her outfit squeaking as she walked towards the front door. Emmett, too, stood up and held out his hand for the scotch.

"Really?" I asked, my voice tight. I stuck my bottom lip out.

"You're not supposed to be drinking at these parties," he said in a weirdly stern voice. Then he grinned. "Humor me."

I sighed and handed him the drink, but not before I downed whatever was left. I scrunched my face up in an exaggerated grimace as I swallowed. The liquid finally burned going down my throat and my stomach rolled in protest.

"Worth it?" he asked.

I gave him an angry glare and he just chuckled, walking through the living room into the kitchen. I heard the clinking of glass on glass and assumed he was sticking the tumbler into the dishwasher.

"Bella," Rosalie hissed from the foyer. I turned towards her. She stomped her foot a little and pointed to the ground with the angry jab of her finger. "Get over here."

I contemplated her order for a moment. I could go over there, where she had one had placed ominously on the doorknob. Or I could make a dash up the stairs, apologizing on the way up that I was going to get sick and lock myself in Emmett's bathroom before anyone else arrived.

The doorbell rang again and Rosalie looked like she was about to pop.

"Are you allowed to talk to me like that?" I asked, grinning a little. With my teeth pulled over my lips like they were, I'm sure the grin looked more like a snarl. I pressed my hands against my face and scrubbed it, trying to loosen up my muscles. The last thing Rosalie and Emmett needed was an angry-looking guest trying to angrily worm information out of another guest. Politeness and all that stuff.

She rolled her eyes and another wave of nausea rolled through my stomach. There was no way in hell that scotch was going to taste half as good coming up as it did going down.

"Now,"she whispered. I sighed and collected myself off the uncomfortable chair and made my way slowly across the room.

Rosalie opened the door when I was next to her and I braced myself for the cold weather outside. It had snowed a few nights ago and though it hadn't snowed since then, there was enough of it left so that I had to put the snow chains on my tires. Emmett was over and had watched me, with quite the amused expression on his face, as I fumbled with the damn things for almost an hour before shooing me away to put them on himself. Twenty minutes flat it took him.

I was pretty sure I wasn't ready to forgive him.

"Bella!"

Rosalie opened the first door and undoubtedly the most beautiful girl I had ever seen stepped into the house, holding her arms open wide for me. Her hair was a kind of blonde and red color and fell in long waves down the front of her jacket. It looked so damn thick that I wanted to reach out and touch it. But her hat stopped me short. It resembled some sort of small, furry beast, skinned and contoured to line the bridge of the hat, topped with a long peacock feather. I squinted my eyes. The feather was the wrong colors, though, browns and reds instead of the usual blues and greens. I smirked.

Rosalie sniffed and I looked at her. "Bella," she said, "this is Tanya."

"Hey, Tanya," I said, pulling myself together, and waved a hand at her outstretched arms. Undeterred by my half-assed hello, she closed the remaining few feet between us to hug me properly. I made a mental note to remind myself later that she had personal boundary issues and a penchant for overdoses in the form of Chanel No. 5.

"Rosalie, it's so good to see you!" Tanya said, releasing me and giving Rosalie two pecks on each cheek.

"Tanya, my dear, it's been too long," Rosalie said and I scoffed a little under my breath. I had never been one to dress in the types of outfits that Rosalie had allowed us to bear witness to today, but surely she didn't expect to pull of Susie homemaker wearing that.

I took a peak around Tanya, who was now staring at me with the same expectant face I had narrowly avoided earlier on the chair. Emmett and Rosalie were the only two people in the world who still didn't have automatic porch lights and I couldn't see anything beyond the first few cement stairs of the walkway. The dark night and the foggy spout of smoke coming down from the chimney atop their house blocked out all lines of sight. Still, I tried to see beyond it all.

"Sir will be in, in a minute," Tanya said, correctly interpreting my stare out the front door. "But you and I need to have a girl chat."

"Living room is all yours, ladies," Rosalie said, closing the front door behind Tanya, who was in the process of delicately removing her hat. She handed it to Rosalie who gave me an amused sideways glance before taking it into the kitchen. I briefly thought about following her and demanding another scotch, sans the ice, but Tanya grabbed my hand before I could act on it. She pulled me into the living room and I resumed my original spot on the Victorian chair while she took the leather couch.

She sunk into it gracefully and crossed her lean legs underneath her. "Start from the beginning."

The kitchen suddenly went very quiet. I took a deep breath and sprawled out on the chair, sinking downward until I could cross my ankles on the coffee table. I pushed aside a small stack of ornamental magazines with the heel of my shoe before settling more comfortably.

"What has Emmett told you?" I asked.

"I talked to Rosalie, actually," she said. "She told me the basics. Like the fact that you were in a bad relationship. She wanted to make sure that you told me your side without any," she flounced her hand in the air, "editing, I guess, on her part."

"Right," I said, jerking my head downward. In one, two. Out, one two. "You don't smoke, by chance, do you?" I asked. She shook her head. "Okay, well, I had this all written out in a cute notebook, but I forgot it at home and I can't remember what I wrote in it so I'm a little nervous." I took another deep breath.

For fuck's sake, girl, stop rambling.

"Well," I said, "about a year ago I ended things with the only Dom I've ever had and after some good old fashioned soul searching, decided that I wanted to try the life out again."

She still had that expectant look on her face.

"What?" I snapped. Distinct, frantic whispering came from the kitchen and then Emmett cleared his throat and hissed a quick and heated "shh."

"And . . ." Tanya said, still looking at my face. My stomach churned.

"Um, well," I said, surprising myself by being flustered. "That's it. So, you're here to remind me about everything."

For some reason she was still wearing her coat. "So what do you need to know, exactly? Rosalie really didn't go into the specifics."

"Uh, well, like I said, I left my notebook at home. They were a little more organized than what I can say right now, but let's see." I held up my hand and began ticking the question off. "You know, who I can talk to, who I can't, what the dress code is, whether I'm allowed to talk at all, how the parties go." I shrugged. "Everything."

I suddenly felt very foolish and wished I had that scotch with me. I could see the bottle from where I was; the liquor cabinet was propped over some cheesy wet bar in the far corner of the living room. The green bottle, half-full, was standing idly in the locked cabinet and was doing nothing short of taunting me with its delicious, unreachable contents.

"Hmm," she said. "How about you tell me a little about James, first?"

I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. "James was my first Dom," I said. "He . . . was bad for me, in all senses of the word. He absolutely controlled me. I met him at one of these parties," I continued, flicking my wrist absently around the room. "And he was great. Charming, gorgeous, manly."

I felt my expression harden with my words. James was an absolute cliché; he exuded everything wrong and devious about the culture and used his cocky, bullshit attitude as a means for reeling the naïve girls into his life. He was angry, semi-violent, and a sexual predator. My eight months under his roof and under his control seemed otherworldly to me now, sitting in Emmett and Rosalie's ugly living room and discussing it all with a girl I didn't know.

I opened my mouth to speak, but then closed it when I realized I had no words. But then Tanya smiled at me and dropped the expectant look . . . and the word vomit happened. "We were together for only a few weeks before we moved in together. I swear to god it was the most magical thing that's ever happened to me. I was in love and it felt amazing. He sucked me in really quickly and it was just . . ."

"Unreal," Tanya suggested. Her poignancy surprised me. "And you turned a blind eye to a lot of what you shouldn't have."

"Yeah," I said softly, not bothering to hide my shock. "I felt so lucky. That I had found who I was made for just like that. He calls every once in a while, under the guise that he's just calling to say 'hi.' But he wants to see if I'm with someone. He comes over to my apartment sometimes, too. But I don't spend much time there anymore and after a particularly nasty run-in with Emmett, where James got the ever-living shit beat out of him, he hasn't come since."

And then this awkward, weird sort of moment passed between us. She was smiling in a blasé way at me and my eyebrows were raised far above where they should be, but I felt a burning sort of thing in the pit of my stomach. It was somewhere between full-blown nausea and vague nostalgia and I swallowed hard. I eyed the scotch again.

"So, are there any particulars you wanted to go over before everyone gets here?" Tanya asked after I stayed quiet for a moment. With some effort, I looked away from the wet bar and back to her. I was a little embarrassed by the odd, intimate moment that passed between us and my stomach agreed as it flipped, almost painfully.

In one, two. Out one, two.

I took my legs off the coffee table and pulled them to my chest. I leaned my cheek against the little spot of thin material over my knees. "I honestly don't know. I'm feeling really overwhelmed."

"Talk to me."

I would have, but there was just too much to say. James was a pivotal era of my life and his presence, even though now a year in the past, had irreparably marred pieces of my personality. I was cynical, angry, and moody and I best channeled it through sarcasm and condescension. Emmett and Rosalie were understanding but permanently wary and my resentment towards it was building into something tangible and bitter. The air was always tainted when I was here.

Now I heard Rosalie clear her throat and I blushed fervently when the corners of Tanya's mouth twitched upwards.

"I like you, Tanya," I said. And a kind of uncomfortable warmth permeated my neck and I reached down, ready to pretend to fondle my necklace to make sure I wasn't sweaty, but then Emmett trekked back from the kitchen with a massive platter of food between his massive fingers and some ease returned to my body.

"Where'd you get that awesome hat?" I blurted to Tanya as Emmett rounded the coffee table to place the tray between us. He paused for a moment, bent down over the table.

"You like it?" Tanya asked, smiling brightly.

"I don't know about you," I said to Tanya, but looking at Emmett, "but I surely don't use awesome as a euphemism for ugly."

Rosalie cleared her throat very loudly from the kitchen. I grinned.

I looked at Emmett as Tanya began to ramble; he was still poised awkwardly over the tray on the table, looking a little mystified and anxious as he listened to her. His brow was pulled together in the middle and his mouth was pressed into a thin line, looking for all the world like a confused, beefed-up baby.

". . . found it in Paris, and you know Sir," she said, patting Emmett's shoulder delicately. "Always wants to make me happy. Do you know who it was created by?"

Oh, for fuck's sake.

Emmett unbent him and he and I listened as Tanya embroiled herself in the midst of the surprisingly dull tale about the origins of the hat (which was mink, apparently, but there was just no fucking way), and smiled hugely at Emmett's expression. He backchanneled appropriately, nodding and humming when her eyes met his, but for the most part he was sporting a "what the fuck just happened?" sort of look. It was endearing.

Tanya clapped her hands together. "And that's that!"

"Brilliant story," I said solemnly, nodding my head.

"Absolutely," Emmett deadpanned, smiling a little.

I grinned wickedly at his blank expression. "Emmett loves hearing those types of stories from you."

Tanya looked from me to Emmett. "Really?"

I nodded again. From the corner of my eye, I saw Emmett's hand snake around his back, his middle finger upright and decidedly proud. He wiggled it a little.

Rosalie flitted into the room, shooting a nasty glance in my direction. I shrugged my shoulders up a bit, feigning innocence. When she reached Emmett, she gently curled his middle finger down and wrapped an arm around his waist. She opened her mouth to speak, but the doorbell rang and I felt like my world had stopped.

My hands flew to my stomach like a fucking retracting rubber band and I squeezed my eyes together tightly. In one, two. Out one, two.

"I can't do this," I breathed at Rosalie, but she seemed just as engrossed in the front door as Tanya was, who was gracefully uncoiling herself from the couch, and my comment blew past both of them. Tanya traipsed over to the door, quickly took of her coat, and threw it on the standing coat rack in the foyer. Her outfit rivaled Rosalie's for absurdity; black patent leather, a strapless, bustier top and a hemline that barely covered her ass. She pulled it downward a little before she reached for the door handle. My throat suddenly felt a little tight and I gripped one of the large buttons on the chair.

"Jasper Whitlock is Tanya's Dom, so she answers the door if she can," Rosalie whispered. She looked over at me and took in my palled expression. "It's all right," she said, unwinding herself from Emmett. She unclasped my fingers from the button I was gripping. "Relax."

In one, two. Out one, two. In one, two. Out one, two.

"Master," I heard Tanya say and I slowly brought my eyes from Rosalie's face to the front door. Rosalie tried to wipe off the thin sheen of sweat that had broken across my forehead, but I swatted her hand away petulantly.

Jasper was, thankfully, not wearing anything as absurd as Tanya's hat, and for that I was grateful. In fact, he was immaculately dressed. His back was to me and he was stomping the snow off his shoes on the mat in front of the door. Absently, I was surprised by his footwear. He was wearing a pair of very shiny, very black pointed dress shoes which seemed in an odd contrast to his more casual dark jeans and dark button-up. Tanya already had a fist over one shoulder of his businessman's trench coat and was helping him maneuver out of it. Why it took two people to shimmy the thing off of him, I wasn't sure, but as far as formalities went, it seemed a little like overkill.

Brilliant. Passing judgment is completely appropriate right now. Deflection, much?

Rosalie leaned towards me. "Jasper and Tanya are very formal," she whispered. "You'll see them do things that you've never seen with Emmett and me."

"Right," I said as Tanya hung up Jasper's coat on top of hers on the coat rack. Jasper bowed his head a little and shook it. Small flecks of snow detached themselves from his curls and rained in sharp pitters on the rubber floor mat in front of the door. He ran both of his hands through it, pushing it back on his head.

"Thank you, Tanya," he said, and I almost gasped, surprised. From the back, it was clear that he was in relatively decent shape. His jeans were tight and his shirt was tucked in, and his body shape suggested compact, lithe muscles. But his voice seemed to oppose the manliness of his form. It was definitely deep; the kind of bass deep that would suggest a man twice his age, but without the gravelly undertone years of bad habits would morph. But it was almost lyrical in it's quality; beautiful, if I was so inclined to call it that.

And if his voice was any indication of his beauty, when he finally turned around to greet Tanya properly, his face would have compensated for any lacking. Square, trim jaw line and a straight, linear nose let up to large eyes. Not the weird, baby doll looking large, but just large.

Fuck me eyes.

I hadn't realized that Rosalie had left my side until she was shaking hands with him. He leaned in for a hug and Rosalie wrapped her arms around him, pressing her face into his chest. He smiled warmly at her and chuckled.

"Well, hello, Rosalie," he said.

Emmett jabbed me with his thumb and heaved a mockingly dramatic sigh.

"I think she's got a little thing for him," he said, winking. "You should see the two of them sometimes."

"What do you mean?" I choked out, turning away. Rosalie had her hand on the tops of Jasper's arms and was all smiles and giggles as he spoke to her. His head was cocked and held too high to look natural, considering he was many inches taller than she was. Tanya looked especially at ease, her fingers intertwined loosely with Jasper's as she watched his and Rosalie's exchange.

"Jasper's a bit of a legend in the culture around here," Emmett whispered. "Rosalie still can't believe that he likes coming over to our house. She likes that he likes it here and gets all fan-girly whenever she sees him."

Jasper's arm snaked around Tanya's waist and he pulled her to him a little. She pressed her palm flat against his stomach and laughed loudly at something Rosalie said, too quiet for me to hear over the wet pounding of my heartbeat in my ears.

"Are you, like, worried or something?" I asked, shaking my head a little. It was really annoying not be able to control my body. There wasn't really a fight or flight mechanism in me; it was either collapse in a piling heap of pathetic or a total freak out.

"Nah," he said. "It's been happening for years now and she's not stupid enough to leave all this." I looked at him as he pressed his palms to the side of his chest and ran his hands down his torso and past his hips.

I snorted loudly. "Thanks, Sasquatch," I said, jabbing him in the ribs with my elbow.

"Damn girl, you got some pointy elbows," he said, rubbing the side of his torso with a pout on his face. "You are like a gangly twelve year old in a twenty-something's body."

"Shove it up your ass," I quipped, flipping him the bird.

"Bella?"

I looked over to the foyer and was disconcerted to see three pairs of eyes looking back.

"Oh," I said, "hey." I dropped my hand and cringed as a hot mess of a blush ran from my neck, up past my cheeks, and onto my forehead. Emmett grabbed my hand and lifted me straight up off the chair in one massive tug. He put his hand on the small of my back to steady me as my jellied legs buckled. "Sorry," I breathed.

Jasper's arm was still wrapped around Tanya and Rosalie was standing with her arms all akimbo, giving me one hell of a nasty glare as I made it across the room. I had only been here for a little over an hour and I had barely succeeded in not vomiting all over the house. Multiple times. If she didn't want me to embarrass everyone, I was going to need a little more leeway than that.

Rosalie was pissed, but Tanya was smiling stupidly at me, her eyes hooded like she was about to pass the fuck out.

"Bella, this is Jasper, Tanya's Dom," Rosalie said, her voice a smooth liquid as she spoke. I knew that voice. She was pissed.

I walked the remaining space that joined the foyer and the living room until I was standing just outside the little half-circle the threesomes' bodies had formed. I extended my hand to Jasper.

He bowed his head slowly. The movement had a feline grace to it. "Bella," he said and I actually shivered as he said my name. There was a slight drawl to his voice, like he was born in the south but moved up north sometime in his childhood. Remnants of a previous life. He raised his head back up. My hand was still extended and when I didn't move it, he glanced at it and then back up at my face. His lips tightened a little.

I shook my hand up and down, mimicking a handshake and he frowned. "Nice to meet you, too," I said.

An awkward, tense silence filled the living room and I blushed furiously. Rosalie's face was absolutely livid. Her eyes were so fucking big I thought for sure they were going to pop straight out of her pretty head. Tanya seemed completely oblivious to the whole thing and Jasper was just . . . looking at me. Like, I was clearly there, but in a way that suggested he was regarding me with the same level of interest one would regard a floor lamp. I cocked my head at him, suddenly annoyed. Who the fuck was this guy to come into a house that, in many ways belonged more to me than it did to him, and treat me like I had just committed some hugely massive sub and Dom faux pas?

I opened my mouth to ask him just that, but Emmett bounded up behind me and brushed past me to throw an arm around Jasper's shoulder. He laughed loudly and I shut my mouth. "A bit of a whippersnapper, this one," he chided, sticking his thumb out towards me.

"And I'm the sixty-year-old man?" I asked grumpily and crossed my arms over my chest. "Who the hell still says 'whippersnapper'?"

Emmett laughed again and patted Jasper on the chest with his free hand. "What can I get you to drink, my man?"

"I'll get it," Tanya said, taking Jasper's hand. She turned him around and he followed, his eyes still on me as she led him into the kitchen. I scowled at him and, for a brief second saw the edges of his lips curl upward before he and Tanya's leather-clad bottom disappeared behind the kitchen wall.

I turned back to Rosalie and Emmett.

"Pleasant," I said, re-crossing my arms around my chest.

Emmett frowned.

"What?" I asked. Rosalie's arms were still propped on her waist, but her face had calmed a little. She and Emmett exchanged a heavy look. "What?" I snapped. "I didn't do anything."

Rosalie pressed her lips together. "We thought about telling you this, but weren't going to unless it came up."

"Yeah?"

"Jasper's really . . . prim and proper," she said, lowering her hands from her hips. "And really cold with people he doesn't know."

"Okay . . ." I trailed off.

Emmett nodded. "Sorry, honey. Nothing to do with you. Though maybe cut back on the swearing a bit tonight?"

I bristled at the suggestion that it might have, in fact, had something to do with me. "Well yeah, I didn't exactly do anything to merit it. And who the hell is he to decide whether or not I swear?"

Rosalie and Emmett exchanged glances again. I didn't even bother hiding the fact that I rolled my eyes this time. "Out with it."

Rosalie stepped forward and sort of held her arms out like she was about to surrender. "Please, Bella," she said. "Him coming here means a lot to me and I don't want anything to spoil it."

I taint the air when I'm here.

I nodded softly, letting my eyes trail to the ground.

Emmett sighed. "I've been talking for years about you to Jasper and Tanya and I guess I sort of figured that he'd warm up to you right away. Because he kind of, sort of knows you."

"Only nice things, I'm sure?" I muttered as the tops of Emmett's shoes began to blur.

"Of course, dear," Rosalie said, patting me softly on the shoulder.

"Great," I said dryly. "So why did I come again?"

"You don't have to deal with Jasper tonight," Emmett said, throwing one massive arm around me. He brought me into a hug that lifted me straight off the ground. I gave an awkward squeal of delight as my feet left the floor. "Only Tanya."

He set me down and ruffled the top of my head with his hand. My eyes burned as static electricity caused the top strands of my hair to stick up. I batted his hand away and smoothed down my hair as best I could without a goddamn mirror. I wiped the back of my hand across my eyes and laughed, maybe a little too loudly.