To Andrew: This is for all those first conversations . . .

Rosalie

Monday morning dawned cool and rainy and I frowned at the clouds as I stalked into the office. I told myself that the reason I'd been replaying my conversation with Emmett McCarty over and over in my head was that nothing else of interest had happened all weekend. That had to be the reason. You couldn't, I reasoned, develop a crush on someone you didn't know—that you'd never even seen!

Bella worked on the other side of the office, so I didn't see if she called Emmett back like she'd said she would and I told myself all morning that I didn't matter if she did, but I knew I was lying to myself.

If I didn't care, why would I spend all morning finding excuses to pass by her office? Every time I passed by, we'd exchange a few words, and each time I had to tamp down the question of Emmett from rising out of my throat. Who he was, what he was like, where he lived. . .and if she had called him back, if he had mentioned me . . .

At lunch, I gave myself a stern lecture. I could have any man I wanted. There wasn't any point in being intrigued by a man I'd never met and was not exactly likely to meet anytime in the near future.

I just needed to forget about Emmett McCarty and our stupid, foolish conversation and move on.

After lunch, Bella showed up at my office and threw a wrench into my new plan.

"So I talked to Emmett today." Bella smiled knowingly as she leaned on the door frame and I grimaced inwardly. No doubt the big buffoon had made a lot more of our phone call than it had actually been.

"Oh?" I replied, trying to sound as disinterested as possible when in reality, I was nearly hanging on her every word. I was barely managing to keep my twelve year old inner self in check so she wouldn't eagerly ask what he'd said about me.

Bella chuckled. "He said you were both an icy bitch and hot for him. He said you even brought up the wedding."

To my mortification, I turned bright red. I couldn't even remember the last time I'd blushed. "Uhhhh. Maybe I did. I just was trying to place a name to a . . . well. . .well a memory?"

She didn't seem to believe me at all, and I couldn't say I blamed her. I was acting weird. What was even worse was that I couldn't figure out why.

I opened my mouth confess all, though typically I wouldn't have breathed a word, but Bella asked the question before I could say anything. "Rosalie, what's going on?"

"Nothing," I was able to tell her honestly. "I just had a rather. . .strange conversation Friday night with Emmett. That's all."

"Can you tell me why he's asked for your phone number? And not your work number. Your personal number."

The blood drained from my face, leaving me stark, sickly white under my golden tan. It was as if the man knew that I'd been fantasizing about talking to him again.

"I gave it to him. Was that okay, Rose?" Bella sounded concerned, probably since I looked like I'd just seen a ghost.

"Um, yeah. Sure." I put on a false front of bravado, but I saw a flicker of worry pass over her face before she left. Hell, I was worried about myself and my nearly visceral reaction to Bella's admission.

And that was even before my phone vibrated next to me on the desk. Without even opening the text message, I knew it was Emmett. He sure didn't waste much time, and while I told myself that was creepy and weird and nearly stalkerish, I was secretly thrilled with his eagerness.

It had been so long since I'd met anyone who was even remotely intriguing, and though I could hardly call this a 'meeting,' I wasn't sure I cared anymore.

Ignoring the butterflies fluttering in my stomach, I opened the text message.

Guess who, sweetheart?

I burst out laughing despite myself. There was something so brazen, yet laidback about this man—something ultimately irresistible that broke down all my inner walls as if they didn't even exist.

With trembling fingers, I typed out a reply and then held my breath as I pushed send.

Either a dream or my worst nightmare.

I'd decided to play it cool and slightly aloof, but still mildly flirtatious hoping that this well-tested routine would keep him at a distance. Of course, the men that had fallen for that act weren't Emmett.

I stared at the phone intently for thirty seconds before it buzzed again.

You know that isn't going to work with me, right?

I glared at the phone and sat back in my chair, plotting my next strategy, but before I could even think of anything to say to his blunt honesty, the phone vibrated again.

Glancing over at it, I thought for half a second that maybe it was someone else, but the timing was too suspicious. Triumphantly, I decided that he must have realized he'd pushed me too far. He'd texted me again to retreat and/or apologize.

Trying to plot your next trick?

Unfortunately, no. He hadn't texted to retreat and/or apologize. I sighed and quickly typed back a response.

That's a little (or a lot) presumptuous.

I only had to wait twenty seconds this time for my phone to buzz, and this time I hadn't even bothered to put it nonchalantly back on the desk. I was gripping it tightly, more excited for a silly, stupid text message than I had been for my last supposedly hot date.

Whatever you have to tell yourself, darlin'. But I don't think you're going to stop anytime, presumption or not.

Damn him to hell, he was so right. I was incredibly intrigued and you couldn't have pried my Blackberry out of my cold, dead hands.

Three hours later, the butterflies in my stomach had dropped down to my lace Victoria Secret cheekies, and I was feeling nearly faint from arousal. From text messages. I was sure that I'd lost my mind, and as I logged onto Verizon to check how near we were to reaching my limit, my jaw dropped.

We hadn't just reached my limit, we'd exceeded it. Three hundred text messages in three hours. I was obsessed, and so was he, clearly. I was going to have to upgrade my plan stat.

For the next two weeks, we texted each other obsessively, like a pair of giddy teenagers. I stopped trying to hide my smiles whenever the familiar buzz sounded and Bella walked around the office with a knowing look on her face. I wouldn't tell her anything except that, "yes, we were communicating," but she was dying to know more and had even resorted to threatening to have Edward call Emmett.

I called her bluff and just stayed silent. I didn't want to share Emmett with anyone. The secret conversations we had were essentially meaningless, and yet in two short days, my world had seemingly begun to revolve around them. I woke up to the familiar buzzing noise and fell asleep with the phone next to my head on the pillow.

I'd learned that Emmett loved action movies and romantic comedies and was as football obsessed as I was. We dissected the last Superbowl and how refs should have called a lot more blocking on the Cardinals, and how the Steelers had the best defense that the NFL had seen in years. We talked about religion and politics and my shopping addiction and why he had always wanted to be a pilot.

With all the constant communication between us, I should have been tired of him. The novelty should have warn off, but as I sat in front of my TV, my feet propped on my coffee table, nursing a Blue Moon beer, the ever-present Blackberry on my lap, I realized that I was even more interested in him than ever.

It was my second beer, and when the phone rang, I picked it up almost absentmindedly, not caring who it was because it wasn't a text message and thus, not Emmett.

"Hello," I said blithely, not realizing that I was not just up to my ankles in shit, but my knees as well.

"Hello, Rosalie."

I almost dropped the phone and my beer, one after the other. It was his voice. The voice that had haunted my sleeping and waking thoughts. The voice out of which flowed endless sexual fantasies composed of staircases and white canopied beds and Charleston porches.

"Uh," I stammered. Under the best of circumstances I could flirt my head off with just about anyone at any time, but none of those men (or even women) had known even a tenth of what Emmett knew, and well, these weren't exactly the best of circumstances.

"Smooth," he chuckled, and I wanted to hang up and start over, but I knew he'd never let me forget it if I even suggested it.

My mouth opened and closed again and I couldn't seem to form thoughts, nevermind words.

"Cat got your tongue?" He was definitely laughing now, and I wanted to sink through the floor in mortification. I was supposed to be the smooth, charming, sophisticated woman, and a bunch of text messages had reduced me to a stammering, immature green girl. And then the one thing I hated about myself kicked in.

"Emmett, hi," I said rather too brightly and a dangerous sense of foreboding settled around me. I could sense the mania coming from a mile away, but I couldn't do anything to stop it. It was going to happen and I hated how crushed I felt when I realized that after this phone call, he was never going to want to talk to me ever again.

But instead of being smart, I kept babbling on, barely stopping to breathe and not waiting at all for him to reply.

"I'm uh. . .just watching . . .uh. . .Dave Letterman . . .and uh. . .drinking a beer. Yeah, a Blue Moon? Do you like beer? Of course you do, silly me. You're like . . .the ultimate guy. Full of testosterone."

I stopped awkwardly, realizing in the middle of my long rambling rant what I'd just said. I'd just admitted that well. . .Emmett was the perfect man. And not just the world's perfect man—but the perfect man for me.

"You finished yet, darlin'?"

I opened my mouth then promptly snapped it shut. "Yes," I said with as much emphasis as I could.

"Maybe I should have warned you," he said with amusement rife in his voice.

"You should have," I retorted. "I don't take well to surprises."

"Obviously," he said, still chuckling. "I don't believe I've ever heard anything like that."

I giggled a little, and decided to hell with the sophistication. Obviously, I was way out of the cool, calm, and collected league right now. "Well, I'm glad I could be the first."

"Baby, you might not have really been the first, but why do I get the feeling that you're the only one that'll matter?"

Silence fell over the line and I had a feeling that he was being dead serious, but how could I be scared or upset at his words when I'd been thinking along nearly the same lines?

"That's okay with me," I told Emmett in a small voice. "Just forget temporarily that I'm blond."

"Not possible," he scoffed.

"And why is that?"

"I know you hate being judged on your looks alone, but trust me when I say that your blondness is kind of an inherent part of you. It's not why I like you, but it's a part of the whole that makes you, you. And that I do like."

"You've never even met me," I said, feeling the seriousness of this conversation begin to creep into unknown territory. "You don't even know what I look like. I don't know what you look like."

"Does it matter?"

I'd wondered the same thing myself. Would physical attraction simply follow an insanely strong emotional attraction? I'd begun to think that it wouldn't matter what Emmett looked like, as long as he was the same person he'd presented himself to be. And for me, one of the most unabashedly vain, surface-level people I knew, this was a real development.

The next day I could barely drag myself into work. I'd been up until 2 AM talking to Emmett on the phone, and I didn't even want to do the math and figure out how long he'd been up. Probably he hadn't even bothered going to bed. He'd made excuse after excuse every time I suggested he go to bed, and finally I'd just stopped mentioning it. Besides, he wanted to go to sleep just about as much as I wanted him to.

To my chagrin, Bella was waiting in my cubicle as I stumbled in, eyes puffy with lack of sleep, clutching a venti triple espresso from Starbucks.

"Long night?" Bella asked innocently. I knew better than to believe she had altruistic motives at heart though. She was dying to hear an update on Emmett, and we both knew it.

"Uh, yeah," I simply said, refusing to address the one subject she was dying to hear more on.

"I had Edward call Emmett last night. He never answered his phone, which is rather odd," Bella observed, her eyes glued to mine, "considering that he literally hasn't been able to put his phone down for the last week, you two have been texting so much. And now, here you are, clearly exhausted from a late night. If I was a betting woman, I'd say you guys talked on the phone last night."

I told myself to stay strong, but secretly, I was dying to tell Bella everything. Never having had this sort of relationship before, I was in uncharted territory and though I hated to admit it, I was scared out of my fucking mind. There was so much emotion between us, and though I had already run through the scenarios in my head, I had yet to come up with a realistic future that wasn't fraught with heartbreak. Despite this, I still hadn't been able to break it off with him. In fact, I fell deeper every day. The phone call last night had simply been another layer to a relationship that was becoming increasingly difficult to define.

"Fine," I confessed. "Yes. We did talk on the phone last night. He called, unexpectedly."

Bella smiled. "Were you your usual manic self?"

"Only a little," I said, taking a large gulp of coffee. "I did manage to calm down though."

"Good. You do know, he's crazy about you."

I pondered this. Theoretically I knew it was true, but in reality, how was that even possible? How could you honestly be crazy about someone you'd never even met?

How could I say that I was nuts about him when I'd never even seen a picture of him? Every time I stopped to consider this possibility, the butterflies in my stomach fluttered again. I was scared and stupid and insane and crazy.

I told Bella this, and she threw her arms around me. "Rose, it's okay. I know it's scary, but maybe it's scary because it's so right. Did you ever consider that?"

I had, but I didn't want to admit it to Bella, or myself, or especially Emmett. Really, I was just a total chicken shit.

Bella squeezed me tight again. "It'll be okay. Just trust."

As she disappeared out of the office, I thought about how much difficulty I'd had in the past trusting anyone. I'd never completely trusted a man before, at least not in a romantic sense, and now I was expected to trust Emmett in that way without ever meeting him. That particular revelation was almost too much to take in, and I thought about it, in the back of my mind, all day. But I couldn't deny that despite my fear, I longed for Emmett. Longed for him to put his arms around me, longed for us to be able to cuddle on the couch watching movies. Longed for the feel of his skin on mine.

I'd only known him two weeks, but in those two weeks we'd had more meaningful conversations than I'd had with the last boyfriend I'd had, who I'd dated for almost a year.

It seemed that finally, I realized that I was in over my head, and this time, I wasn't sure if I cared that much. I lectured myself to just enjoy the ride and not focus on what was sure to be an inevitable heartbreak at the end.

AN: Again, this is going to be published fast and furious. Look for another chapter either tonight or tomorrow morning. . .