I couldn't get this chapter right. I erased the entire chapter three times and I don't want to tell you how many starts I erased. So here it is. And sorry it's so fucking late, but Bellsouth dicked me around for quite a while and I was off the internet waiting for them to get their act together.


EPOV

Bella's truck announced itself as we pulled up to the back of Rosalie's house. Everyone turned around to watch us emerge from the cloud of dust. Rosalie was the first to fall out of the truck and she wandered off without saying anything to either of us. Bella and I piled out next and a few kids were walking towards us. One had his hair gelled up in white blonde spikes. That poor kid probably moved from California years ago and never realized that things had fucking changed. I nudged Bella with my elbow and nodded at the advancing group.

"The blonde one's from California?" I asked her and glanced back up at the kid.

"Who, Mike? Yeah. He moved here years ago. He's old news. Don't worry, your status as hot new toy isn't threatened," she said, laughing and waved at Mike as we passed right by him. I'm pretty sure he was expecting Bella to stop for him, but she breezed by so I stuck beside her. When we were far enough away, she glanced over her shoulder.

"Jesus. Don't give that kid a hand job. He'll follow you around like a Golden Retriever," she laughed and pulled a cigarette out from behind her left ear.

I looked back over my shoulder, too, then back at Bella. You've got to be fucking kidding me. She engaged in sexual activity with that guy?

"I'll keep that in mind in case he propositions me. Any idea where Jasper is?" I asked.

"We're headed to the pool house. We've been down there all night. Emmett is bogarting the best liquor and we're avoiding the people we have to see every day for the next year once school starts," she said, exhaling a fast breath of smoke. I nodded and caught her staring at a group of kids hunkered together beside a keg. One of them looked up at her and waved. She gave a half-hearted smile back and kept walking.

"So you're the cop's daughter out drunk driving and picking up young men you don't know in your shitty truck?" I laughed at her and put my arm around her shoulder, hoping the little fucks that kept staring at Bella would see. "You remind me of home."

She smiled up at me and we walked down the steps towards the pool together. Towering, mossy trees surrounded the whole pool area. I could hear an owl hooting and the loud music of the party was nearly drowned out. There was a massive, screened-in gazebo structure to the right and as we headed there, her arm slipped around my waist.

There was a loud laugh from the gazebo and Jasper came stumbling out the screen door with his arms wide open.

"Hey, you made it," he said, and his speech was even slower now that he was stoned and drunk. Alice flitted out the door before it closed and she smiled slowly at us, glancing down at Bella's arm wrapped tightly around me.

"Yeah, yeah, let's drink. I don't want to think about Monday," Bella said and waved her free hand towards the gazebo. She flicked her cigarette ash into the pool and Rosalie shrieked from behind the gazebo's screen.

"Bitch! That's my fucking pool! Find an ash tray you lazy cunt. Jesus Christ."

"What do you want me to do, get the fucking net? It's ASHES, Rose. It's no worse than what falls in from these goddamn trees!"

Rosalie huffed in the dark and someone with a deep voice was whispering.

"Hey, Em. Shut the fuck up for me, okay?" Bella tugged my waist and we walked towards the gazebo. Alice and Jasper fell in step beside us.

"Oh, did you know the Res kids are here again?" Bella asked. "I saw them when we were walking down here from the truck. Crazy shit how they can sneak themselves up to our shindigs but wont let us come down to theirs, huh? Not that I want to go to theirs, I just don't want them to think they are welcome here," Bella said and threw the screen door open. It slammed against the wall.

Rosalie was smoking and straddling a football player on a lawn chair. I noticed he had no neck.

I let go of Bella's shoulders so we could get into the door and she headed for a wet bar at the back of the room. Jasper edged in beside me and gestured at the meaty looking character positioned under Rosalie.

"Emmett, this is Edward. Edward, Emmett."

Emmett's hand shot up and he waved at me before placing it back on Rosalie's hip. I returned his wave, but he wasn't looking at me anymore.

Bella sauntered back over to me with two tumblers.

"You look like a Jack and Coke kind of guy," she said and put one in my hand.

"Right now I'm a whatever works kind of guy, so thanks," I said and swallowed my first gulp. It was kind of uncomfortable, being thrown into this group of people just because I was related to Jasper.

"So, how many kids from the reservation are here, Bella?" Emmett piped up.

Bella slumped onto a sofa that looked like it should be inside the mansion, not being used as fucking pool furniture, and wiggled her hand back and forth. "I'd say six or seven. The usual ones."

Rosalie looked over at Bella and smiled, but it didn't look friendly. "If someone hadn't slept with Jake Black, maybe they wouldn't think they were welcome here, Bella."

Bella seemed unphased and I just stood there watching the exchange, sipping my shit.

"Well, I was young and immature. Two or three times. I can't remember," she laughed and snorted, raising her glass in mock toast. "To being young and immature two or three times," she said, and then she gulped the rest of the glass. I was the only other one to raise my glass to her.

I was beginning to see a pattern with this girl. In just the short walk from the truck to the pool house there were two guys we'd seen that she had fucked around with. The chances that I would be getting laid tonight were high. It'd be nice to not wait a fucking week, having to do the whole seduction and romancing shit just to get one night of an anxiety ridden girl with body hang ups underneath me. Bella seemed rather comfortable with herself. Those girls were always more fun. Way more willing to do kinky shit.

Bella glanced at me and I downed the rest of my glass. We both walked to the bar for a refill. She beat me to it and I walked up behind her. I weaved my arm under hers and put my glass on the counter for her to fill up. She didn't even flinch when I leaned my head down and placed my cheek against hers, my hand on her stomach, as she poured Jack into both glasses. She grabbed her glass without adding anything else except ice cubes and I followed suit.

Jasper coughed behind us and I pulled away, but Bella reached behind her and grabbed my belt buckle with absolute fucking precision, pulling me back against her.

I was in. I was so fucking in.

Jasper arched his eyebrow at me when I turned back around and infinitesimally shook his head at me. Alice was looking away towards the pool and Rosalie wasn't even looking at anyone. I arched my eyebrow back at Jasper and Alice finally broke out into a smile that seemed like it was trying to break up the tension that had suddenly descended on everyone. Everyone except Bella, really.

Bella pulled my hand and headed towards the door. "Let's just go up to the party, Edward." No one said goodbye as we slipped out the door.

I trailed behind her hoping I didn't also seem like a Golden Retriever. At least I had better hair than Mike. Better than a Golden Retriever, too, actually. Bella was still gripping my four fingers in her little hand as we walked up the steps back to the party. We were quiet, holding our glasses and each other until she spun around and just pinned me up against the brick of the house. I was a little pissed because this was probably my favorite black shirt, but whatever. We were between the party and the pool, but could hear the music blasting. She stood up on her tiptoes and I was already hard for the second time that night. Her fingers slid up the side of my neck and weaved into my hair. I grabbed her around the waist with my free hand and pulled her closer to me. She leaned in and put her cheek against my cheek, her mouth by my ear.

"You really don't want to get involved in this, LA," she whispered in my ear.

"Yeah I saw Jasper trying to get that point across," I gasped out, surprised I could actually speak. I'd never really had a girl take charge that way. It was fucking sexy. And then warning me? I was hers.

"They don't really agree with my choices, but I'm having fun," she rasped and kissed my ear.

I tried to act nonchalont, like this shit happened to me every day. I raised my glass to my lips to take a gulp.

"I'd say your choices are fine, and if you want to fuck around with, say, me I'm not going to argue," I breathed into her neck.

She laughed lightly and continued to trail kisses around my neck and chin. She was pressed so hard against me, she must have felt everything. I was seconds away from slamming her backwards against the tree in the courtyard we were standing in when her hand snaked down my back and into my back pocket. She pulled out my pack of cigarettes and pushed herself away from me.

Then she offered one of my own damn cigarettes to me and put the pack in her own pocket. I cocked my head at her because that bitch just blatantly used me to get a pack of cigarettes. I mean, I know we're under age, but just ASK and maybe someone would buy a pack for you. I bet the cunt had never paid for a pack of cigarettes in her life.

So while I stood there holding the cigarette Bella had so graciously given me from my own pack of Turkish Royals with a stunned look on my face, Bella was walking up through the little garden courtyard towards the party. I took a step in her direction, but looked back towards the pool house. My body was still in a state of arousal and it wanted to follow Bella and her delicious, crazy-driving, cigarette-thieving, sarcastic ass, but my brain was still shocked that she had actually just stolen my entire fucking pack of cigarettes. She never even glanced over her shoulder at me before she disappeared around the corner of the house, so I ran my hand through my hair and walked back to the fucking pool house.

It felt like a hangman march. I knew they were all going to talk about her now that she was gone. They'd probably tell me what I already knew. She's a slutty little whore who fucks for cigarettes and alcohol and I'd join in with my new story of how she used her seduction and charm on me. But I'd be keeping my eye on the garden path in case she came back. I'm not going to fucking chase her, but I'll get what I want eventually. And as pissed as I was that I was just completely left standing alone in a courtyard by some chick on my first night in town, I was calculating ways to get her to bed. I was plotting revenge and sex at the same time. I wasn't sure if I wanted to punch something or smoke my cigarette.

I walked back down the brick steps to the pool house and the talking I heard from the gazebo died down with an uncomfortable cough as they saw me. I raised my hand into the blackness they were sitting in and figured I'd start off the inevitable conversation as I walked back through the screen door.

"I get it. She's a shifty bitch."