A/N:
Okay, so I know that last chapter was a little boring. Just stay with me, okay? It will get so much better. In this chapter. Like bam. (:
And ummm…
I know I haven't updated in forever. But schools been a bitch, and then my computer got infected and I didn't want to start all over on my dad's laptop, and then finally when we got my computer working, I had to go to Miami for two weeks and since my computer is a desktop, I can't bring it with me places.
It's not really an excuse, but yea.
Disclaimer: There is no freaking way I own Twilight, duh.
Chapter Two:
"I cannot believe you talked me into this," Bella hissed at Alice, fidgeting in front of the mirror. Alice rolled her eyes, straightened the shirt that Bella was now wearing.
"I cannot believe you don't notice how insanely hot you are," Alice shot back at her, stepping back to examine her work. "Damn, Bells. I swear, if I swung that way, it would so be with you."
"Ew, Al. That's a little disturbing," Bella made a face, turning back to the mirror and looking herself over. "Ugh, I feel like a hooker."
"C'mon Bells, you look fabulous! Edward won't be able to keep his eyes – or hands – off of you," Alice smirked, wiggling her perfect eyebrows at Bella suggestively and laughed when Bella gave her a glare. "Jeez, Bells. You have got to loosen up. Maybe a few drinks would do you good."
"No, Alice. I'm not drinking," Bella snapped at her, ignoring that fact that she was just joking.
"God, I know, I know. I was just kiddin', Bells," Alice fixed her own hair, leaning towards the mirror. "So, if you're meeting him there at seven, you should be a few minutes late. Make him wait just a bit, so that he's even happier when he sees you."
"This whole thing is going to go terrible," Bella muttered under her breath, adjusting the thin straps of the shirt she was wearing on her shoulders. "I can just see it. Either he doesn't show up, or he does, and I make a complete fool out of myself. That or he thinks I'm a complete hooker."
"Bella, you do not look like a hooker!" Alice cried, frustrated. "Sure, the shirt is way lower than what you usually wear, but compared to what the two bimbos will be wearing, you'll look like an innocent third-grader who just bought her first bra!"
"Jeez, Al. That makes me feel wonderful," Bella rolled her eyes and said sarcastically.
"Hey, at least I let you wear jeans," Alice pointed out, grinning.
"Yeah, jeans that are tight enough to suck the air out of me," Bella looked down at the dark pair of skinny jeans she was wearing.
"With great beauty comes great pain," Alice commented, checking her makeup for the seventh time. She glanced at the clock on the wall. "Okay, it's ten to seven. We can walk to her house, so then we'll be fashionably late."
Bella sighed and followed her friend downstairs, pausing to slip on her flip flops when Alice screamed.
"Not those shoes, Bella! What on earth are you thinking?! Are you mental?!"
"Um…" Bella looked at her confusedly. Alice sighed impatiently and ran to her backpack, unzipping the designer bag and digging around quickly before running back.
"Wear these!" She threw the pair of silver ballet flats into Bella's hands.
"Why do you keep shoes, for me, in your backpack?" Bella asked as she leaned over to slide on the shoes, questioning her friend's sanity.
"I'm always prepared," Alice stated as a matter of factly. "Now let's go, or we'll be late!"
"I thought we wanted to be late…?"
"Yes, but we can't be later than that late, or Edward might leave before we even get there! God, Bells. Don't you know anything?" Alice scoffed, pulling her out the door and onto the sidewalk. Bella just rolled her eyes.
Lauren's house was just a few streets down, so it only took them about fifteen minutes to reach her house.
"Remember, we're not drinking," Bella reminded Alice, who frowned but nodded. "Okay. Well. It's now or never."
She winced before knocking on the door, holding her breath. It took about ten seconds for someone to answer the door, and Bella groaned inside upon seeing Lauren's fake-tanned face staring at her with pure hatred.
"What are you doing here, Swan?" She asked in disgust, taking in Bella's outfit.
"We're crashing your party, Lauren, so deal with it," Alice grinned, smirking at Lauren, who had a half drinken beer in her hand. Lauren was about to say something when someone stepped up beside her.
"I invited them, Lauren."
Bella smiled, seeing Edward look at her from behind Lauren.
"You… you… what?!" She was shocked, looking from Edward to Bella and Alice.
"I invited them," he repeated, smiling at Bella. "I thought you weren't gonna show."
"Alice insisted that we should be late," she laughed, giving Alice a nudge.
"So are you going to let them in, Lauren, or are you just going to stand there all day?" Edward turned to her and asked impatiently. Lauren just glared at Bella and stomped her foot, stalking off to grab another drink.
"Alice, my friend Jasper is here and he's getting kind of lonely. Wanna go keep him some company?" Edward asked the short, dark haired pixie, still looking at Bella intently. Alice nodded energetically, ready to run off when Bella grabbed her arm.
"Remember our promise, Al," she said before letting Alice dart away to find Jasper.
"What promise?" Edward asked, leading Bella farther into the house. She followed him, carefully avoiding the people around her, not wanting to run into anyone.
"Just a promise we made," she really didn't want to go into detail. He shrugged, pulling her into the kitchen. He wandered to the fridge and dug out two bottles of Miller Lite, and held one out to her.
"Want one?"
She sighed. She knew this would happen. Shaking her head, she smiled at him tentatively. "I'm not into drinking."
"Oh, okay then," he put it back in the fridge and then hesitated, wondering whether he should put his back too or not. Deciding quickly, he left his in the fridge next to hers, and straightened walking over to her. She gave him a confused look.
"Why'd you put yours back?"
"If you aren't going to drink, I'm not either," he shrugged, secretly hoping that that would make her happy, and maybe like him.
"Thanks, Edward," she smiled up at him, the thought of him not drinking just because of her making her heart soar.
"Edward!"
Emmett came bounding up behind Edward, holding a partially drinken beer in one hand. "How are you, my man?"
"I think you've had just a little too much to drink," Edward chuckled, taking the beer from his hand and setting it down on the kitchen counter, watching the unsteady Emmett, amused.
"No, no, no I haven't, you prude," Emmett slurred, reaching out for the drink. Edward slapped his hand away and Emmett just laughed, almost falling over. Then he noticed Bella, who wasn't sure whether or not to laugh or back away. "Eddie, you prick, introduce me to your girlfriend or I'll tell mommy!"
"Bella, this is my older brother Emmett. Em, this is Bella," Edward introduced them with a laugh.
"Eddie sure doesn't know how to pick 'em," Emmett chuckled loudly, giving Bella a friendly grin. "Don't get too carried away, kiddos. Be safe!"
"Emmett!" Edward groaned and went to push him out of the kitchen, away from them. Bella giggled as he came back, shaking his head. Her face was flushed red, which he found extremely adorable.
"I like it when you blush," he smiled down at her, running a few fingers lightly over her cheek. She immediately stopped laughing and blushed even harder. He realized what he said and turned red himself. He was about to apologize, when Bella stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek quickly.
"I like it when you blush too," she giggled shyly, feeling not at all like herself. It was as if being around Edward made her a whole new person.
"C'mon, wanna go sit outside?" He asked her with a grin and she nodded, smiling when he grabbed her hand gently and pulled her towards the back door, looking back at her.
"I thought I was going to be the only person beside Alice that wasn't going to drink anything," Bella thought aloud, sitting down next to Edward on a wooden swing.
"Is that what you were talking about before with Alice? Not drinking?" Edward tilted his head curiously, his bronze hair falling out of his emerald eyes. She nodded, looking down awkwardly.
"You know, you're the only reason I came here," she admitted quietly, barely loud enough for him to hear her.
"Really?" His heart pounded in excitement. She came here just for him! She glanced up at him and nodded slowly before looking out across the yard.
"I don't usually go to parties. Especially when there's drinking," she explained in a soft voice. "So when you invited me to come, I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to be the only one not drinking, but I really wanted to come… to see you."
"So Alice promised not to drink if you came," Edward smiled, understanding. She nodded again. "Why do you hate drinking so much?"
"Besides that fact that it's illegal for us," she started, sighing. "There's a reason my parents are divorced. I live with my dad, you know? I used to live with my mom. In Arizona."
"Why'd you move here then?" Edward asked, not quite getting it yet.
"My mom… she was a drinker," Bella confessed, as if ashamed. "It wasn't bad, at first. But then she got fired from her job, and started drinking more and more. It was terrible, she'd always come home at midnight drunk. At times she didn't even know who I was, she was so drunk."
"Bella, I'm sorry," he whispered, seeing the tears glistening in her eyes. She wiped the unshed tears away quickly and smiled at him half heartedly.
"You shouldn't be saying sorry, Edward. You didn't do anything wrong," she told him, looking up at him. "If anything, you made my life in Forks ten times better."
"Really?"
"Yes, really," she laughed at his surprise.
"So uh… you really come here just for me?" He had a teasing smirk on his face and she blushed.
"So maybe I did," she admitted embarrassedly, giving him a look when he beamed. "Hey, don't let your head get too big, Edward."
"Ha, I won't," he laughed, glancing back at her. "So, Bella Swan. Tell me more about you."
She looked at him, a bit startled. "What's there to know?"
"I don't know; just tell me anything about you. What pets did you have when you were little? What's your favorite color? Do you like it here better than Arizona?" Edward shot off the questions so fast she had a hard time keeping up.
"Um, I had a pet fish when I was five. He died after the first few days though, so I decided pet life wasn't for me. Er, my favorite color depends on the day. Right now its green," she glanced at him, noting his bright green eyes. "As for the last question, I don't know. I didn't like it here at first. But things are really looking up. I just miss some of my friends back in Arizona, but other than that, I don't really miss being there at all."
"Tell me about your friends from there." He wanted to know what kind of friends she had there.
"My best friend there was this boy, Jake. He's a year or two younger than us, but he was really amazing. We did almost everything together; people didn't expect to see one of us without the other. We were kinda like a package deal, ya know?"
Edward nodded, his mouth in a frown. She looked at him harder and her mouth opened wide and turned into a grin.
"Is that jealousy on your face there, Edward Cullen?" She teased him, her heart speeding up at the thought that he was jealous her best friend had been a boy.
"No!" He denied, looking away stubbornly.
"I think it is," she kept teasing him in a singsong voice. He didn't say anything, just keeping looking away. She leaned back on the seat, staring at him with a smirk. "Wow. I never thought I'd see the day when Edward Cullen was jealous of some guy being my friend."
Edward turned to face her. "And why wouldn't I be jealous of him?"
She tilted her head in confusion, her eyebrows knit together.
"Bella, you're amazing. You're smart, funny, beautiful, everything anyone could ever want in a girl. Of course I'd be jealous of some guy who got to spend all of his time with you!"
She stared at him, shocked, as a blush slowly started to creep to her face.
"Crap. I screwed everything up, didn't I?" Edward looked away, scared. He knew it was a bad idea to invite her. "I made everything awkward, huh?"
"Edward," Bella started quietly, watching him carefully, "do you really think all that about me?"
He nodded, still not looking at her.
"I may not have such a poetic way of saying it like you did, but I think you're pretty amazing yourself, Edward," she told him quietly and he glanced at her in surprise. "You're talented, smart, hilarious, and pretty damn good-looking. God, I'd be lucky if you even looked twice at me."
"I've looked more than twice at you," he grinned and she turned an even brighter shade of red, a smile forming on her lips.
"Really?"
"If I said no I'd be lying."
"It's not polite to lie."
"Well in that case, yes, really."
Her cheeks turned a shade of red and she noticed him looking at her intently, his eyes darting from her eyes to her lips. Her breath caught in her throat as he moved towards her, just a few fractions of an inch at a time. Then, as if she was being pulled by a magnet, she felt herself tilting her head towards his.
It didn't take long for their lips to meet. Bella felt one of his hands move up to her cheek, and then brush back a few stray strands of her hair. She let her instincts kick in and she reached up her hand to the back for his hand, playing with his messy hair.
"Bella…" Edward whispered, pulling away for the air they both needed. She looked up at him with big eyes, and he smiled, beginning to move closer for another kiss when they were interrupted by someone slamming the back door open.
"Bella! Come quick!"
She pulled back slightly, turning her head. "Huh?"
"Bella! Alice is drunk!"