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Chapter 11

One week later

Jasper's POV

"Will you shut up, Rose, please? I did like him."

She teases me about the last dream I just told her about, and I hate that smile on her face. Sometimes I think she's a first class cold-hearted witch, my younger sister.

"Stop it, Jazz. He's a nobody. You'll forget about him in a couple of months. Just in time for our next strike."

You know what? This time, it's all different. This time, in particular, I'm ready to swear Fate is one evil bitch. Things work out so well usually, but now I'm all messed up, and this is not good. Not at all.

You're evil, I speak to the ceiling.

There were a few times during the past weeks when I thought he did the same thing - looking up the ceiling and cursing to an unknown image of the force which draws the strings to our lives.

"Do you always have to fall in love with them, Jazz?"

She's mean, my lil' sister, oh, yes she is.

"I don't fall in love with them, Rose. That's not fair of you. I'm attracted, usually, and sometimes I fall for them, but I don't fall in love. That's a different thing. You should know better."

Yeah, I'm trying to explain the miracle of falling in love to an iceberg. She's that hard, and that cold.

"Jazzy, honey, won't you take those boots off already?" Alice chimes, peeking through the door.

Ah, the annoying friend.

"Suck it, Alice. Mind your own business. I'll wear my boots till I die and that's nothing you can change."

I throw my cigarette out the window and puff the last wide circle of smoke.

"But you're ruining the furniture, Jazzy boy."

She squeals, 'cause I've just thrown the empty cigarette pack at her.

"Go eat some dick, whore. Leave me alone. I'll ruin the furniture as much as I like. This is a motel, for fuck's sake. We're not staying in this fucking rabbithole forever."

I do my best not to look at her any more. This creature I can't stand. If she weren't an important part of our charade, I would have strangled her with my bare hands. I just can't cope with this kind of girl.

Not that I cope with girls at all.

"Jazzy boy, you're mean."

She cried a river when her friend - and my sister - told her I was gay. It was her third day at work at Hale Enterprises, when Rose got angry with her friend's attempts to hook up with me, and shot the truth into her deer-like, huge, innocent eyes. Soon after the tears were gone, Alice asked if she could be my friend, and I said yes, I could use a friend.

We were broke, after all, why wouldn't I use a friend?

Alice also became a co-author of our plot. Which, in general, was to gain insurance payoffs after faking accidents all over the US. With our debts, and poor choices with investments, Rose and I had to come up with a quick, and 100% guaranteed source of income to make a living.

"I'm not mean, Alice. You do screw every living soul we meet on the road. You're a whore, and there's no other word for it."

She's trembling, and I like it. It sort of makes up for my unease.

"I'm looking for love, idiot, and you're a dick."

"Yeah, that I am, and a huge one, in fact."

Yeah, I'm a huge dick but I'm looking for love, too; which I'll never in my life admit to you, pixie.

"Stop messing with my friend, Jasper. What makes you so cruel today?" Rose gives me her best dagger-like look, and I'm pissed off again, and I want to hit the road and go live in a wagon.

Or go back to Forks and kidnap that boy-of-a-doctor, confess my attraction to him, take him to Texas and live in a fairy-tale where we fuck the living hell out of each other.

Yeah, not happening. God bless him, the innocent soul, he was so sincere in his desire to help me out.

"So why are you so upset about the Forks deal, brother?" Rose persists.

"You're asking me why I'm upset, sister? You, of all people? Did you not whine about leaving that Emmett guy? Hm?"

She's annoying, and I can't help but respond with the similar accusation. In my opinion, she cared about that bear-like fella.

"Yes, I did, but at least I didn't let him believe I was staying with him. You misled your guy in the ugliest of ways. And now you're regretting it, which is so low of you. Don't you remember what we agreed upon? No attachments! No attachments whatsoever, brother!"

At the end of the tirade she's shouting, and I can't look her in the eyes.

My fault. I got attached.

The guy was gorgeous.

"Well, not that I planned on it. I didn't know I was going to fall that hard." I'm defensive now, because I know she's hurting. Not as much as I am, though.

"Ah, now you're admitting it?" She looks victorious.

"Look, Rose, you know the Forks deal was nothing near to what we planned. I wasn't supposed to end up all beat up and unconscious, for starters. That Tyler Crowley guy, he fucked up badly. I was a wreck. There wasn't supposed to be an investigation to keep me there for weeks. And surely I wasn't supposed to meet that man and have the time to get attached. "

"If you love somebody, set them free." This is Alice, humming. Now she's standing beside me - I hadn't noticed she'd gotten so close. She sighs and closes her eyes for a second, playing romantic. Maybe she is romantic indeed, I don't know. I don't care.

"You know what the bad thing is, Alice? I don't want to set Edward free." It takes me a while to form my thoughts into a sentence. "I don't want to let go of that dream." Not that she knows what I'm talking about, but I know. It's that dream where Edward and I live together in Texas and fuck the living hell out of each other.

"You have to forget about him, brother. I'm sorry," Rose says, and comes closer to reach for my cheek. "You're pretty, we'll find you another one. A doctor, or an insurance agent, or a police officer, whoever comes in handy. They all look good, whether in scrubs, or suits, or in uniforms. We'll find you someone bigger." She sighs. I know she's thinking of her Emmett guy, the one who carried me out of that hospital.

"Rose, you're forgetting something."

Her hand stands still in the air, and her eyebrows quirk.

"I've never fancied the bigger guys," I tease.

Now we're both smiling. Alice joins, coming closer to us and raising her hand too, to caress my cheek first, and after that, Rose's.