Jasper POV

"Emmett, chill out, it was only a joke, OK?" Edward and Emmett were both glaring at me. Oops. After they'd all ditched me after school, I'd run home, only to find Emmett in the worst mood for about half a century.

"My sexuality is important to me, Jasper!" Emmett moaned. "I don't want everyone thinking that I've come out of the closet!"

"And I don't want everyone thinking that my husband's just come out of the closet!" Rosalie screamed at me. I sent calming waves at her.

"Don't send calm at me, Jasper Whitlock!" Rosalie stamped her foot and the floorboards dented.

"Don't Jasper Whitlock me!" I laughed. "It was a joke! It was sex education! Emmett, just say that you were stoned or something. Humans do that all the time."

Edward growled.

"Jasper, that wasn't funny. You drew far too much attention to us. Do you want the Volturi visiting us?" As he spoke, he drew his arm protectively around Bella. She shuddered.

"Edward, it was a joke. Mike and Eric came off a lot worse, if you ask me. Emmett hardly attracted any negative attention at all."

"Edward!" Alice groaned, clearly just having had a vision. "You're not going to tell Carlisle?!"

Edward shrugged.

"It could be dangerous, Alice. I don't have a choice."

"Spoilsport." I muttered.

"You're still doing a forfeit, even if Carlisle tells you off." Emmett told me. Alice laughed.

"Nice idea, Em. He won't do it but nice idea anyway."

"What?" I demanded. "What does he think I'm doing?" Emmett snorted.

"Have you ever eaten human food, Jas?" I gasped.

"No way!" I told him. "I am NOT eating human food!" Edward laughed when he heard Emmett's plan.

"Well, if it's any consolation, there is some blood involved..."

"Not human blood," Alice interjected, as Bella looked slightly frightened.

"Yeah, don't worry, you're not here as a donor." Emmett laughed, to Edward's annoyance.

"So what exactly am I doing?" I asked my brothers and sisters. Emmett and Edward exchanged a glance.

"We're going to a restaurant." Rosalie told me, with a smug expression upon her face.

Emmett POV

The six of us seated around one small table in Sunny's Steak House was definitely a rare sighting.

"Why did we have to drive all the way to New York?" Rosalie complained. "Don't they sell human food in Forks?"

"This place has the best steak for miles," Alice explained. "If you're going to make my husband eat human food, he's going to eat the quality stuff." Jasper gave her a smile.

"Thanks, Alice." She winked at him.

"Just choke it up before you next kiss me." Bella made a face. I rolled my eyes.

"Sorry Bells, I forgot that there were people with us who actually eat human food." I caught a scent from the kitchens. "Do they have to make it smell so unappealing?" Bella shrugged.

"It smells quite nice to me, actually Emmett." I made a face.

"Yeah but you eat that stuff!" I signalled at a plate of chips and some unidentifiable grey stuff on a tray being carried towards the table next to us. "For Aro's sake, the waitress smells better than that crap!" Edward glared at me. I sighed.

"Oh loosen up, Ed! Don't tell me you're following in Carlisle's footsteps with the whole 'we-must-not-take-the-Volturi's-names-in-vain' thing?" Rosalie sniffed and muttered something under her breath, involving the words 'rat' and 'ass'.

"Emmett, you can say what you like about the Volturi but don't be so loud when we're out. You can't say that you'd prefer the smell of the waitress!" Edward had lowered his voice so that only our table could hear, apart from Bella.

"Why? Are you going to grass me up to Carlisle?" Alice coughed.

"Emmett, you might want to order." I looked sideways at Jasper who I had deliberately positioned as far away from me as possible. I did NOT want to have to smell the human food right next to me.

"Are we ready to order?"

The waitress was practically resting her boobs on my shoulder. Rosalie growled quietly. I took her hand under the table.

"I think so." Alice answered. She pointed at something on the menu and Jasper grimaced before nodding. I noticed that the waitress's gaze was alternating in between Edward, me and her notebook. Jasper's creepy stare was obviously putting her off. Humans tended to freak out near him.

"Could I have the...steak tartare please?" Jasper asked, sounding as if he was about to throw up. I snorted. The waitress nodded.

"And for you?" She turned straight to Edward, although Alice was sitting beside Jasper. Alice answered for him.

"That's all for us." The waitress removed her fashion glasses and smiled at Alice as if she were incompetent.

"You would like to order one portion of steak tartare for all...six of you?" Alice nodded.

"We're all on starvation diets." The waitress looked at Jasper. "He gave in." Alice pretended to look disapprovingly at Jasper. Bella giggled. Jasper glanced up from the menu.

"About this steak tartare..."

"Yes?" The waitress leaned right over me, deliberately touching me. I slid the chair away reluctantly. If she felt how cold my neck was, she'd get scared. Jasper raised his eyebrows at me.

"Could I just have the steak...part?" Confused, the waitress peered at Jasper.

"You would like to order a plate of raw steak mince?"

"Mince?" Jasper sounded disgusted. I snorted once more. This was going to be hilarious. Although I was completely in agreement with Jas. Why the hell would anyone mash up food into minced pieces? I wouldn't drink blood from a minced grizzly!

"Could I just have the steak slice then please?" Jasper asked. Edward put his head in his hands. I knew that he was either cursing Jasper's lack of human experience. The waitress clearly thought that we were a right pack of freaks. She wasn't far wrong, what with Edward and Alice.

"You would like to order the steak? How would you like that cooked?" Jasper sighed.

"Not."

The waitress put her notebook in her pocket.

"I'm afraid that I don't quite understand." Edward lifted his head and deliberately made eye contact with the waitress. Before he had even spoken, she blushed a deep red. I knew that Jasper would only be more irritated by that.

"If it's not too much trouble, could we have a few slices of raw steak?" Edward asked. The waitress was too dazed to be surprised or puzzled.

"No...sir. I'm sure that will be...just fine..."

She walked away breathing heavily. We all turned to stare at Edward.

"I didn't know that you could do that!" I told him. Who knew that innocent Edward even knew how to turn on the charm when he wanted to? That explained how Bella had fallen for him so quickly.

"You didn't want to order anything, did you?" Alice asked Bella. She shook her head.

"I'm not hungry really. And I didn't want to put Jasper off anymore by ordering pasta or something."

"Raw steak slices?" Rosalie asked Edward. "Way to stay inconspicuous." Edward shrugged.

"It was either that or let her get confused for another hour. And Alice, starvation dieting?"

"Humans do that." Alice explained. "I watched a documentary on it with Esme."

"Why do you watch documentaries about humans all the time?" Rosalie sniffed.

"Because funnily enough Rose, they don't make them about vampires." Edward replied. "And Jas, you weren't sending the waitress confusion waves, were you?" Jasper looked guilty.

"A few may have escaped, I suppose."

A different waitress sauntered over with a plate in her hands. Just the smell of the food made me want to gag, despite it being raw. She put the plate down in front of Jasper and smiled at Edward and I.

"Are you sure that I can't get you boys anything?" We shook our heads politely. "Strong guys like you? Shouldn't you be eating something?" I loved the way that Jasper was completely ignored as he prodded the steak with his fork, repulsed.

"We're fine at the moment, thank you." Edward replied in his 'nineteen-eighteen-manners' voice. Honestly. Twenty-first century, Edward! When in Rome...try to avoid the Volturi.

"What do I do with this?" Jasper asked Bella. She laughed and rested her head on Edward's shoulder.

"Eat it? I don't know! Edward, help me out here." Edward shrugged.

"They seem to have drained most of the blood from it," Edward told him, laughing. "You'll just have to eat what you can." Jasper held the meat at an arm's length.

"Jasper!" Edward reprimanded. "Don't you know how to use a knife and fork?" Jasper shrugged.

"I've been a vamp..."

"Sshhh!" Edward hissed. Jasper rolled his eyes.

"I've been in this...condition for centuries. Over time, you forget how to use a knife and fork, Edward."

"Didn't Carlisle teach you?" Edward questioned. "Just in case?" Jasper shrugged. I snorted. That was so Carlisle. Even thought we were vampires and never ate food, he would have to ensure that the Cullen kids had the perfect manners just in case we ever found ourselves in a dinner party situation. Jasper and I had managed to wheedle our way out of lessons and Alice claimed that she'd know if she'd ever need to use cutlery in the future. Rosalie however, was keen to point out that she had attended numerous dinner parties as a human and had never forgotten that particular skill.

"Edward, we never use these things..." Jasper held up his knife and spoon. "So what's the point in learning how to?" Edward sighed.

"Times like this. We're not fitting in. Pick up your knife and fork. No, not that one," Edward instructed Jasper as he picked up his knife and spoon. "The one with three prongs- that's called a fork. Hold that in your left hand and the knife in your right."

Jasper held both utensils, one in each fist. I wondered if he was doing it wrong deliberately, to avoid ever consuming his meal. Edward growled. Clearly, he was not a born teacher.

"Edward, Edward, patience is a virtue." Alice quoted at him. Bella smirked at him. She leant forward.

"Jasper, hold them like this," Bella demonstrated with her own cutlery. Jasper copied. Bella nodded.

"Well done. That's fine. Now cut your meat." Jasper made a ridiculously exaggerated sawing motion with his knife, postponing the actual consumption of the steak.

"Jasper! Just eat it!" I told him, impatiently. No way was he going to get out of my revenge. No one makes a fool of Emmett Cullen and gets away with it.

The waitress walked over to check our table and Jasper's untouched plate of food. Her eyes fell upon Jasper, with his knife stuck into the steak and his fork stabbing viciously at it, trying to cut a small piece. She raised her eyebrows and seemed slightly puzzled. Alice glanced at her.

"Sorry, he has trouble using a knife and fork. He's not used to them. His old family used to eat off the floor. We've just adopted him."

Alice loved making up obscure life stories for us whenever we stood out in public. The last one was that Jasper was a foreign student from the Arctic and it was customary for him to try to lick the faces of people that he met. That story was supposed to explain why he kept trying to bite the shop assistant's head off. I much preferred my excuse, which I had used numerous times.

"Sorry, we've just got him, he's not properly trained yet." So many times had people given me and Jasper strange looks, as if we both belonged in a mental home of some kind. One of Alice's dares had even got me to drag Jas around on a lead all week. We'd had to move after that week at school.

The waitress nodded, completely bemused. When she'd left, I leaned over to Jasper, careful not to breathe in the scent of his meal.

"Dinner time, Jas. Eat it." We all laughed quietly. Jasper picked up the meat between his finger and thumb and lifted it to his mouth. Rosalie screamed and ducked below the table.

"I can't watch!"

Slowly, Jasper closed his lips around the steak. Then came a loud sucking noise as Jasper drained the slice of all the blood that it contained. The remainder of the restaurant looked around at us in horror as they heard Jasper's slurping sounds. Thank God that Alice had chosen to eat outside of Forks. Number one, we'd have had to leave straight away. Number two, Carlisle and Esme (and Edward) would have died from the shame if we'd exhibited bad behaviour in public. The Cullen kids were famous for being so perfect and polite at all times. That was the only reason that Edward sometimes agreed to do my homework, because he knew that I'd let down the family name by refusing to do it.

Jasper threw the first slice back down on his plate. He had complete drained the blood from it. His eyes had turned a strange mustard colour. Hmm. I supposed that was what cow's blood did to us.

"Enjoy that, Jas?" I asked him. Even Edward had been mildly entertained by Jasper's eating habits.

"It was repulsive," Jasper half-growled at me. "It tasted worse than Jacob Black smells." Both Edward and Bella froze at the sound of that name. Honestly. Couldn't the one-hundred-year-old-virgin just get over the competition? Like Bella would ever pick some flea-ridden dog over a vampire! It was laughable. But then again, Bella wasn't exactly normal. Far from it.

Jasper POV

Fifteen minutes later, three totally drained, hard and grey slices of steak sat on my plate. The waitress collected them without a word; she merely blinked as she stared around at the weirdest party ever to enter the steak house, without a doubt.

"I'll need a contact number... in case there are...um... any problems with the bill," the second waitress asked, looking at Emmett and Edward in particular. Emmett grinned at Edward and slipped an extra piece of paper inside the bill. The waitress smirked.

"Thanks very much," she told Emmett and Edward. "Hope to see you again real soon."

When we were outside, I turned to Emmett.

"Whose number did you really put inside the bill?" I asked him. Alice giggled.

"Eric Yorkie's," Emmett replied, laughing. Then he turned to Edward. "It'll be interesting to see who gets laid first."

We all exploded into fits of laughter except, of course, a blushing Bella and the Virgin Vampire of the twentieth century. I wonder if the Volturi do an award for that sort of thing...