Chapter 4

Impasse

Emmett spent the evening pacing in the confines of the apartment. He couldn't get Bella out of his mind and he tortured himself with visions of her date with Edward. What were they doing now? Did he really want to know?

He'd seen the pattern hundreds of times before. Bella would fall in love with Edward. She wouldn't be able to help herself. No one could resist Edward when he was intent on seduction. And he would break her heart because he was simply incapable of returning her feelings. When he tired of the game, he would just walk away, like a child dropping a toy that no longer entertained. Emmett would be there to try to patch her back together. It wouldn't be the first time he'd inherited Edward's leftovers.

In the nearly five centuries Emmett had known him, Edward had never formed an emotional attachment to anyone, with Emmett himself being a possible exception. Emmett understood why: a vampire's life would be nothing but an endless cycled of heartbreak as the humans around them aged and died, but Emmett had never managed to achieve Edward's detachment. Enjoy them, but move on. Emmett couldn't. His heart was too big, too soft. The grief was inevitable, but the joy made it worth it.

That big heart was what had killed him.

In 1540, Henry VIII was king and married to his fourth wife, the unfortunate Anne of Cleves and Emmett- his name had been something different back then though Emmett couldn't recall it now- had been a dock worker as his father had been before him, his size and strength well-suited to the work. In a time in which the average height for a man was five feet, seven inches, Emmett was considered practically a giant at six feet five inches, especially given his wide shoulders and heavy muscle mass.

He had spent his last evening at the tavern gambling at dice and had won quite a bit. He wasn't a compulsive gambler, so when his winnings had reached the level of three days worth of the wages he earned working at the docks, he'd excused himself from the table, quitting while he was ahead. He'd intended to go home and surprise his mother with the handful of coins (perhaps now they'd be able to get a doctor to see his little brother who had developed a lingering cough last winter) but he never made it. The men he'd been gambling with, whose own families were waiting at home in vain for the wages these men drank and gambled away, decided that he must have cheated and followed him into the dark streets with a knife.

His size and reputation as a skilled brawler usually protected him on his journey home through London's dirty, narrow streets and alleys, but there were four of them and they took him by surprise. They had bribed the bar maid and had hurried through the side streets to set up their ambush in a blind alley. Emmett heard a woman moaning in pain and begging for help. It wasn't an unusual thing to hear in those days before social safety nets, but Emmett couldn't ignore the plight of another human being like the other people hustling through the darkened streets. He went to investigate and that's when they'd jumped him. Emmett didn't remember the fight. The only thing he remembered was lying in the gutter, bleeding out from multiple wounds and staring at his own intestines, knowing that even if they managed to staunch the bleeding, a gut wound was a death sentence. A face had appeared above him, a man with rusty brown hair saying, "Thou hast come to a bad end, friend."

Emmett couldn't speak. Blood was filling his lungs and he gurgled and gasped trying to catch a breath.

"I can deliver thee from thy torment," the man said, crouching down beside him, the tail of his fine doublet trailing in the bloody mud. "But, ye must needs renounce thy life as thou hast lived it. Art thou willing?"

Emmett nodded. A Christian man who'd been assured he'd find a place in heaven, he was still terrified of death. Speaking of it in an abstract way in church was one thing, staring it in the face with only moments left was another.

The man bit his own wrist and held it to Emmett's lips. Emmett recoiled. Doctors bled patients all the time, but he'd never heard of drinking blood as medicine. The man grabbed the back of his neck and braced his head, shoving his bloody wrist into Emmett's mouth and pinching his nose, forcing him to swallow the horrid fluid in his mouth or choke. When he'd judged that Emmett had swallowed enough, he scooped Emmett up in his arms as if he were naught but a child and took him to a nearby inn.

Emmett's memory of the next few hours was mercifully vague but he remembered the pain and violent illness as his body reformed itself within, rejecting and expelling organs it no longer needed and growing what it did. He remembered sitting on one chamber pot, holding another and weeping in horror when he'd vomited and found several teeth in the bowl. "You never need to fear," Edward had told him. "Thou will acquire what is best suited to our nature and the results will be worth thy pains."

Edward had been very kind through the whole awful process. When it was over, he had bathed Emmett's trembling body and tucked him into his own bed. When Emmett awoke the next evening, Edward had announced he'd brought dinner. He held a struggling young woman. Emmett didn't have time to wonder what he meant. He'd launched himself out of the bed and tore into her throat before his mind could catch up to question what he was doing. When he was finished, he looked down at the still body in his arms and gave an inarticulate cry of anguish. It was the barmaid who had lured him to his death.

"I didst entreat thee to cease," Edward said with a shrug, plucking her from Emmett's arms and stuffing her like a ragdoll into a trunk. "Pray, do not condemn thyself for this thing. 'Tis something common to first feedings, and methinks you would rather the trouble befall one who deserved it well."

"Pray tell, what hath I become?" Emmett whispered. "A demon?"

Edward shrugged. "If thou desireth it so. Or be thou an angel, should it please you." His lips twisted in a crooked smile. "And such a one I do profess myself."

"My family-"

Edward shook his head. "Nay, thou shouldst stay from fellowship with thy kin for a time, lest they meet the same fate as the little siren in yon trunk."

It was a while before Emmett had any control over his hunger. He managed to stop the next time Edward brought him "dinner" but on the third time, he tore the victim's throat so badly in his haste that Edward advised him to go ahead and finish draining him, lest the blood go to waste. Emmett didn't understand how Edward could be so blase about killing.

Edward taught him the skills he needed to survive. He learned how to deal with his new, incredibly sharp senses, how to filter out the constant noise and stench of the city. He learned how to read and control human minds, how to erase memories. In time, he learned to control his hunger, for it pained him every time he lost control and took a life. And Edward schooled him in the gentlemanly arts. He learned to read, the deportment and speech of the upper classes and how to dance, though the latter proved difficult as Emmett had somehow not acquired a vampire's natural grace. There was many a girl who walked away from him with sore toes.

The thing he'd never learned, could never learn, was how to turn off his emotions. Edward had once suggested that it might come with age and experience but despite the pain, Emmett couldn't harden his heart. An existence without love was lonely. Surely Edward himself recognized that? Why else would he have changed Emmett if not because he was lonely and wanted a friend, an immortal friend he would never lose? (It was a question Edward refused to answer, so Emmett could only speculate.)

Edward's relationships were usually brief, almost wholly physical with little effort on his part to continue any association. He was never overtly mean to his lovers, but indifference can be its own sort of cruelty. Over the course of centuries, there had been many who felt that they were different, that they would be the ones to capture his heart. It had been Emmett who had soothed their tears when they arrived to find Edward in the company of someone else, or had spilled their hearts only to find him replying that he felt it was best that he move on if they were getting too attached. Some of those broken hearts had transferred their loyalty and affection to gentle, kind Emmett who was everything that Edward was not.

They had never directly competed for the attentions of a lover, one of them generally backing out graciously when the other expressed their interest and their tastes tended not to overlap. The lovers Emmett preferred were the types with which one built a relationship and Edward was rarely intrigued enough to bother with that ilk. So, why now? Why Bella who would probably need to be coaxed and acclimated to tolerate hand-holding?

It seemed like years had passed before he finally heart the sound of Edward's Bugatti coming down the street toward their building. Emmett waited impatiently, tapping his fingers on the arm of the sofa. He stood when Edward unlocked their door.

"Hi," Edward said, shrugging out of his coat and tossing it on a nearby chair. "Were you waiting up for me to get home, Dad?"

"Fuck you. How's Bella?"

"You sound like you think I drained her and left her in a ditch."

Emmett sighed. "You know what I mean."

Edward took a seat on the sofa. "Yeah. I know. You're concerned I pushed her too far out of her comfort zone and she reacted with fear or anger and now she'll see both of us as unwelcome intrusions on her safe little world."

Emmett just nodded.

"She's fine." Edward leaned forward to fish a cigarette out of the wooden box on the coffee table. "When I left her, she was all smiles. She was a little uncomfortable with the movie theater, but she handled it. I don't blame her; I've seen cleaner pig sties."

"Why are you doing this?" Emmett asked quietly.

Edward blew out a stream of smoke. "Honestly, I don't know. There's something about her. I don't know what it is, but I'm interesting in finding out."

"I'm interested, too," Emmett said. Their eyes met and locked. Edward was the first to look away.

"I know. Funny how this situation hasn't come up in the last 471 years." They were silent for a long moment but Emmett knew he had to be asking the same question: Where do we go from here?

"I'm not backing off," Edward said, abruptly. "She can choose for herself which of us she wants to see."

Emmett said nothing. Because, really, there was nothing to be said, was there?

"Mrow!"

Bella groaned.

"MROW!"

"Just one more hour, please, Beautiful?"

"MROW!" Bella didn't need an interpreter to translate. You said that an hour ago! I want my food now! A paw began to bat at her nose. Bella tried to hide her face in her pillow, but Beautiful wasn't giving up. Defeated by a ten pound feline. Bella sighed. No wonder she couldn't cope with the world. She couldn't even stand up to her cat. She sat up in bed and pushed her hair out of her face. Two PM. Her eyes widened and she threw the blankets aside. She hadn't realized it was so late. She needed to start cooking.

She shuffled into the kitchen and turn the oven on to pre-heat. She pulled a can of cat food out of the cupboard and fished around in the drawer for the can opener, yawning hugely. Beautiful began to yowl frantically, what Bella called his Can Opener Aria, butting his head against her ankles. She removed the lid and grimaced at the scent. Ugh. Eau De Cat Food in the morning. Even this all-natural organic stuff was pungent. She dumped the food into a bowl and set it on the floor. Beautiful attacked it like he hadn't been fed in weeks.

She started the tea pot and went to check the turkey again. Thanksgiving was a month away but Jessica had begged her too cook it and Bella couldn't refuse. The twenty pound dead bird took up a whole shelf in her refrigerator. It had been delivered- yesterday by the Whole Foods market in Fort Washington and was supposed to be organic, free-range and pre-washed with an antibacterial cleanser. Bella didn't trust that and had soaked the bird in a tub of water with enough salt to put the Dead Sea to shame. Microbial life could still exist in the Dead Sea, but she doubted any of those types of germs lingered in her local store.

When the phone rang, she jerked upward in surprise, bashing the back of her head on the underside of a shelf. Phone? What phone? She didn't have a phone. She tracked the sound of the ringing to the balcony. A box bedecked with a jaunty red bow sat on top of her wagon. She approached it with some trepidation because if fiction had taught her anything, it was that ticking, ringing or buzzing packages were best left to the bomb squad. Her name was on a card attached to the box. Below it was written "Open Me."

Okay, do I obey the box or do I go back into the house, shut the door and pretend it's not there? The phone continued to ring. Bela sighed. She leaned through the door, grabbed the box and retreated out of the afternoon sunshine as quickly as possible. She pulled on the ribbon and the box fell open to reveal a little black cell phone, still ringing more loudly than one would expect from such a tiny device. She grabbed an antibacterial towelette from under the sink and gave it a quick rub-down before hitting the green button. "Hello?"

"Hello, Bella," Edward said. "You found your gift."

"Hello, Edward. What is this?"

"It's a telephone, Bella," he said in a teasing voice. "Tell-eh-fone. It's an item you did not previously posses despite your statement to the contrary the other day. You told a fib."

How did he know that? Bella was not amused. "Yes, Edward, I know it's a phone. I'm asking why you got it for me. I don't need a phone. I don't want a phone. If I did, I would have a phone."

"You're a young woman living alone. It's not safe for you to not have a telephone."

Attention! Attention! We are at Defcon One. This is not a drill. "Thank you so much for deciding that for me," Bella said and the chill in her tone made Beautiful abandon his bowl of delicious meat mush and slink beneath the kitchen table.

"Bella, wait, please don't get angry." It seemed Edward was finally cluing into the fact that she didn't appreciate his high-handedness.

"Too late."

"Please, I'm sorry. I admit, I had a selfish motive as well. I wanted to be able to hear your voice during the day while I'm trapped here at work."

Standing down to Defcon Two, General. "I don't need to you to pay my bills, you know. I have money."

"I didn't mean to imply you had no phone due to poverty. And, Bella, it's not like I spent a fortune on it. It's a prepaid phone to which you add minutes as necessary to keep it active. There's no bill."

She sighed. "I'm still not happy about this, Edward."

"Let me make it up to you."

"How do you propose to do that?"

"I've got tickets for Aida on Saturday night. I thought you might enjoy that a little more than going to the movies. The floor will be cleaner anyway."

Bella had never been to the opera, though she had once seen a filmed performance of Aida on TV. "Edward, people dress up for the opera, don't they? I don't have anything fancy like that."

"Taken care of," Edward announced and the red telephone in her brain began to ring.

"What do you mean by that?" she asked in dark tones.

"Bella, trust me, please? I just want you to have a fun experience, so let me take care of the little details."

Clothing was not a "little detail" to her."Edward, I don't think this will work."

"Have faith, love."

She sighed again. "I have to go. I need to start cooking."

"All right. You're not upset, are you?"

"No, I suppose not. You mean well."

He laughed. "That I do. Take care, love. I'll call you tonight."

Bella hit the "END" button and stuffed the phone into her pocket. Stupid, sexy, phone-buying man.

Around seven, after the sun had set, she heard a car pull into her driveway. She went outside to investigate. It was Emmett, driving that bright red antique car. "I thought that belonged to Edward," she called down from the balcony.

"No, it's mine. I- uh, - I left him the keys on Tuesday night." Emmett climbed the stairs.

Ah, yes. The night he'd tried to kill himself. He wouldn't meet her eyes. He looked better, she noted, not as pale and strung-out as he'd been when she found him on the edge of the cliff. She'd been pretty sure he was in some sort of withdrawal; she'd seen the symptoms before. Now that he looked better, did that mean he'd kicked the habit or was back to using again? She wondered if she should respect his privacy or discuss it with Edward. Ultimately, she decided to err on the side of caution. If he wanted to talk about it, he would.

They went into the kitchen. "Do you know how to knead bread?" Bella asked leading him over to a large bowl on the island.

Emmett had a flash of memory, his mother baking. She'd never taught him because in those days, cooking was "woman's work" but he had watched. It couldn't be too hard, could it?

"It's already raised twice," Bella said. "It just needs punched down and put in the pans to bake." She sprayed the counter top with bleach, scrubbed then dried it vigorously and sprinkled flour over the surface. Emmett went to the sink and carefully washed his hands with her antibacterial soap. "I think I can handle it," he said. "I remember watching my mother bake when I was a kid."

"Where's your family now? Do you have any brothers or sisters?" Bella turned back to the stove and checked the boiling potatoes.

"No, they're gone." Emmet pulled the big wad of dough out of the bowl and plunked it down onto the flour patch. "My father died when I was very young; I don't remember him. My mother and younger brother both died of..." He had to think quickly to find a modern disease that would fit. "Uhh... the bird flu."

"Your mother and brother died of H1N1?" Bella turned to stare at him. He wished he'd been able to come up with something better. "Gosh, when did this happen?"

"About ten years ago," Emmett said and saw from her confused expression that something was off. "They... uh... they didn't realize it was the Bird Flu back then." Oh, fuck, he was such a moron. Bella turned back to the stove and switched off the burner under the potatoes. She picked up the pot to carry it to the sink. "Let me get that for you," Emmett offered and she stepped away. He carried the pot to the sink and dumped the contents in the strainer. He had to admire her work: every potato was perfectly peeled without a speck of skin remaining and they had been chopped into perfectly uniform squares.

"Oh no!" she gasped.

"What?"

"The water," she pointed, her face aghast. "You didn't get scalded?"

He looked down. His t-shirt was soaked at the stomach where the boiling water must have splashed up and hit him. He hadn't even felt it. Vampires could sense changes in temperatures, but weren't harmed by them. He could have stuck his hand in the boiling water and fished out the potatoes without being hurt. "No, it's just my shirt that's wet," he said quickly. "I didn't get hit. See?" He tugged his shirt over his head and showed her his unburned abdomen.

Bella's jaw fell. She stared at his chest. His wide, muscled, hairless chest. He was as pale as Bella herself, but perfectly cut. He had a six-pack for heaven's sake, something she'd only seen in airbrushed models.

She hoped she wasn't drooling.

She wondered if she could spill something on his pants.

Yesterday, he'd been a fellow human being in distress and her primary concern was to help him through his dark night of the soul. Today, she really looked at him, and boy howdy, did she like what she saw. He was huge, and beside him she felt tiny and petite. His dark hair was curly and he wore it short. Bella guessed that he hated those curls and the shortness was an attempt to eradicate them. His eyes were a soft, light brown, an unusual shade that made her wonder if he wore contacts. His face was strong, chiseled, masculine. He would have been a perfect Marlboro man. And he was in her kitchen with his shirt off. Holy cow!

Emmett noticed her expression and if he could have blushed, he would have. He pulled his shirt back on, turning so she wouldn't see his elated grin. She was attracted to him! He could hear her heart beating faster than normal, could smell the blood rushing to her face. He wanted to dance. He wanted to strut. He wanted to call Edward and gloat. He strolled back to the mound of dough on the island and started working it with his hands, trying for "casual."

Bella hid her blush by turning to the stove and checking the turkey. Mind on the food, Bella. She basted the bird with some of its own juices and shut the door. This was the only part she disliked about cooking for her friends. She hated cooking meat. Charred, rotting flesh. Yummy. It always made her gag when she had to handle it and the smell turned her stomach. That was another thing her mother had never been able to understand. She'd tried sneaking meat into her daughter's diet by hiding it in other foods, including one memorable experience with a "vegetable smoothie." Bella laughed softly.

"A penny for your thoughts," Emmett said.

"I was just thinking about my mother and how she used to try to get me to eat meat. She turned to stealth and, well, the results weren't very pleasant."

"Were you always a vegetarian?"

"Since I was old enough to think about what I was eating. It just seems... repulsive. Don't get me wrong, I'm not like one of those P.E.T.A. hard-core vegetarians who think everyone should be a vegetarian because meat is morally wrong. Nature designed us to be omnivores; that's why we have the teeth for it. It's just my personal choice and I don't condemn others who want to have a different diet. I don't eschew all animal products. I eat eggs and sometimes dairy, if I can see where it comes from."

He hadn't heard anyone use the word eschew in conversation in over a hundred years. "What do you mean about seeing where it comes from?"

"I buy my dairy products from a woman who has a little farm about ten miles from here. She's almost as stringent as me when it comes to cleanliness." Bella pulled a bread pan from the cupboard and gave Emmett a little smile. "You don't have to ignore the elephant in the room. I know I'm strange."

"Bella, the only thing that bothers me is the idea you might let your issues hold you back from things you want to do. Other than that, if you're happy, what does it matter if you want to bleach the hell out of everything?"

She smiled, relieved. "You sound like my dad. My mom always thought if we found the right drug or the right therapist, it would make me normal."

"Bella, if my long existence has taught me anything, it's that there's no such thing as 'normal'."

"Oh yes, you ancient thing," Bella teased. "What are you, all of twenty-five?"

He'd been around that age when he was changed, maybe a bit older. There was no way to be sure because his birth was never recorded and people of his social class didn't celebrate birthdays. "Sometimes, it feels like a lot longer," he said.

"A couple of my doctors thought I'd age out of it, but they were wrong. It's getting worse," Bella confessed. "I used to be able to go out in sunlight, but now..."

"Why does sunlight bother you?"

"I had an aunt who died of skin cancer. Over the last couple of years, every time I feel sunshine on my skin, it feels like the light is eating down into my skin. That's why I built the garden on the roof that I could tend at night." Bella was embarrassed. What in the world had come over her to make her want to tell him these things? Any moment now, he'd make some excuse about an appointment he'd forgotten and the last she'd see of him would be his tail lights.

But Emmett just shrugged. "See, you found a way around it, a way to cope with your problem so that you could still do what you wanted. You're a smart girl, Bella."

She didn't feel smart. She stirred a pot more vigorously than necessary.

"Tell me something: If you could do anything in the world you wanted to do, what would it be?"

"You'll laugh." Bella saw the mess he was making of kneading the dough and took over, forming loafs to put into the pans.

"I promise I won't laugh. Tell me."

Bella took a deep breath. "Okay. I would create a restaurant for the homeless." She waited for the derision.

It never came. Emmett looked thoughtful. "What sort of place do you envision?"

"Okay, I know it sounds weird, but I kept thinking about how the poor and the homeless just get whatever the shelter is cooking that day. I'm the same way with what I cook for my friends. They make requests, of course, but I can't please everybody at the same meal. So what I thought about was a restaurant that would be just like any other place, where they could choose from a menu, have fine dishes prepared by a real chef, eat at a table that had nice plates and flatware and linen napkins. A place where they were respected just like a paying customer in a nice restaurant. I'd put a few washers and driers and some shower stalls in the back so they could clean up before dinner if they wanted and wash their clothes while they were eating."

"Why don't you do it? You have the funds, don't you?"

"Funding isn't the problem. The problem is all the stuff that goes into it. I don't know about building codes and permits and inspections and all the that. I just want to cook. And, well, I don't know if I could handle being around that many people, all the germs..." Bella put the bread pans into the oven.

Someone rang the doorbell at the front door. Bella looked puzzled. "Who could that be?"

"I'll get it," Emmett offered. He strode through the living room and opened the door. It was a deliveryman holding a large flat box. Emmett signed for it and laid it on the sofa. "What is it?" Bella asked.

"Dunno. Open it and see."

Bella pulled off the lid and stared. It was a dark blue dress with a note on top.

"Bella," it read. "A dress for our night at the opera. I had the seamstress craft a removable, washable liner for it. She assured me the dress had never been worn, so if you wash the liner, you shouldn't have to worry about germs. Edward."

Emmett pulled the dress out and held it aloft for her inspection. It was lovely. Ankle-length with a soft, floaty skirt, long sleeved with a an empire waist. The bodice was plain, unadorned with a satin sash the same color as the dress tied around the waist. The liner was attached by snap buttons. Bella pressed her hands to her cheeks as tears sprung into her eyes. It was the kind of dress she would have chosen for herself.

The box held another surprise, a flat velvet box. Bella picked it up and opened it. Inside nestled a matching set of jewelery comprised of square dark blue stones, each circled in clear stones, joined together like a chain. There was a necklace, a bracelet and earrings. She shook her head at those because her ears weren't pierced, but on closer inspection they were designed for non-pierced ears. A thin gold wire rested on the back of the ear and curled up to hold the blue stone against the lobe. She picked up the necklace and was surprised by its weight. She wondered what the blue stones were. They looked like sapphires, of course, but that was absurd. A real necklace like this would cost millions. Probably glass. Harry Winston read the label inside the box. Well, thank goodness it wasn't Tiffany or something because she knew that even costume jewelry from Tiffany cost a bundle.

The phone in her pocket rang. She answered it. "Hi, Edward."

"Has the delivery arrived?"

"Yes, but Edward, I can't accept this."

"Why not?"

"It's so expensive-"

"Stop," Edward said softly. "Please. Don't let yourself get upset about it. I like giving gifts. And it would give me great pleasure to see you wearing these things."

"Edward, the jewelry set is really too extravagant."

"It belonged to my sister," Edward said and Emmett struggled not to snort. Liar. Edward never had a sister, certainly not one in the Harry Winston era. "Things like that should be worn and enjoyed, not sitting in a drawer collecting dust."

"Edward-"

"Please," he said softly.

Bella chewed her lip. Extravagance bothered her, especially things like the real version of the necklace set. It felt morally wrong to waste money on things like that when there were so many hungry people in the world. She couldn't control what others did, but she could avoid conspicuous consumption in her own life. But just once, just once, she could let a handsome man make her feel like a princess. Edward would get tired of her soon. She would need good memories like these when she was alone again. "All right," she said.

"Wonderful. I'll see you tomorrow at seven."

Bella hung up the phone. Before she put it away, she asked for Emmett's number, which he was only too pleased to give her. An idea was forming in his mind. Edward could take her out on fancy dates and buy her a queen's set of sapphires, but Emmett would be the one to make her dream come true.

The turkey was a smash hit with the Bridge People.

After they finished cooking, Bella packed the wagon and only then noticed that the turkey wouldn't fit. She felt like a moron because she hadn't even considered it. Last year, she'd taken a cab, so maybe she should-

"I'll carry it," Emmett offered.

"Emmett, you can't carry a 20 pound turkey on a serving tray two miles."

"Sure, I can." And that's what he did, despite her protests. He probably looked like the world's strangest butler, carrying a silver-domed tray through the street of Fort Washington as Bella trailed behind pulling the wagon.

Mr. Grayson was seated at the head of the makeshift tables and he was the one who carved the turkey for the motley crew seated around him. What little leftovers remained after the feast was finished were squirreled away by Bella's friends. The empty dishes and silverware were the only things that went back in the wagon. Bella was thrilled by their enthusiasm.

"Mr. Grayson was the one out on the cliff," Bella said suddenly, breaking their companionable silence. "The one who said he cared."

Emmett nodded. That made sense, and explained the affection she had towards the old man in the tattered suit. "Why did you try it?"

Scramble the jets, we are at Defcon Two. Repeat, Defcon Two. "Why did you try it?" she shot back.

"I'll tell if you will," Emmett offered.

Bella considered, and finally surrendered. "It was right after my parents died. I was really in a bad place. My dad, his death hit me the worse, as bad as that sounds. He always understood me and loved me anyway. I was so lonely. I thought- I thought I'd always be alone. That people would always reject me because of my ... issues. When Mr. Grayson found me on that cliff, everything changed. The homeless understand 'weird.' They don't judge."

"I was lonely, too," Emmett confessed. "But for me, it felt as if I had no purpose in life. I was just going through the motions and every day was the same dreary cycle. I finally couldn't stand it ay more. I didn't see it ever getting better, so I decided to end it on my own terms."

Bella took a deep breath and held out her hand. Emmett stared in shock for a moment and then engulfed it with his own. Her skin was surprisingly soft. All those chemicals she used to disinfect the world around her hadn't roughened her skin. If he'd had a heart, it would be beating frantically. Bella was letting him touch her! And more importantly, she had initiated it.

"Emmett, I need to tell you something."

"Anything, sweetheart."

"I'm afraid that you and Edward ... I'm afraid you want more than I can give." Bella's face was magenta.

"Bella, honey, you've got it all wrong. This is what I want. Just being with you, spending time with you. Anything else is icing on the cake."

"Icing, huh?"

Emmett nodded. Slowly,, giving her time to reject it if it proved too much, he bent over the hand still clasped in his and kissed it. She stiffened for a second, but relaxed without pulling away.

Emmett was over the moon. He held her hand all the way back to the house. Sweet icing, indeed.