A/N: Shorty mcshort chapters on this story. Ah well. They'll likely get longer soon. Happy Friday, everyone!

Edward backed out of his driveway carefully so as not to run over the paps who got in his way. They did it on purpose, the assholes. They slapped at his windows, peering in from all angles and snapping pictures. "So, Gigi is going to follow you then?" one of them called through the window, leering knowingly.

Behind his sunglasses, Edward rolled his eyes and continued inching backward. He heard their lewd comments and entertained the fantasy of pressing the gas harder. Just a little. Just enough to knock one of these turds off his feet.

Then again, they'd love that. Nothing the paps loved better than a story they could blow out of proportion. There wasn't much they liked better than a celebrity on a rampage. They'd make him look like a maniac with a few photographs and a grossly exaggerated doctor's report.

"Guess you asshats are safe today," Edward said to himself, finally free of the paps on the street. He drove off, glancing around lest one of the assholes leap out in front of him.

He managed to get to the studio without further incident, and he was whisked off to hair and makeup. Just another day at the office.

When he was released mid-morning to go back to his trailer while the crew reset for the next scene, Edward decided a nap was in order. He got in the door, closed it behind him, and yelped as he caught sight of the figure stretched out on bed. "What the hell, Bella," he said, hand to his heart.

She had her arms propped behind her head, the picture of nonchalance as she grinned at him. "So, seeing as you got me all tangled up in this mess, I decided to do a risk assessment. I wanted to see how easy it would be to stalk you. Pretty easy, it turns out."

Hands on his hips, Edward looked down at her. "It's probably not even a stalker. No one gets into the studio without clearance, which you have."

"You have such a limited imagination. You think it's outside of the realm of possibility that the person who's doing this is someone with access to the set?"

"Mmhmm. Maybe it's someone in this room." He sat on the bed and leaned down so he was propped on one elbow, near but not touching her. "Maybe I'm not the one with the diabolical plan after all."

He could see the way her cheeks flushed, and her eyes dilated. He couldn't help himself. He rolled so he was supported on both his hands, still not touching her in any way, but straddling her form, hovering over her. "What do you have to say for yourself, Miss Swan?" he asked, keeping his tone purposefully light.

Her breath stuttered and she narrowed her eyes. "Hey, man. I'm just here hanging out with my pal. Is this a very friendly pose you've got going on?"

He didn't move, but he let a smile curl up the corner of his mouth. "I'm not seducing you. I'm teasing you, friend."

She smirked. "A friendly tease, hmm? You tease Emmett like this?"

"Oh, no. I tease Emmett with a French tickler."

That made her laugh, and the sound of her mirth made him smile. She was a beautiful woman, and having her beneath him like this was titillating. He wanted nothing more than to lower himself down, taste her lips, and feel her body pressed up into every line of his.

He blew a breath out of his nose. "I'm not going to insult your intelligence. If you pull me down with you on this bed, I'm not going to resist for the sake of friendship. I think there's room for this"-he dipped low, still not touching her in any way- "and friendship, but I'm also not pressing. You're safe with me. If I didn't think you understood that, I wouldn't tease you."

Reluctantly, he rolled to the side, sitting up on the bed. "Besides, you started it."

She cleared her throat, and when she spoke, there was a touch of gravel to her voice. "I started it?"

He hummed. "Or was it someone else who I found in here, uninvited, on my bed." He grinned at her. "Tease."

"Has anyone ever told you you have an over-inflated ego?"

Edward snorted and got up, sitting instead at the cutout sofa opposite her. "Every other reporter. A good percentage of anyone who's ever picked up an entertainment magazine. The list goes on."

"So I'm in good company."

"Sure, if you want to call Perez Hilton good company."

Bella made a face. "Ew."

He held his hands up in a placating gesture. "It's not my fault he was the last person who called me pompous."

Bella rolled over onto her stomach so she could look at him. She looked a lot younger that way, her hair messy and her feet in the air. She could have passed for a high school kid. Hell, she had before. Her last job had been as a stunt double for a seventeen-year-old actress. It wasn't that her youth turned him on. It didn't, though he did think she looked very pretty that way. Rather, it kindled that odd, protective instinct he sometimes had towards her.

Edward stretched his arm along the back of the sofa, resting his head along the back so he could stare at the ceiling. "So what are you really doing here? I thought the stunt team had the day off today."

"We do, but Dad doesn't. He and the technical team are going over the next set."

"That still doesn't explain what you're doing here."

"Oh, right." She rolled onto her back again and stretched, doing some kind of yoga-esque pose. Lifting her hips up off the bed, she pointed her legs straight up in the air. Flexible. She was damn flexible. Her even breathing seemed to indicate she could hold a pose too. "Dad's car is in the shop."

Edward blinked, finding she had tilted her head back and was staring at him with a mischievous smile. "Huh?" He shook his head. "You're his ride is what you're saying."

"Yes. His very bored ride. That scene you guys were doing wasn't very entertaining."

"So sorry to disappoint a fan."

"I decided to break in here so I could offer the tabs some anonymous insider info. What kind of bullshit does Edward Cullen demand for his trailer."

"Clean sheets."

"How terribly demanding."

"It's slightly on the unreasonable side. My contract actually reads that the sheets have to be fresh in box or bag. I make my own bed."

"I'm going to need you to diva it up. How do you expect me to sell these secrets? Clean sheets." Bella scoffed. "You're a disgrace as a celebrity, Edward."

He gave an exaggerated sigh. "Well, I guess I'm done here. I'll resign from the film. I'll have my house packed up by the weekend. By next week, I'll be somewhere in Illinois, working at a gas station. It's all over."

She laughed again. "My work here is done, obviously."

"Again. It appears I'm not the one with the devious plot." He lifted his head to give her the hairy eyeball. She grinned at him, the picture of innocence.

"Truth? Besides the fact I was bored, I decided to drop by and see if Special Agent Super Buff has come up with a solid plan," Bella said.

Edward sat up straighter. "The problem with this is we don't even know if anything is actually going on. It's all conjecture at this point. So, the first thing we need to do is eliminate the variables. The biggest question is whether or not this person is actually stalking one of us, and if so, which one?

"We start off with Gianna being very careful. She has to lay low, and try not to be anywhere anyone else can see her. No paps. On the other hand, we"-he gestured between them-"go slightly more high profile. Nothing too obvious. If the paps figure out it's not Gianna, the whole plan goes poof."

"No more playdates for us, eh?" Bella said.

"Exactly. Anyway. Like we talked about before, the hope is that this person will get agitated by our fake relationship and slip up. Leave something resembling a clue Emmett and his people can use to identify them. But, there's the long game too. A stalker's primary characteristic is obsession. It would be natural to assume they'd pick up on a pattern. The idea is to give them what they're looking for. We start going to the same places. Establish consistency, and the stalker will show up."

"And so will the paps."

Edward grimaced. "Well, yes, but the paps are obvious. The idea is to figure out which one of them isn't a pap but a stalker. Emmett will be able to figure out if any of the patrons or people loitering outside are repeatedly in the same place we are." He shrugged. "At the very least, drawing attention to us will give Gianna a little more ease of movement. If the paps think she's with me, they won't go looking for where she really is."

"Okay, that's the plan." Bella rolled again and sat cross-legged on his bed. "What's the first step?"

Edward glanced at his watch and tried to reckon how much time he had until the next set change. Just enough, he figured. He got up and went to his closet. "I think Gianna and I are going to develop a habit of going to the coffee shop across the street when we have a break from the set. Come here."

He was mildly surprised when Bella obeyed without comment. She stepped up beside him. He took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. His lip twitched at her expression of bemusement.

"You know how you have this whole thing about not dating movie stars?" Edward asked as he looked from her slight body to the collection of jackets in his closet.

She quirked a questioning eyebrow at him.

"I got curious." He held out one of his lightest jackets-a hunter green number that would be just right on a crisp, autumn day. "I looked up some of your exes. Namely the tabloids around that time."

Bella grimaced. "Fun stuff, right?"

Edward held up a baseball cap and a beanie for her to choose from. When she pointed to the beanie, he slipped it on her head. "I never thought about it before," he said, tucking a strand of her hair under the cap, out of her eyes. "The tabs are terrible for us, for actors, I mean. But at the end of the day, we'll still have fans, respect, power. You?" He sighed, and stepped back. "I can't imagine there was an upside to the things they said about you."

She offered him a small, sad smile. "No one knows who I am, Edward. I was just a nameless girl they messed with."

Most of the articles had dismissed her as an opportunistic fan. The tabs could say almost anything about a nameless, faceless mere mortal who tried to play with the gods. "Maybe there's a mercy in that, but your friends must have known. Your father, and more importantly, you."

He touched her arm, and they started walking. "After going through all that, what you're doing for Gianna and me right now…" He shook his head, opening the door for her. "In case you don't know, Bella, I think you're very brave."

She ducked her head, looking forward as they walked. Her cheeks were pink with embarrassment, but not the bad kind. "Don't kid yourself, Cullen. I'm only doing this because I could use the money."

Edward didn't press it. He fished in his own jacket, pulled out his sunglasses, and offered them to her.

Before they left, Edward had texted Gianna and Emmett. Gianna knew to stay safely in her trailer. Emmett met them at the gate.

Edward was a seasoned hand at evading the paps. The name of the game today wasn't total evasion. They needed to be just sneaky enough to be seen but not clearly. They were aiming for the pixelated, maybe-it-is, maybe-it-isn't kind of photo.

The paps already had the beginnings of the relationship he wasn't going to have with Gianna. They wanted to believe. Hell, as Benjamin had pointed out, most of their fans wanted to believe it was true. The facts were all there for them to put together. The coffee shop was right across from the studio. They all knew Edward and Gianna were filming a movie together. They had the original photos to start the rumor. All they needed was another grainy picture, and the story would write itself.

Keeping the paps' cameras from getting too good a look at the brunette with Gianna's hair and size made the story even easier. Spotting a pap with his camera up, Edward pulled Bella toward him, tilting his face down as though to whisper something to her just before they entered the coffee shop. It obscured her face, but it also looked like an intimate gesture.

"Stay here. I'll get our drinks," Edward said, leading Bella to one of the few booths toward the back of the place.

She laughed, and he leaned down. "What's so funny?"

"I keep expecting the director to yell 'cut.' It's like being in a really long scene." She shook her head, pulling her glasses down to look at him. "I'm not used to doing the long, drawn out, emotional scenes. I do the physical stuff."

"See, that's what they call a mixed signal, Swan," he said, clucking his tongue. "You have told me repeatedly you don't do the physical stuff. At least, not with actors."

She grabbed his jacket and pulled him down. Their faces were scant inches from each other. "Go get us some coffee, Edward."

His heart had picked up an elevated rhythm, and he grinned. Two can play at this game, Swan, and I'm better at it. He ducked his head, letting his nose tickle the hair near her ear. He was close enough he knew his words had to vibrate against her skin. "Tease. Tell me what you want," he said in his most seductive voice.

He pulled back, catching her momentary fluster. "To drink," he said, his voice once again light and normal, before she could recover. "Tell me what you want to drink."

She rolled her eyes. "Mango iced tea and lemonade."

"That isn't coffee, Swan."

"He's smarter than he looks, ladies and gentlemen." She crinkled her nose. "Coffee is disgusting."

Edward put a hand to his heart as though she'd wounded him.

"Daylight's burning, stud. Let's get out of here. We wouldn't want you to get fired, you diva. Don't think you can hold up production just because the Craft Service coffee isn't good enough for you."

Edward narrowed his eyes. "You know if that story shows up in the tabs in a couple of days, your whole charade will be exposed."

"Luckily, I have that whole stunt double thing to fall back on."

"Oh, well. There is that."

She made a shooing motion and he turned to get their coffee, a big, stupid grin plastered on his face.

A/N: I have a really great group of pre-readers and betas. Also? My Facebook group is lovely. Sara Dunne made me such a cute banner for this story. I love it. You should pop by and take a look.

Fly Away Home is next on the docket.