Disclaimer: All characters belong to Stephenie Meyer.

In Six Months I Lost My Mind But Found My Heart

Chapter Thirteen: Cooking & Kissing

15th February

4 Months 2 Weeks & 1 Day Left

Alice's POV

I stormed into Edward's room the following morning after the Valentine's Day party Bella's school was having. Bella started acting weird the second she came out of the elevator and I can only guess that my idiot of a brother had something to do with it. After harassing her to tell me the entire night she caved.

Turns out that my brother is a bigger twat than I thought possible. How the hell could he kiss her then run away? What was he thinking? Well it doesn't matter because I'm about to find out.

Slamming the door shut Edward rolled over slightly startled but not completely awake. He groaned and protested when I tried to wake him up.

"Go away." He groaned again, rolling back over and pulling his covers closer.

"No! You have some explaining to do." He ignored me so I grabbed the closest thing to me that wouldn't cause him too much pain but still get my point across when I beat him with it.

"Alice, for god's sake, bugger off." He moaned as I slapped him again with one of his discarded shirts in a whipping action.

"No. Now explain yourself Edward Anthony Masen Cullen." I hit him again and waited.

"What do you want?" He whined but still not moving.

"You're an asshole!" I hit him with the shirt again.

"Yeah okay, but tell me what I've done wrong now? And can you not hit me with that damn thing the buttons are hurting me." Edward pushed himself up so he was resting against the headboard.

"Why did you run?" I asked, dropping the shirt since he was awake.

"Run where?" He asked confused with what I was going on about.

"Last night with Bella. You kissed her then practically sprinted away." My brother sighed and ran a hand through his dishevelled hair before looking back at me.

"Is she upset?"

"Yes and no. But I'm upset and as her friend I'm going to take my anger out on you until you can fix this."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Tell her why you ran away or at least explain why you kissed her." I thought that much would have been obvious.

"Look Alice you're a great sister and you've always helped me out but for once can you just back off and leave me to get on with my life. This doesn't concern you." He said irritably.

"No Edward I won't back off. I'm not coming here as your sister I am coming here as Bella's friend. You're a jackass for doing that to her. Do you know how it looked? From her opinion, and I completely understand, it makes it seem like you kissed her then regretted it so ran away from her."

"But that's not what happened. I don't regret it." He protested.

"Well that's not obvious to us." I told him pointedly. "Come on Edward imagine if you were her, you really like this girl and she kisses you senseless then the second she has a chance to run she does AND straight into another guy's arms." He sighed after I finished.

"I didn't mean to make it look that way. I didn't want her doing anything she would have regretted. For Christ sakes Alice I'm not allowed to date anyone, it'll only cause problems for the both of us and you know that. It's not like I can date whoever I like when I like. There are rules I have to follow and Bella breaks about every one of them."

"So? Is that really going to stop you, rules? God Edward I wouldn't take you to be so pathetic and a coward. Really, a challenge comes along and what do you do? Put your tail between your legs and cower in the corner." He glared at me, apparently not happy with what I said. What? It was only the truth.

"'That is not what I'm doing." I scoffed.

"Oh right then please explain what you are doing?" He sighed loudly then glared at me.

"I...last night was difficult for me. I kissed her, barely. Then she goes and kisses me how I wanted to kiss her. What am I meant to think? I lik...I don't want this just to be lust taking over. If it is then the next four months are going to be as awkward as hell for everyone. Bella and I are friends, that's all we can be. That kiss...well that was something we shouldn't have done but I definitely don't regret it. I would do it again and again if allowed. You may not understand why I'm shying away from relationships but I do. If I was to start something here I want to know I'll finish it, with Bella, I don't think I would." He ran his hand through his hair and rolled out of the bed. "For once just leave me be, I'll talk to Bella." He left and padded along the hall on his way to shower.

After my little argument with Eddie I went downstairs to find Bella. Apparently we're eating earlier today than usual so she was in the kitchen about to prepare the food. It's not early, Eddie just slept late. Glancing at the clock on the wall I noted it was one o'clock.

"Hey." I said joining Bella at the table.

"Hi." She said glancing up from a cook book. "Are you not going to meet Jasper?"

"Yeah, he'll be here in about ten minutes or so." She nodded and continued to read. "He didn't regret it." I told her, not knowing how to ease into this subject.

"I heard." She mumbled.

"What do you mean?" I don't take her to be an eavesdropper.

"The walls are really thin; I was in the next room doing homework and heard your entire conversation. Its okay Alice, I don't mind. He may not regret it but I sure do." Sometimes I just feel like killing him, now was definitely one of those times.

She should not regret that kiss. From what she said it was one hell of a kiss too. Eddie just needs to get himself sorted out; maybe he'll come round to the idea of Bella and him together when he's 

in a little more deep. I know that he'll start to like her, if he doesn't already, and I know for a fact that she's good for him. She'll keep him in the real world, rather than him retreating to that pompous stuck up rich boy world he loves so dearly.

The doorbell rang to tell me Jasper would be waiting in the car so I said my goodbyes to her before I headed for the door. Just as I reached for the handle Edward came down the stairs looking bored.

"You going out?" He asked softly, good to see his anger has disappeared.

"Yep." He nodded. "Are you doing anything just now?" I asked as an idea just came to me.

"No not really."

"Great." I smiled brightly at him, now he looks slightly worried. Well he shouldn't be it's not like I'm throwing him to the wolves. "You can help Bella. She's going to be cooking for tonight. You're a good cook, help her out."

"I'm sure she has it covered." From his face I can just tell he doesn't want to be in the same room as Bella yet. Well too bad.

"Nonsense. Bella, Edward's going to help you cook dinner." I hollered through. He glared at me, like I care.

"Really?" She asked, more surprised but not good surprised, more dreading surprised. I raised my eyebrows at my brother. He didn't seem to want to cooperate so I brought my phone out and called home.

"Hey mum. No I'm fine. Edward...well now that you mention it-"

"Yeah I'll help you Bella." He called, she said her thanks back and I hung up the phone. "I'm going to destroy that bloody phone of yours." He threatened me.

"Watch that temper and mouth of yours please. Plus I'm only trying to help."

"By telling on me to our mother. You know she would be furious with me if she didn't think I was pulling my weight."

"Exactly. Now get in the kitchen and help. I'll be back later." I kissed him on the cheek, ruffled his hair then left them alone. If this works out he'll be putty in her hands.

Bella's POV

I was busy preparing the food in the kitchen when Edward wandered in looking round apprehensively. To be perfectly honest I was very surprised that he was going to help me. It just didn't seem like his sort of thing. Maybe Alice rigged him in to doing it.

"What are we cooking?" He asked, eyeing the ingredients out on the worktop.

"Spaghetti and Meatballs. Is that okay?"

"Yeah that's fine. What do you want me to do?" I looked around for something he could do; I didn't expect him to get too involved in this so I just gave him a task that would keep him out of my way.

"Eh...you could chop up the onion." He nodded and rolled his sleeves to his elbow before washing his hands to chop the onion up.

"Do you want these chopped finely?" I nodded and returned to what I was doing.

This was just awkward. Neither of us wanted to be in the same room as each other so why was he even here. Alice definitely had something to do with it. There was no way Edward would volunteer to be around me at the moment, not after last night.

That stupid bloody kiss that was so good I can't help but think about it, which means I think about Edward and I really don't want to do that. I'm not going to become one of those girls. No, I'm just going to be Bella, his friend. Pfft, cause that's really possible after I practically mauled him.

Good thing the lift opened or I would have jumped him. He looked great and I wanted to kiss him the second I walked down the stairs. It's just not fair. Why out of all the guys that could have stayed here did I get Edward, a living Greek god?

The silence was consuming the room and becoming slowly unbearable. The only time we said anything to each other was when we were passing each other ingredients or trying to get past one another. I should have just told him to go back upstairs; he shouldn't have to do this.

"So what do we do now?" Edward asked as I poured all the ingredients for the meatballs into one big bowl.

"Well I'm going to make the meatballs right now." I answered by the sink, washing my hands.

"Can I help?" He caught me off guard there. I wouldn't think he would want to get his hands dirty.

"Sure." Edward joined me by the sink and since it is quite small we were standing in close proximity of each other. He was technically standing behind me but leaning to the side to reach the soap. I could feel him breathing on the back of my neck, which sent shivers up my spine.

Curse him for having this effect on me.

"So what now?" He asked as we stood by the table where I had placed the big bowl of ingredients.

"We put our hands in there and mix it all together." He looked down at the bowl then back up to me then back down again. After doing this four times he opened his mouth to speak.

"You want me to out my hands in that?" He sounded very bewildered.

"Only if you want to."

"What will it accomplish?"

"The ingredients will mix and we will be able to make meatballs." I was speaking to him like he was a small child misunderstanding the instructions. What was so hard to get here? Put your hands in the bowl, mix the food together, and create meatballs. How is that difficult? I put my hands in and started mixing together while he just looked on.

He slowly put his hands in but his face completely changed as he did so. It looked like he was being violated, and not in a nice way. I thought he was going to gag at one point but he kept his hands in the bowl. Several times our hands brushed against each other but we both acted like nothing was happening, minus the fact that I felt thirty degrees hotter than before.

He must have noticed too about the heat change as he commented on it. I claimed not to notice and kept mixing with my hands. At one point his hand caught mine completely, I bit my lip thinking he didn't realise but he obviously did. For starters he wasn't trying to mix my hand like he would with the ingredients and he slowly caressed it. I looked up at him to see him staring straight back at me.

Without even registering what I was doing I pulled my hands out the bowl, brushed the excess meat off my hands then went to the sink to wash them. He joined me after a few seconds but was standing directly behind me.

His arms came round either side of me and joined mine under the tap. He applied soap to his hand then slowly started washing my hands with it. My brain was going crazy with how close he was and the feel of his skin against mine. I did the same to his hands, making sure they were clean.

It didn't even matter that we were going to get them dirty again by going back and actually making the meatballs, all we had done was mix the ingredients. But that wasn't what was important at the moment. It was him and how close he was to me.

After drying our hands I turned, still trapped by him. His hands were on either side of me against the worktop keeping me there. I looked up into his eyes seeing the same passion mine would be showing him. Slowly he leant down and ever so gently brushed his lips against mine. I wanted to wrap my arms round his neck but knew if I moved them off the worktop I'd collapse to the floor. How romantic would that be?

"I don't regret it." He whispered pulling back ever so slightly. "I will never regret it." I nodded and kissed him again with the same softness he showed me.

We pulled back and looked at each other before breaking away, and what good timing we had since Charlie walked in the door five minutes later. That would have been hard to explain why I was cornered against the worktop kissing the teenage guy staying with us. I'm sure Charlie would have loved to see that.

I couldn't help but smile inwardly, he didn't regret it. That meant the world to me. Maybe, just maybe I'm making some ground with Edward.