What the fuck just happened?
I stared at Edward, waiting for him to say he was fucking joking.
His pensive, hopeful expression staring back at me told me he was doing anything but. I was sitting here stuffing my damn face at five in the morning, the crusty crap still stuck in my eyes, my hair a fucking mess and he is asking me to marry him? And now I have fucking tears streaming down my cheeks, and my nose is all fucking stuffy.
How the fuck had I not seen this coming?
"You've been a little too busy obsessing over Tic Tac," Pita offered tentatively, while she started to rifle through her stuff.
"And Slugger stalking," Tulip added guiltily.
I pursed my lips, trying to figure out what the fuck to say. I was shocked, "Are you mother fucking crazy!" didn't immediately pop out of my mouth.
"I have you on a drip," Pita admitted, thumping the IV line with her fingers. "It looks like I got the don't-fuck-this-up medication in your veins just in time."
"Bitches, this is inevitable," Tulip informed. "Slugger and I have been engaged for months. I'm wearing white and I don't want to hear shit about it."
Edward opened his mouth his eyes darting nervously around my face, but I held up my finger to silence him. I didn't want him to ruin this with talking. Mostly, I didn't want anything to come out of my fucking mouth that I was going to regret.
He nodded minutely, and kept looking at me.
Multiple things flashed through my head, nothing staying for too long. Pita was too busy pumping me full of her "mute meds" and my hormones were turning me into a fucking human river. I only saw pictures of past events, that caused my lips to tremble. Our first friending experiment, the first time we screwed in his room, our pool escapade, when he asked me to move in, the desk, the first time we laid eyes on Tic Tac. The first time I saw him and how much I hated his fucking guts.
I laughed out loud, through the stupid tears, everything had been oddly perfect.
Why would he want to fuck that all up by getting married? Who gets engaged this fast?
"Who does he think we are? One of the fucking Kardashian sisters?" Pita griped, still pumping meds into me.
"Kim better enjoy those twenty carats," Tulip muttered. "I don't have a good feeling about that publicity stunt...uh, I mean marriage."
Fucking Hollywood marriages. The universal cliché of the entire world and I was pregnant to fucking boot.
Marriages of people who were in this industry didn't last, or not indefinitely at least. To the altar and back again within a few years' time. What the fuck was the point?
Just to try it? Were they rich and bored enough they had to find a way to kill some time?
"Maybe it's like potato chips, you can't have just one?" Pita rationalized.
"Maybe they wanted sour cream and onion, but bought a bag of barbeque by accident?" Tulip offered. "Slugger is the Salt to my Vinegar though."
I had to stop and wonder if it was more often or just more publicized. There wasn't a large percentage of people who were sporting the celeb tag, so when they divorced multiple times, it was easy for the general public to make a joke out of it. I knew marriage was fucking difficult no matter what the circumstances, but with the added pressures of the public peeking into your business via the rags and their bullshit pictures, and every facet of your life splashed across the net, the odds were even further skewed.
I guessed being afraid it would end was a good sign. In fact, I was terrified of it. Hell, we were already adding a baby to the mix. How long would it be before I was ready to kick Edward's ass to the curb for giving the kid candy before dinner or something equally ridiculous?
I never wanted to get to the point where we are screaming at each other over bullshit. I supposed things like dirty dishes and laundry wouldn't be hot buttons for us, or money for that matter.
"As long as you do a prenup it doesn't matter, you can get married as many times as you want," Tulip prodded.
Pita was agitated. "Shut up kid chute! You're starting to sound like a fucking tinseltown cooch more and more every day".
Tulip started dancing. "Don't be fooled by the rocks that I've got. I'm still, I'm still Tulip from the block."
Speaking of rocks, where the fuck had he been hiding that ring? In a fucking unknown bunker under the house?
"Maybe there is some old fallout shelter under this place, with a time displaced family inside?" Pita wondered.
"That was under an adult bookstore!" Tulip corrected.
Edward's Blast from the Past mentality should have clued me the fuck in.
I was not from fucking Pasadena.
I was the confident, aspiring, not-on-your-fucking-life-would-I-end-up-in-this-situation-in-a-million-years girl from small-town Washington. I refused to kowtow to conventionalism, or socially inflicted parameters. I was going to live by my own fucking rules and create an identity that didn't include a fucking "Mrs." in front of my name, because I wouldn't let that be the only thing I ever became.
"You are already barefoot and pregnant... in the kitchen no less," Pita reminded. "But you are in an L.A. mansion. I think one negates the other."
I was the girl who was going to stick to a list. A list I had adhered to like a fucking bible for the last nine tenths of my life, the list that was now, thoroughly obsolete.
Life had been handing me its own fucked up list and I had been marking off every fucking checkbox on it, like I was a tool with no control.
"There is no spoon," Pita gasped. "It makes complete sense now."
I wasn't that girl anymore.
I was about to become a mother, even though I had technically been one since Tic Tac's conception, it still didn't feel entirely real. It was some abstract concept, that I was slowly coming to terms with. I felt like I had been initiated into some weird ass club that I didn't quiet belong in, but was eking my way through in tiny steps.
The same way I had eked through the last several months of my life with Edward. Becoming his fuck buddy, his girlfriend, his baby momma, all while dealing with paps and my dead end job, the fucking slores and the two chatty bitches that fucking shouted at me endlessly from inside my own body.
"You're fucking welcome," They both exclaimed in unison, flipping me off and squealing.
Well, I wasn't entirely that girl anymore, but was I really ready to become that girl?
The one who takes a huge fucking leap of faith and disregards everything she's believed because she's stupidly fallen in love and gotten herself knocked up?
"Yep, you're a living breathing, walking, cheesy, romance novel protagonist," Pita educated. "All you have to do is ride off into a scripted green screen sunset on the back of some white horse."
"Would there be a fucking sunset or a horse? Who the fuck writes that garbage?" Tulip complained.
Maybe it was the pessimist in me, but I couldn't fathom how this wouldn't end horribly. Not because we wanted it to, not because the very idea of marriage fucking terrified me and was never something I envisioned for myself. Not because we hadn't been together for more than a blink of an eye, not because we have to fight to keep semblance of privacy and my fucking wedding would have to be a bigger secret than the last episode of Seinfeld if I didn't want fucking pictures of it everywhere.
But for the weak reason he was asking me because he thought he fucking had to.
"You don't have to do this, Edward," I whispered finally. "I'm pregnant, not dying."
Fleeting expressions ran across his face, contorting his features and eyes accordingly, but nothing settled indefinitely for a long moment. "You think I want to marry you, because of some old school sense of obligation?"
"I didn't want to assume you had lost your fucking mind, It seemed like the less insulting alternative."
"You just said no to marrying the love of your life, and he's the insane one?" Pita shrieked.
"I'm not saying no," I argued with Pita and told Edward. "I'm just saying not when you feel pressured."
He smirked and grabbed my hand. "Okay, so we can just forget the whole thing then?" He closed the box quickly and palmed it again.
"Yeah, sure," I answered, confused. He must be extremely relieved, although I didn't know how the fuck we were going to forget what happened.
"Great. Come sit with me?" The grin was still there, like I hadn't just turned his ass down flat.
I nodded as he led me into the living room, my heart was racing. I couldn't believe he was really going to let what happened go, without so much as a word or some Edward Cullen style coercion.
He guided me to the couch. I sat first eyeing him curiously. Trying to figure out if I had actually caused his mind to snap.
"Why the fuck is he so happy still?" Pita questioned. "We should have just shattered the boy to pieces!"
"Conceited much? You're not God's fucking gift!" Tulip barked. "Maybe he is trying to save face!"
Instead of sitting down next to me, his head went into my lap and his legs laid lazily across the rest of the cushion and he looked up at me. This brilliant smile seemed to be etched on his face, and his hair was a sexy mess of bedhead.
"Do you mind?"
I shook my head. What the fuck was wrong with him? Were we really just going to forget it?
Shit. What if he never asks me again?
"Now you're worried about that!" Pita griped. "I can't get anything done with these fucking hormones running amok!"
"If you're going to nuzzle your head down there, Tulip has a job for you," I teased, uneasily.
"Actually, I thought I'd tell the baby a story."
"I think it's a little early for The Little Engine That Could or whatever fucking Little Golden Book you're about to do a dramatic retelling of."
He rolled his eyes. "This is an original story," he exhaled slowly. "Once upon a time."
"Oh Jesus," I laughed exasperated.
He ignored me and continued. "There was this guy, who pretended to be other people because somehow he got lucky enough to get paid for doing it, and it was a pretty decent gig and beat the hell out of aimlessly wandering from one job to another. We'll call him Daddy."
What the motherfuck was he doing?
"Then there was this beautiful girl, who you know as Mommy," he explained casually to my stomach.
Confused and irritated, I tried to interrupt his story-time for fetus. "Edward."
He ignored me and got his face a little closer to my belly. "So Mommy worked in this office, it was kind of like a big closet. Mommy didn't like Daddy very much, I think she thought he had cooties from sampling too many other girls...candy."
"Candy?" I choked.
"I don't want to scar her," he whispered up to me.
"Yeah, because comparing a snatch to candy isn't going to send him to the asylum."
"I am not fucking candy!" Tulip growled. "Do you see a peppermint clit anywhere?"
"My story. My euphemisms," Edward countered.
"Anyway," he continued. "When Daddy finally told mommy that her candy was better than any other girls, and sent her flowers she...eventually..." He glanced up at me. "Started to realize Daddy wasn't such a bad guy and it wasn't such a bad thing that he liked her."
"The more appropriate description is obsessed Tic Tac."
"Tomato," he argued lightly.
"Delusional," I muttered, as he started again.
"Then after a while, Daddy convinced Mommy to date him, and used all the charm that he'd been born with to make her fall madly in love with him."
I snickered, wondering why the fuck he was rehashing all this to Tic Tac now, the kid hardly had ear buds.
"Which was a good thing, because his wasted heart would have loved her until its last beat," he said as straight-faced as he could.
"And the Academy Award for the most over the top, gag inducing, dramatic fucking portrayal of a lovestuck douche goes to," I teased, rolling my eyes.
He smirked up at me quickly and kept talking. "What Mommy didn't know, is before he even found out that you existed, he dreamed about her and imagined moments just like this."
He looked up at me again, his hand rested on my stomach and I ran my fingers lazily through his hair. I sniffled and laughed at the same fucking time as I thought about our first sleepover on the night of the Oscars and how he said my name while he was sleeping and how fucking bizarre I found it at the time.
Now, I was marveling at how I had gotten so fucking lucky as I stared at him.
Wondering what the fuck I had turned down because I was so worried about his motives and not entirely sure if I could ever fit the definition of wife. At least I had an infinite number of books and resources on how to handle pregnancy and motherhood. I had no idea what the fuck being a wife entailed.
"I don't think Wikipedia has a page on that," Pita fretted.
"Fucking novice! Just throw on some Real Housewives of Beverly Hills," Tulip offered.
Fuck that. I wasn't going to turn into a completely different person. I may not have a list anymore or a fucking clue how to do any of this, but I knew who the fuck I was.
And I knew who Edward was. He was the same fucking person he'd always been, despite the swirl of noise, press and bullshit that his career and fine ass created, his circumstances or public labeling didn't change the essentials of who he is.
He is the same person I was fucking in love with, which means I was going to stay the same regardless of what titles I had attached to my name, even if it was a Mrs.
"A rose by any other name..." Pita began.
"Oh shut that shit off would you? I would not smell as sweet by any other name!" Tulip complained.
Suddenly, marriage didn't sound as unappealing as long as it was Edward as I was marrying. Even if he was only doing it because of Tic Tac.
"Bella?"
"Huh?" I asked, startled.
He laughed and started up again. "As I was saying, getting her to go out with him, and move in with him were all formalities in his mind." He was only looking at me when he spoke that sentence, but then turned his head back to Tic Tac before I could say anything.
"Mommy thinks I just asked her to spend her life with me because of you, but you simply moved up my timeline," he continued, not looking at me.
The tears were back again. I should have known he wasn't going to give this up. That he hasn't given up a single fucking time, no matter what I'd thrown at him. My insecurities and prejudices hadn't deterred him, me calmly turning him down wasn't bound to do that either.
"Thank fuck you didn't entirely blow everything to hell," Pita exhaled.
"Sorry little girl, those are the breaks," Edward laughed and rubbed my bump."Because Daddy, being the smart intuitive guy that he is, somehow always knew, the beautiful girl that worked in the closet and didn't like him, would be his future wife. Even if she didn't."
He looked up at me again. That fucking look did me in. That confident you're my other half whether you want to be or not and I will do every last fucking thing in my power to convince you that you are stare.
He turned his attentions again. "But I'll tell you a few things about me. I've learned not to take anything for granted, some things are worth working hard for, and as much as I'd like to think that I'm prefect I'm not, and neither is mommy, but the question is whether or not..."
"We're perfect for each other," I spoke over him, recognizing the Good Will Hunting line.
"Were you eavesdropping?" he asked with mock surprise. "I don't know if I like that."
"What would you like?" I questioned, with the stupid fucking tears still going and hoping like fuck my hormones wouldn't completely override my ability for rational thought right now, because I knew what the fuck he wanted.
"For the beautiful girl say yes," he answered seriously, holding up the ring.
"Oh God! Say 'yes' you skinny moron!" Pita cried, exasperated.
"It won't be much longer before you're a candidate for Miss Dunkin' Donut 2011," Tulip reminded. "You best get while the gettin' is good."
"Don't let this be your regret," Pita yelled
Nodding dumbly and wiping the stupid fucking tears with my right hand, he carefully slid the gorgeous ring on the appropriate finger of my left.
I took a deep breath, blinking rapidly looking at my hand and back up to him.
"You got your line right this time, I'm impressed," he patronized teasingly, following it up with a dazzling smile.
"Smart ass."
"That would make you soon to be Mrs. Smart Ass." He skimmed my lips with his, leaving the lightest kiss.
"And you one incredibly lucky line stealing bastard," I answered, returning the same featherlight kiss on his upper lip.
His arms were fully around me then. "I would have gone anywhere to see about this girl."
"Sap," I muttered lovingly, kissing him a little more forcefully.
"Your sap."
"Your girl," I admitted, quietly.
"My fiance," he whispered against my cheek. Sending a flood of fucking endorphins that I didn't understand around my body.
He started kissing me unforgivingly, his lips meshing with mine in quick rough motions, while his fingers skimmed under my shirt, and around my back.
"Edward stop," I mumbled weakly. "I fucking taste like BBQ sauce. It's all over my fingers and I'm sticky."
He pulled back slightly, but instead of stopping he swirled his tongue around the tip of my ring finger, his green smoldering eyes didn't leave mine, there was an unspoken challenge the as he looked me over. Then leaned his face to mine again.
He licked a line from my collarbone up to my ear. "You could be covered in sauce at this point and I would lick you up the front and down the back, worship every stretch of your incredible body, then take you every last fucking way you can think of until you beg me to stop."
"Where the fuck is that sauce? I'll roast some Slugger sausage in this KC Masterpiece smokehouse!" Tulip panted.
"You just agreed to become my wife. I love you. I want you. Right now," he concluded, as his hands started roaming my body, and he pressed me practically into the couch. His voice was fierce, unwavering and sexy as the rest of him.
And there was no way in fuck I was arguing with my future husband's infallible reasoning.
Because when it came to this he could just play.
Pita: "Are...Are we just fucking fading to black here?"
Tulip: (incoherent moaning)
Pita: "You've got to be fucking kidding me! Why aren't they getting a play by play of this?"
Tulip: …"That's it. Right fucking there."
Pita: "This whole visualization thing sucks. I mean, I'm here, maybe I can give some narrative...let me just crane my head a litt...whoa... I didn't know we could even get in that position."
Tulip: "Jesus motherfucking god in hell! Hit me a-fucking-gain!"
**Pita puts on her headphones and kicks up her feet, knowing this is going to be a while.**
**Sexy Silk**
"You'd been practicing that story, hadn't you?" I taunted, running one hand through his hair and resting my other on his chest. Our bodies were completely tangled up in the sheets and each other. We had gone up to the bedroom at some point, but in all honesty, I couldn't remember when the fuck that was, but it was fully light out now, so it had been a while.
Tulip was passed out in some post-coital, Slugger induced coma.
"Entirely impromptu. Did I rush it? Felt like I rushed it," he chuckled quietly, stroking my hair.
"No. Execution was good. Very believable," I confessed, with a disbelieving smirk.
"Obviously," he grinned widely looking at my hand.
I looked down quickly and shook my head, still amazed at what I had agreed to. "Just remember this was your insane idea when we're in some nasty custody dispute and I'm bitching to my lawyer about how you're addicted to porn and hookers."
"What the fuck ever," Tulip mumbled blissfully. "Slugger will get all he needs right here. Kid portal or not I have banging skills."
"I promise to stay away from hookers, if you promise not to get drunk and frequently beat the shit out of me," he laughed.
"You know I don't have to be drunk for that, but I wouldn't dare mess up that pretty face, Hollywood."
"It'd take more than a facial few bruises to get rid of me, Beautiful," he informed.
"Good to know," I smiled. "It'd take more than a Divine Brown incident to get rid of me."
"I suppose you're not going to be moving out then? Your three month trial period is over," he reminded, looking down at me.
I stopped short. Had it really been three fucking months since I'd moved in? I did a quick mental calculation and realized it was three months to the day.
I laughed weakly. "I'm sure there were much cheaper ways of keeping me from moving out."
"I didn't think shackling you to our bed would be conducive to you agreeing to become my wife."
A little shiver ran down my back. I wasn't sure if it was him referring to me as his wife or the mental image of me chained to our bed.
"Both!" Pita and Tulip cheered. "That man is going to be our husband,"Pita sighed.
"I'm marrying Slugger," Tulip corrected with a sated grin. "You all can do what you want with the rest of him."
"You're the one going to have your balls in shackles," I quipped.
"As long as you're the one holding the keys."
"I've already got Slugger collared," Tulip admitted. "We call it a Total Power Exchange, you bitches call it marriage."
"God, I need pancakes," I whined, completely distracted by my gnarled stomach. "You and your balls are free to do what you want for a while, Tic Tac is starving."
I jumped out of bed, and hightailed it down the stairs as Edward laughed from behind me.
Tic Tac didn't like it when there was more than a thirty minute window where I wasn't eating something, so the last few hours of activity had made the kid epically pissed, and my stomach his bitch. My cravings changed like the damn wind I never knew what the hell the next one would be, so I stocked up on all kind of seemingly random things which thank fuck included some Bisquick.
I was already heating up the griddle and adding some water to the mix when Edward made it into the kitchen.
He stopped and stared at me for a second, obviously thrown the fuck off by my attempt at cooking.
"Hi, I don't think we've met, I'm Edward Cullen and you are..."
"Fucking starving Cullen, so move your ass out of the way or your baby is going to be born with the wrong amount of toes because he didn't get pancakes," I warned, reaching for a spatula for the holder next to the knife block.
"Not all that dissimilar from the first time we met," he responded, moving to the right a little.
"Except after I'm done stuffing my face this time, I'm going to be passed out in a bed instead of at a desk for the rest of the afternoon."
"Uh, about that." He not so subtly moved me away from the knives.
"This cannot be good," Pita warned.
"I sort of invited your parents out here," he grimaced, then tried to use the panty dropper on me.
"I'm totally fucking immune to that shit," Tulip growled weakly. "For the most part."
"I sure as fuck am!" Pita hissed. "Fiance or not he's got some severe fucking explaining to do."
"What?" I shrieked, going back for the knives again, not so playfully grabbing the biggest one out of the block.
"Well, you said you wanted to wait until you were out of your first trimester to tell them about Tic Tac," he defended holding his hands up like he was surrendering. "That's in a week, I figured it was close enough."
"So you thought you'd take it upon yourself to invite them here without fucking telling me? I could have done that shit over the phone! Or behind missile proof glass!" I yelled pointing the knife at him to punctuate how pissed I was.
"I mostly just intended to ask your dad for his blessing, but now I suppose the point is kind of moot since you already said yes." He was beaming, looking between my face and the ring despite the gutting I could have given him at any second.
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I felt like I needed to get him the fuck out of Pleasentville and back into reality. "You're going to ask Charlie for permission to marry his knocked up daughter in person? Are you suicidal?" I questioned.
"Apparently, since the mother of my child and more recently my fiance is pointing a carving knife at me." He did little to hide his smirk. "They're going to find out eventually Bella, wouldn't you rather it be from us, than some from a tabloid or from our eventual statement?"
"You're right, I know that. Fuck. When are they coming in? And How the fuck did you manage to get Charlie on a plane?" I questioned rapidly.
"I'm pretty charismatic," he grinned proudly. "To answer your other question, in about four hours."
"And you're just now telling me?" I yelled, forcefully putting down the knife for fear I might actually use it.
"It was supposed to be a surprise," he offered.
"You mean an ambush."
Holy fuck. I was going to have to tell my parents all of this, and hope my mother didn't deflate from lack of oxygen and or shatter every last fucking glass surface in our house, and make sure my dad didn't check any of his guns in his suitcase.
"Your fiance has some ferocity to him. The boy was willing to be at the business end of a gun for you," Pita sighed.
"You were really going to ask my dad for permission?" I asked.
"Uh yeah," he answered, very unsure.
"That's so fucking sweet," I murmured. "but I think he's going to notice you didn't when Renee's vocal cords explode after she sees my hand."
He looked nervous again. "I'm meeting with your dad alone, as soon as he gets in and your mom is..."
"Oh god, she's coming here!" Pita exclaimed panicking like a bitch.
"You're leaving me alone with my mother!" I screeched at him.
And I swear one of the fucking windowpanes in the back door cracked.
A/N: You didn't expect her to say yes right away did you? And you didn't think Edward was going to just give up and let it go without a word? Tsk. Lol.
Yes, we're coming to a close. My plan is a few more chapters before the final one posting January 15th, 2012 ;) Outtakes and Epilogue(s) will follow.
Good Will Hunting, Ocean's Eleven, Girl Interrupted, Love Actually and the line "I love you. I want you. Right now." from Eclipse (the book.) Because I could- and movie Edward should have- js.)
Google "Total Power Exchange"...I'm sure it will lead to some interesting reading;)
Oh- last chapter title was a stolen (though slightly modified) quote from Miss. Stewart and there is a Mr. Pattinson quote in here too...can you find it? ;P
Great big thank you to all of you- your R&Ring always makes my day and is appreciated more than you know:)
Util next time!