Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. I own a tour guide name tag from my alma mater.
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BPOV
Edward and I were puttering across town to his apartment, as I silently prayed that my ancient truck didn't choose this day to break down. We made awkward small talk as I drove. Well, it was awkward for me. Edward seemed perfectly at ease. "So how long have you been doing the tour guide thing?" I asked.
"Since my sophomore year. A buddy in my dorm convinced me to apply. It's a good job, better than food service or working at the library."
I coughed. "Yeah, I worked at Baker-Berry last year. It's really quiet in there, but at least you can do your homework while you work."
"Oh, I didn't mean... I'm sure working at the library is great." He shifted in his seat and I cursed myself for being unable to interact with him normally. What was my problem? After spending a whole day walking around with him, I should have lost some of the social retardation I seemed to carry around like a trophy whenever I was near him. I should have. Obviously, I hadn't.
"No, you're right. It was boring." I forced myself to laugh. He glanced over at me and smiled. He had been giving me these weird looks all day, and I didn't know quite what to make of them. When we were on our morning walk-through and I was falling all over the place like a newborn giraffe, he didn't let me hit the ground once. Something about the way his arm wrapped around my waist when I went tumbling made my stomach flip.
"Well, this job is never boring," he answered, turning back to look out the window. "You meet people from all over, and no tour is ever the same. Turn left here."
"I never would have applied for this job if Alice hadn't bullied me into it," I said, making the turn and not looking back over at him. "I'm not very outgoing." I had no idea why I was admitting this to him. Not only was it painfully obvious that I was an introvert, but I was killing my chances of ever interesting him. Edward probably only dated girls who were bubbly and personable, like Alice, or Lauren.
"You're wrong," he said suddenly. I jumped a little, then gave him an incredulous look.
"Excuse me?"
"You're wrong," he said again, crossing his arms as if he was getting ready for a fight. "You may think you're not, but you're just as prepared to do this job as anyone else we hired. You're not obnoxious or really loud or anything, but since when is that the only way to define outgoing? That's my building up there, on the right."
I pulled into an open spot on the street and tried to think of a good response. "You don't know me very well," I finally mumbled.
He shrugged. "Maybe not, but I think you're selling yourself short."
I followed him to his second floor apartment, trying to pretend like it wasn't a big deal that I was about to be alone with him in his apartment. I was ridiculously nervous about the situation, even though Edward had been nothing but nice all day. Jasper was right; he was just a normal guy. A normal, handsome, brilliant, single guy who had starred in my daydreams since September. No big deal.
Edward's apartment was pretty clean, considering he was a 22-year-old man living alone. No pizza boxes or beer bottles on the floor, anyway.
"My stereo equipment is um, in my bedroom," he said. He looked a little uncomfortable, and I tried to figure out what was embarrassing about that sentence. Maybe there was underwear on his floor or something. I shook my head, willing myself to stop thinking about Edward's underwear. "You can wait out here if you want."
"Okay?" It came out as a question, but he nodded quickly and practically ran into what I assumed was his bedroom. He disappeared so fast I almost didn't have time to process it. I wandered over to the wall where his TV sat. It was a big, clunky thing with rabbit ears. It reminded me of my dad's old TV that died when I was about ten years old. He had a collection of DVDs in neat stacks on the shelf below, but I didn't really want to get on the floor to start digging through his titles, so I wandered toward his bookcase instead.
A person's bookcase, or lack thereof, can say a lot about them. In my limited dating experience, and even with some friends I had met in college, I always found there were certain red flags that guaranteed I wouldn't be able see eye-to-eye with a person. Unfortunately, skimming someone's book selection isn't typically something you can do until you're knee-deep into a relationship, or at least several dates in, and the red flags are fairly obvious for other reasons by that point. It was a rare gift to get to peruse his bookshelf before I really knew Edward.
I did a quick scan to determine the ratio of textbook to fiction. He was a pre-med student, so I wasn't surprised to see an entire shelf dedicated to old science textbooks and a thick, scary-looking MCAT prep book. They seemed to be relegated to the one shelf, grouped according to science. Not bad.
He didn't have any comic books or magazines, but he did have a rather dog-eared copy of The Hobbit and a handful of well-loved Stephen King novels. A few sci-fi novels followed, then a whole string of autobiographies. There didn't seem to be a rhyme or reason to it, unlike with his textbooks, and I found myself staring at the shelves like they were trying to tell me some deep secret about the man who was noisily disassembling his sound system in the next room. I was so focused that I didn't hear it when he came back into the living area.
"If you want to borrow anything, you're more than welcome," he said quietly. I jumped, then turned around to see him standing rather close to me.
"Oh!" I gasped, falling backwards a little. He rushed forward, but I steadied myself and shot him a hesitant smile. "I'm sorry, you surprised me."
"Sure," he teased, "I saw how you moved out there today. Tell me, is your clumsiness terminal?"
"They've given me six months, tops," I said with a laugh. His answering smile was blinding, and for a second we just stood there staring at each other. It was surreal. Anyone watching us would have thought we were friends, completely comfortable with each other. Of course, I shattered the moment almost immediately by clearing my throat loudly and clapping my hands.
"So, ready to load up Big Red?"
We carried the component pieces down to my truck without any conversation. The speakers weren't heavy, but they were awkward, and I was terrified that I was going to drop something undoubtedly expensive. Luckily, they got loaded into my truck bed easily enough, and I packed a couple of the blankets I kept back there around them so they wouldn't slide too much.
"Emmett doesn't live far from here," Edward said once we'd gotten back in the truck. "It'll be an easy walk tomorrow night, especially with a good liquid jacket."
"Just how crazy do these things get?" I asked nervously, following his directions.
"Eh, that depends on how you define crazy," he said, shrugging. "There's a lot of drinking, and loud music, and junk food. People usually get pretty wasted. But it's a party with good people, and it's a great way to meet everyone without all the pressure. And everyone's acting like an idiot, so it puts you on an even playing field, you know?"
He laughed loudly, clearly remembering something that happened at one of these parties. "Alice is right, it's much better to go in a little drunk. Less intimidating that way. It's a fine line, though. For mine, I was so drunk when I got there that I wished my tour coordinator a happy birthday. Took me months to live that down."
"I'm kind of a lightweight," I admitted. "I've never really been a party kind of girl."
"You'll have fun, I promise." He smiled at me and I felt my stomach twist again, in a not entirely unpleasant way. "Tell you what, stick with me. Don't let Alice drag you anywhere, she's a bad influence."
"Oh, right, I'm sure you're such a saint," I laughed.
He held up three fingers in a Boy Scout salute and crossed his heart, giving me a solemn look. "I'll take care of you. Promise."
Something in the way he said it made me want to giggle uncontrollably, but I reined it in. If I wasn't careful, Edward Masen was going to turn me into a babbling idiot.
"Bella?" He sounded confused.
"Hm?"
"You just drove past the building."
We circled the block, and then circled it again when I realized there wasn't a big enough space in front of the building. "I hate snow," I grumbled, when we finally found a spot two blocks away. "Call Alice and Jasper and have them meet us here, will you? I don't want to lug all this up to Emmett's apartment on our own."
It turned out that Jasper was already on his way over with Alice, so it didn't take them long to get to where we were parked. With the four of us each carrying something, we were able to take everything in one trip, although Alice complained the entire way that she wasn't fit for hard labor. As soon as we got everything into Emmett's apartment, I elbowed her in the stomach. She shot me an annoyed look and shoved me surprisingly hard, sending me back into Edward's chest. He caught me, of course, but he inadvertently grabbed me in a spot near my hips where I'm chronically ticklish. I squealed and twisted away, then promptly wished for a hole to bury myself in. Alice was biting her lips to keep her laughter in. Edward held his hands up defensively, taking several steps away from where I stood hugging my sides.
"Are you okay?" The look on his face confirmed it: he thought I was completely insane.
"Yeah, um, ticklish," I mumbled, turning away from him and looking around for the nearest soft place to curl up and die. A squishy leather chair sat in the corner, so I threw myself into it and pulled out my Blackberry, pretending to occupy myself with my calendar for a while. The boys started assembling everything on the back wall of the living room, and Alice came over to perch next to me on the arm of my chair.
"How's it going?" she whispered conspiratorially. "All systems go?"
"What is that supposed to mean?" I hissed, rolling my eyes. "Have I embarrassed myself enough times today? I don't think so, no. I'm going for an all-time record."
"None of that," she warned. "What did I say?"
"I'm cute, and smart, and a total catch," I deadpanned. She smiled cheerily, as if my words were completely sincere.
"That's right, you are. Now, did you take advantage of your alone time this afternoon or am I going to have to swing more of it tomorrow? You know what, scratch that, I'll do it anyway."
"Alice, I really wish you wouldn't. Just being around him makes me feel like an ugly duckling. He's like a constant hit to my self-esteem. He's not interested, and he's not going to be."
She crinkled her forehead and looked over to where Jasper and Edward were working and talking quietly. Edward laughed out loud at something Jasper had said, and then glanced over at Alice and I. Well, he looked at Alice for about a split-second before his eyes locked on my face. I couldn't look away. I imagined this was what small animals felt like right before getting swallowed whole by a python.
Then he blinked and glanced down, and the spell was broken. His smile still lingered, and I felt almost like he was watching me out of the corner of his eyes. I turned so I couldn't see him, only to find Alice looking at me with her eyebrows raised.
"You were saying?"
"I probably have something on my face?"
She sighed. "You're hopeless. You're coming out with us, right?"
"Do I have to?"
"Yes, your royal hermitude, you have to. It'll be good for you. Come on, we're just going to grab some burgers and a pitcher of beer. We never hang out anymore. Don't you love me?"
"Laying it on a little thick, aren't you?"
"Is it working?"
I pursed my lips and stared her down, trying to gauge how important this was to her. She was right, I'd been spending so much time on school lately that my social life had really suffered. Not that I'd had the busiest of social calendars before this year, but at least I had gone out some. Edward's comment about selling myself short echoed in my head.
"Please? I promise not to push you and Edward together at all tomorrow if you come out tonight." She looked so hopeful, and I reminded myself once again that avoiding a guy I was practically obsessed with was more than a little weird.
"Okay," I relented. "But I'm holding you to that."
"All set," Jasper said. Alice looked up and cocked her head to the side.
"Are you sure you can't make it more... I don't know, compact? There's going to be a ton of people in here tomorrow night."
"The equipment is the size it is," Edward said firmly. "I'm not hanging anything from the ceiling, and I'm not stacking things that shouldn't be stacked. It's fine. Emmett's not going to care, and I doubt anyone else will."
"Okay," she sighed. She gave Jasper big, sad eyes, but he shook his head.
"Nope, not going to do it. It's Edward's call. Come on, I'll buy you a burger."
She lit up at that, and he laughed and grabbed her hand. "You guys coming?" he called, leading Alice into the hallway.
Edward smiled over at me, and extended his arm in an "after you" gesture.
"See? Told you it wouldn't take long," he said. "You're still going to come out, right?"
"Alice wouldn't let me get out of it," I laughed.
He shook his head and laughed with me. "I told you she wouldn't. That girl doesn't know the meaning of the word 'no.'"
We had arrived at my truck when I realized I had no idea where we were going. I started it up and turned to look at Edward.
"Do you know where we're going?"
"Jasper said Molly's."
"I haven't been there in forever," I said excitedly. "My roommate freshman year used to drag me there all the time, and I got so sick of it. She hated the cafeteria food, and she was completely incapable of eating alone."
"You don't mind?"
"Mind what?"
"Eating alone. Isn't that, I don't know, a little uncomfortable? Eating all by yourself in a restaurant?"
I shrugged. "It's not so bad. I think it's something everyone should do once in a while. I like having a little time to sit and think, and if I can eat at the same time, why not? I go to movies alone sometimes, too."
When he didn't respond, I felt my cheeks start to burn. God, I probably sounded like a complete loser. I go to movies alone. Alice was right, I was a hermit.
"Not often or anything. I mean, it's not like I don't have any friends." My face was the temperature of molten lava. It was like my brain and my mouth weren't connected when I was around him. I shook my head and concentrated on the road, determined not to say anything stupid for the rest of the drive.
Edward had other ideas.
"I think it's kind of cool, going out by yourself. I could never do it. You're braver than I am."
I snorted. "Braver, or just more pathetic? No, never mind, don't answer that."
"I'm serious," he protested, turning in his seat so that he faced me. "I bet not many people would feel comfortable going out alone. It shows a lot of confidence. I would be worried that everyone was feeling sorry for me if I was sitting by myself in a restaurant or a theater."
"Well, I wasn't worried about that until now," I said, sarcasm leaking into my tone. "Are you trying to make me feel better or worse, Edward?"
"I didn't mean it like that!" he protested, and suddenly it was his turn to awkwardly stumble over his words. I kind of liked it; it made him seem more human. I could relate to sticking my foot in my mouth. "I just meant that it shows you don't care what other people think. I mean, of course people aren't thinking that, I just... damn it, you know what I mean."
I peeked at him out of the corner of my eye, and what I saw made my socially awkward heart melt a little. Edward Masen, smooth talker and easy conversationalist, was blushing and struggling for words. He was embarrassed. I felt another bizarre wave of comfort, and then heard Jasper's voice in my head. He puts his pants on one leg at a time. For some reason, I heard it in the exaggerated Texan twang Jasper always used when he was goofing around, and it struck me as absolutely hilarious.
I snorted, and then a little giggle escaped. Before I could do much more than register the sound coming from my lips, I was laughing hysterically. Tears leaked out of my eyes, and I had to work to keep myself sitting up straight. After a few seconds, I heard Edward's deep laugh join mine, bubbling up and getting gradually louder and more helpless as we chuckled the awkwardness away.
We had mostly stopped by the time we got to Molly's, although I was still wiping tiny tears out of the corners of my eyes. My face wasn't red anymore, and we were both smiling and relaxed. Maybe tonight wouldn't be so bad after all.
Alice and Jasper had beaten us there and snagged a table. The place was less packed than it was during the semester, but there was still a pretty decent crowd. We ordered a pitcher of beer and Alice and Edward started telling stories about tour guide parties they had been to in the past.
"So Rosalie is puking her guts out, right?" Alice giggled, pantomiming wildly and, I might add, a bit unnecessarily. "And she's looking for something to wipe her mouth with. So I hand her a piece of Wonder bread."
Edward snorted into his cup and Jasper closed his eyes and shuddered, both of them clearly knowing what was coming next.
"She uses the bread and puts it in her pocket, I don't know, for safe keeping? Anyway, the next morning she's complaining about how gross the bread she ate last night was. She went back to her dorm room and ate the barf bread."
She was pink and nearly breathless with repressed laughter, and I couldn't help but laugh along with her.
"That was Rosalie? Ice bitch Rosalie?" I realized what I had said when Edward and Jasper whooped loudly and covered my face with my hand. "That's not what I meant," I moaned.
"No take backs!" Alice crowed. "It totally was. She was barely 19 at the time, and had not yet fully grown into her bitchitude."
"She hadn't met Emmett yet either," Jasper said. "I think he helped her embrace her inner bitch."
"Come on guys, Rosalie isn't that bad," Edward said seriously. Alice and Jasper stared in shock for a second, until he added, "for a fascist dictator."
"I'm telling!" Alice yelled, laughing again.
"Go ahead," he challenged. "Only don't come crying to me when she shoots the messenger."
The easy banter flying back and forth had me relaxed and comfortable for the first time in days. I didn't flinch when Edward rested his elbow on the back of my chair, and I let myself sink into his arm slightly. He didn't jump away or look at me like I was weird or invading his space. He just smiled and relaxed even further, laughing at something Jasper said.
"The next pitcher's on me," I said eventually, getting up and grabbing our empty. "I'll be right back." Edward watched me go. He'd been watching me all day, and I was starting to think that meant something. Between the beer, the muggy heat of the crowded bar, and the way he was looking at me, I felt almost giddy.
I pushed my way through the crowd toward the bar, marveling over the possibility that Alice wasn't dead wrong about the whole Edward thing after all. I passed the empty pitcher to the nearest bartender and handed over a ten.
"Bella!"
I turned around, searching for the voice that called my name.
"Yo, Bella, over here!"
Too late, I recognized it. Mike Newton. He was standing a little way down the bar with Eric Yorkie and Jacob, and all three of them looked a little worse for the wear. I waited until I had my pitcher and then made my way carefully over to where they stood.
"Whoa, Bella, partying it up," Mike said. He had a dopey grin on his face, and he was nodding his head up and down like one of those bobble-head dogs.
"I'm here with some friends," I said quickly, sensing a way out. "I just wanted to say hi. So...hi."
I turned, but Eric grabbed my arm and turned me around. Beer slopped over my hand, and Jacob threw an arm over my shoulder.
"What's your rush?" he said cheerily. He sounded a little drunk, and while his arm around my shoulder wasn't really threatening, it also wasn't the arm I wanted there. "You just got here."
"I've got this pitcher, though, and Alice and Edward are waiting."
Jacob's eyes narrowed a little and he glanced around. "That's who you're here with? Alice is okay, but come on, Edward? Boring."
"Thanks for your opinion," I said stiffly. "Have a good night, guys."
"Bella's gonna be an awesome tour guide," Eric said before I could go. His voice was loud and he was slurring his words. "She's so smart and pretty. And smart."
It would have been funny if I wasn't starting to get seriously annoyed. "Thanks, Eric. I'll see you guys later."
I tried to duck out from under Jacob's arm but I crashed into Mike's shoulder in the process, and the pitcher of beer went flying, covering my shirt and my jeans.
I yelled in surprise, but by that time there was nothing I could do. I was covered in beer. Of course, none of it had landed on Mike or Jacob, or even poor Eric, who was clearly too drunk to be doing much more than stand in a corner making random remarks about pretty girls. He didn't even flinch when I started to swear loudly.
"Hold on, Bells, I'll get you some napkins," Jacob said frantically, reaching over to the bar where a pile of thin, dirty napkins sat by a bowl of beer nuts. He started patting me down, focusing mainly on my chest. That's when I lost it.
"Son of a bitch!" I yelled, pushing him off of me. He was still trying to wipe off my chest, which is what Edward saw when he came pushing through the crowd, probably to check and see what was taking so long with the beer. He didn't say anything, just pulled me back from Jacob's fumbling hands and glared down at him.
"What the hell are you doing?" he growled. He pushed me behind him and crossed his arms angrily. He must have missed the fact that I was covered in beer. My t-shirt was drenched and clinging to my body, and my jeans were getting tighter by the second, the wet denim rubbing roughly against my legs. I didn't even want to think about what it was going to feel like walking outside like this.
"I was helping her," Jacob insisted, still waving his hands around. He hit Edward in the chest with a wet, shredded napkin for emphasis. "She's got beer all over her, dude."
Edward spun around and looked me over, his eyes widening a little as he realized just how soaked I was. "Shit," he muttered, turning back to Jacob. "Did you do that?"
"It was an accident! Bella's okay, aren't you, Bella?" Jacob craned his neck over Edward's shoulder, but Edward shifted his weight and blocked his view.
"Okay, it was an accident. You've done your part. I've got it from here." He gave the wilted napkins a disgusted glare and then turned back to face me. "Come on, Bella. Let's get you back to the table."
Alice, of course, didn't know whether to laugh about the situation or lament the fact that my one semi-cute shirt was now ruined. She dragged me to the bathroom to try to dry me off under the hand dryer.
"It was going so well, too," she sighed, palming the dryer button and stretching out my shirt. "Oh, this isn't going to work. Just take it off."
"What?" I crossed my arms instinctively over my chest.
"Come on, it's just us, the door is locked. Take of the shirt, it'll dry faster."
I eyed her suspiciously, but tugged it off and tossed it to her.
"Great." She reached into her bag and pulled out a wad of stretchy blue material. "Now put this on."
I caught it and shook out a three-quarter sleeve shirt with a detailed stitching around a wide, low neckline. "You just happened to have this in your bag?" I asked.
"I'm always prepared, you know that. Never go anywhere without a spare."
"But you don't have boobs, and I do." She huffed a little, and I rolled my eyes. "It's true, don't argue with me. This isn't going to fit me."
"It's always been a little big on me," she said breezily. Too breezily.
"Did you pack this for... me? Oh my God, you really think I'm that much of a disaster, don't you?"
She turned away from the hand dryer and put her hands on her hips, lips pouted out in an oddly angry way. "Will you chill out, already? My God, you're ridiculous today. Just put the shirt on. Your giant boobs are giving me a complex."
I pulled it over my head, and sure enough, it fit perfectly. I anchored myself to the wall, attempting to get my whole lap under the blowers. After a couple of cycles I was reasonably dry, but it still felt kind of like I peed my pants.
"I don't suppose you've got a pair of pants in that bag?" I asked hopefully, hitting the dryer button one more time.
"Sure, now you want me to be prepared. Sorry, I'm only ready to cope with one fashion emergency per night. You'll have to sit in your wet pants."
When we got back to our table, Jasper and Edward were talking quietly, heads close together. Jasper looked up as we approached, and Edward turned around.
"Where'd that shirt come from?" he asked, wrinkling his eyebrows.
"Alice," I said simply. Jasper snorted, but quickly took a drink before she could give him too much of a stink-eye.
"I should probably go home," I said, ignoring the look Alice was now leveling at me. "Work bright and early tomorrow and everything. I want to read my notes and make sure I'm ready to go for our last day. Edward, do you need a ride home?"
I bit the inside of my cheek. I hadn't meant to ask. It just slipped out. There was plenty of room in Jasper's car. Of course, the universe was not going to be that kind to me. Edward drained the rest of his glass and stood up.
"Yeah, I think I'm ready to go. See you tomorrow night, Jas. Alice, you coming in tomorrow?"
"You know it," she laughed. "I have to make sure the evil dictator stays reined in and under control."
"And who's going to make sure you stay under control?"
"Silly, that's your job."
"Oh, of course. I should have known."
We said goodbye and walked back out to my car, Edward trailing slightly behind me. I shuddered as the cold air hit my legs.
"Are you okay? Do you need my jacket or something?" Edward looked down at me and smiled sweetly, while still managing to look concerned.
"Are you for real?" I demanded.
He looked startled. "What?"
"Are you a real person? Or are you some kind of robot?" Once again, my thoughts were completely bypassing my brain, opting to go straight for my mouth. The slightly drunk part of me that was tired and covered in beer was okay with it.
"I don't understand," he said slowly. That 'is that an extra head growing out of your shoulder blade?' look was back in full force. I unlocked my truck and started the engine, still shivering. Before I could explain any further, he took off his jacket and tucked it around my legs.
"That!" I said, pointing at my lap. "What is that about?"
"I'm just... being a nice guy?"
"Is that a question?"
"No?" I raised my eyebrows. "Shut up!" he protested. "No, I am not a robot; yes, I am a nice guy. Why is that so weird?"
I looked over at him, expecting to see a smile, but his face had settled into a look of disappointed confusion.
"Do you think I'm some kind of a jerk?" Crap, now he sounded hurt. How did I manage to do that? First I ticked off Alice, then Edward. The only person who hadn't given me that wounded puppy dog look tonight was Jasper. I considered driving back to the bar just to finish off the night right.
"I don't think you're a jerk! I'm sorry, I'm a total spaz," I mumbled, turning down his street. At least it was a short drive.
"You're not a spaz," he protested. I untucked his jacket and handed it back to him.
"Um, that's really sweet of you, Edward, but yes, I most definitely am. Alice says the first step to recovery is admitting I have a problem."
He smiled hesitantly, and I shook my head at him. "It's okay, you can laugh. Jasper does." A muffled sort of laugh escaped his lips, then a louder chuckle. I sighed dramatically.
"Hey," he said softly. I looked up, and suddenly he was in my space, breathing my air. I stopped breathing. More air for him, I guess. "You did good today. Don't study too hard tonight, okay?"
"Okay," I whispered, wondering briefly when my voice had gotten so high and girlish. He pulled away and jumped out of my truck. I didn't move until the door slammed shut, and then I just watched him jog to the front door of his building.
As I drove home, I thought about the events of the day. After only a couple of drinks, I had gone from socially awkward to straight-up unfiltered word vomit. I had a bad feeling about this party.
A/N: I know. You guys have been really patient. We're almost to the party. Hang in there.
I've never dated a co-worker, but I've had plenty of work crushes. According to your answers, there are quite a few happily married former and current co-workers out there :) Funny thing, two people I worked with as a campus tour guide just got engaged. Timely!
Do you go to the movies alone?