"Bella, please. It's just a phone call."
"Why can't you do it? Or just ask your damn boyfriend, they're friends aren't they?"
Alice thumped the button in front of her, "tonight is the night we've all been waiting for folks, The Night Before The Morning After, our very own singles night!"
"That's right," I trilled, "from eight tonight we'll be hosting the best night out Seattle's gonna see this weekend. Hot boys, scorching girls and the chance to spend a night in the company of your favourite morning radio hosts."
"Not forgetting their fabulous producer, sweetheart of the switchboard, Ms Rosalie Hale."
Rose gave her on-air laugh, "I'll be keeping these two under control, sorry boys."
Alice grinned, "we'll see. While I can't promise you'll see Bella's Macarena I can guarantee good music from some of our favourite acts and loads…"
"Tons!"
"Heaps of chances to win fantastic KSXB prizes and maybe pick up a little something extra. So be there, eight pm at The Hideout on Boren Avenue or be...well, laaaaame."
"And in the spirit of the single life we're asking you for your tips for picking up chicks and dating dudes. Do you play it coy or bold and blatant? Perhaps you met your match at a singles event and want to share your story or maybe you've a cautionary tale for our guest list?"
"I like taking the direct approach," Alice stated, pushing a piece of paper towards me 'Jake: 206-200-4974', "I'm straight in with my phone number on a napkin and a 'give me a call'."
I scribbled a quick 'fuck off' on Alice's note and slid it back across the desk, "isn't that just asking for trouble Al? You don't know if the guy's a psycho yet. Next thing you know you've got a stalker calling you a hundred times a day."
"How about swapping email addresses?" she balled up the paper and threw it at my head, narrowly missing her target, "that way you could spend a few weeks getting to know a guy…"
I shot her a warning look and she winked mischievously, continuing in a sweet voice, "...in fact, you could prepare a questionnaire for potential suitors."
"Well, it's a good way to sort the wheat from the chaff," I agreed.
"We've got a call on line two guys," Rose butted in, "our old Anonymous friend."
Edward. Why was he calling the station? Was he pissed? Alice didn't mean anything by making a joke out of our email relationship but how was he to know that it was just part of the show...just what we did? I hadn't told him that I'd come clean to Alice and Rose about our 'relationship'. Not that I'd had much choice, those bitches would give Columbo a run for his money. They good cop/bad copped that shit out of me.
"Good morning Anonymous," I could even hear Alice's ten mile wide grin, "long time no speak."
"Morning Alice...Bella," he said and I blushed, "I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with you once again Alice."
She mock-gasped, "you're taking Bella's side? Go on then…"
"You mention pre-screening potential suitors. I don't think that's a bad thing, in fact isn't that exactly what people using dating sites are doing?"
"You have experience of this I take it?" she got a dirty look for that one.
"I do as it happens. I happen to be very much enjoying a correspondence with a lovely young lady at the moment."
I gulped, "lovely? Really?"
Alice clasped her hands to her heart, "and she's a potential suitor?"
"Well," I'd forgotten how well he held himself in the face of Alice and felt all at once proud of him and afraid of what he might say, "I like to think so but couldn't say she's so sure about me."
"So your advice to our listeners is don't just dive into something," my cheeks flaming I frantically motioned to Rose that we needed to ditch the call.
"Exactly. Take your time but equally know that when it's right, it's right."
I pulled off my headphones and laid them on my desk, pushing my chair out from behind me and heading for the door. Al finished up the call in her usual unflappable style while watching me leave, mouthing 'what the fuck?'
Outside the studio I wiped the sweat that had appeared on my top lip with a shaking hand.
"Get a grip Swan," I muttered to myself, resting my head against the cool plaster of the wall.
"Bells honey, what the hell happened back there?" Rose had silently appeared next to me and placed a hand on my shoulder.
"I don't even fucking know," I sighed, "he makes me crazy."
"If the guy's pissing you off…"
"No, I mean actually crazy. I've lost it Rose, call the men in white coats and have me committed."
She laughed loudly, "you're an idiot. Stop dicking around and admit you like him. You can't be fine writing to him but just freak out whenever you hear his voice."
I stared at her with wide eyes, "Rosalie, imagine what it would be like if I met him."
Ruffling my hair she leant past me and pushed the studio open, "get on with your damn job Swan."
EMC2: Are you there?
HellsBells: Sure am
EMC2: Are you pissed off with me?
Edward and I had graduated from emails to chat, spending far too much time talking shit. For two weeks my life had consisted of work/Edward/sleep with the occasional break for sustenance.
HellsBells: Of course not. Just surprised.
HellsBells: Sorry about Al.
EMC2: Stop apologising for your friends
HellsBells: Sorry.
EMC2: ARGH!
HellsBells: Is that what you're doing then?
EMC2: Is what what I'm doing then?
HellsBells: Screening potential suitors
EMC2: Are you?
HellsBells: I asked first
EMC2: Only one. I'm screening one potential suitor.
HellsBells: Interesting. How's she shaping up?
HellsBells: She is a she right?
EMC2: Very funny. She's doing okay. Except she apologises too much
EMC2: Oh, and she has terrible taste in snacks
EMC2: she's terribly argumentative too
EMC2: and she's stubborn
HellsBells: Alright, that'll do!
EMC2: bossy too.
HellsBells: She sounds awful, you should probably start screening another potential suitor.
EMC2: Probably but I'd like to make sure she's not a he first
HellsBells: I've double checked and she's not.
EMC2: Then perhaps I should go along to this singles night she's going to be at.
HellsBells: Don't, it's going to be embarrassing enough without mystery callers showing up. Besides you'll be mobbed by desperate singles, you heard them on the show today.
EMC2: I can handle myself
HellsBells: I'm not sure I can handle you though. Edward, I'm gonna be working, I won't have time to talk or anything. Promise you won't come.
EMC2: I reluctantly promise. Have coffee with me tomorrow?
A loud hammering at my door startled me out of my thoughts before I could reply. I was about to type 'yes'...or maybe I was about to type 'no'. I hadn't decided.
"BELLA! Have you called him?" Alice bellowed, bursting into the room, wide eyed.
"Who?"
She growled at me, clapping my iPad shut and throwing it to one side, "Jake. We need one more act and he keeps saying no. Please Bells, he'll do it if you ask, I know he will. Pleeeeaaase? I didn't make you do the date auction, please just do me this one little favour!"
With one of Alice's musicians had dropping out at the last minute, Jasper out of town and everyone else already booked she was trying to convince Jake - who, she swore, was an amazing singer-songwriter when he wasn't bashing out heavy rock with his fellow Wolves - to step in. But Jake, surprisingly, was too shy to get up there solo and, according to Alice, I was the only one who could save the day. Normally it wouldn't be a big deal but twenty eight ignored phone calls and three declined dates over the course of a couple of weeks really wasn't getting through to him.
"Fine. What's the number? You owe me big fucking time."
She offered me her cell, "he's on hold."
"Jesus Alice," I groaned and took the phone from her, "hi Jake. How are you?"
The room heaved with people all clasping their complementary first drink and checking out the talent around them. It reminded me of a high school dance, all the girls in their best cleavage-baring dresses grouping together like piranhas watching their prey - over-gelled boys putting on the bravado.
Urgh.
Rose tapped me on the shoulder and passed me a mic, "let's get this show on the road."
Throwing back the last of my wine I cleared my throat and began with a loud, "Good Evening Seattle!"
A roar went up as the crowd turned, looking up at me standing on the bar. Because that's the safest place for me to be.
"Welcome to The Night Before The Morning After, I'm Bella Swan and you all know my beloved co-host and wonderful friend Alice Brandon...where are you Al? Hooked up already?"
I scanned the heaving masses but couldn't see her until an amplified 'whoop' went up from somewhere to the left of me, "I'm down here Bella, checking out the boys on your behalf and let me tell you, there are some fiiiine young men down here. Who have I got here?"
"Uh...hi," she had her mic up in some nervous looking dude's face, "I'm Eric."
"And are you looking for luurrrrve Eric?"
The poor guy looked like a rabbit in headlights, "um...maybe...I don't know…"
"Well maybe tonight you'll find the lady of your dreams Eric," Alice grinned before forcing her way through the crowd to a woman with long blond hair and a tiny, tiny dress on, "and this, ladies and gents is Jessica, is that right?"
I sat down on the edge of the bar, my legs dangling over the side and watching as Alice grilled the woman about her ideal man - tall, dark and, wouldn't you know it, handsome. And preferably a doctor, lawyer or politician. Al didn't break it to her that those guys were already snapped up long ago and she was looking at the leftovers right now.
"When you arrived," I announced, "we asked for volunteers for our first dating game of the night - we've picked fifteen willing ladies to humiliate...sorry, check out...a few of our most eligible guys. So let's play!"
Rose and her production assistants Alec and Jane set up a panel of ladies on stools, each holding a large card, red on one side, green on the other. I took the opportunity to grab a drink before introducing the panel's first victim, Mike. He was kind of douchey so I didn't mind so much watching as the women turned their cards to red - nine of them at his appearance and five as he showed off his 'talent', which consisted of making his pecs 'dance' - until one was left standing, her green card raised aloft. Apparently Jessica's second choice was short, blond and average with a career in the exciting world of camping supplies.
"So Mike," I asked him in front of the rapt audience, "where will you be taking Jessica on your first date? Let's find out from the lovely Rose."
Apparently the team had done a fuckawesome job of conning free dates out of sponsors and the new couple were being sent to some five star spa out on Mercer Island.
Alice and I took it in turns to host rounds of the game until our contestants were auctioned off and then introduced our first musical act of the night.
Jake cleared his throat and re-adjusted his microphone stand several times before he started.
I had to hand it to him, with a deep, mellow voice and heartfelt lyrics he was really something. Gone was the grinning rock-buffoon to be replaced with a gentle giant of a man, his guitar dwarfed under his large hands. He glanced over at me as he sang, making me blush and Al nudge me in the side and whisper 'huh? Huh?" over and over again until I 'accidentally' spilled a little wine on her silk top.
"Bella!" she complained, shoving me so that my own wine sloshed onto the hateful high heels she'd persuaded me in to, "come and help me clean up."
"Gladly," I agreed, turning my back on Jake.
We weaved through the crowd, stopping to answer questions and sign the odd autograph before we eventually clocked the bathroom. Rose stood just in front of the door talking to some hulk of a guy with a serious frat boy vibe about him, pressing a palm against his chest and laughing her head off like the dude was comic genius. Maybe he was. Interrupting the moment I tapped her on the shoulder. She turned around, glaring at us.
"Al had a little accident," I told her, "we're going to go get her cleaned up."
"Fine, fine," Rose waved us away, "you've got a few minutes."
Alice gave me a look and once we were safely locked away in the disabled toilet whispered "what the hell was all that about?"
Attacking her with wet tissues I shrugged, "I don't know but that was NOT Rose out there."
Rosalie Hale was the ultimate ice queen and would never, repeat never be caught flirting like that in a million years. Despite outward appearances, and in fairness Rose did like them built like Thor, maybe the big bear was something special.
"Have you seen him before?"
Alice shook her head, batting away my hand from the mess I was only making worse on her shirt, "she would've mentioned him if he'd been on the scene before now, right?"
It was nearing midnight and all the Al-planned activities were done with, giving us a chance to hang out while the production guys packed away the PA system.
"Not a bad job, even if I do say so myself," Maggie crowed, raising a champagne bottle which she then took a swig from, not offering a glass nor credit to anybody else.
"Yeah, great job Maggie," Alice sighed.
Rose appeared behind Maggie then, holding her middle finger up at the back of her boss' head, "I think Alice and Bella can take some of the credit."
Maggie whipped round and gave Rose a tight smile, "sure," she said before disappearing into the thinning crowd. Our guests had started moving on, most heading for late night clubs but some leaving for home, and not necessarily their own.
"So…." Rose dragged out the word, leaning over us to order a vodka and coke before she continued, "I met this guy…"
"The big one lingering over there and mentally undressing you?" I asked, nodding to where he stood, ignoring a random woman in favour of making gooey eyes in our general direction.
She nodded, "mmmm."
"Jesus Hale, has he got you hypnotised?" Alice asked, wide eyed.
"Roofies."
"Bella!" she snapped, "he's just...I dunno. He's just a really nice guy."
He lumbered towards us then, limping slightly, although whether it was an affectation or an injury it was hard to tell. I prayed to God that it was the latter because if Rose was doing the love at first sight thing with a guy with a pimp limp we were gonna have to have serious words.
"Girls," Rose beamed as he put an arm around her waist, "this is Em. Em, these are my girls."
We both nodded in greeting just as Jake sidled up, swinging his guitar case.
"Did I do okay?" he asked nervously, swiping a paw across his forehead. I noticed that even he was dwarfed by Rose's new guy.
"You did great Jake, you really should do more of the guitar stuff," I told him.
His face lit up, "you think? I was so nervous but it was kinda cool to do something that's...y'know, just mine."
We stood in awkward silence for a minute that felt more like an hour.
"Do you...uh...do you feel like getting a drink somewhere?" Jake asked softly and I felt my heart drop a little bit.
"Well, I don't know. I'm kind of…" I looked desperately at Rose, begging her to help with my eyes.
"Sorry Jake," she smiled sadly, "we've already got plans."
"We have?" I asked then quickly checked myself, "we have. Sorry."
When it became clear he wasn't getting an invite to our mysterious activity he shuffled off, quietly suggesting I might like to call him sometime. I nodded my head at the same time as shaking it in an approximation of one of those dashboard bobbleheads.
"Alec!" Rose yelled, "you guys okay to wrap things up here?"
The junior assistant nodded, shouting back that they were pretty much done.
"Great, then let's go!" she grinned, linking an arm through one of Em's.
"Go where?" I asked, trailing behind, "'cause I'm going home to get this slut-wear off of my person."
"You look cute," Alice whined, "you should wear dresses more often."
As if on cue I went over on a heel, stumbling into Em's rock hard back and apologising profusely, adding, "yeah, this look's really working for me."
"It's not late," Rose turned, her hands on her hips, "and I promised I'd go meet Em's friends."
I asked her how 'I' had become 'us' and she gave me yet another of her looks, "jeez Bella, when did you turn into such a party pooper? What? You got some knitting to be getting back to?"
I didn't really want to tell her, or Alice and the random 'Em' guy, that actually I just wanted to be snuggled up in my bed with Google Chat and a certain Englishman. So instead of arguing I trailed along behind them towards some place where we were supposed to be meeting a bunch of colleagues of some dude we didn't even know.
"Will you at least crack a smile?" Alice whispered before we entered the upmarket cocktail bar with its fancy leather easy chairs and polished brass fittings, "for whatever reason, and I'm not saying the two hundred pounds of muscle and twinkling blue eyes doesn't have something to do with it, Rose is really into this random."
"Fine," I had to admit I'd been kind of an ass to my friends lately, only wanting to spend time with a man on the other end of a protocol. Chastened, I plastered a smile on my face and followed Al over to where Rose was being introduced to a small group of off duty suits.
"And these gals are Rose's friends…"
"Hi! I'm Alice and this sourpuss is Bella. Despite appearances she doesn't bite."
Three men and two women leant over to shake hands with us but it was the one that didn't leave his seat that caught my attention. Not least because he was staring at me in something that looked kinda like disbelief.
That and the fact that he was the most beautiful person I had ever seen.
Did I just call a guy 'beautiful'? Grip: get one.
I glanced behind me to check I wasn't in the way of a parade of elephants or a horrific accident but no, he was just staring at me. To be on the safe side I wiped at the sides of my mouth with a finger, making sure there wasn't unexpected ketchup there, by which time he'd lowered his gaze to the tabletop, concentrating on something apparently even more intriguing than my face.
Interrupting some frantic whispering I told Alice and Rose I was going to the bar - although the company-funded wine haul was impressive I had a hankering for a good ol' JD and Coke. Translation: I needed to not be so close to Beautiful Staring Stranger (BSS to his friends. Probably) and much, much nearer to the booze.
As I took a spot in front of the bartender someone spoke, right into my ear, "I swear I didn't plan this."
I knew that voice. I fucking knew that voice.
I spun on my stool and he was there, incredibly close with his ridiculously handsome - no, beautiful - face all...there. Edward Masen-Frickin'-Cullen.
Hurrah! Well this chapter was a pain - every time I sat down to write some bugger was in my ear needing something. Anyway, here it is and here's Edward and Emmett.
A nod to Bellebiter for the 'wheat from the chaff' thing. Cheers m'dear.
Masses of thanks again for your reviews, your follows and your favs. 42 over 5 chapters might be nothing for other writers with their thousands but for me *wipes away tear* they're just lovely. EQx