A/N: Oh, lovelies. Of course the fic was named after the song. :) That was Mo's request - fic the song. :D Guess she figures I should start living up to the lyrical part of my name, eh?

I'm going to warn you up front not to assume and to remember we're in Edward's head and Edward's head alone. :)

"Spit it out. What's wrong?"

Edward looked over the table at his twin sister and raised an eyebrow. "What?"

Alice raised her eyebrow right back, and she was better at it. "You're chewing your straw to death. Your oral fixation is always worse when something's going on in your head. So spit it out." She wrinkled her nose and rolled her eyes when he quite literally spit the straw out. "What's wrong?" she asked again in exaggerated irritation.

He considered the question. He knew better than to think he could brush it off. When his sister caught a scent, it was impossible to shake her. More than that, it was unnatural to keep things from his twin, and this seemed like a big deal. Even in his head the words sounded ridiculous. He couldn't tell her everything because it was ridiculous.

"You keep in touch with the people in Forks, don't you?" he asked, aiming for a tone of nonchalance. He knew full well what the answer was. When Facebook got popular, Alice had wasted no time in finding the friends she'd collected from all their moves.

"A few. At least, I'm Facebook friends with them. I talk with Jessica Stanley every now and again, though. She's getting married to Eric Yorkie, which is hilarious. She hated him in high school, remember?"

He didn't, but it hardly mattered. Alice continued speaking without waiting for his answer. "Anyway, why do you ask?" She made her eyes wide and innocent as she took a sip of her drink, looking at him over the rim of her coffee cup. "Anyone in particular you were thinking about? As if I have to ask."

"What does that mean?"

She straightened up, putting her cup down. "Come on, Edward. This isn't rocket science. In all the places we've lived you never really got close to anyone, so I know you're probably not thinking of old friends. You got along with Ben Cheney okay, but I bet you didn't even remember his name."

That was taking it a bit far. Edward indeed remembered Ben Cheney, but he said nothing because he hadn't thought of the kid-the man, now-in years.

"You have to be thinking of… Oh, God. What was her name?" Alice snapped her fingers. "That girl you were mooney-eyed over. Becky? Betsy? I know. Becca!"

"Bella."

The victorious grin on Alice's face told him he'd been played. Of course she remembered the girl's name. She had an uncanny memory. She was just looking for ammunition, and she'd doubtless found it in the defensive note in his voice. "Oh, right," she said, her tone saccharine sweet. "Bella Swan. The chief of police's kid. I sent her a friend request a while back, but she declined it." Alice shrugged, indicating it wasn't a big deal.

"I wasn't in love with her."

"Oh, please."

"I didn't-" Edward started, but then he stopped. He reminded himself it wasn't mature to hit his sister before he went on. "Fine. Whatever."

"So she was the one you were asking about then?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

Edward narrowed his eyes. "Who knows? I was reminiscing. Do I need a reason?"

"Since that was obviously not the real reason, yeah. You're going to have to tell me at some point, but I'll let it go for now." Alice leaned forward on the table, her head cocked to the side in that way she had when she was collating data, as she called it. He always imagined there were strings of code running behind her eyes. "Let's see. What do I know about Bella Swan? I know she left Forks after high school, but that's no surprise." She tapped her fingers on the table, but after another moment, she shook her head. "Nope. I got nothing. But don't worry. I'll get my people on it."

Edward threw a balled up napkin at her. "You don't have people, you loon."

"Says you," she said and stuck her tongue out at him.

~0~

A week later, Edward had almost forgotten he asked Alice about Bella. He hadn't forgotten about Bella. In fact, he'd been back to her site more times than he wanted to admit.

He couldn't get over it. He wasn't going to get over it.

But he forgot he'd involved his sister, however little, in it until she dragged him out for dinner away from Los Angeles. She claimed she wanted to try a new restaurant she'd heard of. In Orange County.

They arrived only to find out that the restaurant wasn't open. For reasons that, at the time, defied Edward's imagination, Alice insisted on going in anyway. The door was open even though the space inside was in an obvious state of disarray-tarp strewn everywhere and chairs and tables stacked haphazardly. But his twin marched inside as though she owned the place.

There were two women hard at work. One, a statuesque blond, was behind the counter cleaning nooks and crannies. She was perhaps a few years older than he was and stunning to look at. She, however, was not the one who caught his eye.

The other woman was a brunette-a short one. She was perched at the top of a ladder, stretched up on her tip toes, working to paint the hideous, salmon colored walls with primer.

Edward had no idea what the hell he thought he was doing. More to the point, he didn't think about what he was doing. He saw her on the ladder leaning too far over, stretching up while the thing teetered perilously, and he shouted, "Look out!"

What ensued was nothing short of complete chaos. The brunette, understandably startled by a man who was not supposed to be in her shop yelling at her, jolted. The movement threw her off balance. Her arms pinwheeled, sending primer everywhere, and she fell, paint cans and brushes raining down after her.

Edward raced forward, but he was brought up short by the blond woman pushing him back. "Buddy, what the hell?" she yelled, sparing a glare in his direction before she turned to the brunette. "Bella, are you okay? What's broken?"

The damage couldn't have been too bad as the brunette was sitting up, obviously conscious. Though Alice tried to hold him back-he was, after all, a strange man who had barged into their obviously closed restaurant shouting-Edward rushed over and dropped down to his knees in front of the brunette, intending to see if she was really all right.

She raised her head and the whole world slowed to a stop. Edward froze, the breath leaving his body as though he'd belly flopped into a pool filled with concrete.

There was something strangely macabre about the way the primer splashed over her-dripping from her hair, spreading from her cheek, dashed on her clothes like a blood spatter pattern, stark white instead of deep crimson. But that wasn't what sent Edward's world into a dizzying tailspin. It was the deep brown eyes that caught him. Bedroom eyes, he thought, though that didn't make any sense given she was looking back at him in confusion. Her lips were fleshy peach and parted in an 'o' of surprise, but he saw ruby red turned up in a sexy smirk.

Bella, the blond woman had called her.

Edward was too disoriented to know how to react. There was increasing evidence the woman in front of him was Bella Swan. Bella's was the face and body that had flashed through his mind approximately every seven seconds for the last few weeks. Ever since he'd seen her in…

Well, it was probably better not to think about it just then.

He knew he was staring but it took him a full minute to figure out she was staring right back.

She turned to blink at the blond, her expression and her voice dazed. "How hard did I hit my head?"

~0~

There was a cacophony of raised, confused voices but eventually everything was sorted out.

Alice spun the truth a bit for obvious reasons, explaining that she'd been having a conversation about vegan dining with Jessica when she happened to mention both that Bella was opening up a vegetarian/vegan restaurant and that she had moved to southern California right after high school.

"You remembered me?" Bella asked, still absently searching her head for bumps that didn't exist-she'd fallen more on her arm and ass than anything.

"Sure," Alice said. "Did you remember us?"

Edward may have been imagining things, but he thought he saw Bella glance at him. "I remember you," she said, returning her gaze to some undetermined point at her paint-smeared knee.

By then the blond, Bella's business partner, Tanya, had finished helping Bella stretch each of her limbs, testing to see that everything worked. She seemed fine-suffering from no more than bumps, bruises, and a sore arm. Both sincerely sorry and insatiably curious, Edward asked if he could take them all out for dinner. They agreed.

Bella went home to clean the paint off while Edward and Alice stayed behind to help Tanya clean up the mess.

Edward worked in silence. He couldn't get his head to wrap around a thought. The duality of the Bella he'd found online-vixen temptress, all tattooed skin and perfect curves-and the woman he'd re-met just a half hour before. That Bella was more along the lines of what he'd imagined she'd be like-comfortable in faded jeans and a tatty shirt she wouldn't mind getting ruined by paint.

It took him a while to recognized the anxiety that had his skin prickling. He was turned on, but it was a confused state of being. He didn't want to be turned on, and he honestly wasn't sure if he should feel guilty about it. There was also a sense that he couldn't wait to see her again, mostly because he wanted to know what she would wear. It was one thing to come across her when she was painting, quite another to see what she looked like dressed in normal, casual clothes.

Get a grip, he thought in the direction of his lower extremity. The damn thing was annoyingly alert. It's not like she's going to show up in anything from that site.

Still, before he could help himself, he pictured her in Daisy Dukes, a jean vest, and nothing else. He closed his eyes, glad he was kneeling and facing away from his sister and Tanya. He was annoyed because she'd put those images in his head, and now he couldn't stop thinking about what she was going to look like when she walked in the door.

And what she looked like underneath her clothes.

Footsteps approached and entered the open door of the restaurant. Edward counted to ten before he looked over. Bella was standing there. She looked…

Normal. Beautiful but normal.

She was wearing jeans-cut better and not as faded as the ones she'd had on before-and a nice shirt. Her hair was loose-free of paint but also not falling in silky waves of one of her photos. She had on some makeup, but only enough to accentuate her features. It was a natural look.

Edward couldn't tell if he was disappointed.

Tanya went to her and held her arm out, clucking her tongue at the bruise that was spreading from her elbow to her wrist. "You're sure it's not broken."

"Yeah." Bella winced. "Moving it isn't the most pleasant experience, but I'll live."

"I'm really sorry," Edward said for the hundredth time.

She looked at him and smiled. "I told you. Don't worry about it. Or, if you prefer, take us to The Twisted Vine, ply us with good wine, and you'll be forgiven several times over."

Edward smiled back. "Deal."

After Bella and Tanya had locked up the restaurant, they made their way a few blocks over to Fullerton's busy downtown. The Twisted Vine was a wine bar, and soon enough they were settled with wine and tapas. Soon they fell into the natural conversation of old acquaintances trying to find a common ground.

"The first day I was at school, Jessica had a whole list of kids who had moved to Forks since kindergarten," Bella said. "I remember thinking it was funny because she talked about them like they were collector's items or something." She looked up at Edward and flashed him a grin. "You two and your brother made up half the list."

"Who else?" Edward asked.

"Mike Newton came in middle school." She turned to Tanya. "Handsy, horny bastard. I made the mistake of going to prom with him senior year. He was sweet for the most part. He kept trying to dance with his hands on my ass, but whatever. That was the style back then."

"Back then?" Tanya scoffed. "Girl, next time I go clubbing, you're coming with me. Obviously you haven't gotten out much."

Edward bit the inside of his cheek. Bella just scoffed before she continued her story.

"After the dance, he just assumed we were going to have sex because he thought that was what everyone did on senior prom. Like he thought 'Will you go to prom with me?' was code for 'lets get it on' and all the dresses and limos and bad fruit punch was a set up for lying to our parents." She shook her head, rubbing her arms as though self-conscious. "He was persistent for a while there."

Edward felt as though ice had been dumped down his back.

Was that it then? Survivors of sexual abuse sometimes had a warped sense of their own sexuality. They were often promiscuous and kinky, pushing their limits and their partners limits as a means of exerting control where it had been robbed before.

Was that what had happened to make Bella do what she did?

"Anyway," Bella said, drawing Edward out of his dark thoughts. "That's Mike Newton. Before Mike, there were two kids who moved to Forks in elementary school, but they had moved away again before any of us got there. Who knows what their names were."

"Sounds like unless you were born there, you probably wanted to get the hell out," Tanya said.

"We didn't stick around, that's for sure," Alice said. "We were there halfway through freshman year and all of junior year. But then again, we didn't leave because Forks sucks."

"Though it does," Edward said, and Bella snickered.

"Didn't you go to Alaska?" Bella asked.

"We did."

Tanya wrinkled her nose. "Alaska. That's so random."

"Random is a good description of our moving habits back then." Edward tilted back the rest of his wine and signaled the waiter that he'd have another.

"Army brat?" Tanya asked.

Edward and Alice shook their heads in unison. "Mom manages the restoration of historic homes and buildings," Edward said. "She does the research, consults historical experts, and oversees the work done."

"That's really cool, actually." Bella rolled the edge of the glass along her lip in an absent way that nonetheless caught and held Edward's attention. "What the hell was she doing in Forks?"

Edward chuckled. That had been his thought exactly when they first arrived in Forks. Did the town have any buildings worth saving? "You'd be surprised at how many of Forks's buildings have historical value, but it was actually a building in Port Angeles she was working on that time. We got stuck in Forks because they had an opening in the hospital, so it was convenient for Dad since his hours were weird."

"Well, I guess it was good for us it worked out that way," Bella said. "We wouldn't all be here now if you'd stayed in Port Angeles."

Edward watched the timid smile that tugged at her lips as she looked first at Alice but then, lingeringly, at him. Warmth spread across his chest like spilled ink on paper. He held her gaze. "I guess that means it's also a good thing you wanted to get out of Forks or we wouldn't be here."

Her smile turned back to the more confident one she'd been wearing all evening. "God yes. There wasn't any way I was staying there past high school. I love my dad, and I'm glad I got to spend some time with him, but I'm just not a Washington person. The cold and the wet…" She shuddered. "I don't like it."

Tanya elbowed her, a wicked glint in her eyes. "If Bella's all wet, she prefers to be hot."

Bella's cheeks, already pink from the wine, darkened. She darted a look from Edward to Alice and then down to the table as she downed the last of her second glass of wine. "You're terrible, Tanya."

Edward cleared his throat, unreasonably irritated at Tanya's crude remark. He wasn't a prude by any stretch of the imagination, but they were virtual strangers. "So does that mean you've always been a California girl?" he asked, getting them back on track.

"I lived in the area when I was little," she said. "I guess I had good memories. It's not as hot here as it is in Phoenix where I grew up, but it's still warm and sunny."

"Unlike Forks," Alice said, and Bella nodded.

"Right. Unlike Forks and most of Washington. So I applied to colleges down here, and here I am."

Edward straightened up, realizing only when the waiter came by with more wine that he'd been leaning across the table. He picked up his glass and tilted it, clinking it against hers. "Well, I'll toast to that."

~0~

The conversation had flowed naturally. Edward and Alice related how they'd followed their parents after high school from Alaska to Europe and spent two years as hired hands with their mother before she moved on to the next project in California. They'd gotten into rival schools- USC for Edward and UCLA for Alice-and had stayed.

By that time, they'd all had more than enough wine to get to the point where everything any of them said was profoundly interesting or uproariously funny. Tanya and Alice had gotten enthralled in something that bored Edward to tears, so he offered to walk Bella home so they could talk.

They walked in amiable silence for a time, but then Bella gave a slight, wry laugh.

"What?" Edward asked.

"Oh, nothing," she said too quickly.

"No. What is it?"

"Nothing. I was just thinking."

"What were you thinking?"

"Nothing. It's embarrassing. Just forget it."

He looked at her, noticing she was looking anywhere but him. "You can't make statements like that and expect me not to die of curiosity."

She scoffed, rolling her eyes and her head to look over at him. "If you die of curiosity, don't expect me to feel sorry for you. I will laugh in your corpse's face, you dramatic ass."

He smirked. "Just tell me."

Something flickered in her eyes as she looked at him, and all at once he could see perfectly the shy, innocent girl who had sat beside him in Biology. "Fine." She took a deep breath. "When we were in high school… I had a huge crush on you."

Edward's step faltered. He didn't know what to say at first, and he was too busy fighting the ridiculous grin that threatened to pull his lips to either side of his cheeks.

Bella made a disgruntled noise. "I told you. It's embarrassing. God, I'm a little drunk. Just forget it."

He touched her arm lightly. "I can't forget about it."

"No?"

"No. I, uh…" Oh, for fuck's sake. Edward knew he was blushing. Blushing, for fuck's sake, as though he was that awkward, pimply-faced kid again. That kid would have had no clue what to do if a girl told him she had a crush on him. In fact, Edward of now really had no clue with to do with that information. Who would have wanted the the kid he'd been? "I had a crush on you too."

She stopped short and he turned to face her. "Really?" she asked.

"Yeah. The huge kind," he said with a grin, echoing her sentiment.

The air around them turned. They were standing so close together, too close to be almost perfect strangers. Both a little drunk, they swayed a bit, each of them pressing into each other's intimate space, fingers grazing sides accidentally. For some reason, Edward's heart was threatening to pound out of his chest.

Her tongue darted out to lick her lips.

"I wanted to ask you to prom," he said suddenly, unaware he was going to make that confession until it was out there.

She was staring at his mouth. "I think three boys asked me out that year."

Something in Edward's gut curled at the idea. "Oh?"

"Kids fighting over the shiny toy," she said, her eyes finally meeting his. "I would have said yes to you."

"Oh."

He wished he had known that. For a lot of reasons, he wished he'd known. He looked at her lips when her tongue darted out again.

She shifted her feet in a stumble. He put his hand out to steady her only to end up rocking himself. Then it was her hand on his arm, holding him until his balance was restored. He swallowed hard. "I should get you home."

"Right," she said and nodded.

They started walking again, and true to his word, Edward walked her home. He squeezed her hand at the door, told her he was sorry again, but he was glad they'd reconnected, and he left her house with her phone number.

A/N: Many thanks to barburella and songster.

SO!

What are we thinking, chaps?