A/N: Hey everyone! So, I know it's been some months since I last updated, and I apologize. Had some things come up that I'm sure no one really wants to hear about, but things are finally calming down so I can write now.

Ownage is all SM's.

Now for a little recap: Bella met Edward by bumping into him and finding something of his, only to lose it. He came after her and demanded it back; when she told him she lost it, he made her his slave for the foreseeable future. But they started to get closer as she made him open up and got to know his cousin Jasper. She admitted that she may have some feelings for him and he agreed to let her in a little more. When we left off, he actually asked her opinion on a family problem and complimented her on her lip gloss,driving off and leaving her speechless.


Chapter 11- Green-Eyed

Over the next few weeks, I got closer to Edward little by little. He took my suggestion, so I made it a habit to ask him how he was doing every day. He never gave me details, but he had stopped snapping or tensing up when I would ask him and answered me more readily. Everyone had gotten used to the sight of us together so there were no whispers and stares now, just the occasional weird or lingering look.

It was a given that we would go to lunch together and class together. But there was something different- I no longer was his slave. He had never officially announced it, but he no longer commanded or even asked me to do anything for him. In one way, I was relieved- relieved that I was still beside him without getting frazzled from all of the ordering. But in one way, I was disappointed- by that commanding, I had had chances to battle him and talk with him more. And what I missed most- though I refused to admit it to myself- was the teasing. He no longer invaded my space as he pleased; instead, he always kept a little distance between us. I didn't know how to change that.

I felt a little bad when I saw Jasper; I truly liked him and honestly, I'd liked talking with him at the lunch table. I wanted to talk to him to see if we could meet another time, but since lunch was the only place I ever saw him, I never got that chance. But then I remembered he was Edward's cousin, so I determined that I would ask him.

I packed up my books and Edward sat in his desk, waiting for me to finish.

"Done," I said, getting up. He got up after me and began walking and I followed behind him. We walked down the halls filled with other students talking until I mustered up my courage and said, "Edward."

"What?" he asked, throwing a glance behind him.

"How close is Jasper to you?"

He slowed a little, letting me catch up to walk beside him. Even just walking next to him, my arm brushing his lightly because of the students in the hallway, made my heart speed up a little.

"Why are you asking about Jasper?" he said, looking down at me, an eyebrow raised.

"I just…wanted to know," I said weakly.

He didn't answer and we continued walking down the hallway, walking past the cafeteria and finally getting where there were no students. When it was finally quiet, he said, "He's my cousin, so we're close. Why?"

"I wanted to know… if you had his phone number?"

"Phone number?" His voice became abrupt as he stopped suddenly. I took a few steps past him before I realized that he had stopped, and I turned around to see him standing there, looking at me with an unreadable expression on his face. No one could top his poker face. "Why do you need that?" he asked, crossing his arms.

I felt like I was treading on light ground, though I didn't know why. He seemed to have a slightly forbidding aura coming off of him. Carefully, I said, "Well… we talked during lunch, but now I go to lunch with you… so I thought maybe I could talk with him by phone or something…"

"So, you're saying you'd rather eat lunch with him?" he asked, his tone deadpan, his arms still crossed, his face still unreadable, but that formidable force felt stronger.

I felt myself getting confused. Why was he reacting like this? "That's not it," I protested, not sure what I should say. "We just… connected really well…" I trailed off when his eyes flashed, but it was too late. Wrong choice of words.

"Connected…" he said. He said the word as if it were a loaded grenade, something that seemed small but somehow contained an explosive power. For some reason, I felt myself getting flustered.

"Not connected… just, we got along well from the start..." I said lamely as he kept staring at me.

It was silent for a moment, then I said, "Forget I said anything," quickly, looking away and turning to continue walking to the exit door.

I heard footsteps behind me, then felt a hand grab on my arm, and he turned me around.

"Do you like Jasper or something?" His face wasn't as blank anymore; there was a sort of spark in his eyes.

"N..no," I said, really confused now. Had he forgotten when he asked me how I felt about him? Well, we hadn't talked about it since then, but that was beside the point. I hadn't been around Jasper enough to like him in that way.

He continued looking down at me, then suddenly let me go. "Whatever," he said, starting to walk.

"Edwa-" I started, but he cut me off.

"Go eat lunch with Jasper." He almsot spat the words out as he sped up his pace and slammed out of the exit door, not turning to look back at me. I stood there, wondering what in the world had just happened.

~*TEM*~

I sat down at my table with my tray in my hands and looked across at Jasper, who was absorbed in something on his cell phone screen. Reaching over, I snatched it out of his hands, smiling when he looked up in surprise and his mouth opened to automatically protest. His face changed to a smile when he saw me.

"Hey, Bella! Long time no see," he said. I smiled and handed him back his phone.

"You eat here every day now?" I asked, picking up my fork to dig into my food.

"Yea. Though a certain someone left me after only two days," he said, frowning at me playfully.

"I couldn't help it."

"Yea, I know."

We ate in comfortable silence before I asked, "So, how have you been?"

He looked up from his tray. "Good, I guess," he said, as if he hadn't thought about it.

"Nothing's been wrong?" I asked. A slight shadow passed over his face before he put his usual smile back on and said, "Nope."

I felt far more comfortable with Jasper than Edward; there was no tension, and I felt that I could ask him questions freely. He could worm his way out of them easily anyway. "Something happened a few weeks ago, right? To you and Edward," I said.

He looked at me as if he were trying to assess how much I knew. "Edward told me a little… about his dad," I confessed hesitantly, unsure of how much I should admit I knew.

His eyes widened. "He did? He talked about his dad?"What did he tell you?" he said, leaning forward earnestly and almost dropping his fork in his surprise.

"Well… he didn't tell me so much as inferred… that they had some kind of disagreement."

"What did he say?" Jasper pressed, and I tried to remember the exact way Edward worded it.

"He said something like…wanting to do something you want to do when you feel obligated to do something that someone else wants you to do? Something like that," I said. As if that weren't vague at all. But Jasper nodded, sitting back in his seat and crossing his arms as he eyed me.

"So he told you that much," he said speculatively. I sat quietly for a minute, wondering if this was part of the secret that Edward seemed to be guarding so preciously, part of the reason why he was so stubborn about opening up.

"What…happened?" I asked.

He continued to look at me, his eyes assessing again, then set down his fork. "It is a problem with his dad, and my uncle. He…got sick," he said, and I felt my eyes widen.

"Got sick? Was it horrible?"

"Oh, he's fine now!" Jasper assured me, no doubt seeing the worry that immediately showed on my face. "But it was serious." My mind went back to that day when Edward had suddenly been urgent, the same day that he had thanked me. And the same day that Jasper had been running out of the school so frantically.

"Is that why you ran out of the school like that two weeks ago?" I asked him, my mind not on my food at all.

"Yea," he said. "Anyway… let's just say, he tried to guilt Edward into doing something he doesn't want to do." Well, that was something parents did. I remembered when my mom would guilt me into doing something by saying she's taking care of me and letting me stay in her house, even though I didn't work. But it must have been serious if it could make Edward, who was usually so confident and assured, waver.

"What was it?" I asked curiously. Jasper looked at me for a second and then laughed. I felt myself bristle a little. Nothing about this was funny to me.

"What's so funny?"

"I'm sorry," he said, raising his hands in surrender and smiling at me appeasingly, his blue eyes twinkling. "It's just that you're the most curious girl I've ever met. I see what Edward means."

What Edward means? Had he been talking about me? I felt a blush rise to my face at the thought and willed it away. I was about to open my mouth to ask him what that meant when he said that, but he went on.

"That's all I can tell you. Don't ever bring it up! He might kill me if he knows I told you even this much," he said as he pointed his fork at me in warning.

"I got it," I said, beginning to eat again and wondering what Edward was doing at that moment before I began talking with Jasper again.

~*TEM*~

"Did you enjoy lunch yesterday?"

I looked at Edward in surprise after his question; he usually didn't talk to me the moment we got in class. He sat there, slouched as usual, his arms crossed and his feet spread wide on either side of his desk. His face looked somewhat surly, and I wondered what was wrong with him.

"Yes," I said cautiously, and his lips pursed a little. I couldn't help but look at them, so pink and soft, when he did that, but snapped my mind off of them.

"What did you talk about?"

I was about to tell him we were talking about him when I remembered Jasper's warning. So instead I said, "Just, you know, about school and our hobbies and things like that."

"Things like what?" he said, his voice rising a little as he sat up in his seat to turn to look at me. I shrunk back a little; he looked frustrated for some reason, his eyes a little tense, his eyebrows drawn down slightly. I saw Alice watching from the back of the class us out of the corner of my eye.

I tried to calm him down even though I was absolutely clueless as to why he was mad. "Just, you know…normal things," I said in a calm tone, smiling at him, which seemed to make him madder.

"Normal things my ass," he grumbled, turning away from me and facing forward.

Confused, I asked him a little timidly, "What's wrong?"

He shot a look at me out of the corner of his eye and snapped, "Nothing."

I looked at him a little longer, then turned forward as the teacher came in the class. What was wrong with him?

~*TEM*~

By Thursday, I was thoroughly confused and tired of it. Edward sent me to the lunchroom everyday and I went because he told me to. But then the next day he would be snappy, asking sarcastic questions and making comments. I asked him if he wanted me to go to lunch with him, and all I got back was a "Why would I?"

I entered the lunchroom Thursday feeling tired and frazzled. I just didn't understand why Edward was being so moody. I had thought we were getting better, but it felt like I had somehow knocked us way backwards and it was wearing on me.

I sat down with the sigh at the lunch table, looking at my dumplings unenthusiastically. For some reason I wasn't that hungry, remembering Edward leaving class as soon as the bell rang, not looking back at me.

"Why the long face?" Jasper asked, sitting down across from me.

I just sighed heavily again, picking up my fork. "It's nothing," I said listlessly, stirring the dumplings around in the gravy mix.

"That doesn't look like an 'it's nothing' face," he said, raising an eyebrow at me.

Sighing, knowing by now that it would be useless to avoid him as he was more perceptive than he looked, I set my fork down. "Jasper, where did you eat before you started eating here with me?"

"With Edward in our building," he said, looking a bit surprised by my question out of the blue.

"That must be it," I said. Maybe he was angry because I was taking away his time with his close cousin. I would be angry too if some girl came and took away a best friend of mine. That is, if I had a best friend.

"Must be what?"

"Edward seems to be mad at me these days because I come to eat with you, but I don't know why. He's probably mad I took away your lunch time with him," I said a bit dejectedly, trying not to show him how much it upset me.

"Edward's mad because we're eating together?" he asked, looking surprised.

I nodded, staring down at my dumplings. It was quiet for a moment, and then all of a sudden Jasper started laughing. Loudly. I stared at him, feeling a little embarrassed as other students quieted down and shot questioning glances at our table. He laughed until his face was almost red, hitting his hand on the table, bent over his dumplings.

"Jasper," I hissed, feeling my face going red. What was so funny?

"Sorry," he said in between laughs, trying to catch his breath and stop laughing. "Ah, this shit is so funny!"

"What is?" I said, feeling a little annoyed because I didn't know what he was laughing at.

"You." He shook his head as he started taking deep breaths, his face slowly returning to its regular color.

"Me?" I said a little indignantly. He seemed to find anything that bothered me funny.

"Not like that," he said, still smiling hugely. "You're surprisingly dense for the school's smartest kid, Bella."

"Dense?" I said, this time very indignantly. I mean, I watched people all of my life. How could he say I was dense?

"Edward isn't jealous because of you. He's jealous because of me." He smiled and picked up his fork to shovel food in his mouth. I watched, disgustingly fascinated, as my mind tried to catch up to what he'd just said.

"Because of you? Why?" I asked when it finally did.

"You're eating lunch with me," he said, as if it was obvious.

"So?"

"So-" he started, but suddenly someone came through the door to the cafeteria. Everyone hushed, including me, and stared wide-eyed at the sight of Edward in the doorway. He was breathing a little heavily and looked slightly agitated. His eyes scanned the cafeteria, coming to rest on me and Jasper, and narrowed a little before he started walking up to our table deliberately.

I felt my heart pounding and swallowed as he came to the table and looked at first me, then Jasper. He and Jasper seemed to be having some sort of conversation, then Jasper smirked. Edward rolled his eyes before he looked at me.

"Come with me," he said in his old authoritative tone.

I looked questioningly at Jasper, hesitating. Above me, I heard Edward make an impatient noise and suddenly his hand reached out and grabbed my wrist. I gasped in surprise as he pulled me up, and I barely had time to reach back and grab my backpack as he pulled me forcefully out of the cafeteria. And once again, buzzing started as the door closed and he led me down the hallway.


So... Edward's obviously upset. Wonder what his problem is? Couldn't be those green eyes of his, could it? Methinks you guys will like the next chapter. Jealousy makes us do some... strange things. Heh heh.

Thoughts on this chapter?

I'd love to hear from you. Thanks for reading!