Standard Disclaimer – I don't own Twilight or any of the characters from the story. All song selections have been provided by my amazing beta, NoWayWithWords. She is the greatest! She has set up a YouTube playlist that includes the songs chosen for the chapters. If you would like to check it out, see my profile for the link.

The song for this chapter is "What You Wish For" by Guster

Chapter 32 – From Bad to Worse

EPOV

My life feels like it's completely falling apart and it all ties back to Bella.

The European tour was miserable. I know a lot of that was due to the fact that I missed Bella so damn much. Jane had blatantly flirted with me before, but it got especially bad when I left Bella in New York. She just couldn't get it through her oversized skull that I did not want her. She assumed that with Bella out of the way, I would jump right into bed with her. Boy was she wrong. When I woke up with her straddling my lap on the bus, I had finally had enough. I canned her ass in a heartbeat. I didn't even think about my contract until I got the call from my producer saying that they wanted to meet with me about a lawsuit that I was being threatened with.

I didn't have the heart to tell mom about it, so I used the excuse that I was coming home for her birthday to disguise my reason for being in town. I knew mom would be pissed if she knew that I had another potential lawsuit coming up.

As soon as we made it back on US soil, I called Bella. I just had to hear her voice. I had spent too many nights dreaming about her, and had probably given myself ulcers from all of the worrying I'd been doing about whether or not she would want me back and if she was really sleeping with the guys I had seen her with on the Internet.

I was surprised and excited to find out that she was in New York, too. I told myself that it was fate that we were both in the same place at the same time, so I insisted that Peter and I go visit her. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I think I was expecting that everything would be exactly like it was before I left. I expected her to be in the same hotel room snuggled up in the same blankets, like time had frozen while I was gone and she would welcome me back with a sleepy grin. Boy was I wrong.

Bella was staying in a shitbag hotel that didn't even ask who the hell I was when I walked through the door and headed to the elevator. Peter even commented on it and said that he would never allow me to stay in such an unprotected place.

I was nervous when I knocked on the door to her room. I wasn't sure what I would say or do if she wasn't alone. I had seen several pictures of her with a mountain of a man lately. If she was with him, I would probably get my ass handed to me on a silver platter if I tried to start shit with him. That would be bad.

When she opened the door, it almost took my breath away. She was even more beautiful than I remembered. I wanted to wrap her up in my arms and never let her go, but she was acting very guarded, so I kept my eagerness in check.

With a little urging from Peter, we got down to the heart of things. I asked her about the guys and she asked me about Jane. Once we talked about it, I realized that we were both making stupid assumptions about each other due to our own insecurities.

Another thing that I realized as we were talking was that Bella honestly had no idea that I had feelings for her. She didn't hear my confession. A part of me was upset because I have never said those things to anyone before, but another part of me was relieved because I really had rushed and done things out of order. I needed her to be my girlfriend before I told her that I loved her, and then we could get married. I needed to do this right if I wanted our relationship to last, so the first step was making her my girlfriend.

Before I could explain myself, the conversation turned and Bella told me that she was trying to get some kid she met in Disney World, and my thoughts went into a tailspin. What the hell? It's not like bringing home a stray dog. Raising kids is serious shit. You can't just get the neighbors to toss a bowl of food over the fence for them when you go out of town. You have to be ready to commit your life to them. I have a hard enough time committing to the dates of a concert tour. I don't know that I'm ready to commit to something that serious and long term, especially with no warning.

The conversation pretty much turned to shit after that. I tried explaining my point of view, but just like always, my brain doesn't always do a good job of translating my feelings and thoughts into something that I can verbalize, so I end up saying things that everyone gets pissed about. When Bella pretty much kicked us out of the hotel room, I thought that I had really fucked up. When we got into the elevator and Peter punched me in the gut so hard that I fell to my knees gasping for air, I knew that I had fucked up.

"What the hell was that for?" I gasped as I tried to get back to my feet.

"That's for being such a fucking pussy. You have been whining about how much you miss Bella and about how you can't believe she is out there hanging around with other guys, and I sided with you because you told me that she knew how you felt. Now I find out that you were too big of a chicken shit to wake the girl up before you confessed your feelings. Dude, I let you cry on my fucking shoulder! Can you imagine how used she must have felt when she woke up and found that fucking note? What the hell were you thinking?"

"I was in a hurry and I didn't know what to say."

"It never ceases to amaze me that your dumb ass can write such beautiful love songs and ballads that tug at a grown man's heart strings, but you can't seem to come up with the simple words to tell the woman that you love how much you will miss her while you are gone."

He was right. I was a total fuck up when it came to expressing my own emotions. It was easy with music, but in a real-life situation, my brain seemed to freeze up and turn to a useless ball of goo. It wasn't that I didn't feel the emotions. I did. I just couldn't explain them if I tried. It was all so overwhelming to me. My brain just kind of short-circuited.

The meeting with my production company also went to hell. Jane was charging me with sexual harassment, saying that I was the one hitting on her all the time and that I fired her when she refused to have sex with me on the bus. She also claimed that I physically abused her on multiple occasions.

Of course, all of it was bullshit, but when I tried to say that, her lawyer produced pictures of me dragging her around by the arm when we were in Paris. I tried to explain that she was drunk and I was helping her walk, but they didn't buy it. Her lawyer said that Jane was graciously willing to keep it out of the press and drop all charges for a "reasonable fee of 10 million dollars to cover her mental anguish".

I told the lawyer to go fuck himself.

Once the douchebag left the room, the asshole from the production company reminded me that Jane and Tanya were part of my contract. They couldn't do anything about Tanya, because she quit, but they could do something about me firing Jane. He told me that I had no choice but to take her back to finish out the European tour. Thankfully Peter stepped in and said that we would think about it and get back with him. If I had opened my mouth, I would have told him to go fuck himself, too.

Mom was really happy to see me. At least that part of the trip went well. Dad bought her a new camera for her birthday, so she took a ridiculous amount of pictures of her damn dog. I swear that woman needs a hobby. After the party, Peter let it slip that I fired Jane and I was catching some shit about it. That's when mom went into super manager mode and started looking at how many tickets were sold for each venue.

With a little creative math on her part, she managed to come up with the idea that we only had one more major show left before the contract was over. It was going to take place next week and with the pending litigation, it would not be a good idea for Jane and I to travel together out of the country, so mom suggested that we hire a couple of locals to sing back up with Gianna. She said that she was pretty sure could get the arrangements made in two days. All I had to do was convince the production company that I was following their rules and not violating the contract.

That was a much harder task than I expected, but I eventually convinced them to see it my way. I'm sure they would have made me take it back if it weren't for the fact that the two women who were going to be my backup singers for that last big concert just so happened to be related to a huge Hollywood producer, though I'm not exactly sure how. I had a sneaking suspicion that they only pretended to be related. I didn't really care. They could be his secret mistresses, just as long as it kept Jane out of my life.

When I left to head back to Europe, I made sure to call Bella to let her know that I was leaving. I'm pretty sure she was still pissed at me, so I tried to keep the conversation short. I asked her to wait on the kid thing, but she didn't take that very well. When I got off of the phone with her, Peter gave me a rationing of shit again and then he walked off, leaving me to fight my way through the crowds at the airport alone.

Once I was safely seated in my first class seat, Peter said, "You're going to lose her. You know that don't you?"

"I don't want to lose her."

"Then you need to figure out exactly what you want and how you plan to convince her to keep your sorry ass around. If you can't figure that out, then she's better off without you."

"Shouldn't you be saying that I would be better off without her? I am paying your salary."

Peter snorted. "I get paid to protect you from all of the psycho idiots out there, including yourself. I don't get paid to lie to you. She is the best thing that ever happened to you and you know it. I think that's part of the reason you keep fucking things up. You are afraid of the happily ever after."

"I am not."

"You sure as hell are. You've spent your entire life justifying to your mom why she will never have grandkids and why you'll never get married. You have avoided every single potential real relationship as if it was the plague. You even tried to keep the guys in the band from getting married, which was a pretty selfish thing to do if you ask me. You're just lucky that Marcus loves you like a brother or he would have bailed already."

I started thinking about what he was saying. He was right that I needed to figure out what I wanted, but he was wrong about me being afraid of commitment and all that sappy happily ever after bullshit. I wasn't afraid of it, I just knew that kind of shit only happens in fairytales and I was too much of a realist to believe in kids' stories. I'd seen the real world. That shit just didn't happen.

My mind wandered to prove my point... In the real world, Prince Charming rescues the princess and rides off into the sunset only to realize that that he has no idea where he's going because you can't actually catch a sunset. The beautiful princess turns into a nagging hag because her ass is sore from riding on the damn horse for so long and she starts bitching about the prince being lost. If he tries to stop for directions, the townspeople all come out begging for food and money. When he finally does find a hotel for them to crash in, the princess bitches because it's not a palace so she refuses to put out. Sometime in the middle of the night, the prince starts questioning why he even bothered saving the bitch, and debating if he can convince the evil bastards that had kidnapped her in the first place to take her back. That's the part of the fairytales that they don't tell kids.

It's like all of the stories in the history books. You tell kids that the good guys won, but in reality, there are no good guys. It all comes down to who had the better weapons. Being good or evil has nothing to do with it. As a matter of fact, how good could the good guys actually have been if they had such kick ass weapons in the first place?

Another thing, has anyone noticed that crazy people and idiots breed like fucking rabbits? I'm serious. You take a couple of flaming morons who can barely figure out how to fill out a change of address form, put them under the same roof and you will have a house full of baby morons within a year or two. They will spit them out two or three at a time if they can and they don't stop. As long as they can keep getting welfare and food stamps, they don't even bother getting a job - they just keep making babies. I tell you, the world is going to be overrun by stupidity before I'm old and gray.

Peter's gruff voice interrupted my musing. "Stop whatever the hell you are thinking about and get your head back in the game, Edward."

I turned and gave Peter a look that clearly expressed my state of mind. There might have even been the raising of a middle finger involved.

Peter shook his head in frustration. "All you are doing is getting yourself worked up over stupid bullshit. You need to get over your self-induced torture and come up with a game plan to save your relationship with Bella."

He was right. I needed to save Bella from the clutches of a Disney-induced desire for kids. I wonder if they have subliminal messages pumping through the speaker systems in that place. I even found myself looking at the different families while I was there wondering what it would be like to see a kid's expression when he sees that castle for the first time. I'm a grown man and I still think it would be awesome to live in a castle like that. Of course I would have to do something about the seven foot tall rat infestation. That shit freaks me out. Who was the idiot that came up with the idea to dress a grown man up like Mickey Mouse? That shit is almost as creepy as clowns!

Now Bella would make a fuck hot Disney Princess. She would be the one in blue. They worked her ass into the ground and then her prince had to put a shoe on her foot to know who the hell she was. He must have had some kinky foot fetish. I don't even know what size shoe she wears, so that wouldn't work.

Then there was the one that fell asleep. She was a little too lazy for me. There was the one with all of those little guys running around. If I have issues with one kid, I sure as hell would have problems with seven losers hanging around with my woman all the damn time.

Who's left? Wait… there was the hot chick in the yellow dress who lived in a castle. She had no kids or short guys hanging around. She did talk to clocks, tea pots, and candlesticks, but I could deal with that as long as she didn't sleep all fucking day. What was her name?

Peter was snapping his fingers in front of my face. "You look confused, Edward. What's going on in that head of yours?"

I pulled myself from my thoughts enough to mumble, "I was trying to remember the name of the Disney Princess in the yellow dress."

"Belle?"

"No. I was trying to figure out which Disney Princess Bella reminded me most of. Who is the one in the yellow dress with the brown hair and brown eyes, like Bella?"

"Her name is Belle. She was in Beauty and the Beast."

"Her name was Belle? Are you shitting me? That's hilarious! They're both hot, they're both sweet, and they have similar names. If I didn't know any better, I would think Disney based the character off of Bella."

Peter burst out laughing. "If they did, then that would make you the Beast, which actually makes sense when you think about it. He was a complete asshole too."

"I'm not ugly like that."

"You act ugly and your hair is always fucked up. I think you definitely qualify for Beast material."

I scowled at him. "Who pays your pay check?"

"Your mother does, you asshole, so stop trying to use your money to pressure me into agreeing with you. You know that I'm the only one that has the balls to stand up to you and you appreciate it. When you realize that I'm right, you'll thank me for standing up to you. Now why the hell are you wasting precious brain power thinking about Disney Princesses? You need to think about how you are going to fix things with Bella."

"Why do you think she wants a kid?"

"Why don't you talk to her about it?"

"Because I'm sitting in this plane for the next five thousand hours with you, asshole," I snapped.

"Maybe it would help if you write down your thoughts and questions so you can call her when we land?"

I huffed and pretended that I thought his idea was ridiculous, but I always was better when I had time to write, review, re-write, edit, delete, start over, and try again, so I pulled out my laptop and made a quick list of the top ten pros and cons that came to mind.

Pros: Bella, warm, princess, happy, dancing, singing, laughter, sexy, love, mine.

Cons: Kids, responsibility, dirty, smelly, screaming, crying, sharing, bed times, mess, sick.

When I was finished with my list, I looked it over and tried to figure out what on earth would make Bella want to adopt a kid. I just couldn't seem to wrap my mind around it.

I called her when I got off of the airplane and asked her to give me some more time. I needed to get back into my routine. Once I was back in my comfort zone, I was sure that I would be able to come up with a solution that would work for all three of us.

Getting back in to my routine helped, even though the routine consisted of playing almost every night and sleeping in a cramped seat on a smelly, overcrowded bus full of people. Aro and Gianna were fighting like cats and dogs over stupid shit, like who was going to shower first when we got to our next stop and how to pronounce the name of some random town that we will probably never pass through again. Their constant fighting was getting on everyone's nerves to the point that I had to separate them. I moved Gianna to the front row on the right side of the bus and made Aro sit on the back row on the left side. They pouted like babies, but I didn't give a shit. At least we got some peace and quiet.

Mom arranged for the stand in back up singers to perform on the last huge performance of the tour, but that was all. The girls did a pretty good job, considering that they barely spoke English at all. Unfortunately, they thought that they were traveling with us for the rest of the tour, which was going to last a couple more months. After the show was over, they tried to climb on the bus with us, but I told them to get lost. When they followed us to our next stop, I had security turn them away. They followed us to the stop after that and I threatened to call the police.

Marcus stepped in and found a guy in the crew that could translate for him so that he could thank them for stepping in on such short notice and explain that we didn't need them anymore. The guy talked to the girls and then told Marcus that the girls were going to get the police involved if we didn't return their stuff. Apparently they had brought a couple of duffle bags of clothes with them because they didn't know what to wear and the crew stuffed their bags under the bus thinking it belonged to Gianna or Heidi. Once we found their things and gave them back, they left but they made sure to tell everyone that would listen that I was an asshole and that was probably why I was still single.

Peter laughed and agreed with them. Sometimes I think that man is my best friend, other times he's my worst enemy. He is the first one to tell me when I'm fucking up, but he is also the last person to offer to give me a hand when it comes to cleaning up my messes. He's the kind of guy that says "Look at the mess you just made. Good luck cleaning it up." Asshole.

We made a stop in some random town and played at a place where they were having some kind of carnival that was based around vodka. I guess it was like a beerfest, only with vodka instead of beer. We got to try some different vodka samples before the show. Thankfully they were only tiny sips, so none of us got hammered, but after the show was over, this guy that looked just like the one of the guys in the Mario Brothers video game gave us a case of the stuff to take with us.

We all needed to blow off a little steam, so we opened the case and started drinking, while the driver moved on to the next location. Even Peter had a few drinks. That shit was much stronger than I expected because I ended up drunk off my ass.

I woke up with the wind blowing like crazy all around me. I tried to move and realized that I was laying flat on my back, tied to the top of the bus which was flying down the highway. What the fuck? I started banging on the roof of the bus, so the driver pulled over on the side of the road.

Aro was the first one to stick his ugly head up over the top of the bus to check on me. "It's about damn time you woke up. Are you still being a pain in the ass?"

"What the hell are you talking about? Get me down from here."

Peter stepped out of the bus and yelled at the stage hands to go ahead and get me down. Some creepy looking guy crawled up on top of the bus and started untying the knots while everyone else piled out to watch the show. Heidi even took pictures.

Marcus helped me climb down as he said, "Dude, your hair actually looks almost normal. I would think it would be even messier than normal. Who would have thought that for you, wind blown would look like combed hair?"

My legs were wobbly from the alcohol that had not made it completely out of my system and the adrenaline from waking up on the outside of a moving bus. I stumbled around for a minute trying to catch my bearings and then the driver yelled at us that we had to get going, so we all climbed back inside.

They guys were all laughing and carrying on about how funny it was, but I didn't think it was so funny. Once they settled down, Peter came to sit beside me. "Are you ok, Edward?"

"What kind of security personnel lets a bunch of morons tie me to the top of a fucking bus? I could have gotten killed. How did they get me up there anyway?"

"You climbed up there on your own. You said that you needed privacy and that you wanted to lay down flat for a change. I suggested you lay on the ground, but you didn't want to get dirty, so you climbed on top of the bus and refused to come down. We were all ready to go, but you weren't being cooperative, so one of the people on the bus tied you up there."

"What do you mean 'one of the people on the bus'? Who did it? Who took my life into his own hands?" I was so firing whoever the asshole was.

"I'm not going to tell you that because you will fire him. I know you."

"You're damn right I will fire him! Who is it?"

Peter just crossed his arms in defiance. "No one will tell you, so you might as well give up right now."

"I will not give up! I want to know what son of a bitch tied my drunk ass to a fucking bus."

Peter shook his head. "Instead of worrying about that, maybe you should think about how you are going to kiss enough ass to get Bella back. You two pretty much broke up last night."

"We did what?" My heart started pounding in my chest. "Why do you say that?"

"You told her that you don't want kids and that you wanted her to walk away from her life and career to live in an apartment near you in LA just because you might want to think about dating her."

"What? I don't want her to walk away from her career."

"That's not what I got out of the conversation. Now I have to admit, I was buzzing pretty good, but from my perspective, you pretty much told her that kids have the plague and you don't want any, ever. You offered to pretty much auction off the one that she wants so that she could get rid of it. You also told her that she could sell the house that she just bought and move into an apartment near you."

I tried to recall talking with Bella, but I was drawing a blank. "I don't remember any of that."

"Frankly, I don't think she cares if you remember it or not. She was pretty upset."

"How do you know? Did you talk to her? Did you tell her I was drunk and didn't mean it?"

"No. You two hung up. Besides, you didn't say anything that you haven't been thinking every since you found out about the kid. Why would I lie to her and give her the false impression that you might change your mind?"

"Oh shit. I really fucked up, didn't I?"

"I'm afraid you did. That's when you made the driver stop the bus and pull over. I think you were trying to clear your head because you were starting to get emotional."

I buried my head in my hands as snippets of conversation came back to me. "I'm not surprised that you tied me to the bus. I wish you would have done it before I called Bella. I'm never going to get her back now, am I Peter?"

"I don't know, Edward. I don't know."

A/N – First of all, I want to thank everyone for your patience and understanding. Real life things have been beyond crazy and miserable. I am happy to say that my traveling is done for a while, but everything else is still a little rough. I have major work stress and drama which is causing chaos at home, and therefore I either have no time to write or I have so much stress that I am exhausted and need to sleep. I am hoping to get back into the swing of things and post a little more consistently, but I'm not making any promises.

As far as the story goes… You can see that Edward needs to grow up a little bit. He is a self absorbed ass right now. That's the way he has always been. It's not easy for a person like that to change, but it can happen if he does it on his own. He really does love Bella and he really does want her back, so I think that you will start to see that change in him in the future. Also, Edward suffers from a bad case of not being able to say what he means when he is upset or feeling pressured. He needs to work on that and Bella needs to learn to question him more and not take things literally.

Do you know people like that? I do. Things come out of their mouth that either makes them sound stupid or it makes other people think they are saying something different than they really mean. People like that really need to think through what they want to say before they actually say it and that isn't always practical when having a conversation.