Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.

LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.

My apologies for not updating last week. Unfortunately work kept me away from my computer.

Chapter 12

When things start to look up…before they go south again.

"Are you insane?" If Rose would have stood any closer to me, I would have been able to feel her ire instead of just hearing it. "What the hell is wrong with you, Bella?"

If only I understood what she was so pissed off about, my life would have been a lot easier. But, alas, I was not so blissfully unaware of what I'd done wrong. "Why are you so damn angry, Ro?" I asked, the bag of nuts hovering over the mixing bowl. It appeared the mixture within wasn't the only fruitcake in the making. "I don't see where I've done anything wrong. In fact, I'm actually kinda proud of myself."

"But you've landed yourself in the friendzone!" Rose spat out the word like it was the most disgusting place on earth. Hmmm, she may be right about that, though.

"And what's so wrong with that?" I asked against my better judgment, finally adding the nuts into the batter and letting my electric mixer work its magic; because as much as I loved a good old therapeutic kneed, I'd go crazy—and develop arthritis—if I mixed up every batter that came though my bakery by hand.

Ouch! The muscles in my hands were aching just from the thought of it!

"Seriously, Bella?" Rose huffed, hopping up on the empty counter on Emmett's side of the kitchen. The boy had an exam today and I had to admit, I missed him already. "The friendzone? He's never going to see you as someone he can fuck now! You're his buddy, which basically means you're the in the scratch-your-ass-belch-and-fart-in-front-of-you zone, which is the last place you want to be in. Not that I'm actually in favor of you getting back together with that asshole, by the way."

She had a point there, not that I was willing to admit it. "We've been together for years, basically loved together at one point," I argued, cursing my dad again for not letting Edward and I move in together after the baby was born for some bogus, archaic reason. "I've seen him scratch just about every inch of his body at least twice and heard as many burps and farts as I can care to remember."

"What's your point?" If she wasn't my best friend and that the batter was really starting to come together quite nicely, I would have hurled the bowl at her face for being so smug.

"I've been in this zone ever since he came back," I explained, shrugging as I checked the bakery paper lining on the mold before carefully dropping the mixture inside it and placing it in the refrigerator. "The only thing I did last night was act like a decent enough person to not sacrifice the happiness of my kid, as well as what's left of one of the most important relationships in my life."

"Yeah, and by doing so, you gave him a cozier spot in her bed," Rose huffed, swiping a few leftover nuts from the bag before I could swat her hand away. "And what's more, being his buddy, you'll probably get to hear all about what happens in there, too!"

"He'd never do that!" I argued, even though Rose had succeeded in planting a tiny little seed of doubt. Oh, who the heck was I kidding? It was a fucking hundred year old sequoia tree of doubt that had already been growing steadily before Rose's handiwork had even started. "Besides, what the fuck am I going to do then? Or are you suggesting I start a fight and have Charlie end up in the middle of it?"

Rose sighed, shaking her head. "I didn't mean that, Bells. I just want you to be happy again. As your friend, it kills me to see how much he's hurting you. The worst thing is that the asshole doesn't even know it!"

"I know." Letting out a huge breath, I rubbed my temples, driving away the killer migraine that never seemed too far off these days. "I wish things could be different…that I could really put up a fight for him and drive that bitch away. But I can't…" Taking a shaking breath, I continued, "I have to be a mother first and put Charlie's happiness before mine, even if it means giving Edward up." It felt wrong to say those words, and I could barely get them out of my mouth, even if I knew they were the only right things I could saying at that moment.

"Are you sure?" The pained, pitying expression in Rose's eyes made the pain even worse as she knew how much I'd been hoping all these years—working on myself to put my life in a place where I no longer felt like I'd be bringing him down. How I finally saw the shimmer of hope on the horizon only to have Voldemary come in and slam the door in my face.

No! I nodded. "It's the only way out of this situation that I can see right now."

"Right." A firm nod and a brisk hop off the counter told me Rose had sprung back into her usual kick-ass-problem-solver-in-action mode. "Then I'm going to make sure you'll come out of this on top; even if it kills me."

Always a little afraid when my best friend started spewing off fighting words like that, I pursed my lips. "You'd better not be planning something, Rose."

"Call it an intervention," she chuckled, her voice boding no argument. "I've got a date tonight, with this really cute guy I met on the internet. Now, you know me, usually I wouldn't go for these kinds of things. However, he's nice and has a good job."

"How are you so sure about that, Ro?" I snickered, imagining the look on her face when her date did, in the end, turn into an episode of MTV's Catfish.

"Don't tell me you've never heard of webcams before?" Rose snorted. "I wasn't about to set up something before I'd seen the evidence." Tapping her lips she mused, "I was even debating whether or not to ask for a live showing of his dick to see if he'd exaggerated, but he seemed rather shy and I didn't want to mess shit up. Anyway…he suggested going on a double date for our first outing, just to make things a little more casual…keep the nerves at bay. You know?"

I snickered. I don't actually. For as long as I'd known Rose, she had never been nervous when she went out on dates. Excited? Yes. And horny, too, but nervous? Never!

"Do I need to remind you what happened the last time we went out?" I asked, the memory of the guilt I'd felt after sleeping with another man didn't make me eager for a repeat performance.

"This is different," Rose said decidedly, her face scrunched up in annoyance when the disturbance of the shop bell cut our conversation short. "I'm not asking you to have sex with someone. Again." She laughed. "I'm just saying that maybe it would be good for you to get out there, talk to other guys, gain some perspective on your situation, and see if maybe you're ready to move on after all." She shrugged, hovering near the doorway. "Just think about it, Bella. It's up to you, just let me know before we close so that I can call Dave and give him time to set things up."

I nodded and started to work again as I seriously pondered Rose's suggestion. Sure, the idea of going on a date was enough to make me hurl. But if I wanted to move on and earn my credit as being Edward's friend—nothing more—without becoming bitter, I knew I needed to actually try to move on.

And moving on pretty much meant getting back into the dating scene.

I mulled over that thought as I filled my dainty raspberry meringue 'burgers' with white chocolate mousse before putting them to the side as I went to temper some chocolate. It seemed such a foreign thing, the dating scene, but that probably was because I'd never really entered it. After all, Edward and I had known each other since early childhood and had been together for about as long as I could remember. He held all my 'firsts' and with him by my side, there had never really been any use to explore the other flavors on the buffet.

Maybe if I actually went out of my comfort zone and tried something other than my own, safe comfort food, I'd find that other dishes could taste equally delicious.

Meticulously piping the molten chocolate into a tray filled with perfectly even 's' shaped swirls before topping them with tiny icicles of edible gold, my mind started to get more and more used to the idea of dating again; though the prospect of having to put that idea into practice so soon was still daunting as all fuck.

Still, it would be nice to have the safety of a double date with Rose for my first foray into actually dating.

With such a veteran by my side, and another pair close by to take away the awkwardness of being in an intimate setting with a perfect stranger, the chances of me turning into a stumbling, perspiring wreck before the waiter had even brought our entrees to the table were significantly less.

As I finally put my piping bag down, I'd made a decision and riding my newfound wave of strength, I immediately stuck my head around the door, catching Rose's surprised look as I all but yelled, "I'm in."

oOo

Our plan was put into practice the next Wednesday when Edward finally had some time off to spend with Charlie, and left me free to do whatever I wanted. Still, as perfectly logical as everything might be, it felt almost illicit to be going out on a date on a weeknight.

I liked it.

"You look amazing," Rose praised, drinking in my casual outfit of nice, but not-too-old jeans, paired with a deep red blouse and similarly colored flats. It was a long way from my usual shabbiness but not so artificially dolled up that I hardly recognized myself.

"I look like a bum compared to you," I mumbled, my courage sinking into my shoes as I took in Rose's majestic shape, hardly withdrawn from the eye by the formfitting little black dress she was wearing. "Are you sure I don't look too casual? I could still change if—"

"You look fine, Bella," Rose assured me for what must have been the twentieth time. "We're only going to Lucky's, remember?"

Lucky's was one of the most well-known bar and grills in Port Angeles and I'd been there, clad in the same type of clothes as I was wearing, dozens of times with Edward or some of my other friends. "I know that, but don't you think that any guy seeing the two of us together is going to end up mightily disappointed when he finds out he's dating me and not you?"

"From what Dave told me, his buddy isn't the type of guy to go for high maintenance," Rose explained, revealing a little bit more about the mysterious guy, Liam, I was going to be set up with that night. "So unless he's just like all those other assholes, you're pretty damn perfect the way you look tonight. So let's go?"

I nodded, walking ahead to my car before I lost my nerve. "And remember: you're coming home with me tonight or you're out of a job. You promised both of us would be going home at a decent hour."

"Of course, Bella!" Rose smiled innocently; as innocent as if her track record didn't exactly contradict her. "I know I don't exactly have a squeaky clean record when it comes to modesty and shit, but I'd never leave my best friend high and dry."

"I know." I smiled, throwing the car in reverse as I backed out of my parking space, nerves pounding in my throat all the way to Port Angeles, where I'd all but massacred a group of senior citizens as I shakily parked my car near Lucky's.

"Relax, Bella," Rose chuckled, shouting another apology over her shoulder as the grumbling pack of elders scurried away, "before you kill someone, or worse, stroke out before you've even set eyes on your date." Grabbing my clammy hand, she linked her fingers through mine and let them sway between us just like she did when we were five years old. "There's no pressure here. If you like the guy, great. If not, the least you'll get a free meal and more dating experience."

It turned out all my nerves had been in vain.

The minute Liam and I had been introduced, I could already see I was going to like the guy. He had an easygoing personality and friendly grey eyes, which immediately set me at ease while his tall, dark, and handsome exterior made my heart beat faster.

And the best thing about him was: he didn't remind me of Edward at all.

It turned out he knew Forks very well. As a rep for one of the larger sawmills on the Peninsula, he'd visited the self-proclaimed 'Logging capital of the US' quite a few times and had even bought some sweets in my bakery once.

That, of course, earned him major points.

Having grown up in Seattle, it was interesting to discuss small town life versus inner city living with him and it was amusing to find how all the things I found incredibly boring about my life, he found safe and comforting whereas the excitement of the unknown city for me, had left him with a sense of loneliness and dissatisfaction.

And even if we didn't find our own conversation as stimulating as we did, there was always some major entertainment to be had in the complete and utter failure of the date going on next to us.

Poor Rose! Where Dave had seemed like such a winner when there had been an hour and a whole World Wide Web between the two of them, right there and then, he looked like a rabbit caught in headlights. He sweated profusely and looked intimidated to the point of scared at Rose while licking his lips and stammering out one-syllable answers to her questions.

As the evening went on, I could sense Rose was starting to become more and more annoyed with Dave, which only served to make the poor guy more nervous; even with some well-timed interventions from Liam. It was true that poor Dave actually managed to give us a full sentence whenever we asked him a question but, he went on ignoring Rose completely.

Which was never a smart thing to do, especially when she'd made such a fuss about looking good and primping for her date.

The good thing about it was that I had no trouble prying Rose away once coffee was served and dinner had come to an end. In fact, she was out the door before the men even had a chance to settle the bill, claiming some half-assed excuse to force her to slip out for some fresh air. That meant that I was left to say my goodbye to Liam with Dave hovering around in our personal space like some unwanted intruder.

"I had a great time, Bella," Liam spoke, his warm smile and honest words warming my heart. "I'd really like to keep in touch with you."

"So would I." I spoke without hesitating, knowing the truth in my words even without having to debate it. With Liam, I could just be myself without having to think about the more difficult aspects of my life. He understood, his encouraging words when I'd told him about my daughter—the one I'd had when I was only sixteen—confirming that without a doubt.

There was no guilt; no tiny voice lingering in the background telling me I was somehow cheating on my own heart by being with him.

It was just…natural.

Exchanging numbers, I allowed him to lead me out of the restaurant; his hand on the small of my back as he walked me to the car where I could see Rose already waiting for me in the distance.

"I guess the two of them won't be keeping in touch," Liam chuckled, motioning his head towards Rose and Dave who were walking away from us.

I chuckled. "I think it's safe to say the chances are slim to none. Do you think he'll be alright?"

"He'll whine like a bitch for a few days but I'm sure he'll rally," Liam shrugged, our attention so wrapped up in each other that we didn't see the other couple walking towards us until we were standing closely together, face to face, creeping forward.

"Watch it!" the man called, in a very familiar voice.

"No harm done, man!" Liam chuckled, safely ushering me away, though I was afraid he was too late to save me.

Because as soon as I'd looked up, barely avoiding the pointy shoulder of our adversary's female companion, I'd caught the all too memorable pair of green eyes that unforgettable voice belonged to.

And they were not pleased.

Thoughts?