Flowers and Ice Cream

"Smells good in here. Watcha cooking?"

Edward had just come in the back door. It was dinner time so that didn't surprise me. What did surprise me was that he was holding an arm full of white daisies. They were wrapped in cellophane so he must have picked them up from the florist in town. He sat them down in the sink and started digging through the cabinets, looking for a vase I assumed.

"Chicken Parmesan, fried squash, and tossed salad. That was really nice of you, my mom loves daisies."

I had just finished washing the lettuce when he came in so I moved to give him space. I started pulling the lettuce apart and putting the pieces in to a bowl.

"Where is she?"

"She had some of the decorations from last night in her car and she had to take them back to the hospital. She'll be back in a little bit."

He had found the vase and stuffed all of the daisies in to it. I just laughed at him because it was obvious he didn't want to waste any by throwing out what wouldn't fit in. He left to go place the flowers on the table. I could hear him start talking before he made it back to the kitchen.

"So, looked like you were having fun last night. I saw you two cuddling up on the swing when I got back. Good thing I came back when I did, otherwise I would've had to tell your mom about you misbehaving on her porch."

I looked up at him and he was grinning, so I picked up some of the lettuce pieces and threw them at him when he came to stand by me. He just laughed and leaned back against the counter.

"Yeah, well at least my date was here to drop me off. I know you couldn't have taken Tanya home and made it back here that fast. What happened to her?"

"Since she was heading back to school this morning she wanted to go out to some clubs with her friends. I didn't wanna go, so I came back here."

I chuckled at the look on his face. Like the idea of going to a club was completely repulsive. It would have been outright funny if I didn't sympathize. I had long ago outgrown the desire to spend my nights in smoke filled rooms with music blaring and strange people trying to rub body parts against you.

"Well that's what happens when you date kids that young. You can't keep up with people her age anymore, you're getting old."

"If I'm old then you're old too. We're only three years older than her. She's not too young for me to be dating, we just don't enjoy some of the same things."

"Right, like you enjoy sleeping in, and she enjoys getting up early on Saturday to watch cartoons."

He rolled his eyes at my joke. I thought it was funny. He just shook his head and didn't say anything. I felt a little bad for picking on him so I decided to be a little nicer.

"I'm just teasing. All I'm saying is that when you are in your early twenties, three years makes a big difference. She's at the stage where she's trying to figure out who she is and what she wants from life. Don't be surprised if she starts changing on you."

He crossed his arms over his chest. "Yeah, well you would know all about that wouldn't you?"

I chose not to be offended at what he was implying. Mostly because he was right. I spoke from experience.

"I would. I'm not saying that she's anything like I was or that she will make the same decisions I made. I just know that she's right smack in the middle of molding herself in to the person she will be for the rest of her life. She's old enough to drink now and you would be surprised what kind of effect that can have on a girl."

"Speaking of age, how old was that Jason kid? He looked like he should still be in high school."

"Jacob. And actually he is 27, so stop being petty."

"Ooh, 27 and still lives with his parents. Good catch. Plus he's three years older than you, that's a big difference in your twenties."

"He only lives there because he is planning on taking over his dads farm one day. He actually has a degree in Animal Science, so he does have options, thank you very much." I decided to let the last comment slide because, let's be honest, I just kind of stuck my foot in my mouth.

I grabbed the cucumbers and tomatoes and began slicing them in to the bowl.

"So are you gonna go out with him again?"

"What's it to you?"

"Just making conversation."

"Yes. He called this morning and invited me to come spend the day with him tomorrow. We're going to go horseback riding."

He laughed. "Right, well you let me know how that goes."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing, I just remember how that went for you the last time."

He was talking about the time that he took me riding with one of his buddies. The horse I was riding didn't like me very much. I didn't stay up on it long, but that wasn't my decision. The horse had its own idea of how to get me off. I ended up opting to sit and wait for them to finish. It was a long afternoon.

"Well, things can change. Who knows maybe this time if the horse doesn't like me, he won't leave me in the woods to wait for him to come back."

He didn't get a chance to defend himself. My mom had just come in the back door.

"Hey kids. What's left?"

"Um, I'm finished with the salad now, the squash is done, and the chicken will be finished in about five minutes."

"Good, I'm starving. Where did the flowers come from?"

Edward had straightened up when she walked in the kitchen and was peeking in the oven.

"I got them for you, Esme. To say thanks for the tickets last night. We had a good time."

"I'm glad you kids had fun. We raised a good bit of money, and those children sure need it."

No one said anything else for a few minutes. I started setting the table and Edward came to help me. My mom waited for the chicken to finish, then took it out of the oven and brought it to the table. We all sat down and ate. We didn't talk about much at dinner, just the usual stuff like weather and what had been in the news recently.

When we had finished dinner Edward and I cleared the table. My mom started scooping out some ice cream and handed me two bowls. I started to sit down at the table and hand a bowl to Edward when mom stopped me.

"Bella, honey, I hate to do this to you, but you're gonna have to go somewhere."

"What?" I was confused and I'm sure it was showing.

"I invited some people over from work and they'll be here any minute so you need to make yourself scarce."

"Oh, okay. I guess I can just go sit in my room or something."

"Don't be ridiculous. You can come out to the shop with me. At least I've got a TV out there. We can go finish our ice cream. That way you won't have to worry about listening to a bunch of old people all night." Edward was trying to be nice.

"Uh...okay. Yeah. Let me grab my jacket and put some shoes on."

I went to my room and picked up the jacket and tennis shoes I had used when I had gone for a walk that morning. When I got back to the living room Edward was waiting for me by the back door with both bowls in his hands. I opened the door and let him go first.

We crossed the yard, but didn't say anything on the way. Edward and I were friends again, so I wasn't sure why I felt slightly uncomfortable. We reached the shop and I opened the door, letting him in first. Once inside he handed me my bowl and went to turn the TV on.

I sat on the floor with my back against the length of his bed. He came back and laid across the bed so that his head was hanging off just beside mine. I started eating my ice cream, not paying attention to what was on the television. I was in my own world, daydreaming about random things as usual.

"Did you hear me?"

I jumped a little. I didn't realize that he had been saying anything.

"Oh. Sorry, I was off in my own little world again."

"I could see that. Must be a nice place to live."

"It's not bad, kind of weird sometimes though. What were you saying?"

"I was trying to tell you that you're different."

"What do you mean?" I turned my head to look at him. He was stirring his spoon around the edges of his bowl, but he wasn't eating anything.

"You just seem happier than you used to be. Like you don't have a care in the world anymore."

"I don't. When my dad died I did a lot of soul searching. I thought about all the time I had wasted being miserable about things that I couldn't change. I realized that I had lost myself in worrying about stuff that didn't matter. It didn't matter who liked me or who didn't, how many parties I got invited to, what kind of things I owned, or what people thought of me. I decided that as long as I liked who I was then none of the rest of it mattered."

"Hmm. You still joke around a lot, but you don't do it to get out of talking about stuff you don't want to talk about anymore."

"Yeah. I got tired of avoiding things all the time. It's better to just deal with things head on and get it over with." I took another bite of my ice cream.

"Who would've ever thought, Bella Swan, all grown up."

"Scary, isn't it?"

"You have no idea." He laughed a little then finally took a bite of his ice cream.

I have no clue what came over me. I didn't even know that I was doing it until it was over. At some point my hand decided to take my spoon and drag it down the side of his face, leaving a trail of vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup from his temple all the way to his jaw line. I had even gotten some in his hair.

I had to laugh at the shock on his face. Apparently he wasn't expecting me to do something like that. Then again, neither was I. It took a couple of seconds, but he finally started wiping at the mess with the back of his hand.

"Do you want me to get you something to clean that up with?"

He didn't look directly at me, but he cut his eyes to the side so he could see me.

"No, don't trouble yourself. Besides, you'll be too busy cleaning this."

The next thing I knew his hand was smearing chocolate ice cream across my face. The coldness of it took my breath away for a minute, but I was trying to laugh anyway. He was shaking his hand, trying to get the leftovers off, and I couldn't believe he thought it was going to end there. I thought he knew me better than that.

I stood up, "Do you have any idea what you have just done?"

"Payback's a bitch, isn't it?" He was grinning from ear to ear.

"You're about to find out."

He was still laying on his bed, and for the moment I had the upper hand, so I turned my bowl over and let the rest of my ice cream fall right on to the middle of his back. Not wanting him to get off too lightly, I pressed my hand down and smeared it as much as I could before he jumped up.

He grabbed me around the waist and squeezed me against his chest so that I couldn't move. He tried to dump his bowl on my chest, but my hands caught most of it. He wasn't happy about that so he dropped the bowl and grabbed my hands. He forced them on to my chest, squishing ice cream everywhere. I was pushing against him and he lost his balance, falling back on to the bed.

He hadn't let go of me so I tumbled down with him. We were laughing, and I was half screaming. The ice cream had all melted at this point so while we wrestled on his bed it was ruining his sheets.

He was stronger than I was, but I was quicker. Every time he thought he had me pinned down I wriggled some part of me free and either hit, poked, or kicked back at him. Finally, I had to give up because I was laughing too hard to fight back.

He flipped me on to my back and pinned both my wrists above my head with one of his hands. He was sitting on top of me, straddling my waist, so I couldn't have gotten away if I had wanted to.

"Do you give up?" He was almost as breathless as I was.

"Yes...you...win."

He stood up and pulled me with him. He must not have realized how hard he pulled in the excitement of the moment because I flew against his chest. I was off balance and about to fall when he caught me. He held me until he was sure I wasn't going to slip again.

"Okay, I think I can take it from here..."

I was still laughing, but stopped when I looked up. He was still holding on to me, but at some point it had changed from helping me to holding me. His grip had loosened, but not enough to make me think he was letting go any time soon.

He was looking down at me like it was the first time he had seen me in a long while. He brought his other hand up to my face and moved some of the hair that had gotten stuck there in the ice cream. I couldn't look away from his face. Though I couldn't see any of the rest of him, I could feel him.

I was suddenly very aware of the fact that he felt warm, and his muscles were hard against my soft skin. I closed my eyes and shook my head. This wasn't right.

"Um. I think I've made a mess of things again. Typical me right?" I laughed a little, trying to ease the tension that was suddenly there.

When I looked back up he blinked, and it was like he realized that there was something not entirely appropriate about the way we were standing. He let go of me and back a couple of steps away.

"Yeah. This is gross. You look like you've been out rolling in the mud."

"Thanks, you don't look too bad yourself."

We were trying to joke around, but the awkwardness was still there.

"I should probably go back to the house and get cleaned up."

"You're mom has company, remember? You can take a shower and I'll loan you some clothes. After we both get cleaned up you can help me change the sheets."

He had started over towards his dresser and was pulling out clothes. I stood there, debating whether or not I should stay. I didn't want to hurt his feelings by running off, but I also didn't want him to think that I was trying anything funny by staying. He had taken the clothes in to the bathroom with him. His hands were empty when he came right back out.

"I put some clothes in there for you. There's towels under the sink that you can use. I'm gonna start wiping up some of the mess on the floor and stuff."

He was moving around the room wiping at different spots with a cleaning rag. I couldn't tell if he was avoiding looking at me or if he just didn't think much of what had happened. He seemed pretty at ease, not nervous in the least.

"Okay, I'll hurry so you can get cleaned up too, and then I'll clean up whatever you don't get to. It's my fault anyway."

I crossed the room as I spoke and shut the bathroom door behind me as soon as I finished my sentence. I pressed my back against the door and took a few deep breaths to steady myself. I didn't know what just happened, and to be honest I wasn't sure I wanted to.

Edward and I had gotten back to a place where we could be friends. I knew that at this point I didn't want him to avoid me because I read things into his actions that weren't there. He hadn't been looking at me like that. The hold wasn't what I thought he had turned it in to. He seemed okay now, so I should be too.

I started undressing and found the towels under the sink. I placed one on top of the clothes that he had laid out for me. My bra and underwear were completely covered with ice cream, and since he didn't have any of those to lend me I tried to rinse them in the sink. All I needed to do was make them less sticky for now. I could wash them later. I turned on the sink and let the water run for about five minutes while I was trying to scrub the stains.

Once I thought I had them clean enough I turned the water off, then started looking for a hair dryer to dry them off with. I finally found one, which I could only assume Tanya had left here at one point, and started the drying process. Luckily the air was really hot so it only took a few minutes to dry them completely.

I laid them back on top of the towel and went to step in the shower. Just as I got my first foot in the tub I heard the door start to open. I tried to jump the rest of the way in, but I didn't realize I was pulling so hard on the shower curtain. It was one of those rods that you adjusted to the proper length, and was held in place by two rubber ends. It wasn't meant to support that much weight.

I fell in to the tub and the rod, curtain and all, landed on top of me. It bounced around a bit, but then settled and covered me completely. As soon as it was over I stayed absolutely still. I listened to see if I could hear anything. Maybe I had overreacted. Maybe there wasn't anyone in here.

"Bella?"

Damn it.

"Uh, yeah. I'm fine. "

"I'm sorry. I thought you were done." His voice sounded odd, like he was holding something back.

"Nope. I was washing out my underwear. I haven't showered yet. Sorry about the mess. I'll put the curtain back up in just a minute." I didn't know whether I should be amused or completely embarrassed.

It was silent for a minute. Then, thankfully, he started laughing harder than I had ever heard him laugh before. I joined in and was able to see past my own awkwardness and understand that if there had been a camera, I could have won money on one of those home video shows. Or I could have at least become the latest YouTube sensation.

"Do you need any help?"

"No, no. I think I've got it. You can go. Next time wait for me to come to you."

We were both still laughing, but his voice had become muffled. I peeked out and made sure that he was gone. I stood up and reattached the rod to the wall. I showered, laughing the whole time.

Once I finished I dressed in the t-shirt and pajama pants that he had given me. They all but swallowed me whole. It was probably a good thing, I would feel a little self conscious if I were wearing tight clothes after everything that had just happened.

Edward showered, and I picked up where he left off with the cleaning. Once everything had been wiped off of the floor and other parts of the room I stripped the sheets from his bed. They were going to need some serious stain fighting. At least nothing had made it through to the mattress.

"Edward, where are your sheets?"

I had to raise my voice because he was still in the bathroom. He came out as soon as I was finished asking though.

"There over here." He motioned to a small cabinet just inside the bathroom door. He was carrying all of our dirty clothes so I pushed past him and opened the cabinet.

I reached in, looking for sheets. When I found a matching set I grabbed them, but my hand hit something. I lifted up the sheets and saw a wooden box tucked back in the corner. I sat the sheets on the edge of the sink and pulled the box out. It had a keyhole on the front, and it was locked.

"Hey, Edward. What's this?"

He turned to see what I was holding and he smiled.

"Help me make the bed first and then I'll show you."