realgirl-imaginarylife
Little Slugger - 9 - Meet Me There

A/N

See end note for my tardy excuses, etc.

Big big thanks to wickedcicada for recommending Little Slugger at The Little Known Ficster. As Charlotte would say, Humble.

Also, as always, much love and appreciation to my amazing betas TiffanyAnne3 and Batgirl8968, and all my twitter-friends and supporters.

You all have waited long enough for this…so let's proceed, shall we?

Song for this chapter is Hello Hello by Dan Zanes.

Yep, still not mine.

Edward's eyes darted frantically from one side of his tiny apartment to the next.

In the closet? Under the bed? Surely he had a nice big cardboard box lying around somewhere? The dumpster outside?

He was looking for a hiding spot. Any hiding spot. His normal means of camouflage were not going to cut it tonight. He had decided against going at all at least fourteen times over the course of the last fifteen minutes. And yet, as he listed for himself over and over the myriad of reasons why it was a terrible idea to go at all, sometimes out loud, all the while he continued to get ready to go. He fed the cats. He tuned his guitar. He even changed his pants three times before growling at himself in disgust and throwing on a pair of old jeans.

Now the annoying clock on the wall in the shape of the face of Felix the cat was mocking him, its smug cartoon eyes and tail floating back and forth, back and forth with every tick and tock, just like the decision-making pendulum inside him. It was time to go. Or time to stay.

Either way, it was time to choose.

He leaned his back up firmly against the doorway, his coat already on and buttoned up high around his neck, and he slid slowly down the length of it to the floor, where he clutched two fistfuls of hair tightly and breathed in long and deep through his nose, feeling the air filling his head like a balloon. He only wished he were lucky enough for it to just pop.

He glanced up at the clock again, and it continued to taunt him.

Tick Tock Tick Tock Ed Ward Ed Ward Lo Ser Lo Ser.

Slowly, he slid his hand into the pocket of his jacket, never once breaking eye contact with the deriding plastic cat he'd saved from a junk pile on the street several years ago (after his interaction with the kind security guard at Vitamin Direct, he'd felt a special bond with the clock, but he was suddenly regretting owning it now), and lifted out a folded piece of paper. THE folded piece of paper. Carefully, he lifted its worn, now delicate edges.

The graphite-stained page was smudged from nearly constant handling over the last seven days. The spiral busted edges were now worn to a soft, petal-like fringe, quarter-framing the paper like some sort of doctoral certification of his sheer anxiety - as if he'd really needed any formal proof.

With this note she had changed the game. Just as he'd feared she might. Just as he hoped she would. He looked down at it and sighed, again.

The drawing was remarkably well-crafted, and he'd long admired its charming quality, especially given the quickness and ease in which she'd drawn it that night. He half-smiled at the memory of their interaction, but immediately frowned when his eyes passed over his likeness - a humanized feline cartoon wearing a familiar worn plaid checkerboard shirt and sporting the easily recognizable frames of his glasses. The one on the stage with the guitar. The one singing on the stage while another cat with a dotted bow between her ears sat below him at the first table. Watching him. Two femininely-curved bottles set on the table in front of her and an empty chair was across from her.

She had made him into a cat. That is how unique and strange this girl was. And not only had she made him into a cat, but she'd made herself into one to match him.

The large picture window behind the stage was there. The huge velvet curtain to the left of the stage was there. Tiny round cafe tables barely large enough for two were there. There was no doubt about it, it was the North Star. Across the bottom of the page, in large, neat, bold text were written two confident, hefty words: NEXT WEEK.

She was inviting him - no - she was expecting him to sing with her sitting right there in front of him. And as if that wasn't already bad enough, there was no doubt in his mind that the second bottle wasn't to calm her own nerves, it was to calm his. And that seat across from her was also for him. To sit down at. With the girl cat. The Isabella cat.

As it had a hundred times over the course of the week each time he soaked in the drawing, the joy and fear that had been born inside him collided in a fiery crash in the pit of his abdomen.

This time there would be no blonde, no charades and no expanse of the room between them.

So, say he actually found the strength to show up, to sing a set and to sit down and drink that second beer. After all that - risking more than he had in years - he would have to take it a thousand steps further and actually say something. To her. His lips pursed and his stomach expertly tied Boy Scout-quality boating knots at the thought. Was he seriously ready for that?

There really was no question. The answer was blindingly and pathetically obvious - he absolutely was not.

But still, despite all the internal alarms ringing and buzzing in his head, working to convince him to run to the nearest sanctuary and find the darkest and most confined hiding spot he could find, he would show up tonight. And he knew that she would be there, waiting for him.

Beyond that, he knew or guessed absolutely nothing. And despite the hundreds of times that he had climbed atop that open mic stage over the years, he easily considered this particular climb the most vulnerable of his life. Was he intrigued by the strange connection he seemed to have with her? Definitely. Was he impressed by her act of sheer heroism in even getting him to consider meeting her, much less performing in front of her first? No doubt. Was he desperately afraid of leaving her disappointed tonight? He sighed. Yes.

He hadn't interacted with another human being except from what was absolutely necessary for YEARS. And now, out of nowhere appeared this girl who communicated with him so easily through these silly and wonderful cartoon creatures - "Hey, come. Do your thing, let me watch and then we'll share a beer."

So much simpler on paper, as many things are. Like police reports, for instance. And divorce decrees.

And yet here he was, allowing his careful set of personal rules to be completely reworked by a cartoon! And ironically - he chuckled - by two cats.

As if on cue, Jasper and Alice padded to him in perfect unison, Alice climbing atop his lap and nudging his face with the top of her head, and Jasper sitting proudly nearby just waiting for a scratch, both purring for their own needs to be met, and perhaps in their own way, urging him to do the same.

He stroked them both across their necks with love. Without these cats, he would've lost his humanity long ago.

He knew by now he would be there tonight. What he didn't know was how it would change him. It's not every day you recieve a custom-made invitation to rejoin the human race. Even he, an everyman's fool on so many levels, couldn't heed the compulsion to avoid this.

This is going to end badly, he thought grimly. She will likely be charming and expect you to be the same. And you won't, because you aren't.

With the thought echoing in his head, he grabbed his guitar case and ushered himself out the door, one way to his own crossroads.

"You're not eating," Rosalie observed, handing a bottle of ketchup across the table as a motivating gift. Bella shook her head and manically bounced the bottom of her spoon against the pile of scrambled eggs on her plate.

"I'm not hungry."

"What's wrong, Bella? You've been so chipper all week long. Having a resurgent case of open mic flu?" she asked suggestively.

Bella glared across to Rosalie's still outstretched arm and snatched the ketchup from her hand. She poured out a small red hill on her plate next to the eggs and sat staring at it for a moment.

"No. My job sucks. This dinner sucks. I am grumpy. Deal with it."

Rosalie stared at her, deadpan. "You made dinner."

"I did, yes. And it sucks," Bella spat back, forking a piece of egg and launching it into her mouth, the corners of her lips moving upward in a small smile.

Rose smiled back, relieved, but her eyes were troubled as she searched Bella's face for her true mood.

"You have plans for the night?" she asked.

Bella shrugged lazily, playing off the lie she was about to tell. "Thinking about heading to Esperanto with my friends sketch and dos, filling us all up with several cups of unreasonably timed coffee and then see what else the night has to offer. You're back to snooker this week, yes?"

She chuckled softly. "Yeah. Kate was a beautifully wicked disaster last week. They're anxious to have me back." She paused and looked at Bella skeptically. "You're okay?"

She snorted loudly, a response so overblown that it nearly tattered the carefully worn veil of secrecy she'd been wearing around Rosalie all week long. "I'm fine, Rosie, honest. No worries about the Bellabug, 'kay? Me is good. Everything's good. Wheee!" She flew her fork haphazardly around her face like a rogue airplane, landing it confidently in her mouth.

Rosalie gaped.

Bella's facade was beginning to crumble - it was obvious through every hysterical word that fell out of her mouth. She had waited all week long for this night, counting down breaths, skipping down the sidewalks instead of walking and subconsciously bobbing her head to a scrolling jukebox of excited, hopeful songs running through her head. She even found the bright eyes and carefree smile she saw in the mirror so endearing, she'd sat for her own portrait.

No pointed ears, no whiskers, no pink bow. No snarky undertones. Just Bella.

It was the first non-Dot piece she had attempted in over two years.

And now she was just minutes away from meeting him. Maybe. If he showed up. And all of the many happy happy joy joy's of the past seven days were quickly crashing down inside her head. She avoided eye contact as she reached for the ketchup bottle for a refill, determined to reel herself in.

Rosalie cleared her throat and slid her arm gently across the table, landing it halfway across and holding her hand palm-up as if to accept Bella's hand inside it. She paused for a long moment, looking intently into Bella's eyes.

"Bella, listen. This may not be the best time to talk about this, but I have been avoiding it for days because you've been in such a good mood and I didn't want to spoil it. Now I'm regretting it. Now you're in a totally weird mood and I'm up against a wall here and I wish I'd just said it before. When you were normal," she paused, "or you know, sort of, above normal, for you."

Bella's arm froze in midair, leaving the ketchup bottle tilted downward. Everything in the room seemed to have come to a sudden halt, aside from the slow, lava-like flow of goop falling from from the classically-designed bottle. She knew exactly what Rose was about to say. They had officially arrived at the moment she had been dreading for months, ironically situated just hours before the moment she'd been counting down every single breath to for the last seven days.

"Emmett and I have looked at a couple of apartments."

You know those moments in your life? The ones that you can see coming from a hundred miles away, but when they arrive, right there in front of your blanching face, your body and mind reacts as if they're experiencing something completely new, completely unexpected? Something perhaps completely and horribly tragic? Something gruesome? Something you'll be repeating over and over to your therapist for years to come?

Yes, well, that was one of those moments.

Rosalie stared down uncomfortably at her hand. "Bella."

Bella didn't move. Rosalie's lips pursed.

"Bella. The ketchup."

She broke from her trance and looked down, a growing lake of the red stuff quickly taking over her plate. She simply sat and watched it pour for a moment as it eventually obscured the pile of eggs.

Huh. Who knew it could flow so fast once it got going?

As soon as the eggs disappeared completely, slathered in an ocean of red, she swallowed once and tipped the bottle upwards slowly, placing it quietly down on the table beside her.

"I'm sorry, Bella. I don't want you to feel like..." she started awkwardly before drifting off. This was clearly a doozie of a confrontation for her. Rose did not awkward easily.

Bella stared into Rosalie's eyes for a long time before she spoke. Rose's mouth opened once again to try and smooth over...

"Don't, Rose," Bella interrupted. At her broken silence, Rose's expression instantly transformed, mixing pity and relief. "Don't!" Bella insisted, fiercely this time. She watched her reaction. The expression shifted again. This time, love, admiration.

Bella seemed satisfied, and continued. "Do not be sorry. You know I love you. You know I love Emmett and you know that I knew that this was only a matter of time. Am I sad? Sure! Am I lost? Definitely! Am I going to miss living with your bubble bathing, hair straightening, avocado masking primpy-ass butt every day? You're Goddamned right I am! But I refuse to sit back and be stubborn, scorned little girl Bella and keep you from moving forward with your life," she spewed, pausing a moment with an ironic smile on her face. "If we hold each other back from that, then are we really friends at all?" Bella's chest heaved with emotion as her dark eyes stared intently across the table, her face stiff, severe.

Rosalie beamed at her as the tears broke through their dark blue barriers and fell delicately down her face, cascading like tropical waterfalls. And that is something you can only say about Rosalie, 'cause most people look like a dirty old shower stall when they cry.

"I tried to convince Emmett to let you live with us, but he insisted you wouldn't want to. I even sort of begged him," she laughed through her tears.

Bella shook her head in amusement, chuckling. "Rosie, I think he's good for you, but I could never live with that big oaf. The dude is huge - I cannot even imagine what his gas is like. Seriously. All I know is that I don't want to be anywhere near that morning pee."

Rosalie's eyes went wide and they were both silent for a moment before they collapsed in fits of laughter, each leaving their chairs in shuddering movements so they could meet in the middle of their tiny kitchen, and they hugged.

To celebrate Rosalie's big step forward. To celebrate Emmett's potentially horrific gas. And to celebrate this friendship that could and would withstand a difficult new living arrangement.

Bella could think more on that last bit tomorrow. But for now, the night still reeked of possibility, and even with everything that had just been upended in her world, her focus remained on the reek.

Ninety minutes later, Bella laced up her boots and slid on her coat, tossing her bag across her shoulder.

"I'm heading out," She called as she placed her hand on the knob, pausing for a moment for a deep breath. And a consideration.

Rosalie's head popped out of the bathroom. "You sure you don't wanna come along tonight? Just to hang out?" she asked sincerely.

Bella laughed. "No. I definitely don't."

"Okay," Rose responded. "Enjoy the coffee shop, then."

Bella stopped a moment, her hand on the knob, the door half open. "I'm disappointed in you, Rosalie Hale. Aren't you supposed to have my every number?"

Rosalie's eyebrows tweaked in confusion. She looked to her questioningly, her eyes politely beckoned, wtf?

Bella smiled at her in response. "I am not going to the coffee shop. I'm going to open mic. And I'm so freaking psyched about it that I might pee myself. Bye!"

With that she waved quickly once and slid out the door, slamming it shut behind her and giggling like a naughty teenager as she ran down the hall, skidding on a loose bit of carpet near the stairs.

She hadn't felt that....just...good in a long time. Not in a really long time.

She galloped down the sea of stairs leading to the door out, two at a time. Behind her she heard Rosalie tear open the door and yell down to her.

"Wait, Swanie! You little brat! Come back here!"

Bella giggled again, loud enough for her to hear as she coasted out the building's heavy exterior door. She knew that Rosalie had probably been in the process of deciding which pair of designer jeans looked best on her luscious hiney, and was more than likely wearing nothing but a bra and panties. She would not give chase, not in this neighborhood.

She was free.

It was utterly impossible to prepare for this while he was hyper aware of every movement that fluttered through the heavy curtain and into the room. He had arrived early on purpose, thinking it would decrease his chances of an impulsive escape attempt if he were already in the room when she arrived, rather than walking into a room where she was there waiting for him.

His eyes darting back and forth around the room, he awkwardly ambled over to the front table. The table from the drawing. He paused briefly, digging deep for a cleansing breath before shrugging off his coat and hanging it on the back of the chair.

Such a simple act, really, laying a coat over the back of a chair. For Edward, though, it felt like an embarrassing act of territorial dominance. No, this is what normal people do, he reasoned with himself, wiping his clammy palms against his jeans.

A drink. He needed a drink. He glanced at his watch and wondered how many he could fit inside him before her arrival. He didn't usually drink before performing, but this was sort of a...special circumstance. He hightailed it to the bar and ordered a Guinness and a shot of Makers Mark, downing the shot quickly and tossing down the glass on the bar top with a twenty dollar bill beside it. He started to turn away, thinking about picking his guitar up and finding a dark corner to hide in for a few minutes when he stopped short and turned back to the bartender. His breath stopped in his throat for a moment as he made eye contact with him. He recognized him immediately from last week - the same bartender who had delivered the drink and note. There was silence between them for a moment as Edward found the words he was looking for.

"Thanks," he finally muttered, the sound of his own voice surprising him. He nodded once and turned away, letting his cheeks inflate and forcing out a huge breath as he walked back toward the stage. If he was going to talk to Isabella tonight, he should probably practice speaking to others first. He wished he'd thought of that before now. Ordering food and drinks was something he had become accustomed to, but making niceties and following basic rules of social protocol, yeah...not so much.

Leaving his coat over the back of the chair at...their...table, Edward snatched up his guitar case and found a quiet spot near the front of the room, between the stage and the side curtain. He had decided to sing two simple songs tonight, songs he knew he wouldn't screw up. And perhaps more importantly, songs that wouldn't reveal too much of himself to her. One was about walking around in New York and the glory of knowing that no matter how many thousands of people you pass by on your journey, you probably have never seen that person before and will probably never see them again. The other was a cute little ditty about Alice and Jasper - he thought she would get an ironic kick out of it. These were safe songs. Songs he could play in his sleep. Perfect for tonight.

Minutes passed. The room filled with educated-looking hipsters, sloppily-dressed art students, proud families, kind friends, bored people. Edward remained snug in his quiet spot, plinking, plunking, and eyeing the front table every fifteen seconds. Aside from his coat, the ghost of him, it was empty. The space was growing loud with the chaotically layered sound of two dozen conversations happening all at once. Usually he didn't mind the noise of bars and clubs, but tonight the sound of it was so confusing and so distracting for him, he abruptly forgot his chords, his lyrics, his name. He couldn't do this. He had to leave.

He stood, guitar in hand, making a grab for his coat. It wasn't too late.

And then quite suddenly, it was too late.

She had pulled the curtain back with her hand and poked only half of her head over to the other side, scanning the room before she came in, but he saw her immediately. His heart stopped. His blood raced. How the two were happening at the same time was beyond him. Her hair was in a high ponytail with loose curls hanging around her shoulders. She wore a large pink bow at the top of her head. Polka dot, of course. He gasped out a laugh at the sight of it, only then realizing that he hadn't been breathing. She was there.

As she stepped in, the lights went down and the announcer took the stage to announce the first act of the evening, but Edward never took his eyes off of her as she brushed off her skirt and straightened her bow. His stomach turned and he smiled to spite it. She stood on her tiptoes, her body waving back and forth a bit as she looked toward the front of the room. As soon as she saw the front table saved for her, she bit down on her lip as she grinned and bounced toward the bar, all while removing her coat and digging into her bag. She was ordering the beers. And she looked happy.

Did everything this girl put to paper just come to life like this? He suddenly felt like a jerk for not wearing the checkerboard shirt as his feline counterpart had been wearing. At the time he thought it'd be too hokey. Now that it was too late, he regretted it. Mistake number one. Of likely many.

Across the crowded room, Isabella shared a moment with the barkeep, leaning in far across the bar and asking him something that made him smile and nod, gesturing towards the front table where he had set his coat. Jesus, that seemed like hours ago he'd done that. She laughed once and nodded her head enthusiastically, holding up her palm to him for a high-five that he quickly answered. Edward felt a pang of shame at the ease in which they interacted with one another, knowing it could never be like that with him.

Holding the two beers in one hand above her head, their necks crossed, she wound her way across, closing the distance between them and stopped short as she arrived at the table, staring at the empty chair with a look on her face that he couldn't identify. Her former exuberance washed away, replaced with...uncertainty. With a shaky hand, she set the beers on the table. Their table. She was nervous, he realized incredulously, his mouth hanging open in shock. What could she possibly have to be nervous about?

A sudden vision of himself cowered up against his cubicle with a horrified grimace on his face as she half hung over the edge of the cubicle wall, brown eyes wide and humoured, her telephone headset swaying back and forth along the padded surface flashed through his head. Oh.

A second vision rolled through, crackled like an old black and white film reel, this time of his panicked and flailing body sprinting out the fire door of the Blue Mango and down the cold sidewalk as she stared on, confused and concerned. Right.

Yeah. He hadn't exactly set a high standard for shared company thus far. Her very presence in the world had occupied so many of his thoughts over the last weeks, it was difficult for him to remember that she had absolutely no idea that she had become the strange and unlikely center of his universe.

She stood still beside the table, staring at his coat, that same strange look on her face. Years passed. Well, it was probably something more like a few seconds, but truly, it felt like years. He released a long held breath when finally she sat down, tweaked her bow again and then spent an inordinate amount of time fussing with the placement of the beers on the table, inching them this way and that until they were sitting exactly as they had in her drawing. This girl was unbelievable.

It was then that she finally looked up and around the room, wondering where he might be.

It was then that he ducked his head down towards the side of the stage so she wouldn't see him.

Shit, reflex.

She couldn't even describe the feelings that pulsed through her as she stepped up to the only empty table in the entire room. The front table, reserved just for her, marked with a gray woolen pea coat. She wanted to reach out and tap the button on the shoulder with her fingernail, just once, to prove to herself that it was real, that this was really happening. But she was afraid that he might be in the room somewhere watching her, so she resisted, choosing instead to stand there like a zombie, nervous as hell and probably blocking the view of the stage for several of the nice patrons of the North Star.

If she sat, would the rest unfold just as she'd drawn it? And what of the moments after the drawing? She didn't have anything mapped out beyond that one frozen moment. She immediately wished she'd done a whole series of drawings that outlined her wishes for the entire following year. It was proving already to keep herself remarkably goal-oriented.

She sat, brushing nonexistent wrinkles from her skirt. Someone was on the stage, singing or something, but Bella really had no idea what was happening around her. She was too busy making tiny adjustments to perfect the scenario, to make it as true to the invitation as possible, as if it would somehow help her figure out what the hell to say when he was sitting across from her. "Hi, thanks for meeting me here tonight. I've been exclusively absorbed with measuring the exact angle of your jawbone since we were last left gawking at one another. Do you like fried chicken?"

She sighed. Her imaginary conversations with him were always so embarrassing.

When she was finally satisfied with the positioning of the Guinness labels in accordance to the angle of the chairs, adjusting for acceptable awkward first date-ish legroom, she lifted her head. Where was old Harried Houdini, anyway?

A flash of motion in the corner of the room caught her in the peripheral; her eyes narrowed. And she smiled.

He'd been completely unable to concentrate on even the simplest of pre-performance logistics with her sitting there, wearing that ridiculous and adorable bow in her hair, pretending to watch the first two acts. She took frequent, small sips of her beer, always taking care to replace it to the exact same spot on the table. Somehow, realizing she was nervous didn't make him feel better - it only made him more nervous.

In about sixty seconds, he would be on that stage before her. It was time to go through his short and easy-to-remember mental checklist: Guitar. Huh? Pick. A what? Stool. Wait, what's the stool for again?

Someone was on the stage, chattering about something. Or someone.

"Edward Masen."

Yeah, that was him.

His name sounded strange and obscene amplified throughout the room, unfamiliar. He had always used a fake name for open mic. Until tonight.

The girl straighted her shoulders, tall and bright, and she clapped delicately. He felt like a stranger to this whole scene, but he simply had no choice anymore. He simply did not have any more flight in him.

Sitting on the side of the stage and swinging his legs up under him, he lifted his guitar strap over his shoulders and walked tall across the stage, his steps echoing as the room settled to a dull rumble of conversation as they patiently waited for him to get settled. He grabbed a lone stool sitting near the back of the stage and set it down two feet behind the mic stand with a clunk, leaning down to pick up the cable from the floor and plugging it into his guitar before sitting down and settling his boots on the first set of rungs. And he managed to do all of it without once looking down at the front table.

I think can do this, he realized. If he didn't look at her, it could be like every other time. He remembered suddenly that he hadn't been on a stage in a month. A month! He'd been so worked up over the stress of the meeting that he hadn't given a thought to the release he was about to experience up there. He felt it already even, uplifted just in the simple act of adjusting the height of the microphone. God, it felt good to be up there again. And he hadn't even struck a note yet. I think i can do this, he repeated silently, gaining confidence. Just as long as I don't...

Of course, the very thought of it was enough to make his traitorous eyes flicker downward, and of course, she was there, gazing up at him. His breath hitched as they locked eyes, staring - as was their way. For some reason he was surprised at her expression. She didn't seem anticipatory or anxious, as if she was waiting for something to happen; waiting for him to give something to her. Instead, her eyes were full of an encouragement so warm and sincere, he felt like she were up on the stage beside him.

Without breaking the gaze, and before he even realized what was happening, before he told his brain what to do, his fingers began to play. And just like that, his carefully formulated plans to make life easy on himself and not reveal too much went up in smoke, dispersing around him; and the song that had thus far only serenaded the wind found its target. It was her song. And whether he liked it or not, he was there, in the midst of a strange and very private moment, all while singularly spotlighted and mic'd up in a room full of people. Hell. Heaven.

He hadn't realized how irritatingly pretty this riff was until just now...he had a fleeting thought to perhaps be embarrassed by it, but it was too late, he was already gone.

Can you hear me
Are you out there
If there's still a line between us
Then i will find my way

How did you see me
When i was invisible
How did you touch me
When i was unreachable

Between the wall illusions fall
I saw it in your stare
Will you meet me there

Aren't you afraid
That i am so breakable
How do you know me
When i work to fake it all Can you hear me
Are you out there
Would you trust me if i claimed
This is to protect you

Between the wall illusions fall
I saw it in your stare
Will you meet me there

Infinite flowers
One sits taller, brighter, better
Turning from its sun and onto me

Between the wall illusions fall
I saw it in your stare
Will you meet me there

Reality, snap. Edward's heart hammered in his ears as he fought to recall the last three minutes. He glanced down to the table without a clue as to what he might find there. Isabella sat motionless, agape. Her eyes were intense, and he suspected a twin set to his own. There was no way he was going to play the silly cat song now. Not a chance in hell.

He stood, forcing himself to remember how to walk with each step he took towards the edge of the stage. Towards her.

It was just as well that his body and mind were a in a gelatin state, because any deeper awareness would trigger fear which would trigger flight. And for once in his life, Edward was not in any shape to flee. He needed to sit. And he needed a beer. Thankfully, he knew exactly where to find both.

He flung his guitar into its case with a disjointed chime and quickly fastened one latch, marveling in his own hurry. Three and a half steps later, he stood with his hands grasping the back of his chair, the wool of his coat hot under his already sweaty palms. After a beat, he lifted his eyes to meet hers. Her mouth was still ajar, though she closed it - with apparent effort - after a moment. Seemingly out of the need for something to do, she reached up slowly and touched her bow, as if to make sure it were still there.

In a matching gesture, Edward reached into his shirt pocket and retrieved his glasses, sliding them into place. She smiled.

He rounded the chair and dropped in, hunched and depleted, staring at his boots for a moment before grabbing the bottle in his fist and taking a long swig. Bella watched him cautiously, as if she were monitoring the behavior of a wild animal. She knew it was important that she break the ice, but wanted to make sure the timing was right.

As he lowered the bottle back down to the table, he leaned his head down close, placing it carefully and making a small adjustment to assure its former position before leaning back in his chair. She smiled again - he had been watching. She opened her mouth to blurt out God knows what...but it was Edward who spoke first, his voice quiet but clear.

"Hi."

"Hi."

A/N

And…nine chapters later, they finally exchange words.

Dare I say it? I believe they're going to have a –gasp- conversation in Chapter Ten.

Thanks everyone for sticking with me during this super long update fail. Excuses are lame, so I'll make 'em quick – my son's birthday/Thanksgiving/work/life/Christmas, etc. etc…plus, this chapter was a mean old beast to work with - but I hope it finally came 'round in the end.

On Twitter? Follow me! realimaginary

Please, if you see or hear Little Slugger mentioned or recommended anywhere in the fandom, please let me know so I can send my thanks. TY!

xoxo