A/N: As always, SMeyer owns the characters, I own Newspaper Wars. Thank you to my charming beta Mopstyle. I won't bore you on the details, but rest assured I am so sorry for the lagging post schedule. My buddies Detka and Revrag prodded me with a pitchfork to get my ass in gear. Big love to all my Wide Awake Rehab buddies.

~Chapter 8 – Boom, Boom, Pow~

~BPOV~

Rose wasn't easy to convince to come to dinner with me, especially when she heard I was meeting up with my friend, Emmett. Her curiosity about Zephyr tipped the scales in my favor and, after a long and decidedly uneventful day, we made our way out of the building and hopped into my truck.

"Wow Bella, this is a classic, and not at all what I expected you to drive." She eyeballed me, like she was trying to figure me out. "How did I not notice this beast in the parking lot before?"

I shrugged and tossed my bag to the center of the bench seat. "I used to drive an old Honda Civic when I was in San Francisco, but it had like three hundred thousand miles on it. Everything started going wrong though, so I sold it to a neighbor to help pay for the move." I started up the truck and briefly reminisced about the cheap gas situation with the Honda, I did miss that part. "This baby," I said patting the dash, "was a gift from my dad."

"Huh, well, it's old and a little funky but if you had some body work done and a slick paint job this would be pretty cool," she said.

I, for one, thought my truck was cool and decided right there that the funk factor added to its character. I wasn't the kind of girl that spent her time fantasizing about winning the lottery and buying a fancy car, or a house in Florida. I mean, I never even bought lottery tickets—how the fuck would I win? I am practical, and people who flirt with fantasy only ended up depressed with their station in life.

Who has time for that shit?

My current favorite song came floating though the airwaves and I turned up the radio as I pulled out of King County's maze-like parking lot.

"Have you heard this? Skinny Love?" I asked.

"I don't think so, who's it by?"

"His name is Bon Iver," I said above the din. "I love him like a fat kid loves cake."

She laughed and I started singing along, because when I hear him I can't help it.

"Come on skinny love just last the year
Pour a little salt we were never here
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Staring at the sink of blood and crushed veneer

I tell my love to wreck it all
Cut out all the ropes and let me fall
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Right in the moment this order's tall

I told you to be patient
I told you to be fine
I told you to be balanced
I told you to be kind
In the morning I'll be with you
But it will be a different "kind"
I'll be holding all the tickets
And you'll be owning all the fines"

Rose either grew weary of my song choice or my singing because she turned it down.
"Fuck," she said. "You listen to depressing music."

"Not always, I just love the way he makes me feel. Bon Iver is fuck hot with that voice and a guitar."

"Humph, well he makes me want to drink myself into oblivion so let's try to keep the crooning to a minimum tonight please. It's only Tuesday and I have a long week of waking up hangover-free ahead of me."

I pulled up to Zephyr's school and Rose followed me into the string of portable buildings on the opposite side of the playground from the school where the afterschool program was housed. A girl in her early twenties with pink hair, various facial piercings and a school lanyard heavily laden with keys plucked her Walkie-talkie from her pocket when she saw me.

"Carlos, could you send Zephyr Swan inside to get his backpack, his mom is here for pick up."

Rose snorted a laugh under her breath. "Hopefully your kid isn't subjected to many of these types of examples."

I cringed and hoped like hell the pink-haired pin cushion was hard of hearing. I gave Rose a dirty look and walked over to sign Zephyr out. When I wasn't looking, Zephyr barreled through the door and nearly knocked me over when he grabbed me around the hips. "Mom!"

I finished what I was doing and pried his arms from my body and turned around squatted so we were eye level. "Hey baby, how was your day?" I swept a sweaty chunk of hair out of his eyes and smiled at him.

"Mom, Alex asked me to come to his birthday party this weekend. It's a roller skating party. Can I go?"

"I guess so, but you've never skated before. That could be dangerous." His interest in dangerous activities was surprisingly innate, but I was so relieved that he had made a friend. Nothing I could do but buy extra health insurance. The kid was absolutely fearless.

"Nah, if Carly can do it, I can do it. Anything a girl can do, I can do."

"Looks like you've got a budding chauvinist here Bella," Rose said with smirk.

I could tell from his body language that Zeph had no idea what chauvinist meant, but he was fairly certain it wasn't complimentary. "Who are you?" he asked with a bit of an attitude. His brows were creased, he was sizing her up. It was likely that her answer would definitively place her in the friend or foe category and I braced myself for her response.

"I am Rose and I work with your mom at the newspaper," she said holding her hand out to shake it like she was talking to an adult. She squinted her eyes at Zeph like she was eying him up. "I really like her and when I heard she had a little man waiting for her at home, I knew I wanted to meet you. So what are you, ten?"

He pursed his lips like he knew she was bullshitting him. "Nine."

I cleared my throat reminding him that I was there and threw him a reprimanding mom look.
"Alright, I'm almost eight," he said with a mischevious grin. "But everyone says I act like I'm nine."

I bumped him with my hip to push him toward the coat rack to coax him to grab his pack and jacket. Rose held the door for us and we walked out to the truck together. It was a rare, clear night in Seattle and though it wasn't quite dusk, you could see the sky darken with orange and red highlights along the horizon. I took a deep, cleansing breath and grabbed my keys out of my jacket.

"You know, I pinch-hit for my girlfriend's roller derby team sometimes, maybe I could give you some pointers on skating sometime?"

With that, Rose cinched it and passed muster. His eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas and he hopped into the car, happily relinquishing his normal seat to his new buddy Rose.

"Really? Sweet. See Mom, Rose can help me."

On the way to the apartment to clean up before dinner, Rose had to clear up the confusing mention of pinch-hitting. Zephyr was concerned there was some sort of baseball element to skating he was previously unaware of. We had some time to kill before we had to meet Emmett, so I poured us a glass of wine once we arrived at our place. We kicked off our heels and grumbled a little about our day.

Aside from my little drama, Rose had some of her own. She had been covering a disturbing case involving a car wreck that killed a nine-year-old little girl who was also a twin. Two boys, ages eighteen and nineteen were speeding and harassing one another, playing chicken on a back road outside of Seattle in January. In their supreme stupidity they inadvertently ran a minivan off the road which resulted in the girl's death. The mother of the girl also suffered major injuries, but survived.

"The trial has been brutal. I don't think I've ever been on a case that affected me more, honestly. And I've covered some grisly murders in my short time on this beat. I don't know, the boys drove like assholes, but—for both of them—their lives are essentially over. The DA is going to be successful in his aggravated manslaughter charges and those boys are going to spend the next twelve years of their lives in prison. Other than driving like idiots one sunny afternoon in January, neither of them had ever done a goddamn thing wrong in their lives. It's such a waste."

"God, Rose, your job sucks," I whispered. Zephyr was playing in his room and this was the last conversation that I wanted him to overhear. He never really knew my mom, but her death really affected him. He asked me questions about death, dying and the afterlife for weeks. Truthfully, I wasn't prepared to answer those questions for myself, let alone my son.

"Yep, pretty much," she said, raising her glass of wine in a mock toast to the suckiness. "I normally pride myself on not letting that stuff get to me, but that car wreck destroyed three families. The parents of the girl are getting a divorce and are practically bankrupt from all of the medical bills. The mother might be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life, the twin has been to three different shrinks since the accident… It's just so damn sad. The worst part, for me at least, has been that one of the boys is from Jake's reservation."

"What? Cocky photo editor Jake?"

"Same. He flat out refused to go to the county courthouse to take the boys pictures last week and so I had to fucking go back there and do it myself. As if listening to everyone cry all day during their testimony wasn't bad enough."

"Jesus, I had no idea. Poor Jake," I said.

"Poor Jake my ass, he had stringers he could have called in to take the photos so he didn't have to do it himself. He was pissed because he didn't want me to run the defendants' photos in the paper, and I don't care who they are, I can't do that. If the Seattle Enterprise is going to run it, I'm going to run it."

"The whole thing sounds like shit. I don't care what you say, Rose, my beat is waaay better."

I heard Zephyr ambling down the hall, effectively ending the morbid conversation. "Hey honey, what's up?"

"Mom, I'm starving. Is it time for dinner yet?" He enunciated his words with a dramatic flair. He was so stinking cute standing there with his hair sticking up all over the place, exasperated by our dinner schedule.

I quirked a brow at his display, despite the snack he'd had less than an hour ago.
"I guess we could head to the restaurant."

"Yay. Do you think Emmett will bring that Chewbacca action figure he got on He Bay?"

I laughed and ruffled his hair. Sometimes I marveled at his innocence. "That's Ebay, squirt, and when it comes to Em, your guess is as good as mine."

On our way to the truck, Rose hit me between the eyes with the question I was least prepared to answer. "So, Bella, this friend of yours, Emmett—what's his story? Are you two an item or what?"

I ducked and dug out the middle seatbelt from the craptastic bench seat of the truck for Zephyr, hoping to avoid Rose's discerning gaze. She caught a glimpse of my reddened cheeks and pursed her lips and nodded at me knowingly. I cleared my throat and I tried to disguise my answer so that Zeph would remain clueless to the whole "boinking-the-best-friend" fiasco.

"Um, Em and I are just friends. I've known him nearly half my life and while we may have…um crossed the line in the past. I can assure you that we are only friends."

"Hey, I'm not sitting on a throne in judgment; I was just curious about what I'm walking into here."

"Don't get me wrong, he is a great guy, but—he's never going to be more than a friend," I said.

She snorted. "Who you tryin' to convince Bella, me or you?" I shot Rose a warning look, and she held her hands up like she wasn't going to press any further. "So let me get this straight, this guy is a sports loving man-child who works for the competition?" she asked with a slight sneer.

"Mom, what's a man-child?" Zephyr piped in.

I had made it to Highland Park and was frantically looking for Zippy's Giant Burgers. I needed to get out of the cab of the truck before Rose touched on any more sensitive topics. I saw Emmett leaning up against the rear bumper of his car, his MUSCLMN license plate on full display. Rose rolled her eyes at me with a look that read 'Just what I figured.'

I turned off the truck and purposely parked a bit away from Emmett so he wouldn't happen upon the ass chewing I was about to serve up. "Alright, time out," I said, putting the beast in park. "Zeph, a man-child is a man who hasn't quite grown up all the way yet. And yes, your uncle Em would probably fall into that category. But he is also the best friend a person could have. He is honest, smart, loyal and funny as hell. He would stop at nothing to be there for someone who needed him and I'll be damned if I will tolerate anyone saying anything to contrary. Capice?"

I didn't wait for a response from Rose before I hopped out and helped Zeph. He hit the ground running and made it across the parking lot at warp speed with full intent to try and tackle Emmett. I crossed in front of the truck and opened Rose's door. I raised my eyebrows, looking for some semblance of understanding from her.

"Capice," she said. It was noncommittal, but respectful. That was all I could ask for at this point. She scooted off the seat setting her sassy, red, patent leather peep-toe Jimmy Choos on the pavement.

I smiled over to Emmett who had made it to the front door of the restaurant and was waiting for us to join him. But his eyes found Rose and even from 30 paces I could tell his mouth was slightly open.

C'mon Em, close your mouth. Can't you see I am trying to convince Rose you aren't a fucking caveman.

I had to hand it to Rose though. The way she sashayed to the door, you'd think her own theme music was playing in the background. I could almost hear Fergie's voice ring through Rose's clicking heels.

"I like that boom, boom, pow
Them chickens jackin' my style
They try to copy my swagger
I got that next shit now"

I shook off the tune, but chuckled under my breath as I caught up to Rose before we got to the door.

"How the fuck do you afford those shoes on a reporter's salary?" I asked through my teeth, keeping my smile for Emmett.

"Jealous much?"

I laughed and hip checked Rose before we got to the door so that I was in front of Emmett and could introduce her properly. "This here, Emmett, is my friend Rose from the King County Reporter. Careful, her claws are sharp."

"Oh well, that's just fine. A little milk and some rubbing behind the ears is all I usually need to reduce a tiger to a purring kitty." Now it was my turn to roll my eyes.

Rose was clearly caught off guard because she hesitated for a moment, absent her normally quippy remark.

"Down boy," I took over holding the glass door and ushered the pair inside. I purposely cut her off before she had a chance to lay into Emmett. "Rose isn't your average kitty, and she isn't so keen on your working for the enemy, so let's keep the casual banter to a minimum until she warms up, K?"

I got up to the counter and rescued Zephyr from a hot waitress pinching his cheeks. His ruddy face revealed a disturbing grin that was both sheepish and appreciative of the attention. Emmett jumped into the fray and grabbed him by the elbow, whispering something that deepened the red in his cheeks. I didn't even want to know at this point.

Menu's were passed around and I caught Rose eyeballing the low brow setting and looked to Emmett to fill us in on why we drove across town for the burgers at this locale.

"Mom, check this out, there are more than 20 kinds of root beer at this place!"

"Well, I am a sucker for a good root beer," I said, watching Emmett and Zeph fist bump.

"Seriously, Bells, this place has the best burgers in Seattle. You'll see. You see anything you like?"

"I was kind of thinking of being brave and trying the spicy burger." The chipotle mayo, peppers and pepper jack cheese sounded yummy. "How are the onion rings?"

"I haven't had them yet, I'm usually barely able to finish the Big Mouth burger," he said.

Rose closed her menu and set it to the side. "I think I'm going to try that spicy burger too, I can handle a little heat. Sounds delicious."

She was smiling and Emmett refrained from exploiting the obvious hot and spicy jokes.

Nice work Swan, maybe we can work in a little love connection here.

Everyone placed their orders and Zeph busied himself with the coloring/activity page and crayons; content to sip on his micro-brewed root beer.

"So thanks for getting us all jacked up with Carlisle, you know, your pal here could have been fired," Rose said. "Aro usually fires first and asks questions later…Ow."

I kicked Rose under the table.

There goes my love connection. Damnit.

Emmett rubbed his thumb against his brow, contemplating Rose's statement. "I'm so sorry Bella. I never meant to get you into trouble."

Fortunately, Zeph was completely oblivious to the conversation.

"Can you guys keep it down, please? It all worked out, no more trying to get me to jump ship." I used hushed tones, but my message was heard loud and clear. "It isn't going to happen."

"I know. I just thought it would be fun to work with you again. You can't blame a guy for trying."

Rose was twirling her strawberry milkshake with her straw absentmindedly. "You know, I've sat across the courtroom from your reporter every day for the past eleven months without offering so much as a smile and she has tried on several occasions to be nice to me. Maybe this competition shit is messing with my brain."

"Rose, you have to put a quarter in the cussing jar when we get back home," Zeph said, looking up from his Zippy burger dot-to-dot. "I'm saving for a TV in my room."

"Oh yeah, well I have plenty more where that came from," she joked.

"No you do not, Rose. Thank you very much," I said, reining her in.

She gave me a snarky smile in challenge.

From out of the clear blue sky, Emmett blew me away with some surprise introspection. "The mythologist Joseph Campbell once wrote that in order to wage war, one must first believe his opponent is essentially evil," he said, looking up from his purposeful fraying of the napkin before him. He was talking to both of us, but looking at Rose. "It's a lot harder to believe your opponent is evil if you acknowledge that they are just like you. Likely working at a job that is—just like yours—undervalued and underpaid. Alice, our court reporter, is one of the nicest people you'll ever meet."

Emmett saw the look on my face and laughed. "What? You thought I wasn't paying attention in World Religions didn't you?"

"Well, you did cheat off my tests in that class. Who'da thunk that 10 years later you'd be able pull that out of your ass in time to interpret our little modern day newspaper war?"

"You only thought I was cheating, I was just checking my answers," he said, stealing an onion ring off my plate. He winked playfully and I silently hoped Rose wouldn't notice how he chewed with his mouth open.

All of us dug in, grateful that the burgers lived up to their reputation. The only sounds coming from our table for the next fifteen minutes were distinct moans of pleasure.

My god, this is as close to sex as I am going to get for a while.

We were their last customers in the restaurant. Since we neglected to check how early—eight p.m.―they closed. Sounds of cleaning pots and grills floated in from the kitchen and I was startled when I looked up to see that the owner had come by our table to ask us how our meal was.

He had a five o' clock shadow along his jaw and warm brown eyes. I almost choked when he was talking to our table but looking straight at me. Rob, the owner had introduced himself as, explained that they were closing up but to take our time finishing up our meal. He flashed Rose and me a toothy smile as he walked away and I heard Emmett grumble something under his breath about chopped liver.

"That man has never walked over to my table before and I've been coming by this joint for easily a year. Throw a few babes into the mix and lo and behold, an entirely new dining experience."

Rose smiled to herself at the babe mention. Zeph looked from Emmett to me like he was going to be sick.

"Eww, did you just call Mom a babe? That is so gross Emmett," he said. He was snarffing up his burger like an animal.

"Hey, I make no apologies for the Emmett McCarty babe-o-meter. This table is maxing out at a solid nine here and I am just content to revel in its glory," Emmett said smirking, with one eye on Rose.

Zeph washed down the bite of food in his maw and had a slightly confused and disgusted look on his face. "I have no idea what you just said, but my friend Alex said boys should stay away from girls. They'll be the death of you."

We all laughed at Zephyr's advice on women. He said that since I was his mom, I didn't really count as a "girl" and I tickled him as punishment for my mock offense.

Both Rose and Emmett left the work topic alone and for the rest of dinner we easily transitioned to their mutual love of muscle cars. Zeph lightened up the serious conversation riddled with mentions of stainless trim, Mopar, and mean quantities of horse power with his French fry-up-the-nose impression of a walrus.

I was so proud. Proud of Zeph for being a total nerd just like his mom; and proud of my visionary matchmaking skills that would hopefully bring two people a little bit of happiness.

After I dropped Rose back off at her car we left at the office, I felt lonely. More lonely than I'd felt for a long time. It was nice to see Rose loosen up a bit and laugh. I could tell she was enamored with Zeph by the way she pet his hair like a dog as he leaned into her side on the drive home. Today's dog was tomorrow's playmate. Baby steps. I couldn't expect to turn her into my emergency babysitter over night.

Muahahaha.

I laughed silently, but oh, so evilly. The harpy cackling on my shoulder couldn't dampen my mood. Zephyr was sound asleep. His dead weight practically knocked me over when I was trying to get the front door to our apartment open.

Jesus, this kid is almost as big as I am.

I slipped off his shoes and jeans, forgoing the pj's, and tucked him into bed. He was so sweet when he was sleeping. Even the smudge of ketchup in the corner of his mouth was kind of cute. I crawled into my cold bed and laid there staring at the ceiling for the longest time. I thought about Emmett and how he acted tonight. We were back to being completely normal with each other, post hot sex on the floor. I knew that he would be fine and hopefully he would man-up and make a move on Rose.

I thought about Edward Cullen. He was so beautiful. I was curious about how his company's public launch went and tried to come up with a reasonable plan to contact him. Would it sound casual? Would he see through the ruse? I wondered if it would rankle Tanya further if I called him.

Let's hope so.

When I arrived at the office the next morning, I busied myself with my morning routine: returning phone calls and checking with sources to flush out a story for the next day's issue. I noticed that our managing editor, Lauren, forwarded me an E-mail about the grand reopening a chain of pet grooming businesses that recently underwent a facelift. I braced myself and hoped like hell this was a suggestion and not an actual assignment. This was barely passable for newsworthy and there were plenty of enterprise pieces I could work on if nothing substantial jumped out at me before the end of the day.

I kept my head down at our daily news staff, hoping Marcus wouldn't bring up the email. No such luck.

The roaming tennis ball made it to the business section. I caught it deftly and offered up a human interest piece based on the Boeing cutbacks due to the union negotiations the prior week. I also heard about a few closures and said I would write a roundup of the downtown businesses closing up shop. I heard through the grapevine that the proximity to continued construction along the waterfront had affected parking availability and access to store fronts. A handful of longtime businesses decided to throw in the towel or relocate rather than fight the city any longer. Retail sales were still struggling in Seattle and the economy had forced businesses with extenuating circumstances to reassess their entire operation—those with location problems seemed to be banding together to send a message to the city manager and planners making the decisions to do things like relocate water mains and upgrade sidewalks.

I tossed the ball back to Marcus and awaited his customary two cents on my topics. His facial expression was confused and he asked me what happened with the dog groomer grand reopening.

Jake snickered behind me and any pity I'd felt for him last night flew right out the window.

"Uh, I guess I just didn't think that story was all that newsworthy," I said, hoping like hell he would agree with me.

He scrawled a note on the tablet in front of him and looked up at me from over the tops of his glasses.

"Pets today, closures tomorrow, Swan." He waited for me to acknowledge his directive.

I nodded and mumbled something along the lines of "yeah, okay." I felt like I was going to be sick. I was writing a story directly for the publisher. I went back to my desk and reopened the E-mail and scrolled down to the bottom. Sure enough, the original story request came from the advertising manager. Someone, namely the grooming business, had spent enough money on ads to buy themselves a story. I felt cheap. I know I didn't get into reporting to write under duress.

After the meeting, Rose was not pleased with our esteemed leader. Under her breath she said, "Wonder what crawled up Marcus's ass and died? That is a lame fucking story assignment." She plopped her butt over on the center of my desk and plucked a grape from my lunch sack.

"Well, I'll give you one guess. His name starts with A and ends with O," I said pointing to my computer monitor.

Rose and I conspired a bit and I considered telling other reporters about what I was being asked to do, but as I looked around the newsroom, I realized that other than Rose—and Jake the fucktard—I didn't really know anyone. Seeing the waste of energy my whining would accomplish, I decided to take a walk and get some fresh air. Perhaps just a few times around the block would help me cool off. Through the ridiculously small windows in the newsroom I could tell it was somewhat sunny outside. I was barely on the sidewalk, past the heavy glass front doors of King County Reporter, when I noticed a black sedan pull up along the sidewalk right next to me.

Startled by the intrusion, I scooted over toward the center of the sidewalk and kept walking but the car rolled forward a few feet keeping up my pace. I turned my head when I heard the automatic door roll down and thought perhaps they needed directions.

"Excuse me Miss Swan, I was wondering if you could spare a moment to take a ride with me."

I stopped and peered inside nervously so I could see who was talking to me. The words were caught in my throat and I felt my pulse race when I recognized the piercing green eyes staring back at me.

AN: Dun, dun, dun. So uh... who do you think was in the car? Hmmmm. I've given you much to ponder, my pretties. HUGE thank you for all of you that reviewed my little story. If you leave me a review, I promise to send you a teaser to my next chapter. It may be a bit before you get it, BUT I never forget. XOXOXO