A/N: Soo...I meant to post this before I left to visit some relatives who are not granted home access to the wonderful acronym known as DSL, but I got sick and forgot. Patience is a virtue though, right?

Disclaimer: I do not own Stephenie Meyer's characters' names. But yay for me that I own a brand spanking new NM DVD!

*** Bella's POV

Pants?

I looked down.

Check.

Shirt?

Another glance down, this time at my chest.

Check.

Deodorant?

I lifted an arm, sniffing.

Check.

Favorite set of matching panties and bra to ensure a secret feel of power?

I stuck a hand slightly in my dark jeans, snapping the waistband of my favorite panties, and then pulled on the neck of my shirt, Hello Kitty staring back up at me.

Check.

Comfortable yet slightly-nice shoes?

My gaze traveled down again, this time going past my pants and to my crossword-puzzle converse sneakers.

Check.

A last flick of my eyes to the mirror, to make certain non-apparel-wise I looked okay, and I headed toward the kitchen. Pouring myself a cup of coffee from the fresh pot on the counter and taking a slow sip, I smiled as my brain woke up all the way.

Sharp, sarcastic wit and the tongue to do it justice?

Che-eh-eck.

A sound that I definitely didn't make brought me out of my mental check-listing, and I turned away from the breakfast-foods-only cabinet to see what it was.

Jake, some long and white handkerchief thing in his hand, stood in the entrance to the kitchen, mock-sniffling and mock-wiping at imaginary tears in his eyes. The seriousness of the situation, the little bit that had still been hanging around, was completely trashed by his Smurf pajama pants.

"My little baby is flying the coop."

I rolled my eyes. "How many years is it gonna take before you finally accept the fact that I. Am. Older than you!"

Crossing the few feet separating us, he patted me on the head like a dog or something. "Someone so short shouldn't get to be the older one."

"Hey! I'm 5'5", buddy!"

He gave me a look.

"Okay, fine! I'm 5'4". But in the right shoes it's 5'5"! And what about Estelle Getty? She was short yet old. Or that short lady on that undercover detectives show in L.A.? She's old too."

"Excuses excuses..." He stuffed the handkerchief in a pocket of his Smurf pants.

"Oh, and what was up with the fake watershow? You do realize this is not my first job, right? That, in fact, I had another job just the other day?"

"Yes, but this job is a new beginning. Or at least it feels that way." I opened my mouth, about to coo 'awww' at his surprising sweetness. "Plus, this job doesn't have Mike Newton."

I narrowed my eyes, all 'aww'ness gone. "You just had to bring that up, didn't you?" I might not have had such a problem with Mike Newton had it not been for all the merciless teasing I received thanks to him.

He shrugged as his only response, grinning widely.

"I gotta go." I grabbed a granola bar from the breakfast-foods-only cabinet, planning to eat it on the way. "The place is only a couple blocks from here, but I don't want to risk being late."

"Be good!" Jake called from behind me as I opened the door.

"Aren't I always?"

"I'm Susan," she held out her hand to me. "But you can just call me Sue." Despite her slightly fierce-looking features accentuated by the tight bun her dirty blond hair was pulled into, her smile was warm and gentle.

"Bella," I offered as we shook.

The man, who I recognized as the one who'd given me this job opportunity yesterday, standing beside her in the oxford shirt and slacks with the receding hairline yet full mustache pushed his hand toward mine too. "Charles Higginbotham." I wondered if it'd taken him years of practice to say that last name without a giggle or grimace. I almost didn't hold back the former.

Sue slapped him on the shoulder. "You know everyone calls you Charlie, and you prefer it that way. Stop trying to scare the poor girl or kill her from laughter. She just got here."

To my surprise, Charles, uh, Charlie, chuckled. I stared for a few seconds, in awe of how easy and natural this place seemed.

Nothing at all like the tenseness of Newton's Grocers. Tenseness that arose mostly from the fact that Karen Newton always dressed inappropriately for a grown woman at a grocery store, and it caught the attention of the male customers, causing a tense and unpleasantly sexual atmosphere. I shuddered lightly from the memory. It was made all the more disgusting by the fact that Jerry Newton knew of it and approved. Sometimes even going so far as to encourage it. Those were conversations I'd never even wanted to know existed.

I was snapped out of my thoughts by something crashing in to me and nearly knocking me to the floor as it attempted a hug.

"Whoa, whoa, Alice. Tone it down a bit," a comforting voice laughed, and the crashing thing was lifted away, allowing me to regain my balance.

Once accomplishing that, I turned to where the voice had come from. A tall figure with a mop of blond, shaggy, surfer-hair stood there with an easy smile adorning his face.

I scanned down his body at least a good foot before I saw the other figure. A very short girl, with cropped, blackish-brownish hair layered nicely to fit her face and ending in neat points, bounced on the balls of her feet beside Surfer Head. I had to wonder if she was on something; she just looked so...perky. I'd never seen anyone with such a wide, truly happy and excited smile on their face. At least not anyone who was standing there looking at nothing but an awkward me.

"Bella," Sue spoke, "this is—"

"Alice!" Mini Girl piped in impatiently. "And this is Jasper," she pointed a thumb to her left, indicating Surfer Head. "I'm so glad to meet you, Bella! I overheard Charlie mentioning you. I've been excited to meet you! It'll be so nice to have another girl here!"

"Hey!" Sue inputted in mock indignation.

The gnome's, er, Alice's laugh echoed around like a doorbell. "No offense, Sue," she laughed again. "Well, Bella," she patted my arm, "I'm sure we'll get along great as long as you don't call me," her voice had lowered and darkened some as she began counting off on her fingers, "pixie, sprite, pygmy, or fairy. I had enough of that shit in high school."

"Alice! Language!" Sue admonished with a poorly concealed laugh.

Alice just grinned at her, patting my arm again before she began walking away. "I've probably scared you enough for today, Bella. I'll get back to work and let you get settled." Despite her seemingly perpetual cheerfulness and slight bi-polar nature, I already liked her. But then again, I always did fall for people too easily, even if I never admitted it to them.

I watched as she flounced over to a customer making their way to the register and could make out every word of their conversation even though I was on the other side of the store.

"Is she on something?" I whispered to Surfer Head, uh, Jasper. Maybe this store had bad acoustics, and voices carried.

"Surprisingly, no."

"Well then why is she so damn...chipper?" I sounded bitter to my own ears. "And then she turned dark without warning!"

Jasper chuckled lowly. "That's just...Alice. You get used to it," he grinned at me. "Eventually. Though she won't mention her biggest pet peeve, the nickname thing, again unless you call her one of them." He chuckled quietly once more before walking off without another word. I already liked him too. He seemed very laid back, in a good and soothing way.

Charlie had since retreated to, what I presumed was, his office. But Sue still stood in front of me, still smiling in a friendly and warm manner. She wrapped an arm tentatively around my shoulders. "Would you like something resembling a tour, dear?"

I nodded with a hesitant smile and brushed off the uneasiness of being touched by a virtual stranger. It's not that I was against human contact or anything, I just needed a moment or two to get myself acquainted with it.

Sue pointed out places and things and told me little tidbits of information on how things worked. She really was very sweet. Nearing the end of her tour, I finally found the courage to ask something that'd been on my mind since I first arrived. "Sue?"

She turned to look at me. "Yes?"

"Where's um..." I gulped, "Edward?" I couldn't believe how small and afraid my voice sounded. I shouldn't have been allowing him to scare me! Especially not since his rudeness had been completely unwarranted.

Sue eyed me questioningly. "He comes in later...Any particular reason why you ask?" She had a hopeful gleam to her eyes now. Ohh no. I'm not wondering about that, Sue. I laughed to myself at what her eyes suggested.

"He was just..." I tried to think of the right word for his behavior toward me.

"Just..." she prompted.

"Just kind of rude to me for no reason yesterday. I hadn't even said one word to him yet, and he was rude..." I bit my lip as I trailed off, remembering Edward's less-than-nice attitude toward me.

Sue squeezed my shoulders in a comforting way. "Oh honey, that's just Edward." She laughed at how absurd that sounded. Or at least that's what I imagined she laughed at. "He can sometimes be aloof, temperamental, and moody. But he does his job well. Very well." She smiled to some thought in her head while I muttered in my own head that he was probably only so good at his job because he flirted with anything with boobs and no penis. Hell, for all I knew he flirted with the penis-bearers too.

"You'll get used to him eventually. Or you'll kill him," she laughed once again. "You'll get used to Alice's energetic and cheery attitude; Charlie's indecisiveness; Jasper's calming personality and accent that peeks its head out at times; Emmett's, you'll meet him later, jokes; and even my mother-hen tendencies too."

Smile never faltering, Sue led me over to Alice so she could show me the ropes on stocking. Something easy to start with, Sue had noted.

Once you realized this was Alice being normal and not her taking one too many 'happy pills', she was very easy to get along with. We talked amicably as she tutored me in the way of stocking, me taking care to avoid referring to her as any synonym for pixie. Although Alice enjoyed to talk, a lot, she didn't completely and wholly dominate a conversation. It was refreshing not to have to rack my brain for something to say; she kept our chatter flowing easily and freely.

Even with Alice and learning how to stock as distractions though, I couldn't help the part of my brain that dreaded when Edward would arrive. I was pretty sure his opinion of me hadn't changed since yesterday. But now that I had the job, or at least was well on my way to officially having it, I resolved to let myself give as good as I got if he decided to be rude to me again.

I was well into my stocking lesson when a little bell jingled from somewhere, startling me. Alice laughed, "It's just the customer bell, Bella." She laughed again at, I assumed, her little joke. "Don't worry."

But there was plenty of cause to worry seeing as how Edward, in my head I sneered the name, had just swaggered him and his jackass self in.

"Morning, Edward!" Alice called from our post on the opposite corner of where the cash register was.

He only nodded at her and continued on his way toward the Employee Only room.

"Huh. Weird," I heard Alice murmur from beside me, and forced myself to focus back on her. "So anyway," she continued, "do you like it here so far?"

"Um...I've only been here an hour..."

"Mmhmm," she nodded at me eagerly, as if I had a lot more to say than that.

"Uh...Sue's nice?"

Her bottom lip started to jut out as her eyes started to widen. "What about me, Bella?"

"Oh! I—You're nice too!"

She laughed, "Why thank you Bella."

Confused, I turned back to the stocking. "Does Edward always come in later than everyone else?"

"It depends." I could hear the avoidance in her voice, as if she were keeping something back but didn't want to let on that she was. And, before I could nip the feelings where they grew, it hurt that she didn't trust me enough to say whatever she was holding back. At this point I'd have probably spilled every little detail of my life to her. And I'd only known her less than two hours. "Sometimes he's here super early and before everyone else, and sometimes he's not."

"Oh. Okay." I decided to let it go. He was probably up late last night having perverted sex games with blow-up asses anyway.

It was halfway through the day, and so far I had managed to completely avoid Edward. Or he had managed to completely avoid me. The latter had me narrowing my eyes mentally, while the former had me taking a celebratory bite of my bologna and provolone on wheat.

The store didn't actually close for lunch, so everyone took lunch breaks in shifts. Jasper had gone out for his, leaving me sitting at the tiny, corkboard-like break room table with Charlie.

"Bella?"

I looked up from my unnecessarily thorough examination of my miniature bag of Fritos. "Hmm? Yeah? Er...Sir?" Way to fumble, Bella. Jeez.

Charlie chuckled quietly, though the sound came off as nervous. "So...do you like it here?"

"Yeah, I do." I smiled at him, wondering where in the hell he was going with this.

"Great!" I instinctually flinched back from his enthusiasm, startled. "You're officially hired then!"

My jaw dropped. Or at least I supposed it did. I wasn't really paying attention to such silly things as the actions of my jaw. But when people are surprised, their jaws tend to drop. Right?

"You do, um, want to be officially hired, right?"

Charlie's unsure voice brought my out of my shock-induced stupor. "Oh yes! I definitely do!"

"Well then," he shifted what looked like uncomfortably in his chair. "Good."

I considered getting up to hug him, actually got so far as pushing slightly away from the table, but then I thought better of it. I liked the people here, the last thing I wanted was to overstep any boundaries.

Charlie glanced at his watch, saying, "We'll talk about all the specifics later." At my nod he got up and walked back out into the main part of the store.

I knew I was the reason he'd left, that I'd somehow made him feel awkward, but it couldn't bring down my happiness at the moment.

Ten minutes and one full stomach later, as I stood shifting awkwardly from foot to foot, I had to marvel at how stubborn people could be. Despite the fact that I'd worked in a grocery store previous to this, I was still surprised when the customer I'd intended to help had brushed off my offer of help with a curt "No. I can find what I need on my own."

My eyes traveled to Alice, hoping she would give me some task to do, but she was busy chatting with the customer currently being rung up. Edward was precisely where he'd been on my store-perusal when I'd finished my lunch break: across the store restocking some shelves. Charlie had yet to come back out of his office, where he'd gone after our talk at lunch. Jasper was curiously nowhere to be seen. As was Sue, I noted on another scan around the store.

A disgusting picture appeared unbidden in my mind at the realization of the missing pair. Missing two, I corrected to myself. Not pair. Just two random people who simply happen to be working in parts of the store not in my sight at the moment.

I shivered and valiantly strived to dispose of the unwelcome and rather disturbing thoughts. I succeeded. For the most part. If you didn't count that tiny little niggling you could never chase away when you were trying to.

I continued shuffling my feet, unfortunately realizing I now had nothing to do but what I didn't exactly want to do. Resigned, I slowly began a roundabout path toward where Edward stocked, not really dragging my feet but certainly not skipping. I figured the longer it took me to get to my fate, the better off I'd be.

Chicken clucks, and whatever other noises chickens made, sounded abruptly in my head, making me scowl.

Always leave it to your own mind to fuck with you the best...

By the time I, my clucking brain, and my slow pace made it even close to Edward's position, Sue had reappeared. I happily observed that she looked the same as she had all day; no ruffled hair, smeared makeup, unbuttoned or mis-buttoned clothes.

"...aren't polite," I heard Sue saying as I neared ever closer to my restocking-with-Edward doom, "I swear I won't hesitate to grab a wooden spoon and beat some manners into you! Starting with that pretty little behind Alice says you favor so much."

I only just barely contained my snickers (read: embarrassingly loud guffaws) at Sue's...scolding. Threat? Disciplinary action? Whatever you wanted to call it.

One thing was for certain, this was most definitely an odd unit I'd somehow fumbled my way into. Almost like a strange family-ish dynamic.

Frodo, we're not in Newton's anymore.

I watched, entranced despite my attempts to look away, as Edward narrowed his eyes but didn't respond with anything other than a nod of agreement. Or obedience. I nearly snickered again.

When both Sue and Edward's eyes flicked to me, I could only figure that my sniggers hadn't been as well concealed as I'd thought.

Damn traitorous mouth.

I almost waved, but then realized how stupid that'd look, so instead just stood there. Stupidly. Another part of Bella-the-social-nitwit almost blurted out a "Well, erm, this is awkward" paired with a nervous laugh.

It wasn't until Edward had come significantly closer to encroaching on Bella's-personal-space-no-trespassing-without-permission, that I comprehended my attempts at chipping away on the old Ice Block of Awkward weren't needed.

This is nice. Leave the hard first-interactions work to other people so I don't have to do any of it. I could get spoiled on this...

And it wasn't until Edward stopped in front of me that I noticed Sue had been poking him in the back, trying to be stealthy about it, I assumed. She slunk casually and quietly away without addressing me, sneaking one last glance back, eyes locking with Edward's briefly and communicating some silent message.

I couldn't be sure, but I thought he spoke through gritted teeth, "I'm Edward."

"Classic," I murmured without thinking as we shook hands.

"Pardon?"

"Nothing. I'm Bella." His hand looked a bit bony, but it felt very muscled.

"I know."

"You wha—but how?" Great first impression as an official employee, Bella.

His voice pitched higher, "'Well, if you suddenly get any openings, my name's Bella Swan. I'm in the book. Only Swan there.'" He raised his eyebrows as he finished, somehow managing to look cocky and bored at the same time.

It hadn't escaped my notice that he'd left out all the sarcasm I'd had dripping from my voice when I'd said that sentence. But I let it go like the mature woman I was. "Oh." Since he was still shaking my hand, I felt the need to speak up. "Um, are you ever going to let me have my hand back?"

He dropped my hand as if I'd just burned him.

"Shouldn't you be getting back to work instead of mingling around on Charlie's dollar?"

My mouth dropped open slightly. "I—"

Turning on his heel, he strode away before I could finish my sentence, and I couldn't help but wish that Sue had stuck around to be sure her wooden spoon method wasn't needed.

"Asshole," I muttered under my breath.

"Hey Bella!" All but beaming Alice bounced, I swear that was the only way you could describe how she approached, up to me, coming back from the cash register. "I see you met Edward."

"It wasn't the first time the donkey has crossed my path."

She stared at me a second. "Donkey?"

"Clean way to say jackass."

"Ohh," she giggled in approval. Or what I guessed was approval. "I think I like you, Bella. I think I like you very much."

"Uh...thanks?"

She showed her teeth in a wide smile.

"Um, look Alice, I like you and all too, but...er...How do I say this?" I mumbled what I hoped was quietly to myself. "I like to make out with guys," I finally blurted out.

"Oh...kay? Uh, thanks for announcing that, Bella?"

"No no, I mean, uh, er. Shit!" She laughed again, enjoying my embarrassment and my squirming, I assumed.

"Just spit it out, hon. Seriously, you just told me you like to make out with guys, whatever else you're trying to say can't be that bad. Unless you're going to tell me you like to hump stuffed bears or something like that."

"What?" I balked.

She just laughed at me again. "Spit it out."

"Oh, right. Uh, I don't like you like I like to make out with guys. Do you, uh, know what I mean?"

"Oh Bella!" It seemed as though she barely contained her guffaws. "I'm not a lesbian!"

"Oh. Well, it's just that when you said you liked me, liked me very much, I wasn't sure..."

"Tell me, do you think everyone who tells you they like you is a lesbian?"

"What? No! It's just that...I've had some, er, issues...In that area."

"You were once a lesbian?" she questioned curiously.

"No! Ew, no no no. I like guys. Always have. That's just...ew. No. I just meant that I've been...hit on. Before. By a lesbian. Many many times, actually." Alice's mouth opened in what I thought was shock at first before she began to laugh hysterically.

"Shouldn't you two be working?" Edward asked out of nowhere; I hadn't even heard him walk up.

"I have a question, Edward."

"Yes, Alice?"

"Look around a bit for me, will you?"

"Get to the point, Alice."

"Jeez. What crawled up your ass and got stuck?"

Edward didn't laugh. Nor did he leave. "The point, Alice?"

"Good grief," she sighed. "Do you see any customers that we would need to go assist? Yeah, neither do I."

"There's other work you two could be doing besides running your mouths and gossiping."

To my horror, my mouth fell open in shock. "We weren't gossiping! Were you listening to our conversation?"

"Oh please. I have better things to do than eavesdrop on your silly, ridiculous conversations about lesbians."

To my horror once more, I gasped. "You were listening!"

He turned and walked away without saying another thing.

"Edward!" Alice called after him. "It's seriously rude to walk away like that when you're talking to someone!" She blew out a grumbling breath. "I swear that guy can PMS like a bitchy cheerleader sometimes. I don't—" the customer bell, above the door, jingled, cutting her off as it signaled the entrance of a customer. "Got to get back to work," she said all too cheerily.

"Yep, work." I sighed after she'd gone, feeling awkward again and really not wanting to continue with my previous plan of helping Edward restock. A last-ditch glance around the store informed me how slim my options were. Except...Oh hey. Another customer walked in. I had to help them. I couldn't help Edward now. Such a shame.

"Excuse me, miss?"

I smiled what I hoped was a friendly smile at the woman who'd approached me. She looked about ten years younger than my mom, and she desperately needed someone to show her a calendar so she could discover it was no longer the 80s. Seriously, girlfriend had single-handedly carved a hole the size of an RV in the ozone with the amount of hairspray it must have taken to achieve her 'do.

And ye shall be called: Muffy.

Because your hair looks like a poofed-up, wannabe muffin top.

"Yes? May I help you?"

"I hope so." Jeez, Muffy, way to boost up my confidence. What, are you gonna have me fired if I'm unable to locate you some camouflage tampons? "I'm looking for some camouflaged pens."

Yeah, I may have started to puke a little when she uttered the word 'camouflaged', thinking my ridiculous thoughts were actually happening.

"Oh yes, uh, they're...Um," I spluttered a bit. I could picture where they were perfectly, but for the life of me I couldn't remember which aisle they were on.

Muffy sighed, rolling her eyes in what came off as impatience.

"I'll just...er, take you right to 'em!"

I shambled off quickly, hearing Muffy's squeaky sneakers squeaking squeakily behind me. Say that five times fast. We arrived at the pen section in no time (bless you, memory!), and though I knew I was supposed to try and entice Muffy into buying other things, I just...She was standing there, carefully examining the assortment of camouflage pens as though her life depended on it! How in the world was I supposed to smoothly interrupt her and get her to purchase something else?

Excuse me, ma'am, I know the scrutiny of those pens is of the utmost importance and you're totally jealous of my fantabulous hair, but could I interest you in some bright orange warning vests? Perhaps a nice twelve-gauge shotgun? Or maybe a lovely 'Hike naked, it adds color to your cheeks' shirt?

Reality snapped me back just in time to see Muffy and her pens scurrying away toward Alice. For all I knew, she'd only bought one freaking pen.

Maybe this whole "salesgirl", my brain coughed at me until I corrected: "saleswoman", thing would be harder than I'd originally thought...At least in a grocery store, your products pretty much sold themselves, especially since the customers had to keep coming back to get more once they'd eaten the ones they'd bought last week.

I sighed, feeling dejected and not liking it. Of course, who really liked feeling dejected anyway? Well, except for crazies-in-the-head and masochists, obviously.

Annoyed with myself even as I did it, I turned my wrist, grimacing at the time my watch proudly flaunted.

Not even close to quittin' time yet, you ball-less chicken you.

Okay. You can do this. I rolled my shoulders as though I were some boxer preparing for a brawl in the ring. Which was actually a square, not circular. So weird.

Was it possible for a watch to sing a hallelujah chorus?

I had to wonder when I glanced, again, at mine and noticed it was closing time. As I hopped (well, not really, it was more alone the lines of...'jauntily walked') up to Alice, I once more thanked the common-sense part of my brain that'd convinced me to wear comfortable shoes rather than ones more geared toward making a good impression. Because if my feet had already begun to ache in my comfy Converse, there was no telling how much they would have hated me if I'd worn an uncomfortable shoe.

Alice clicked the lock on the door to the store in place, flipping the closed sign in the window and turning to me with an exaggerated roll of her eyes.

"So how was your first day?" she asked as we strolled back toward the break room together.

I nodded, flashbacks of the day playing through my head. "Good. Good."

She nudged me in the side with an elbow. "I heard Charlie took you aside this afternoon to get some specifics worked out."

"Yep." I couldn't kill my grin. It felt better than I could have imagined to know I wouldn't have to go begging anyone for money, or, Batman save me, move back in with my parents.

"That's great, Bella." Alice's tone rang with sincerity as she clocked out. "I think we're going to enjoy having you here." Putting on her coat, she smiled genuinely at me.

Did I detect a hint of mischievousness and/or wickedness in that smile?

I bit my lip, possibly just a smidgen terrified that my eyes didn't deceive me about her grin, but returned her smile. "And I think I'm going to enjoy being here." Slightly startled by how true my words felt, I waved at Alice as she disappeared out the door with a parting 'See you tomorrow!'

After I'd gathered up my coat and bag and all that necessary stuff, I slowly approached the time clock, unused to one you didn't just swipe a card through. Luckily for me, a timecard with my name scrawled in big black letters across the top had already been added next to the foreign machine (all the blame belonged to Newton's for spoiling me on electronic time clocks).

Common sense, not to mention closely studying Alice not two minutes ago, told me I just slipped the elongated, made-of-some-kind-of-heavy-paper card into the slit on the machine, and said machine did the rest of the work.

So that's exactly what I did.

With maybe only a second or two of slow approach like the machine was rabid, as well as alive, and would attack me any minute.

A voice coming, surprisingly, from right over my shoulder scared the shit out of me. And perhaps it was also in part to whom the voice belonged.

"Next time, Bella, could you perhaps stamp your timecard a little more crooked? I don't think it's completely unreadable quite yet."

I stared at him, mouth open, still disbelieving he'd say something like that despite the day in which he'd pretty much proved otherwise.

Unfortunately, I didn't find my voice until after he'd finished with his timecard, grabbed his jacket, and strode out of the Employee room.

"Yeah, well maybe if somebody's ego wasn't so huge, my stamp would have enough room." I maturely stuck my tongue out at the space he'd occupied a minute ago, gusting out a breath of air as I crossed my arms.

Infuriating asshole who really needed to be put in his place?

Check.

A/N: I do not have a problem with lesbians. Nor does Bella. Her reaction about them is just her thinking about kissing (and etc) a woman, specifically she was thinking of the not-exactly-attractive-or-in-her-age-range woman who frequently eyeballs her at the post office. Just wanted to clarify... Oh, and if anyone else reads Lemon Muffins' work, you'll get the lesbian thing before it's explained. ;) And if you don't read her work, you should go do so. Now would be a good time.