CHAPTER SEVEN: LOVE-FEST

After I had gone back inside and closed the door, I couldn't help but think what the HECK had gotten into me?! I just agreed to go on a date with Edward Cullen, super hottie and my brother's best friend. Then I proceeded to KISS him! Even though it was on his cheek, I had still kissed him. I had never done that! When I felt the corners of my mouth starting to pull up into a smile, I didn't know whether it was because I was going on a date with Edward, or because I thought it funny that I kissed him.

I shook my head, still smiling, and stepped into the living room. I dropped my purse down on the couch and then dropped myself down next to it. I closed my eyes and let my head fall back against the wall. All of the sudden I heard someone bounding down the stairs laughing hysterically. I knew that laugh.

Alice.

What was she doing home so early? She usually stayed out a lot later on dates, especially first dates. Oh, poor Alice. Maybe Jasper wasn't as special as she'd thought. Oh, wait, what am I saying? Poor Alice? More like poor me! I was the one that was about to get attacked with questions about tonight. I decided to pretend I didn't hear her coming and continued to keep my eyes closed and my head against the wall.

"Don't think I don't know you heard me," she stated, coming over to sit with me on the couch. I sighed, lifting my head and turning to her. She had some kind of goofy smile plastered on her face. "… and don't think I didn't see that little smoochy-smooch you planted on Edward." My eyes nearly popped out of my skull as she said that.

"Alice what are you—" I started.

"I couldn't help but look out my bedroom window as soon as I heard his car pull up." She shrugged. I let my mouth hang open as I realized she had been spying on us. That entire time, Alice was spying on us! Ugh, the nerve of that girl.

"You were watching us?! ALICE! Ever heard of privacy?!" I yelled at her.

"I couldn't resist, Bella! And it was so CUTE!"

"Hey, what's all the commotion about, girls?" I heard Mom ask. I turned towards the kitchen as she came out, hands on her hips. She never liked when her children would yell at each other.

"Bella kissed Edward!" Alice squealed.

"You did? Oh, Bella, that's so cute!" Mom replied, clasping her hands together and smiling giddily.

"That's what I said!" Alice said, jumping up and down on the couch.

"I did NOT kiss him, Alice! It was just a little goodnight peck on the cheek. Just a 'thank you' gesture, nothing special," I assured them both.

"Oh yeah?" Alice asked, raising one eyebrow at me suspiciously.

"Yeah."

"Then why did you guys make plans to go out on another date?" She asked, grinning wickedly.

"Alice! You were eavesdropping on us too?! I can't believe you!"

"WHAT?!" I heard Emmett's booming voice yell from around the kitchen door at the same time I screamed 'Alice!' "I can't believe you, Bella!"

"Emmett, stop," Mom told him fiercely.

"Ugh, how can you guys do this to me?!" he growled before stomping back up the stars to his second-story bedroom.

"He'll come around eventually, honey," Mom assured me. "I'm going to be hanging pictures in my room, so you girls feel free to chat all you want," she said before winking and walking off into she and Dad's master suite.

"Come on Bella. You have a lot to discuss," Alice announced. She grabbed my wrist and yanked me off of the couch, then dragged me upstairs and into my room.

She nearly slammed the door behind her, and then we both sat down on my bed. I grabbed my favorite purple Moshi pillow and squeezed it tight to my chest. She began by asking where we went.

"Um… well… first he took me to… La Bella Italia…" Alice knew all about how Jake and I would go there constantly, that is, on the rare occasion that we'd see each other. As soon as I said it, her eyes grew wide and I could tell what was going through her mind.

"Oh, wow. That must have been… awkward," she said.

"Oh it was. And then the damn waitress kept flirting with him. It was disgusting. And she kept waggling her eyebrows and trying to sound sexy. She just sounded like a drowning bear with a bad cold," I was surprised at how badly I was speaking of Tanya, even if all of it was true. Alice busted out laughing, though.

"A drowning bear with a bad cold. That's good, Bell! I never knew you could be so cruel!" She continued laughing for a good two minutes.

"Okay, Al. You can stop laughing now," I finally told her. She muffled her giggles then began speaking again.

"So you sound like you were pretty jealous of how the waitress was flirting with Edward, huh?"

"What? No, I wasn't jealous. It was just extremely annoying." I knew that my suddenly burning cheeks would give me away, though.

"Uh huh. Sure. I mean, I can't blame you. I would be jealous too if some bimbo waitress was flirting with my utterly gorgeous date," she said, twirling her hair around her index finger.

"Alice, it wasn't a date," I told her sternly. She just rolled her eyes and said, "Yeah, sure it wasn't."

Speaking of tonight's dates…

"Hey wait, why are you home so early?" I asked her.

"I wanted to leave Jasper wanting more. Make him want to ask me out again. No biggie," she said, shrugging her shoulders like it really was nothing.

"Ok okay. So how was your date with him? Where'd you guys go?"

"Oh, Bella it was amazing. We went to the beach where he had a picnic set up. There were candles, and pillows and blankets, and it was wonderful." She had a gleam of affection in her eyes as she talked about her date with Jasper. I could tell he was going to be something special, not like all the other guys Alice dated. The ones that were scum and rotten and mistreated her. Like Mike Newton. Ugh, had that been a bust. It was such an awful date that none of us dare mention the name at all. I shivered at the memory. But this was not going to be like that. I had always known that Jasper had some kind of thing for Alice. He would always smile at her when he saw her, then blush as he realized he was smiling at her. It was adorable.

Alice finally came back to the present and turned all of her attention back to me. Wonderful.

"Don't think you're getting off so easily, Bell. What happened on the rest of the date?"

I told her about how we ditched La Bella Italia, drove around for a while, and then all about our late dinner meal at Wendy's. I didn't bother mentioning the favorites game; that would just be awkward telling my sister about those weird conversations Edward and I had had, no matter how close Alice and I were. I finished with when we drove back up to the house and I agreed to go on an actual date with him, which Alice already knew, of course. I caught Alice smiling mischievously at me when I was done. I eyed her carefully.

"What are you smiling at?" I asked.

"You," she replied, still grinning.

"Why?"

"Because you are so totally in love with Edward. Oh, you two are going to have the most gorgeous babies. OH! Can I plan your bachlorette party and your wedding?!" she screamed, clapping her hands giddily.

"Alice, whoa, whoa, slow down! No one's having babies, and no one is getting married!" I yelled to her.

"Maybe not now, you're not. But one day…" She let the sentence fade. I was too tired to argue with her so I just responded by saying, "Sure, Alice. Whatever you say." Just then, we heard a large crash and then an even louder yell come from downstairs. Alice and I both looked at each other with scared expressions, then ran out of my room and down both flights of stairs.

"What the hell was that?" she whisper-yelled to me.

"Like I know? I was with you the whole time!" I whisper-yelled back. When we got downstairs, we saw Emmett jumping up and down, holding his right foot in pain, while we saw his iPod speakers on the floor, broken into three large pieces.

Alice and I burst out in laughter, clutching our sides, as we figured out what must have happened. Emmett dropped the speakers on his foot. It took a lot to hurt Emmett, let alone make him scream in pain, so that just made the sight before us even more shocking and hilarious.

"What's going on in…" Mom started to ask when she walked into the living room. When she saw Emmett jumping around, she brought her hand up to her mouth, probably trying to hide her laughter.

"This is NOT funny!" Emmett boomed at all three of us. "If it weren't for you two, I wouldn't have needed to escape to my music and drop the damn speakers on my foot!" What he was saying made absolutely no sense, and that just made us laugh all too much harder. Alice and I were on the floor now, still grabbing at our aching sides. I looked at her, raising my eyebrows asking permission if it was okay to tell Emmett now. She squeezed her eyes shut and nodded her head, smiling from ear to ear.

"What's going on?" Emmett asked. I got up off of the floor and pulled my shirt back down from where it had risen from my rolling around.

"Hey, Em. I have a c-c-confession to m-make," I got out between giggles.

"What confession?" He sounded angry and frustrated all at the same time. I bit my lip to keep from smiling, and slid my shoes off. You'll know why in just a second.

"Well, this date between me and Edward tonight…" I started.

"Yeah…?"

"Well, it wasn't a real date." I couldn't help smiling now.

"What do you mean it wasn't a real date?" he asked, furrowing his brow in frustration and confusion. I could see his face starting to get red.

"We just went out to dinner as friends to get to know each other. We just told you it was a date to make you mad." And mad he was.

"WHAT?!" He yelled. "You… tricked me… to make me mad?" He started inching closer to me, and I inched back.

"I, uh… guess it worked?" I asked, smirking at him.

"Oh, no. It didn't work at all!" And with that, he lunged at me, and I ran into the kitchen, thankful for taking off my heels, or else I would have fallen within seconds. He followed me, screaming a string of profanities at me. I could faintly hear Mom yelling at him from the living room to stop using such bad language. I'm pretty sure he heard too, just didn't want to listen.

I was laughing hysterically as Emmett chased me around the cooking island in the kitchen four times, back out to the living room, around the living room coffee table three times, all the way upstairs to my room, back down, and back up again. I couldn't believe how much energy I had. He finally caught me when I tripped running back up the stairs. He grabbed my waist and held my wrists tight in one of his hands. We were both panting from being so out of breath. After a good few seconds of sitting on the step, we looked at each other… and then started giggling. Well, chuckling in Emmett's case. Those giggles and chuckles soon turned into fits of giggles and chuckles, and then turned into full on laughter. I rested my hand and head on his huge shoulder and shut my eyes as I tried to control my laughing. He just wrapped both arms around me and hugged me, still sitting on the stairs.

"Don't… ever… p-p-piss me off-f-f like th-that ag-gain," he stuttered between laughs.

"D-don't worry, I wo-won't." We stood up, and carefully walked back down the steps, carefully so we didn't fall down from laughter again.

"So, does that mean you guys don't really have plans for another date?" he asked as we got back to the couch in the living room.

"Uh, not exactly…" I peeked up at his face slowly. He didn't seem at all mad now.

"I… I guess… that it's okay." I looked at him with an annoyed look on my face. Like I needed his permission. Pft, please.

"Not that you need my permission anyway…" he quickly recovered. "I just meant that I'm okay with it. I'm not gonna give you… or you" he turned to look at Alice, who was just standing next to Mom smiling, "a hard time about it anymore. You guys can date whoever you want to date. But if they're no good, whether they're my best friends or not, I'll beat the crap out of them."

"Aw, thanks Em! That's so sweet," I said mockingly.

"Yeah, Em. It makes me feel so good that you're willing to beat up your best friends for us," Alice said in the same tone. She walked over to the couch and lay down across both of our laps, her head on mine, the rest of her body sprawled out over Emmett's. It was times like these when I loved my family the most. The way we could make jokes and laugh and smile and have a good time with each other was the best thing in the world. And I could tell that Mom was thinking the same thing as I looked over and saw her leaning against the fireplace with her arms crossed over her chest, admiring the scene that she was currently witnessing.

"Mommy, come here," I called to her, holding out the arm that wasn't crushed under Alice's head.

"Yeah Mom, get over here and join the loooove," Emmett said. Mom uncrossed her arms and ran over to the couch and plopped down beside Emmett. She linked her arm through his and lay her head down on his shoulder. Just then, Dad walked in the door, already starting to unbutton his coat. I guess he had a late call at the hospital. I hadn't even realized he wasn't home.

"Well, well, well. What's going on in here?" he asked with mock suspicion.

"Just a little family love-fest," Alice told him, picking her head up from my lap to look at him.

"Well, would you mind if I joined this little family love-fest?" he asked. I answered first.

"No, Dad. Just because you're part of the family doesn't mean we want you to join in the fun. Gosh, why would you ever thing we would want you to?" I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes and turning away.

"Oh, you always have such a way with words, my sarcastic little girl." He smiled at me and came over to sit with me on the couch. "Oh wait!" he exclaimed, jumping up from the couch.

"What is it, dear?" Mom asked. He held up a finger and then disappeared into the kitchen. He came back a few moments later, digital camera in hand (pic on profile).

"Christmas photo," he announced. We all let out a little laugh as he tried to figure out how to set up the self-timer on the brand-new Nikon. He finally got it set up on top of the fireplace mantle, and ran back over to take his place on the couch next to me once he saw the little red light flashing.

"Okay, everyone. Smile!" Mom told us.

Flash. Wow, that camera sure had a bright flash on it. Just as Dad went back up to review the picture that had just been taken, I felt my cell phone vibrating in my jeans pocket. I nearly screamed when I saw the caller ID.

A/N

Ooooo cliffhanger. I think that's my first one so far! Woot! Any ideas as to who was calling Bella's cell? Anyway, what did you guys think of the chapter? It started out a little rocky in my opinion, but I couldn't help smiling at the rest.

I'm not going to name all of my amazing reviewers this time, just because there are so many! LOL! But I will thank my amazingly amazing friend/reviewer omgitspippyxD because she's been behind me through this entire thing, commenting it and giving me suggestions. I LOVE YOU PIPPY!

Also guys, I've got a new fanfic that I'm going to start working on pretty soon. I'm stuck between two possible story lines though, so I need your help to decide which one to write about.

The first one is all human, again, and it features Bella as the most popular girl at Forks High, with the beautiful yet unpopular Cullens and Hales at the bottom of the totem pole. What happens when she's forced to work with Alice and Edward in a group project, and starts to actually… like them? And how will her uber popular possy react when they find out Bella's been hanging around with the unpopulars?

The second choice picks up a few years after Eclipse. It's ten years after Bella's been changed. She and Edward are happily married. All of the family moves to a new state and start at a new high school. Everything's going fine until Jane shows up and demands that they go to Italy to see Aro. What happens when Aro decides it time for Bella and Edward to join or die?

Review and tell me! Or you can just message me your vote!

The next chapter of THIS story should be out by this Wednesday at the latest, and boy will it be interesting.

Keep remembering to REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW! I love you guys!!

-S.N.O.