Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight.

A/N: Thanks so much for all the feedback from the last chapter. There seemed to be a consensus that you all loved it, even if it was surprising, so let's see if I can make you happy again. Enjoy…

Best Definition of Good Intentions

22 – Let's Imagine the End Before We Even Begin

Emmett's Jeep loomed in the distance and Edward cursed his pseudo-cousin for insisting on the monstrosity. Never before had he been resentful of the choice, but at the moment that Jeep was the only single thing that blocked his view of Bella.

Of the girl who'd just walked away from him without looking back.

The girl who'd just walked away from him after giving him the kiss of his life.

The girl who'd given him the kiss of his life after he'd bared his soul.

Edward Masen did not make a habit of baring his soul, but he swore to himself now, that if he was rewarded like that each time, he'd make it a habit.

With lustful eyes, he'd watch Bella walk away until she disappeared behind the expanse of Emmett's Jeep. Then he just stared into the space that her body was recently occupied and willed her telepathically to come back. But to no avail.

Feeling the cold set in around him, Edward forced himself to move. He stretched his arms over his head and shook out his legs from the hood of his car before placing his elbows on bent knees. He held his head in his hands and tried to gather his thoughts.

After several minutes of pointlessly trying to rack his brain for answers to the questions he didn't know, Edward lifted his head at the sound of a rumbling engine pulling into the parking lot. Craning his neck, he tried to get a better look but couldn't make out the car behind the blinding headlights. It wasn't until the 1996 Jeep Cherokee parked beside Edward that he noticed Jasper was the driver.

The tall, blonde climbed out of the driver's side and shut the door, then opened the backseat door and grabbed his guitar case. Jasper locked the car then set the case down before sidling up next to Edward atop the shiny Volvo.

"What are you doing here, Jasper? I thought you left for Texas this morning?"

Laughing, he replied, "Yea, well. There was a small change in plans."

"What happened?"

"We were only about four hours away and the car broke down. My mom had been having some trouble with the car lately but she never got around to having it checked out. There was some small garage in whatever town we were in. Seriously, this town was unreal. I'm not even sure you could call it a 'town;' it was smaller than Forks. But anyway, they managed to fix the car pretty quickly but there was no point in us continuing to drive for the day, so my mom decided to head back home," Jasper explained, suppressing an inward chuckle as he recounted the events.

"So are you not going anymore?"

"I'm not, but my parents still are." Seeing Edward's confused look, Jasper clarified, "I was driving down with my mom and we were going to stay with her sister for three weeks, but I think she realized how much I'd rather be here. And thankfully, she's letting me stay. My dad was just going to fly down this weekend since he couldn't take that much time off work. But now she's going to fly down with him and stay for two weeks and my dad will be back after just the one."

"Basically, starting this weekend, you've got a house to yourself?" Edward couldn't believe the situation. His parents had a hard time leaving him alone for a weekend in Chicago, even when there was a building of tenants and a doorman surrounding him. He wasn't sure he'd ever be used to small time life.

"Pretty much," Jasper said with a wicked grin as he leaned back against his car.

The two sat in companionable silence while Jasper waited for Edward to say something more. It was obvious something was bothering him, aside from the fact that he was sitting away from the party.

"So what's going on?" Jasper finally asked, not able to wait any longer.

"Huh?" Edward asked, snapping his attention back to the conversation at hand. "What was that?"

Again, Jasper laughed, unsurprised.

"What?" Edward asked, feeling as though he'd missed the joke.

"You're a mess, man."

Edward's eyes dropped, embarrassed.

"What's going on?" Jasper asked again.

"Nothing. What do you mean?"

"What I mean is: why are you sitting all by yourself, away from the rest of the party? Why do you look completely disheveled, like you've spent the last hour mackin'? And why do you keep looking over my shoulder like you've lost your dog?"

Unable to meet Jasper's eyes, Edward offered a weak smile – only a dim version of his normally dazzling grin.

"So who was it?" Jasper asked instead.

"Who was who?"

"The girl you were making out with."

"Uhh…"

"Oh, come on, Edward. I won't tell Alice you were putting the moves on one of her friends, as long as it wasn't that Lauren Mallory chick. Then I will tell Alice so she can beat some sense into you."

"Goodness, no. That girl is trouble." Edward shuddered at the thought of Lauren Mallory's lips against his instead of Bella's.

"Glad to hear you think so. Now spill. Who'd you hook up with?" Jasper pressed.

"I wouldn't really call it 'hooking up.'" Edward clarified.

"Who was it?" Jasper was reminding Edward of Alice, practically bouncing out of his skin at the hint of the gossip. He could clearly see the similarities between the two and understood how they made such a great pairing. They seemed to complement each other in traditional ways, as well as in ways that you wouldn't expect. Even more so, Edward could see the similarities between the pairing of himself and Bella and Jasper and his other half. He could only hope for the chance to be able to connect with Bella in such a way that Jasper had connected with Alice; they're emotional bond was stronger than any other he'd seen.

"I really don't think I should say," Edward argued.

"Do you really think that whoever it was isn't already running around the party telling everyone she hooked up with the new guy?" Jasper retorted.

"Yes. I'm positive she's not doing that." He reminded himself that Jasper didn't know it was Bella they were talking about and that if he did, he wouldn't be insinuating such atrocities.

Jasper gave up and decided to try guessing names. He thought aloud, "Who could you be that positive about? Besides Alice, Bella and Rose, you'd never met any of these girls – Bella? Are you serious? You kissed Bella?"

"More like, Bella kissed me," Edward corrected as he chewed the inside of his lip.

"Oh, man." Jasper ran a hand through his hair and took a seat next to Edward on the hood of the Volvo. "Oh, man."

"I know."

"Oh, man."

"I know."

After a few more moments of silence, Jasper said again, "Oh, man."

"I know. But can you please say something else?" Edward asked, irritated.

"How was it?" Jasper asked, shrugging.

Edward glared at him and shook his head.

"Not good, huh? I wonder why Tyler's always trying to get back with Bella then."

"That's now what I meant, Jasper," Edward growled.

"Woah! Jealous much?"

"You should have seen how he and that Mike boy were treating her!"

Jasper laughed, heartily. "Oh, trust me, I know. I usually like to see how many times Mike will ask Bella out by night's end."

"And you conveniently decided not to tell me this?" Edward stared at Jasper in disbelief.

"How was I supposed to know you had the hots for Bella?" Jasper defended. "Wait, do you have the hots for Bella?"

"I…I don't know."

"It's a simple question."

"No it's not." Edward jumped down from the car and started pacing back and forth, gathering his thoughts as Jasper watched.

"You're making me dizzy," Jasper accused.

After being ignored, Jasper turned his sights skyward. He took in the beautiful, clear Forks night – a very rare occurrence. His body longed for him to move towards the party and find Alice, but he knew Edward needed him now. Feeling guilty for forcing Bella's name from Edward's lips, Jasper wanted to give Edward the chance to gather his thoughts before voicing his feelings.

Remembering back to that fateful day of school when he'd first met Alice Cullen, Jasper could understand how Edward might be feeling now. He'd been so overwhelmed with emotion for a single person, that he didn't know how to respond to those emotions. It had taken a lot of work to sort through them, but he had been able to do that with Alice and he couldn't be happier with the result.

"Talk to me about Bella," Jasper started off, hoping to rein Edward in a bit from his emotions.

"I don't know what there is to say," Edward stared out, facing the ocean and scanned the crowd searching for Bella. He ran his fingers through his hair. "Yes, I like Bella."

"You like Bella?" Jasper repeated. Then he asked, "As a friend? More than a friend?"

"I like spending time with Bella. I feel as though I've gotten to know her so well over the past week. And I respect her so much – she's such an amazing person."

"As a friend? More than a friend?" Jasper repeated, trying to help Edward come to a conclusion. The murky waters of unknown feelings were threatening to pull Edward under and Jasper was fighting for Edward's life, but he needed Edward to fight, too.

"She's beautiful. She's selfless. And she has no idea how endearing she is." Edward was lost to his own Bella-filled world, leaving Jasper behind.

"Edward!" Jasper retrieved Edward from his mind. "Do you like Bella only as a friend? Or do you like her as more than a friend?"

"You know, I noticed her beauty first. And the pain behind those big, brown eyes. I could see how hurt she was. And at the same moment, I knew how much I didn't want her to be hurting. I'd never even met her before, but I could just tell she was a good person. No good person deserves pain like that."

"Friend? More than friend?" Jasper tried again, feeling as though he was making only a modicum of progress.

"Sure, I noticed her beauty and I felt this connection right off the bat, but I never thought of her as more than a friend. I only ever saw her as a friend over the weekend. I just wanted to be a part of her life."

"So then why'd you kiss her?"

"She kissed me!"

"So does she like you as more than a friend?"

"I don't know. We weren't exactly talking!" Edward's frustration was peaking. No longer was he searching for answers to the unknown questions, but he was searching for more questions than he'd originally thought.

"What did you say afterwards?" Jasper asked, feeling as though he was missing a crucial part of the story.

"Nothing! Alice called and Bella raced off to find her."

"Oh." Jasper let the gravity of Edward's situation sink in for a minute.

"'Oh' is right," Edward said bitterly.

"You need to talk to her, man."

"And say what? 'Why'd you kiss me?' And then what? Tell her I don't know how I feel? What good would come of that?" Edward's pacing resumed.

"Edward, you've got to calm down. But, obviously, you're not going to be able to work any of this out on your own now. You need to talk to Bella – see what she has to say."

Downtrodden, Edward walked away from Jasper. He knew his friend was right – he couldn't work through this on his own. He needed answers. And Bella had those answers.

Jasper slid off the car and picked up his guitar case as he rushed to catch up with Edward. They were in for an interesting evening and he didn't want to miss any second of it.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­A/N: So I know this one was a little different (and way short!) – it kind of just turned out that way once I started and I wanted to see how it would turn out. Plus, I figured it'd be nice to hear a bit more from Edward. So let me know your thoughts – did you love it, hate it, etc.? Do you want to kill me for how many chapters this one party is turning out to be??

This title comes from "The Test" by The Academy Is….

Just a heads up…this upcoming week is crazy-crazy for me, so the chances of an update before Friday are way, way, way slim. But I'll try to work on the next chapter as much as I can and hopefully I'll have it up next weekend. I'll tell you this, a singing Jasper's making another appearance very, very soon. I know how much you all love that – so prepare yourselves. Maybe that was cruel – telling you but not giving it to you soon. But hopefully now, you'll think it'll be worth the wait! But in the meantime, let me know what you thought!