What can I say? Without the fabulous elfinchakie I'd be lost. She's getting spanked by RL right now but still makes time for me. Go show her love and read some hot CxB smut http://www(dot)fanfiction(dot)net/s/5325453/1/Pleasantly_Unexpected
Thank you once again to my new wondeful beta brandy_d. I needed her desperately and now she's stuck with me.
Disclaimer still applies. Stephanie Meyer owns these characters, I own a guide book with a map of London.
~*~
July 3rd
I was dead. That was the only excuse. I had died. What the hell had I drink the night before? I peeked out from under the comforter and ducked my head right back under when I was greeted with bright light.
Bright light… bad.
I heard a commotion coming from somewhere outside of my cocoon and tried to remember what had happened last night. Wait, why was there noise coming from somewhere in my apartment? I sat up quickly in bed and then fell right back down again. Not only had I died, but I was in hell. And apparently, in hell, they let anyone in your apartment.
I sat up much slower and cautiously got out of bed. Something didn't seem right, but I couldn't place it at the that moment. Not until I walked straight into the wall where the door should have been. I looked around and saw the door on the other side of the room. It didn't seem right, but then I remembered waking up in my childhood room in the middle of the night and not being able to find the door. At least this time I didn't have to sit in the dark and scream until my parents opened my door for me.
Stepping out into the hall, I looked around because nothing looked familiar. I stepped back into my bedroom and looked around it and then back out into the hall. This wasn't my apartment. I didn't remember going home with anyone and the bedroom I was sleeping in looked like woman's bedroom. Had I gone home with a woman? Shit, I hoped not. I mean don't get me wrong I'd had my fair share of kisses with girls, mainly while intoxicated, but I was never attracted to girls that way. Still all signs pointed to yes, I did go home with a woman. I wasn't sure I wanted to find out who she was, but it was better to face the music then rather than later.
So making my way down the hall towards the direction of the noise, I hesitantly peeked around the corner, and breathed a sigh of relief. I saw Rose in the kitchen. And then, it all came back to me. My flight, meeting Rose, going out, molesting the locals, and finally chicken shops.
"Well, look who finally decided to get their arse out of bed," Rose said way too loud and cheerfully.
"Ughh…" I groaned not being able to form words yet.
She walked over and handed me a cup of coffee. I smiled at her like she was my savior and savored the dark brew.
"So what'd you want to do today?" she asked. She kept talking at me like she was expecting an answer. I don't do mornings. The word 'good' has no business coming before morning. "Cause it's a nice day so I figured we'd go to Piccadilly Circus or Buckingham Palace and do the tourist thing. And there's always the guards… I'll admit for as long as I've lived here, I've always wanted to mess with them but just never hand had the chance."
Seriously, why was she still talking? "Rose can you give me like two more minutes to finish my coffee? I don't do mornings."
She just rolled her eyes and sat down at the breakfast counter to wait me out. She ate her toast quietly while I sipped my coffee, every now and then lifting an eye brow up, in which I simply ignored.
"Why don't we do something quiet today?" I said after I was properly caffeinated. "I've always wanted to go to the British Museum."
"Sure. What about Alexandra Palace?" she asked me. "It's a bit closer and I'm not so sure you want to get on the tube quite yet. It's July and it stinks on a normal day, let alone a hot day. We can always go to the British Museum later."
I readily agreed and we both took turns getting ready. According to Rose, it was supposed to be hot as hell today. So I figured shorts and a tank top should do it and threw my hair up in a pony tail before slipping on some comfortable shoes. Rose, as always, looked impeccable.
It turned out she wasn't lying when she said Alexandra Palace was close by. It was just a couple blocks over from her place, so with a quick stop for some iced coffee for me ,we were on our way. I had never heard of the place we were going but was curious anyways. When we got there, we kind of separated to look at all of the different exhibits agreeing to meet up in about an hour.
Meeting back up later, we made our way out and towards the nearest tube station and towards the British Museum. Rose wasn't kidding when she said it smelled. It was ripe, and crowded , and I'm pretty sure someone elbowed me in the kidney. I was tempted to throw and an elbow right back, but being that I had no clue where it came from I didn't want to hurt an innocent, so I endured. We got off at Tottenham Court Road Station, I was started to pay more attention to where we were going, in case I really did get lost. I also made sure before we left that I had my map and guidebook packed away in my messenger bag as well.
The nerd in me sighed in bliss when the museum came into sight. History. It was the main reason I wanted to come to Europe. There was so much history everywhere. I was one of those few in high school who loved the class. I guess it didn't hurt that my history teacher was hot. Rose had been here before so I debated having her wander around with me for three hours. In the end, we just decided to take our time and see what we wanted to see and if it took one or two or three hours, so be it.
I think I was speechless for most of the time I was there. I could have spent an hour, at least, in every exhibit. My favorite, by far, was the room dedicated to the Parthenon. The sheer size of the sculptures just blew my mind.
By the time we had finished I was famished. We both decided to skip out on eating in the museum, simply because it was so damn expensive, and decided to wander around a bit and find a pub to eat at. We wandered over towards Leicester Square where we found a nice place where we could eat outside. We took our time eating and had a couple of pints before calling it an evening and heading home.
July 4th
After a relatively easy day of just walking around museums, I was ready to go out and do something fun, but when I woke up Rose was gone. I found a note on the kitchen counter, apparently she had to go to work and would be back before lunch. I'll have to ask her to explain that one to me later…, how an artist HAS to go to work. Never being much of a breakfast person, I remembered seeing a Starbucks down the block from her place. God bless Starbucks and their ability to be everywhere. Grabbing my messenger bag, sunglasses and my iPhone I headed out, popping in my ear buds in and turning on some music.
It was another hot and humid day, but I could care less. I was still on my, 'I'm in London' high. It only took a couple of minutes to get there and I quickly got my iced coffee and blueberry muffin. I took a seat at a table in the back and started checking my email. I had a couple from my dad, just wanting to make sure I had made it okay and one from my best friend Angela. I typed them up a quick message, letting them know I was okay and what I had done so far. Well almost everything, I left out telling my dad about molesting the guy in the bar, but I had to share it with Angie.
I spent the rest of the morning watching people come and go while sipping on my coffee and finishing my muffin. A quick look at my phone let me know it was almost noon and I imagined Rose would be getting back from "work" soon. I gathered all my things and headed out, which was probably a good idea since it was getting incredibly cramped. Out of nowhere, the whole damn shop was full of people, more specifically girls. I briefly heard someone say something that sounded an awful lot like "Oh my god, I can't believe he's here. The things I would let him do to me." I just rolled my eyes and popped my ear buds back in and tried to wrestle my way out of the shop. Apparently, someone famous was here but I couldn't find it in myself to care. There were too many people around and crowds made me want to punch someone. Definitely, best I leave as soon as I can.
Of course, on the way out I managed to bump into everyone and their mother, and they all pushed back at me. I kept muttering apologies just trying to get out of there before I went mental and took everyone out. It was when I got an elbow in the back of my head that I'd had enough. I turned around not even bothering to find out who had done it and just yelled, "What is your fucking problem?" I was seething. "I just want to get the hell out of here and none of you can contain yourself enough to watch your own appendages. You just elbowed me in the back of my fucking head. Grow the hell up and get over it, he's human just like the rest of us. I'm sure there's nothing special so settle the fuck down and let me get out of here before I take you all out."
I smiled when a path cleared for me and walked out. I only had to shake off one hand that tried to grab me. Breathing a sigh of relief, I walked quickly back up the block to Rose's. She showed up not two minutes after I walked in and she changed quickly. We had discussed what we were going to do today and I desperately wanted to go to Buckingham Palace and go mess with the guards. Not incredibly original, but I still want to see if I could crack them. Then after that, we were off to Piccadilly Circus to, well, check out the circus. I heard it's crazy and full of all sorts of different people so I couldn't wait.
We took the bus to Buckingham Palace, after the first and I hope only experience I have on tube, I'd pay more to take the bus. The tube in the summer is hot, sticky, smelly, loud, and crowded. I'll walk if I have to. It took a bit of time but we had stopped to pick up some magazines to read on the way there and were laughing back and forth at the ridiculous things celebs do to stay famous.
My phone chirped loudly and I picked it up wondering who was messaging me, everyone I knew was back in the states and I couldn't imagine what they would need to get a hold of me for. It wasn't like I could go pick them up or anything. I scrolled through and saw it was from Angela. Jesus, that must have cost her a ton to text me while I was in London.
OMG BELLA! Hv u seen ppl? Ur in it!!
I was just getting ready to call her crazy when another text came flying in. This one was a picture and I opened it quickly and just about dropped my phone.
"Rose, did you get People?" I could feel my voice shaking when I asked her.
"Oh no, they were all out. Why?" She didn't even bother to look up while she was talking.
I thrust my phone towards her. "That's why. Please tell me what you see isn't the same as what I see."
She grabbed my phone and I knew she was studying too closely. "Well that depends. I see a picture of Edward Cullen with a girl standing in front of him. That's really nothing out of the ordinary. The guy does get more pussy thrown at him then he really knows what to do with." I was afraid that she'd tell me it was him. "What do you see?"
"I see him as well. But I see him in a club, with suspenders, and hooker heels Rose. That girl in front of him has hooker heels. Hooker heels!" I kept waving my phone around repeating over and over again about the hooker heels. She finally took my phone out of my hand and punched me in the arm.
"Bella you have to settle down. There's no way for sure you can tell those are the Prada's I let you borrow. Let's go over the facts here. Of course, it's definitely EC because we can see his face clear as day, but the bird standing in front of him could literally be anyone."
I grabbed my phone back out of her hand and took a closer look. She did have a point. You really couldn't see the shoes all that clearly and you couldn't see the girls face at all. So maybe it wasn't me. I mean it could be, but just thinking about the fact that it could be was making me want to throw up. But if it wasn't me then why did Angie send me the picture and the text saying it was? Oh God, I'm so going to throw up. All over Rose and everyone on this bus.
"Are you sure? Cause I mean it could be. What if it is? Oh God, Rose I almost molested Edward-fucking-Cullen. Do you think he's going to have me arrested? What if I get arrested, I'll never get to go home. I'll never see my dad again."
Rose grabbed me and started shaking me, but unfortunately for her and the other passengers on the bus it wasn't working. She finally reached out, grabbed my nipple and twisted.
"Ouch! What the hell Rose? Do you fucking hate me?" I asked cupping and rubbing my boob.
"B you were on the verge of a panic attack. I'm pretty sure at any moment you were going to start hyperventilating, and then before you know it, you'd be on the ground passed out from lack of oxygen. Have you seen the floor of this bus? I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy let alone you." I took it as the compliment I knew it was meant to be and decided not to comment further on her vicious attack to the wonder twins. "Look there's no way it can be you, okay. So don't worry about it. We didn't even read the article and it's probably got something in there about him and some Hollywood idiot in L.A., there has been no news of any sort to suggest he'd be in London over the summer. So why don't we just focus on the fact that we're going to Buckingham Palace to fuck with the guards and then we'll go people watch at Piccadilly Circus."
I took a deep breath in and exhaled slowly trying to calm myself down a bit. Rose was right. If he was in London, everyone would know and it'd be all over the place. Ang probably sent that to me just to mess with me. She was one of the few who knew how deep my obsession ran. It wouldn't be the first time she had picture bombed my phone with pictures of Edward Cullen and weird messages, like 'EC says,…' I did my best to push it to the back of mind so I could enjoy the day and see the sights.
The rest of the ride went without incident and I decided it'd be best not to reply back to Angela or I'd have another freak out. We decided to get off a couple of stops before Buckingham Palace and walk the rest of the way to try and get as much sun as possible. Apparently it was rare to have this much sun in London, even during July. That's when it hit me that it was The Fourth. I stopped walking suddenly, thrown off by the fact that there wasn't red, white, and blue everywhere and no parades. It was Twilight Zoneish.
Rose stopped a couple of steps ahead of me. "Now what?"
"It's The Fourth," was all I said.
"And your point?"
"Of July."
"Once again your point?"
"Rose it's the fourth of July. Don't you do anything?" I asked, what wasn't she getting about this.
She rolled her eyes at me. "You mean you want us to celebrate the fact that your country beat us soundly and sent us packing with our tails between our legs?"
Well when she puts it like that. "Well when you put it like that, no. But don't you do anything? I mean you weren't born here, so wasn't it weird when you got here and you didn't celebrate it anymore?"
"Well at first, sure." She shrugged and started walking again. "But what would be weirder, me trying to celebrate kicking the ass of the country I lived in or just going with the flow and learning the culture?"
"So you really don't do anything? Not even like secretly wear something with the American flag on it?"
"No, not even that. I actually became a citizen years ago, so technically, I'm not even American anymore."
"Oh."
"We're here," she suddenly said.
I looked up and around and sure enough we had managed to walk all the way over to the palace and I was so caught up in the fact that they didn't celebrate a holiday I had been enjoying for years.
We spent a good hour flirting and hanging off one of the guards trying to get him to crack. It wasn't easy and we almost got him to smile, but in the end, he composed himself. And we gave up and headed up towards Piccadilly Circus, stopping to grab something to eat on the way. When we finally got there, I could see where the circus aspect fit into the name. It was literally crawling with people everywhere. Despite my healthy avoidance of anywhere crowded, I was mesmerized by the people surrounding us. It reminded me a lot of New Orleans during Mardi Gras, except much less nudity and drunken debauchery. Time flew by as we sat there watching everyone. Before we knew it, it was almost seven.
Just as we were getting ready to head back to Rose's, Alice called. She wanted to get together tomorrow and do dinner. It would be her, her boyfriend, his best friend and someone his friend worked with, plus us. We let her know we'd love to get together and after coming up with a time and place, Rose and I headed back to her place for the evening.
A/N: I want to thank each and everyone of you for taking the time to read. I'm whoring myself out for this chapter. Up next is EPOV, if you review I will be sending you a teaser of what's to come.
To my beautiful, wonderful, fantastic fic wife wytchwmn75. Thank you for making me write or I'd be all ADD. Go thank her as well by reading Dear Bella, http://www(dot)fanfiction(dot)net/s/5750279/1/Dear_Bella
Also before I forget. Due to all the fuckery happening around here I've begun posting over at The Writers Coffee Shop. The citrus hasn't occured yet but Bella does swear like a sailor so I'm sure someone will take offense at some point.
http://www(dot)twcslibrary(dot)?sid=688&warning=3
