Ok, I am so sorry for the ridiculously long wait for this. The good news though is that once tomorrow's final is done I have a month off from school, and therefore the wait for the next several chapters shouldn't be nearly as long.
Thanks go as always to Shae for pre-reading, and helping me beat the reprobates I write about into submission. And of course, helping me be coherent, and not sound like an idiot. Even more thanks go to my awesomesauce beta Cara, without whom this would probably just be one giant run on sentence with no commas.
Still not SM. I'm cool with it though, my Emmett's more fun I think.
"Um, really Alice?" Rose asked, with a slight sneer on her face as she took in her surroundings.
"Okay, what the fuck is wrong now, Rose?" Alice snapped back at her, annoyance heavy in her voice.
"You brought us to a frat party," Rose told her, as if it should be obvious.
"Rose," Bella began soothingly, reaching out to put a hand on her arm. "It's not that bad. I mean sure I'm not sitting on that couch anytime soon, but that kind of shit's expected at any party involving copious amounts of booze."
Looking towards the couch in question, Rose's sneer only grew. From their position in the corner, the girls had a rather clearer view than they would have liked of the couple engaging in a fairly enthusiastic make out session. As far as any of them could tell, without an intervention in the reasonably near future, it was entirely possible that someday in the future the couple would be telling their child it had been conceived right there on that very spot.
"Bella, I for one have zero desire to watch those two procreate. In fact, I hope they never do," Rose said matter-of-factly. "God, why can't I look away?" she burst out after another minute. "It's like a fucking train wreck. No matter how hard you might try, you just can't stop starring. Mother fucker."
Not bothering to respond verbally, Alice looked around her. At least I have other people's clothing choices to distract me, Alice thought. All around her people were wearing what could only be described as the first things they found in their closet without bothering to turn the light on. There were a couple of girls grinding on the dance floor. One in a turquoise colored blazer, with shoulder pads, where do you even find something that atrocious?, the other in what would have been a cute outfit of a fitted black minidress and hot red stilettos, had it not been for the electric blue boyfriend sweater she'd put over it. They would arrive together, they're the only people in the world who think their outfits actually look good. There were the standard tiny dresses and skirts with tops that barely covered anything; and jeans and a tee-shirt with a design on it or an open button down over a solid colored undershirt. Why can no one ever come up with something original that doesn't look like it's out of Ringling Brothers. I mean really, how hard is this?
"Check out spaz-attack by the bar," Bella said, nudging Rose and Alice and nodding in that direction. Directly in front of the bar, a beer in hand, stood an obviously dyed and spray tanned male type. "How has he not dumped that beer all over something yet with that dance/seizure combo he's rocking?" she continued derisively.
"This is why you bring Bella to parties," Rose told Alice with a wink. "She barely drinks anything, and she has some moral code against going home with guys, but damn if she doesn't provide some of the funniest commentary available."
"Yeah, that's why you party with me," Bella said with a short laugh, before taking a sip of her beer. To Alice, she said, "She parties with me because she knows I'll make sure her ass gets home in the same condition it left in. Someone has to keep her from going home with every guy that comes down the tubes."
"Whatever, bitch," Rose said glancing towards the door that had just opened to admit a couple of guys who were laughing amongst themselves about something one had said. "Holy shit," she said out of nowhere, still staring at the door.
"What?" Alice asked, looking at Rose out of the corner of one eye, while still internally critiquing everyone else's outfit choices.
"Did you see what just walked in?" Rose said, a note of awe to her voice.
Snickering, Bella raised an eyebrow at her and said, "I'll venture a guess that whatever it is, you think it's hot. And I'll venture a second guess that if I don't take that beer away from you now I'm going to have to try and stop your drunk ass from going home with it later."
"Shut the fuck up and look, Bella" Rose told her, still not looking away from the guys, who had now travelled to the bar and were greeting the guy Bella had previously declared "spaz-attack".
"Um, Alice?" Bella asked after looking where Rose indicated.
"Yeah?" was all Alice said, still entranced in fashion.
"Um, isn't that one of your princes?" Bella said, a slight frown forming in her eyes as she watched him wink at a passing girl who promptly started giggling like an idiot.
Finally glancing at what had so arrested her friends' attention, Alice confirmed Bella's suspicions. "Oh, yeah. That's Prince Edward. He's the second son. His older brother, Carlisle, is the Crown Prince, and he takes it pretty seriously. He obviously cares about the country, while Edward just parties his nights away."
"Who are his friends?" Rose asked, attempting to sound nonchalant about it and failing miserably.
"I assume they're Jasper and Emmett. They've been friends since they were in grammar school or something." Glancing at Rose to see if she was really listening, Alice smirked before continuing "The big dark haired one is Emmett, and the blond is Jasper. They're pretty serious, I hear. There's been talk of them going to America to get married."
"WHAT!" Rose screeched, getting wide eyed.
One look at her face and Alice started laughing so hard she had to lean on Bella to stay up. "Oh my God, Rose. I can't believe you fell for that," she said through her laughter. "Trust me they're straight. Between the three of them I don't think I could count high enough to tell you how many women they've slept with."
While Rose simply glared at Alice, waiting for her to calm down, Bella said, "That's disgusting. I swear the third one with the bronze hair that has either never seen a brush in its entire existence, or is being made to look that way through an excessive amount of styling product, has winked at everything with a vagina that has passed him since he got here."
Suddenly, as if he could feel her looking at him, the one in question looked up in their direction, making eye contact with Bella. As she was prone to doing at the slightest provocation, Bella blushed when she realized she'd been caught staring and immediately looked away, causing her to miss the smirk that lifted one side of his mouth.
YNK
"Here we are gentlemen," Edward could be heard saying as he, Emmett, and Jasper climbed out of a car in front of the party. "I know it doesn't look like much but Mike swears there's a bunch of babes and obviously he always provides lots of quality booze."
"Booze?" Emmett scoffed at him. "I know we've been saying 'babes and booze' for years, but listening to it spew from your mouth every twelve seconds suddenly has me feeling like we're on that ridiculous Jersey Shore show."
Jasper promptly burst out laughing at this, saying "Oh God, it really does feel like that. What's next, Backup? You going to start talking about GTLing it everyday?" as he walked through the door.
Edward merely glared at the two of them as Emmett and Jasper continued to laugh at his expense. I swear if these two idiots went an entire fifteen minutes without mocking me it'd be a sure sign of the Apocalypse. "As much fun as it is to listen to you two crack jokes at my expense, how about you both shut the fuck up already and we go find some drinks while we scope out the attendees?" Edward said, looking for all the world as if he hadn't actually been listening to what his friends were saying.
"Solid," Emmett said, while Jasper nodded, saying that Mike was at the bar and if they were quick about it they could say hi to him and ensure he didn't come looking for them later.
"Hey guys, you made it!" Mike yelled at them far more loudly than necessary given the less than five feet between them all. "I was starting to wonder if you weren't going to make it."
Emmett simply ignored the obnoxious blond man and continued looking around himself to see who was there, while Jasper gave a quick smile and turned to the bar to get them all drinks.
Edward gave a Mike a short smile, the lack of sincerity in the motion going completely unnoticed by the other man. Taking in Mike's appearance Edward couldn't help but think that it was probably for the best that he wasn't into dating, as his chances of attracting anyone worth having were low at best. "How could we not come Mike?" Edward finally said, clearly not meaning a word of it, "You throw some of the best parties around."
"At any rate, you always get the hottest chicks around at your parties, so you're not going to get rid of us anytime soon," Emmett told him, finally lowering himself to acknowledge their host. God this guy is a joke. How he can continue to miss our overtly obvious disgust for him is beyond me. While thinking this, Emmett's eyes continued to travel the room, and he caught Edward winking at some random girl passing him, and noted that as usual she immediately started giggling. Hmph. Wonder if there's a single girl on this planet who doesn't consider Backup to be God's gift to women. If she does exist, I really hope I'm there to watch her shoot him down. That shit'll be epic.
"Ok guys," Jasper interrupted, before Mike could commandeer any more of their time, "I've got us drinks. Let's go ... mingle ... with the ladies." Then, nodding his head in acknowledgement of Mike, he and Emmett headed off, with Edward not too far behind them.
Settling themselves near a wall with a decent view of the room as a whole, they started their standard party behavior of picking out their marks for the night, while having their first drinks and comparing notes on what worked for them in the past.
"I don't know man," Jasper could be heard saying, "I mean sure that line worked for you last week, but it never has before and to be totally honest if that girl was any drunker she'd have needed her stomach pumped. I don't think it counts."
"The fuck you say," Edward responded, having none of Jasper's criticism. "It worked last time because I said it and I'm fucking awesome. It's never worked in the past because it was always that lame ass saying it."
"I'm the lame ass?" Emmett said, giving Edward the side-eye. "You're the one who actually tried to get a girl to go home with you using the line 'I know it's my legal title, but you don't have to call me Prince tonight.' Yeah, clearly you're the fucking cool one here. Ass."
"Before you two get into a pissing match over this, look at that," Jasper said out of nowhere, having noticed three girls standing on the opposite side of the room from them. "I think I'm going after the short one with the dark hair tonight."
"Wait, who are you talking about?" Edward asked, having not been paying attention as he had just noticed a dark haired girl of his own.
"The little one over there with the spiky hair," Jasper clarified, nodding his head in the direction of the girl in question.
"Hmm, she's cute but I think I like her friend with the dark hair better," Edward said, realizing the girls in question were actually two of three girls across the room.
"Holy shit," was all Emmett could get out.
"She's hot right?" Jasper said with a smirk. "But don't even think about snaking her, I saw her first."
"Not your brunette, dude," Emmett said. "Or yours, Backup. Do you see the third one? The leggy blond one with what appears to be an amazing fucking rack? Hello, nurse."
Pushing off from the wall Jasper said "Well, what do you guys say we go try our hand at wooing friends, gentlemen? This should be most interesting."
"Definitely," Edward said moving towards them as well, as Emmett, said "Right behind you," and made to follow them.