Welcome Back! Glad to see we didn't scare you away with our madness. This is update one of two for today. Consider it out July 4th gift to our US readers.

Risbee and coldplaywhore don't own Twilight. We do have some great support from MaggieMay14 and smmiskimen to get this story out to you.

Enjoy!

Song: Firework by Katy Perry

BPOV

Ahhh, bliss.

I inhaled sharply, taking in the salty warm air and looked out at the ocean. The water was so calm that there were no waves; it simply lapped at the light colored sand, and already a few groups of people had started to gather on the beach, setting up their spots for the day.

Since it was the Fourth of July, those spots would be hard to find in a couple of hours and part of me thought about taking some chairs down to the beach and claiming our territory. The 'content, lazy, I just got out of bed' side of me won out and I hoped that somebody else would have the good sense to do it. Though if the beach got too crowded, we could stay by the pool all day, because yes, the beach house had a pool, and staying there instead of on the sandy beach wouldn't exactly be a hardship.

Like I said, bliss.

I scooted the rocking chair closer to the railing surrounding the deck and propped my feet up, letting the early morning sun warm my skin. Wrapped in the blanket from my bed, with a cup coffee on the small table and a book in my lap, I could think of only a few ways I'd rather be spending my morning.

But since that obviously wasn't an option this morning, I focused on the peace and quiet that had been so elusive around here. The past few days had been interesting to say the very least with the constant bickering between Kate and Garrett.

They fought. All. The. Time.

He did whatever he could to get under her skin and she yelled at him about it. For what it was worth, all of the boys seemed pretty cool, not that I'd had much of a chance to get to know any of them since the six of us had barely spent any time in the same room. Kate made it perfectly clear that they were public enemies number one, two and three, and in order to keep her happy and our lives a little less ragey, Charlotte and I had humored her as much as possible.

We spent our time on the beach as far away as possible from where the boys were. We ate at different times, drank different drinks, pretty much did the opposite of whatever they were doing, whenever they were doing it. If Garrett and the boys were outside, we were holed up inside, even on the nicest days.

It was exhausting to be caught in the middle of their infighting and, as I watched a figure running on the beach, a figure with coppery hair and a very familiar build that happened to be heading in the direction of the beach house, I realized that maybe I didn't want to be a house divided any longer. I mean if I was going to spend my summer avoiding boys, I might as well go home to Forks and avoid Mike Newton. At least there, there was no fighting and I got paid for my efforts.

Of course, going back to Forks meant that I'd be living with my parents, which meant there was absolutely no chance of running into naked boys in the shower…and I really, really wanted to do that again. Except not accidentally, and with one sweaty from taking a run on the beach, copper headed boy in particular.

I couldn't help but giggle a little bit to myself as I remembered our encounter. He was so sexy and cute all at the same time, but not in an obnoxious 'I'm hot and I know it' way. It was endearing and hot.

Edward was beautiful, and I wasn't just talking about physically, though that was nothing to scoff at either. Needless to say, I was pissed at the vendetta Kate held against the boys. Just because she overdramatically assumed her summer was ruined, it didn't mean mine had to be. Regardless of what she wanted, I was determined that I was going to get to know Edward better, one way or another.

"You like him." Charlotte said matter of factly from somewhere beside me. I had been so focused on watching Edward approach the house that I hadn't realized that I wasn't alone.

"Like who? I was just watching the porpoises swim up and down the coast. If you watch the water long enough, you can see them and their cute, see?" I pointed towards the water, needing to distract her and animals were always a solid bet.

"Uh huh. Whatever. You know exactly who. Edward." She nodded towards him where he had stopped running and had started to stretch and cool down on the beach. His sinewy muscles practically glistened in the sun as he stretched his body.

Jesus Christ he was yummy.

"You haven't taken your eyes off of him since I stepped out here, and I've been here longer than you realize." She was sitting in her own chair with her coffee and the look on her face let me know that it didn't matter what I said, she knew what I was doing and I was completely busted. She was flighty and very random, but also very perceptive. There were very few things got by Charlotte.

Acknowledging defeat, I decided to spill. She was a good listener after all and it might make me feel better. "Well it doesn't matter how I feel, because this is as close as I'm going to get if things don't change around here. Peter seems pretty cool and Edward, well…yeah. Even Garrett doesn't seem that bad, from the few interactions that we've had. I don't get the feeling that they have any issue with us being here, its just Kate that has the problem. And honestly, I don't think its Garrett, I think its Tanya. In fact, I know its Tanya. But since Tanya isn't here and Garrett is…"

"We all suffer." Charlotte seemed to know exactly how I felt, which made me wonder a little bit if she had her own motivation to calm the madness in the house, but when I turned to her, she had gone back inside her room. Hmm…maybe I had an ally in all of this after all.

Edward started walking up the steps leading back to the house and I scooted inside to avoid being seen. While there was a plus to being seen wrapped up in a blanket, Edward catching me watch him from my balcony was not what I was going for. Besides, I needed brush my teeth in a bad way after finishing my coffee.

"Bella!" Kate came storming out of her bedroom and slammed the door shut. "Bella!"

"I'm mwn hrrrr." I poked my head around the corner of the bathroom door to show her I was brushing my teeth and, that if she needed me, she was going to have to wait.

"Bella! I swear to God, I'm going to kill him before the summer is over. Maybe this week. Hell, it's quite possible he doesn't make it through the day."

"Swoh dow. Wha happhend?"

"Okay, first, ew. You just spit on me. Go finish doing what you need to do and then I'll tell you. Second, you didn't tell me you saw Edward's junk. In fact, I need to calm down before I start throwing things. You need to spill."

Aw, shit. How did she find out about that?

The fact that I couldn't be around the boy without blushing probably didn't help hide anything, but I was pretty sure that it wasn't an obvious sign for 'hey, I know what he's got going on under those board shorts.' I felt my skin start to heat up as I realized that I DID in fact know what was under there and I wouldn't mind getting a closer look…because what I saw was definitely delicious.

Kate coughed not so subtly and raised her left eyebrow and my mind raced to figure out a way to get out of it.

"It wahhs compwet…"

"You know what; we'll talk about you and Edward's goods later. Like when you don't look like you're rabid. Besides, I'm too mad to think about it right now." She started going on and on about how Garrett left towels in the washing machine for two days and now they stink. And how Garrett left the milk sitting on the counter. And how Garrett played his music too loud and if she heard Eminem's 'Love the Way You Lie' one more time, she was going to scream.

"Actually, I think that was Charlotte. She has a thing from the guy from Lost who's in the video with that chick with the toe thumbs."

"What?" Kate asked, looking at me confused as I just shrugged my shoulders. Apparently she hadn't seen the video or knew that Megan Fox had weird looking thumbs. "Oh well, still. Garrett plays his music too loud and he's filthy. Gah, can't stand him. Finish getting ready so we can get out of here. I need to not be in the same place as him for a little bit or bad things are going to happen."

For once she was right, a day away from here would do us all some good. There was no way I was going to convince Kate to ease up as long as we were here, because I was confident that she wouldn't actually listen to reason, so I agreed enthusiastically with the idea.

"Go find Charlotte. I think she said something about wanting to find a present for her little sister. I'll finish getting ready and we can drive over to Atlantic Station or Beaufort or Swansboro and see if they have anything going on today for the Fourth. I could use a day out of the sun; I'm starting to turn a little pink."

I'd been working on my tan, hoping that a little color would help defuse the blushing situation, but as fair as I was, I had to be careful. Clifford the Big Red Dog was not the look I was going for, then again I didn't want to overdo it and end up looking like an Oompa Loompa like that tiny chick on Jersey Shore.

"Atlantic Station sounds good. I don't want to drive all the way to the others with all the holiday traffic and there is an ABC store right there." I didn't feel like reminding her that it would be closed today for the holiday so I decided to let her figure that out when we got there. Well that, and I was honestly afraid she'd hit me. She was just a little bit wound up.

The girl needed a hook up in a bad way, or some alone time with some porn and her nightstand drawer. Surely there was an adult store somewhere close by, right? Desperate times called for desperate measures after all. And if I kept having the good fortune of seeing Edward naked, I might have to do some shopping for myself as well. How much do those fancy rabbits cost these days?

Kate left the room as dramatically as she entered and I hurried to finish getting ready. I threw on a soft cotton sundress and my flip flops, pulled my hair up off the back of my neck in a ponytail and fifteen minutes later, I was ready to go spend the day with my girls.

"Oh, let's go in here!" Charlotte grabbed my arm and just about pulled it from the socket trying to get me to go into one of the little shops in Atlantic Station. She was trying to find something to send her little sister back at home and we had been in and out of every single little souvenir shop on the island.

Every. Single. One.

I actually welcomed the air conditioning in the shop and there were some cute things hidden here and there amongst the hideous. I was positive that Charlotte could find something in here. Her sister, Carmen, was only seven, after all, not exactly hard to please.

"A beach towel?" She shook her head. "What about a kite? A book about mermaids? A hyper color t-shirt?"

They still make those?

I slapped my hand across Kate's mouth and shook my head furiously before Kate could suggest the hermit crabs with the bedazzled shells. They would either depress Charlotte beyond belief and we'd end up with thirty of them all over the beach house roaming free like the mice in Cinderella. Or she'd buy one and then we'd have to figure out the logistics of shipping a live animal. And heaven forbid the guilt Charlotte would suffer if it didn't survive the trip.

No. Hermit crabs were a bad idea all around.

Finally content with a mermaid kite and picture book about lighthouses, we left the store and headed next door to Michelangelo's Pizza. It was packed, but we managed to snag a booth after a few minutes and a few flirtatious smiles to the underage host who seemed really impressed by Kate's breasts.

As we sat and waited for our meals, with Charlotte actually finding a vegan alternative on the menu, we talked about all the things we wanted to do while we were here and made plans to come back for at least a week every summer for the rest of our lives. If not Kate's house, then surely we could find another to rent.

There was one down the beach a bit that looked just like the Barbie Dream House, but I couldn't stay in a house that was that pink. If the outside was that hideous, I could only imagine the inside. It probably resembled the inside of a bottle of Pepto-Bismol. We laughed that sometimes we'd bring our families on our vacation and other times it would be just us.

As we enjoyed our lunch, Kate decompressed a little bit, Charlotte understood all the jokes and I found a penis shaped mushroom on my pizza. Which meant that I started thinking about Edward again.

"Bella, are you okay? I asked if you wanted to hit the grocery store while we're here, though I know it's going to be packed," Kate asked as I shook my head to pull myself from my thoughts of Edward. "What's up with you? You look like you're a million miles away and you're all splotchy." Charlotte giggled and I bumped her with my knee to get her to shut up. The last thing I needed was her blabbing to Kate about my morning gawking session of Edward.

"Um, sure. We might as well. What are the plans tonight anyway?"

Kate started throwing out some suggestions about places to go and watch the fireworks or about how there were usually bonfires on the beach after the fireworks were over and how they were always fun. I found it a little bit odd that she didn't want to find some big party somewhere and get wasted, but it was fine with me. I hated chaos and big crowds were definitely not my scene. I was good with low key.

We walked over to Food Lion and got the last shopping cart in the corral. I grabbed the front end of the cart, Kate steered and Charlotte scouted out our path. It was like one of those cornfield mazes, you couldn't see the way out and you just had to go on instinct. Which was probably why I didn't see Edward and Peter until I almost ran them over with the cart.

What was it with me and running into Edward? Not that I objected.

Sadly, this time he was clothed. Not that I wanted the tourists and old ladies in the Food Lion scoping out his junk. A twinge of jealously hit me as I realized I didn't want anyone but me seeing his junk. I shook the thought from my mind and looked up at the guys as I noticed Kate glare at me from the corner of my eye.

"Hey guys!" I started talking before Kate could start complaining and the smile on Edward's face made my heart skip a beat. I was grinny, I admit it. "Want to share our cart? Where's Garrett?"

"We're almost done, actually." Peter gestured to their cart, which was pretty full and I felt just a little bit stupid about not noticing. Then again, their cart wasn't what I was looking at. I did notice, however, that they didn't mention Garrett. I only mentioned him so Kate would relax. She looked like she was waiting for him to jump around the corner at any second and say something else to cause her to fly into a rage. I think if Kate said the sky was blue, then Garrett would argue that it was lime-green, just to piss her off.

My eyes never left Edward's while Peter and Charlotte carried on a conversation and I noticed that Kate got fed up and grabbed our cart mentioning something about meeting us in the cereal aisle. I don't know.

"So." Edward hiccupped and I smiled because it was cute.

"So." This was going well.

"All unpacked? Having a good vacation?" Hiccup.

"Yeah. Not as relaxing as I had hoped, but I'm hoping things change." Hint. Hint.

Hiccup.

"So."

Hiccup.

"Do you want some water or something?" I turned to grab the cart that I had forgotten wasn't there. "Oh, that's right. Kate took it." I shrugged and started looking over in their cart. "That's a lot of meat." Holy innuendo.

Hiccup. Hiccup. Hiccup.

I could feel my face start to heat up and I focused again on finding some water for Edward, if only to keep my obvious humiliation hidden from view. Finally, I found some water and pulled a bottle from the plastic ring holding the bottles together.

"Hey, do me a favor and cut those up before you put them in the recycling, okay?" I nodded towards Charlotte who was still talking to Peter and oblivious to the hiccup situation unfolding between Edward and I. "She gets a bit emotional over environmental issues."

"I'll do it as soon as we get back." He took the bottle from me and drank a bit of water. I watched, entranced, as a drop escaped the corner of his mouth and slid slowly down the side of his chin.

I wanted to lick it.

"All better?"

"Much. So…we're planning on staying around the house tonight. Cooking out on the barbecue and watching the fireworks. Y'all want to join us? Assuming you don't have any plans, of course." I looked at Charlotte, who looked back and grinned.

"Can you get me some tofu dogs?" Charlotte asked as Peter readily agreed. Since Kate wasn't there to object, we accepted.

She'd just have to deal.

EPOV

In hindsight, it probably wasn't the best idea to invite the girls to join us for our last minute barbecue. I mean, sure it would be great to have them hang out with us, and I was dying for a little more time with Bella, preferably alone, but we didn't have enough food.

So, while Garrett decided to ditch us for some rather busty blonde he had been following around all day like a lost puppy, Peter and I found ourselves circling back around the Food Lion after running into the girls, to pick up more stuff and we had already bought way too much as it was.

It took over an hour to get everything we needed, not because of anything we did, but because of the sheer number of people in the store with us. The cashiers were a little slow, no doubt pissed they were working on July 4th, and the guys bagging groceries just looked at Peter and I like we were pariahs. Was it that obvious we were tourists? It's not like we were wearing fanny packs or socks with sandals.

The moment we got back to the beach house, we shoved the food into the fridge and Peter looked at me with a serious expression on his face. "So...you like Bella, huh?"

"Shit, am I that obvious?" I questioned anxiously as my hand found the back of my neck and I started scratching it relentlessly, which was one of my nervous habits. That and the hiccups. Whenever I seemed to get really anxious about something, like when I took my SAT's for example, I would get a serious case of the hiccups that could last for hours. It's embarrassing and I was truly hoping to avoid them this summer, but with Bella around constantly, I'm not sure I wouldn't.

Thankfully she didn't seem to mind my little jag of them at the grocery store and was even sweet enough to get me some water. I may have wanted to kiss her the moment she handed me the bottle, but I couldn't exactly do that with Peter and Charlotte standing two feet away and Kate wandering around the store, stewing about something Garrett had probably done in his effort to screw with her.

"Well, I only caught you staring at her legs and her ass like forty times today. I'm shocked you weren't looking at her tits because let me just say..."

"No...don't say anything, keep it to yourself," I stated roughly as Peter smiled happily, like he always did. Regardless of everything, though Peter was very quiet, he was also the happiest guy I knew. "Wait...do we have to call dibs on these girls, cause if so I am calling Bella right the fuck now."

"This isn't like riding shotgun in a car, dipshit. You don't have to lay claim to the girl you like." Peter grinned from ear to ear before continuing, and shocking the fuck out of me. "Anyways, I kinda like Charlotte."

"Uh...what was that?"

"I like Charlotte. She's smart and beautiful and just...different."

"The girl cried when you threw out the newspaper this morning. I would certainly say that was 'different'."

"She was being environmentally conscious when she grabbed it back out of the trash. It's a quality we should admire, not make fun of."

"Oh, I wouldn't have made fun of her if she had recycled it. Instead she mumbled something about finding it a good home. It wasn't a stray fricking kitten dude, it was a newspaper."

"Like I said...she's different."

"Okay, I'm good with it. If you like the girl, more power to you. Just...don't offer her a napkin tonight if she spills something. She might have a meltdown, oh and cut up the plastic rings from the bottled water. Bella said Charlotte is a bit of an environmentalist, or maybe she was just mental." Just then Peter punched me heavily in the shoulder, but I still couldn't help the laugh that came forth. "As for the Bella thing, let's just downplay that for now. I'm gonna play it cool because I want to know if she is interested in me before I go ahead and put myself out there."

"If you say so. Now, let's go get ready. It's almost six and the girls said they would be back by six thirty." Peter and I gave each other a high five, and then felt a little lame afterwards, before we headed off separately. There were three showers in the house, but since Peter had jumped into the one near our room first, and Kate locked the door to her bedroom preventing use of her private bathroom, I had to use the other one. The one I had fallen and flashed my junk at Bella in.

I showered as quickly as I could, wanting to get the sweat from the day outside off of me. Sure, I had showered this morning after my run, where I had tried unsuccessfully to get Bella out of my head, but I needed one again.

Of course, just like this morning, I began to have rather explicit thoughts of Bella, but decided it would probably be pretty nasty to stand in her shower and jerk off to thoughts of her. Of course, it didn't help matters that the entire shower smelled like her. It was almost pure torture to stand there, fighting against my arousal, as I tried to shower. I think I forgot to clean most of myself.

When I finished, I wrapped my towel around my waist as tightly as I could and when I stepped into the hallway, Bella turned a corner and walked right smack into me. "Oomph," she cried out as I fought back the urge to hold her against me. Shit, now I was getting hard and all I was wearing was a towel. The last thing I wanted was to salute Bella with little Edward, but this towel wasn't exactly going to hide much.

"Sorry I used your bathroom, Peter was in ours," I said as quickly as possible as I held my towel closed and turned around, practically sprinting away from Bella as fast as I could. The last thing I needed was for her to get the wrong impression. I mean, yes, I thought she was gorgeous and smart, but did I need to assault her with my cock at every opportunity? Ummm no.

Thirty minutes later, as Peter and I stood beside the grill outside trying to figure out how to work the damn thing, Bella and Charlotte made an appearance with Kate dragging ass behind them. Clearly she didn't want to be with all of us.

"For two apparently smart guys, you are pretty dumb," Kate replied acerbically as she bent down behind the barbecue and turned a knob that was attached to the wall. "It's a gas barbecue."

"And we were supposed to know that how?" I replied snidely as Bella gave me a small smile and then headed back into the house for a moment. I couldn't help but notice the sundress she was wearing and how it hugged all of her curves perfectly. Hell, I may have even stared a little too long at her back, which was exposed because the ties of the dress wrapped around her neck. I kinda wanted to run my hands slowly up her back and just feel her soft skin. Sure, I didn't know if it was actually soft, but I was pretty sure of it.

"The lack of a propane or charcoal should have made it obvious," she snapped back as she pulled me from my thoughts of Bella's back and I watched as Bella returned and handed her friend a beer. Kate quickly wrenched it open and took a long pull from it.

"Take it easy on the boys, Kate. I'm sure they've barbecued something in their time, right?" Bella questioned as I nodded my head and Peter did the same. "Why don't you go chill on the lounger and play Angry Birds on your iPhone. Take out your frustration on something else for while?" I had to admit, I was kinda shocked when Kate gave Bella a small hug and then went to sit down.

"Uh...thanks for that," I said simply as Peter and Charlotte went into the house to get the burgers and hot dogs and we had picked up for dinner. Charlotte had decided to cook her own dinner in the kitchen rather than on the grill with all the 'animals'. "She's a little...overwhelming, I guess you could say."

"Well that's putting it nicely," Bella laughed as I turned the barbecue on and tried to pretend like there was nothing else in the world, except for the sound of her voice. "Kate can be a bit of a bitch, but I promise her bark is worse than her bite. I think she's just a little disappointed that her summer hasn't gotten off to the start she thought it would."

"You mean because we are here, right?" Bella nodded her head softly as she looked at her friend who was cursing something about sticky buttons and shitty blue birds. "How do you feel about it?"

"I'm glad you're here, Edward." Bella blushed again and I felt the urge to push some of her hair behind her ear as I stared into her beautiful brown eyes, but a loud obnoxious giggling from an unknown voice pulled us from our moment. And we were definitely having a moment.

"Okay, we're here, the party can start!" Garrett shouted as he climbed up the stairs from the beach with his arm slung around the busty blonde he had been practically stalking earlier. "Everyone, this is Lauren. Lauren...this is everyone," Garrett declared dramatically as his hand swept across the group of us who were on the deck, Charlotte and Peter having joined us a moment earlier with the meat.

"Hi!" Lauren said with a little too much excitement before her fingers started running down Garrett's shirt as she looked up at the house. "Is this place all yours, baby?" she purred, no doubt attracted to the potential size of his wallet and not specifically him. "It's so big!"

"Oh it's big alright," Garrett declared, his comment laced with sexual innuendo as Lauren laughed like a raving idiot beside him, thinking it was the funniest thing she'd ever heard. "Come on baby, how about I go show you how big it really is?" Garrett winked at me as he pulled Lauren through the back door and into the house.

"He's got crabs," Kate suddenly shouted as all of us broke out into fits of laughter. "And he doesn't own the house. He's a broke college student, not some multi-millionaire." We all stopped for a second and looked at Kate curiously. "What? I may have heard some of the lines he was using on that dumb skank earlier today at one of the two dozen gift shops Charlotte dragged us into. She didn't really think he invented Twitter, did she? Ugh..."

"Yeah, that one has never worked for him before, I don't know why he would try now," Peter commented before he opened up the barbecue and set to working on dinner. Since we had invited the girls, I had to help, so while he barbecued, I got everything ready outside on the table, cutlery, plates and the salads we had gotten at the grocery store. I kept glancing over to the lounge chairs where Bella sat with her girlfriends, drinking beer and enjoying themselves. It was nice to see her so in her element and it made me more attracted to her, if that was even possible.

Two hours later, long after we had finished dinner and the sun was setting, Garrett finally stumbled down the stairs by himself. "Where's the skank?" Kate questioned with a slur to her voice. She had definitely had the most beer out of all of us.

"She wasn't a skank and she left a while ago," he replied with resignation in his voice. "She...doesn't put out on the first date...or the second...or the third...or before marriage." I had to admit that Garrett looked a bit disappointed, but once he had a bottle of beer in his hand, he seemed to relax a bit. "I mean...she totally acted like she wanted it, but when I offered it up, she turned me down. I don't smell do I?"

"You do have a certain stench of desperation," Kate chimed in with a giggle as Garrett turned around and stared her down.

"No one asked you, slagathor."

"Actually, you didn't address anyone in specific," Peter replied as Kate gave him a thumbs-up and took another huge gulp of her beer. I was initially shocked at how well the girls were putting away their drinks, but when Bella began explaining to me about some bar with blue cups and how often they went, courtesy of her fake I.D. since she wouldn't be twenty-one until September, everything sort of fell into place.

"Are you on her side now?"

"There's no sides to be taken," Peter defended as Garrett glared at him as well. "Listen man, don't dwell on it. Move on and forget about her. There's a burger left on the grill for you. Eat something, you'll feel better."

"Okay, Dad," Garrett said sarcastically as I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Bella was descending the stairs by herself. I looked again, and sure enough, she was motioning with her hand for me to join her. I even did one of those weird movie-esque things where I pointed at myself, unsure that she really wanted me to come join her, but sure enough, Bella nodded her head. I tried to excuse myself as casually as I could and two minutes later, Bella and I were sitting side by side on the beach, our toes digging into the warm sand.

"Kate told me that in like, five minutes, they are going to start lighting off fireworks just over there," she explained slowly as she pointed towards the pier where we were earlier in the day.

"Wouldn't we have seen them better from the deck?" I asked stupidly as I ground my fist into the sand between us. Why the hell would I say that? This was stressful enough to me without having to worry about saying something stupid. Heck, I could already feel the hiccups coming on.

"It's too bright up there. It's better to see the fireworks when it's dark outside. They are more colorful and intense."

"Ah...that makes sense."

"Also, Kate and Garrett's constant bickering is getting on my nerves," she said lazily as I watched her fingers draw in the sand in front of her. "Tell me something no one knows...something secret?"

Shit...what the hell would I tell her? That I almost jerked off in her shower a few hours ago or that since we had arrived she had taken over my every thought? Nope...too stalkerish. I had to go with something less creepy and more romantic, or sweet.

"When we shook hands the other day...I got this shock to my system. It was unexplainable, but not unwelcome." Suddenly, I felt Bella's hand against mine again as she entwined her fingers with mine and we rested them on the sand between us, both of us moving a bit closer. Oddly enough, the shock was still there.

"Like this?"

"Yeah...just like that."

"I felt it too," Bella blushed again and I wasn't sure if it was from the beer she had consumed all night or from me...or us. "I still feel it. It's not unwelcome to me either. I really like it."

Right then, a loud boom sounded and bright, beautiful fireworks began going off over the water as Bella and I sat perfectly still, our hand clasped tightly together as we watched the vivid colors. Every so often Bella and I would look over at each other, but otherwise, we didn't say a word.

It was perfect.