Chapter 17
Stephenie Meyer owns the characters and the whole Twilight franchise. I own a flooded room downstairs, and the knowledge that my family are safe during the Qld Floods.
~~OtA~~
RPOV
Alice had made reservations for them at Gallagher's Steakhouse earlier, so while they got ready, they decided it was time to plot and plan to find a way to make Neanderthal-man swear.
"Maybe you can just screw his brains out Rose and make him swear. Lord knows it's been a long time between drinks for you. If memory serves, you are quite the tigress in bed. Bet you can make tall, blond and dimpled scream out your name and an expletive or two..."
"Alice, be quiet. I'm not prostituting myself for the sake of the bet. I'll just be inventive. Antagonizing him for half of the evening should be enough to get him going. Maybe he'll lose it if I V and T him..."
Alice looked alarmed.
"You are hereby banned from any V and T'ing, unless it's vodka and tonic, until properly sanctioned by two coherent women. And if two coherent women aren't available, then it's only if Bells and I say you can use it. You are a bad girl Rosie and we are having none of it."
Rose nearly laughed at how Alice made herself a force to be reckoned with. So small, yet so powerful and manipulative. Here she was a veritable Amazonian ice queen and she still squirmed at every scheme little Alice came up with.
"You are an evil little pixie, but I'll listen. After all, I don't want a repeat of the Whiny Festival of 2007."
"I don't recall any Whiny Festival, just me using my prowess and mad negotiating skills to get you to go hang-gliding with Mr. Gorgeous."
"Yes sweetie, it was a six hour car trip with you playing con-man the entire time. I'm your lemming dear; just tell me to jump off a cliff in that high pitched voice of yours for long enough and I'll jump."
"You loved it and you know it."
"Yes, but he wasn't all that adorable Alice. You've got to stop setting me up with men that you have a good 'vibe' about. The good vibe excuse is not good enough anymore."
"All right then, I have a disgustingly bad vibe about dimple boy."
"Are you using reverse psychology on me Alice-Mary?"
"Would I do that?" Alice walked away, turning her head and raising her evil little eyebrows in Rose's direction. She was a manipulative little "B" sometimes.
Bella finally appeared from the bathroom, looking less sexed up, yet still anxious.
"Didn't you get any release this afternoon? Was an hour not long enough with DJ lover boy?"
Rose hated when Alice tried to pry for details. It made her want to close her eyes and stick her fingers in her ears, singing loudly to block out the noise she created.
"Eww, Alice, you dirty pervert. We just talked." Even Rose could see Bella blush from all the way across the room.
"Hmmm...talking? Is that what you kids are calling the wild thing these days?"
"Alice, seriously, shut up. Rose looks like she wants to puke. Give her a minute and she'll be sticking her fingers in her ears and singing "La la la" just to block your shit out."
"That was exactly what I was thinking about!" Rose shouldn't have been so amazed at Bella's intuitiveness about her feelings when talking about her friend's sexy times they may or may not have had.
"You were not Rosalie-Elaine. You were thinking about how you could get into dimple boy's Calvin Klein's."
Rose sighed and decided to give up.
"Yes Alice-Mary, I always fantasize about getting into a client's co-worker's underwear. Besides, boy undies are so much more comfortable than girl undies."
"Yuck, Rose! Please tell me you only wear girl undies."
"Sure Alice, I wear boy undies sometimes. The ones from Walmart with the little escape hatch at the front. Super comfy."
"Rose, I would not have thought that you would buy undies with a wank hatch in them".
"You turn every conversation into gutter talk. Now that's talent. I was kidding pixie. I wear lacy pink bra and panty set at all times."
"Great, Rose. Now all I can see you in is grey Calvin Klein's. Now that I think about it though, your ass would look great in them. Now Bella, I see you as more of a cute bikini type wearing girl, with superhero prints on the fronts."
"Sure Alice... I'm wearing Superwoman Underoos as we speak. But now I want to go and buy some Calvin Klein's and see if they are actually more comfy."
"You two are idiots. Let's go meet these other idiots for dinner. And see if we can make dimple boy swear."
"Oooh! See Bella, she's calling him dimple boy now. I wonder if he has dimples on his ass?"
BPOV
Bella groaned at Alice. Alice should have written porno scripts for a living. She had no idea how Alice managed to be so interested in women's rights when all she really wanted was to find a guy, get married, and have frequent and ridiculous sex in scandalous places. She knew this because Alice had told her this was her lifelong dream. She didn't even want to work. She wanted to be a kept woman. Not a housewife, though. She had been quite specific about that. She would have a maid and her biggest job would be ensuring that once a week she got her bikini line waxed.
Bella was just looking forward to a nice evening with her friends without any risk of impropriety. Emmet was even bringing along a tape recorder so they could go over the bet for the show the next day. It would be an early dinner and then early to bed. They had to get up ridiculously early to set up the show on top of the New York, New York Casino. Bella was slightly freaked out about being on top of a building, but surprisingly security had deemed this the most secure place to host the show. Elsewhere there might be picketing, but at least in the hotel they could restrict the movements of the crowd during the live broadcast.
Since they were ready, they made their way to Gallagher's Steakhouse.
Alice walked right up to the table where the boys were seated, breezing right past the concierge, who gave up on the idea of trying to stop her from entering the very busy restaurant.
Alice sat herself down next to Jasper and leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. He looked rather surprised, but certainly not repulsed by her behavior.
"Do you want to let me in on why you just pecked me on the cheek there ma'am?" Jasper drawled out to the very busy looking Alice, who was getting settled in at the table.
"Oh well, seeing as Bella and Edward, and now Rose and Emmet are hooking up, I thought it was just natural if we did too. I only want to have two kids and I'd prefer not to live in the suburbs. I'd rather live somewhere in the city- not an apartment though, but maybe a town house, near excellent schools and good cafes that I can go to with my friends during the day while you work."
"Well ma'am, I'm rather fond of the country myself. Perhaps if we had a holiday house out on some land that we could go to on the weekends. That way, the kids can ride horses while we partake of tea on the porch. And we can make love all night out under the stars on a blanket in the rotunda amidst the landscaped gardens. While the nanny watches the children, of course."
Alice looked a little taken aback. Bella had never seen this particular come on line of Alice's before. Normally it was "I don't like to sleep alone, so would you fancy helping a girl avoid something she doesn't like doing?" and that was normally it.
"Well I suppose, as long as it isn't every weekend. There is only so much hot sex under the stars that a girl can handle."
"It's decided then. Every other weekend on the ranch and the other weekends in town. After all, we'll have to catch up with our friends at some point."
"Yes, absolutely." Alice was mesmerized by this turn of events.
"Normally I like to take a girl out on a few dates though, before proposing. Is that acceptable?"
"All right, but I tend to put out on the second date. So do you want to propose before that one, or after?" Jasper and Alice were now in their own little world, oblivious to how they were freaking out their friends.
Bella, like those at the rest of the table, was watching the exchange with a mixture of confusion and amusement. Bella thought this was one of the best pick up lines ever. Now she hoped they actually would get married so she could shock their children with the rather disgusting story of how their parents picked each other up.
Just like how she would tell her children how she picked up their father. "Well kids, it was like this...I was sent to supervise your daddy on a court order and we couldn't keep our hands off each other. Shortly afterwards, you were born." Bella shook her head. This was getting strange, even for her.
"Ok, so while the newlyweds over there are busy planning out their retirement strategy, how about we order." Bella decided she had better take charge or the rest of them would spend the night watching how Alice's little pick up would end.
"Yeah, excellent idea. What would you like to order, my little dumpling Rose?" Emmet was obviously going to take the antagonistic tactic this evening.
"Certainly. But I don't think they have can leave their meat uncooked here for you, Mr. Neanderthal."
"Oh dear then, I should just swear and get the evening over with. Then I can get back to my cave and do some paintings with my own urine." Emmett waggled his eyebrows at her.
"Oh but honey, I wouldn't want you to spend the whole evening disappointed by your inability to string coherent sentences together without using expletives."
Edward interrupted. "The recorder is on just in case you guys were wondering. How about we go over the nature of the bet and then see how you guys converse with each other over the evening. Then we can edit it appropriately tomorrow morning before the show."
"Fine, Edward. So here's the bet. Once upon a time, there was a Neanderthal who didn't seem to have the ability to string any sentences together without dropping various F-bombs in there for effect. So consequently..." Emmett decided to interrupt Rosalie's saccharine explanation of the bet.
"Yes, consequently, the Evil Ice Queen of Non-Expletive Land decided a decree. Whomsoever can get the other to drop a generally accepted swear word will win $2,000 for the charity of their choosing. So when I win the charity I have chosen will be the Make-A-Wish Foundation."
"And when I win, because Mr. Neanderthal looks like he's already shaking from the effort of using adult words, the money will go to The Emancipation Network, a foundation that helps support women who have been forced into slavery."
"Well, those are both good causes there, thanks Emmett and Rose. Remind me to dub that over in my asshole voice back at the studio." Edward looked at Rose, involuntarily cringing as she gave him a death stare.
"Edward. A-hole is a bad word."
"Oh Rose, A-hole can be such a good, good word when used in the right context." Emmett grinned at Rose.
"Oh Emmett, you will never ever get me in the right context and you will be so, so disappointed that you didn't."
"Bitch."
"Ha! He said a bad word."
"Rose, bitch is generic these days. Bastard isn't a bad word now, is it?" Bella felt the need to defend Emmet for some demented reason.
"Bella, perhaps you and Edward need to write down a list of what you think are generally accepted swear words and then I can work on getting Caveman here to say one of them."
"Bella, that's an excellent idea. At the moment I can think of one very bad word that starts with C. If you look it up in the dictionary it says "See Rosalie Hale." Emmett and Rose were starting to lean towards each other, about to snap each other's head off.
"You know what, Edward? How about you sit next to me and we can sit in between these two good people who seem to really have it in for each other. Rose, not cool honey, not cool. You are a lady. Act like one." Bella chastised her friend as gently as she could.
"No, that's fine. Let's just order, eat and then I can sit here and seethe while Emmett's balls shrink. Because they know that I'm going to win this bet and he's going to prove that he's the cretin that we all know him to be."
"Oh baby, there is never any ball shrinking on my part. All man, all the time. I might even show you sometime."
"Ugh, bring it on Caveman."
~~OtA~~
This chapter was eaten by googledocs... My Beta FicObsessed had already Beta'ed it, and I made her do twice the work...
We survived the flooding in QLD. We are North of Brisbane, an amazing and beautiful city, that today is going to go into the depths of the murky Brisbane River and hopefully come out smelling like roses in a few days time. Thanks to all the twitter crew who have kept me laughing and in particular a shout to the Brissieh00rs group, whose wit and pics and concern for each other during these awful floods has kept me going and smiling, when at times there wasn't much reason to smile (like my many 5am flood water sweeping out in the bottom of my house.)
I don't know if I am a good author, and I am not brave enough to participate in the Fandom gives back to Flooding... but I will pimp the website when it is opened and go ahead and donate some money as well...and you should too...pretty please...
Fandoms Fight the Floods sign up website is fandomsfightthefloods dot blogspot dot com / with spaces and word dot replaced...