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not beta'd

storyline - Crystal beachin' (last chapter to this epic, sweeping saga tomorrow)

prompt - duty

"Bella…Bella!"

Bella blinked and looked up, coming face to face with a very chagrined Rose. "What's up?"

Rose flipped her hair back. "What's up? Seriously? You're acting stoned; only, you don't smoke, so… yeah." She was about to say more, but then she realized she recognized the goofy, spaced out expression on her girl's face. In fact, she knew it well. Bella had been the recipient of good loving for the past two weeks, and it showed. She glowed. "Aw, B. You're still cock-whipped, aren't you?" she cooed.

Bella wrinkled her nose. "That makes no sense."

"You know, like pussy wh-"

"Yeah, I get it. But it's still dumb." Bella smiled as she said it, though. She looked down at the condiment station she was supposed to be refilling. She and Rose were on opening shift, and this was the last duty she needed to perform before the restaurant opened.

"What's dumb is that you've been filling the same bottle of ketchup for like, an hour."

Bella swatted a rag at Rose's butt and got back to work, determined to finish and not be mentally carried away by visions of Edward...

...Edward in the middle of the night, sleeping. Edward in the shower, showering. Edward feeding her grapes. Edward with a milk mustache. Edward's precious peen. Edward –

"Bella!"

"Ack, okay, sorry! Sorry." Bella squirted ketchup with renewed gusto.

Edward and the boys came in for lunch right as Rose and Bella were completing their shift later that day.

"Care to join us?" Jasper asked, patting the seat beside him. Emmett rolled his eyes and made Jasper switch places so he could sit beside his Rose. "Alice has the next shift, huh?"

"Yeah. She's in the back, clocking in," said Bella, smiling coyly at Edward.

He grinned back, sliding his hand over her bare thigh as she sat beside him. "How was your day?"

"Good. How was yours?"

"Good. You hungry?"

"Always," he said, waggling his eyebrows.

"Stop…" Bella swatted at her boyfriend, secretly wanting him never, ever, ever to stop.

Ever.

Alice bopped out seconds later and made a beeline for the table. "Hey guys. What's it gonna be today?"

After lunch, the boys returned to the jobsite they were currently working on and Bella and Alice returned home. They tanned by the pool with a couple of Rose's famous pina coladas, chatting and reading Cosmopolitan's latest: "1,304 Secret Sex Tips You Never Knew You Never Knew."

"Mm, this one's good," Rose said, sitting up. "Says to massage his weenie with your feet."

Bella made a face. "Ew."

"Yeah, that is kind of ew." Rose chewed her maraschino cherry thoughtfully. "Okay, this one says to dribble honey down in to –"

"That stuff all sounds really contrived," Bella complained. "Like, who makes it up? I feel like I could write one of these articles."

"You probably could," snorted Rose. "Sucking mints before giving a BJ? Blindfolding him and making him guess what body part he's touching? It's like kid's party games, but pervy."

"What kind of kid's parties did you go to?" teased Bella, easing in to the pool.

Secretly, though, the mints-before-BJ idea was sort of appealing to her. She'd have to keep that one in mind.

Edward flailed, nearly falling off the bed.

"Wow...wow…wow… what was that?"

"Orbitz gum," Bella said. "I was gonna use Altoids but I didn't want to, like, over do it."

"No. That was perfect," he agreed, panting as he calmed down.

"Good." She grinned and straightened up, wiping her mouth.

"C'mere."

Bella lay beside Edward, and before long, they were engaged in another love-a-thon.

Afterwards, during cuddling, Edward turned to his Bella. She was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, and he didn't think he'd be able to stay away from her when it was time to return home. They'd been doing a lot of brainstorming, but coming up with a solution to their long distance debacle was difficult.

"I'm gonna miss you," he whispered, looking up from beneath his lashes.

Bella's heart raced when he did that; her lashes just went up went she tried to peek from beneath them. Somehow, though, Edward could do it. He was a special breed.

"I'm gonna miss you too," she whispered back, trying not to cry.

"I get so weak in the knees I can hardly speak," Edward said soulfully, cupping Bella's sweet cheeks.

"We'll figure something out," she breathed. "We must."

Meanwhile, there were only a few weeks left, and they were determined to make the most of them.