|- 47 -|

Bella Swan
Stylist

I flex the card gently between my thumb and forefinger, the heel of my hand propped up against the steering wheel.

By all rights, it should read 'Bella Swan—Flirt'.

Flipping the card, I grin at her number staring back at me, along with the cheeky wink smiley she drew in text speak.

My fingers reflexively start through the hair at my forehead before snapping away at the unexpected encounter with hardened gel.

I glance into the rear-view mirror and can't help a relieved smile. If I'm honest with myself, I'm beyond relieved; I look downright hot.

A/N: Hopefully you figured out that we've now popped back to where we left off with BPOV: Post Mystique visit #1, Hairward on top of the world with his awesome new 'cut and muss' as well as a certain phone number in his hand!

A brief history of LRR and some acknowledgments: I wasn't planning on writing any EPOV for this story. LRR was a little character sketch/crazy fantasy that hit the kink factory during a random visit to the hair salon. My first attempt at an all-BPOV, and I was DONE, thank you very much! The inimitable Trip pre-read, critiqued, approved, and off I went...although, there was this little French voice named Alterite whose pre-read comment was, "The story is "sweet and nice, but..." And then, those little devils Kitkat and Yummy got their hooks into the realization around chapter 38 that unless B and E were 'headed to the sauna together,' there wasn't actually any smut in the story-GASP! That didn't sit well (I grossly understate the situation; let's just say, I was persuaded.) So, okay, I set out to write a perfectly fluffy EPOV with a smattering of smutty goodness. BUT THEN, my super wizard plot coach Beans827 chats with me for two hours one day (see what happens when you offer to help?) and we hatched this little twisty plan. And last but never least, there's jenjiveg, who takes such great pleasure in whipping me-oops, I mean my words-into shape (though the final product is mine-I often like to surprise her on game day with my interpretations of her advice!)

May I also say I'm having a BLAST reading through your guesses about what that symbol around the chapter number represents! My favorites: line dance, judge's gavel, T-square, pianos, bowtie (somebody reading KEA?), barbells, and probably the funniest-squeegee! No, Edward is not a window washer, shehazi! Thanks for playing, everyone. God I love you guys.

And since the A/N is already 4 times as long as the chapter, I'm kind of dying to add that Midnight Cougar has just written the loveliest rec for Slippery Slope for this week's Rob Attack FanFiction Friday. RA is a fantastic, creative, fun-loving site all week long, so stop by and look around! Leave some love for the Cougar if you go!
robattack . wordpress . com/2012/01/20/fanfiction-fridays-recs-for-jan-2012/

Does this chapter still count as a drabble at 569 words? xxx ~BOH