Hi all! Since Friday's update was posted on Saturday, this was supposed to be Saturday's that I meant to post Sunday but couldn't get to until today. (confusing sentence, sorry) Anyway, I'm back on track. This Friday, however, may be a problem again. Too many life responsibilities/commitments in one day.

One more thing, from now on, all chapters will be in the present.

Word Prompt: Prominent

Something True

Prominent

This Fall

Edward has composed so many songs since Bella opened up to him that she's afraid to ask him what they're about. She listens as he plays, listens as he tells her he has to take another trip to Seattle, and answers with a "yes," when he asks her to take care of Biter while he's gone.

Her hand closes around the cottage key he places in her palm.

On the morning he leaves, he scruffs up Biter's fur and then holds a hand out for a shake. He picks up his keyring from the counter, swings it around a finger, catching it in his fist, and heads to his car. Bella follows.

"Thanks," he says turning around, Bella right behind him. "I'll see you both in two days."

He lingers with Bella in the gravel driveway, looking down at her. He's wearing a sweatshirt and jeans, holding a duffle bag at his side. His free hand moves to cup her jaw, his thumb on her cheekbone. He lowers his face; she closes her eyes, a breath expanding in her chest. Her lips part, his land on her cheek, and her eyes open, the breath released as her shoulders fall.

Bella and the dog watch from the deck as Edward drives away. Beside them is the covered tree. Edward had wrapped a wool blanket around it before he left due to the freeze that's expected overnight.

Lifting the blanket, Bella peeks underneath. Many of the branches are so thin they aren't much more than twigs. They snap so easily.

Bella wonders if it should have been moved inside. It's way too heavy for her to move on her own.

Biter whines and Bella runs with him to distract him from the fact that Edward's gone. They run around the cottage, scrambling over plants and down the hill to the lake. They run across the dock, stopping at the end, where Bella peers into the water, her feet near the edge, but not crossing over.

She shivers and she knows that despite the freezing air, the shiver was rattled by a memory. She feels Biter looking up at her.

"Nobody's swimming today," she tells him and takes off in the opposite direction, back toward the cottage, Biter at her heels, then passing her. Inside she grabs his leash, throws his dog food and bowls in a bag, locks up and walks Biter home with her.

Both worn out, Biter falls asleep on the floor by the sofa while Bella is sprawled across it on her stomach, her head resting on a textbook she should be reading. Biter's low growl startles her.

"What?"

He sits up, Bella following suit. Staring at the door, he growls low again. A key is heard in the lock, the knob turns. Bella's dad walks in and the dog runs up to him barking, not a playful puppy bark, a deep, threatening bark, his ears flat.

Her dad backs up and Bella laughs. "Let him smell your hand."

"My hand isn't going near his mouth."

"Biter," Bella says, "Sit!"

He sits, his nose aimed at Bella's dad's knees.

"Biter, right. Great." He sidesteps along the wall, a bag of groceries in one arm. "You familiar with a 9 millimeter semi automatic, Biter?"

"Dad, he's not going to hurt you. He's protecting me."

"I can get behind that. Just keep him out of the kitchen."

Bella takes Biter up to her room and closes him inside with his food and water. When she returns after dinner she finds the dog asleep on one end of the room beneath the window, and a torn up sneaker in the middle of the room between her desk and the end of her bed. She picks up the shoe to examine it—unwearable. The rubber sole is loose, the canvas heel and tongue full of teeth marks and tears. The laces look half-eaten. She sighs, shakes her head, but kisses Biter anyway.

Bella tries not to think about Edward as she falls asleep, Biter now curled up at the end of her bed. Though Edward's face, his smile, the green of his eyes, is the last image she's aware of before she blacks out.

...

"What's going on with you and my brother?" Rosalie asks, patting the bed for Biter to jump up onto. "This okay?"

Bella nods and Rosalie pats at the mattress until Biter joins her.

"I don't know. Nothing. Friends," Bella says, though she's realizing that simply thinking about him can knock the wind out of her. "Friends. Why?"

"Last time he went to Seattle, I asked him if he wanted me to watch Biter, and he said that he was taking the dog because he wouldn't want to stay with anyone but him. And now here the dog is, with you."

Attempting not to acknowledge that she's perspiring under her clothes, Bella shoves a book into her backpack and zips it up. "Well, that's it. Just friends." She pulls her coat on.

They take Biter on a long walk to tire him out and then drop him off at the cottage before they head to the cafe. Bella doesn't want to risk her bedroom getting torn apart.

"Rose," Bella says after closing Biter inside the cottage. "Do you think we can move the tree inside?"

The girls try, but even with the two of them, they can only push it a few inches. There's no way they'd be able to carry it up and over the step at the front door. They give up. She should have mentioned the suggestion to Edward before he left.

It isn't until they're parked outside the restaurant that Rose says, "Royce has been calling me." She shuts off the engine.

"And?"

"And... so has Emmett. But I haven't called either one of them back." She pulls the key from the ignition and turns to face Bella, her knee resting sideways on the seat. "If I don't call Royce back, I don't think he'll stop calling me. And if I don't call Emmett back, I think he will stop calling me." She slips a nail between her teeth. "I don't think I want Emmett to stop calling."

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. Royce is begging me to talk to him. He's apologized like a hundred times. He says he gave me another chance, why can't I give him one? And he's right. When I begged, he gave me another chance."

"But do you want to give him another chance?"

Rose stares at Bella until there's a bang on the driverside window, followed by laughter, and Alice making faces.

Alice opens the door and plops herself into Rose's lap. "Check this out." She pulls a photo from her pocket and hands it to Bella. "Remember that?"

The old group have been hanging out at school again, but this is the first time in months that Bella is being included in a group lunch on a weekend, outside of school.

She takes the photo. Eight year old Bella and Alice are in yellow raincoats holding matching umbrellas. Bella remembers that underneath the coats, they're wearing their Brownie uniforms. Their mothers used to take turns bringing home-cooked meals to the meetings. The girls' smiles are prominent, both showing a couple of missing teeth.

Bella looks at teenaged Alice now, who's grinning, all her teeth intact. This is her trying. Bella returns the smile. "I remember. You couldn't make the plastic keychains."

"I could too! I just made them my way, not their way."

"But you wanted to trade. I gave you mine, made their way."

"And I still have it. Do you have mine?"

Alice looks so hopeful, and Bella can't remember if she still has it. "I probably do," she says, not wanting to let Alice down. "I'm sure I do."

...

Barely through the door, Edward has to get down on his knees to get Biter to stop jumping on him. The puppy's tail is wagging so hard and fast he can't walk straight.

"God, it's like you were gone a year."

"How'd he do?" Edward asks, scratching the side of the dog's face.

"He ate my shoe and he might've tried to eat my dad, but other than that he was fine."

Looking up at Bella, Edward laughs, lines indenting his cheeks, eyebrows as rounded as his smile. "Sorry."

Standing, his laughter dying away, he pulls a flash drive out of his pocket. "They chose a title song, want to hear it?"

In his studio room, he plugs the flash drive in and pulls up the song. "Just the instrumental. No words yet."

As the music plays, Bella gets this flutter from her stomach to her chest. She feels proud of him. "Wow," she says and reaches up to hug him. Overwhelmed by it all— listening to his song while Edward looks at her as if in anticipation of her opinion—she couldn't have stopped herself. "I love it."

He wraps his arms around her waist.

"Edward?" She pulls back so that they're eye to eye.

"Yeah?" He whispers it.

She wants him to kiss her but doesn't know how to say it. Picking up his hand, she places it on the side of her face, trying not to look away from his eyes, though that's difficult. She's embarrassed.

He brushes his thumb along her skin, his music still playing in the background. She's so moved by this moment she could almost cry. "Edward," she says again, but he isn't moving. She curves a hand around the back of his neck, guiding his face down to hers, his lips to hers.

Mouths pressed together, it isn't much more than that, but at the same time, it's so much more than that.

When he pulls back, she has tears in her eyes.

He sweeps his thumb over her cheek again. "Okay?"

"I don't know if I should've done that."

He frowns. "Why not?"

"It shouldn't have been me."

"Who should it have been?"

"You."

He slides his thumb to the edge of her bottom lip. "It was me."

"No. I mean, you should've kissed me. Not the other way around."

He leans in, kisses her, his mouth opening, his tongue touching her lips and then the tip of her tongue. "I'm kissing you now." He continues the kiss, slow, his tongue moving deeper into her mouth. Her stomach flies, her pulse racing. Her heart feels as though it's climbing to her throat. Both of them let out a long breath that speaks of their connection, their undeniable pull toward each other, that speaks of relief. Edward's fingertips, like a breath themselves, are barely touching her cheek. But she can feel them there as if he's holding her to him. It's magnetic, this touch. They part and blink at one another. Her mouth inches into a small smile and he smiles back. Their lips meet again, firmer this time, more demanding. He trails his fingers down her face to the back of her neck, a tighter hold as his mouth moves against hers.

He breaks away, gazing down at her, his eyes glazed. "Come here." He brings her to the old wooden futon against the wall near the door, pulling her down next to him. He tucks her into his chest, her head rising and falling with his breath. His kiss meets her forehead. His fingers caress her arm.