The last one for today...

"What?" he stared at her, "You need to work? But you worked last night…" he tried to think back. He had thought Bella only worked one night on the weekends.

"You can't go to work." He insisted with a heavy frown. Edward gestured to her head where she was currently holding the ice pack up to. "You knocked your head! You almost died. You can't go to work now."

Bella stared at Edward incredulously. Of course she had to work tonight. She had to make two fucking thousand dollars. She wasn't going to have that happen by sitting on her ass at home. She shook her head. "I'm perfectly fine, my head feels fine… And I didn't die. So that's saying something."

"You say that so nonchalantly. If there's any place you should be going right now, it's to the doctor." Edward scowled as he followed her into her bedroom without thinking – not that she'd made any attempts to stop him, to be fair. He drew to a sudden halt, keeping just within a few feet of the doorway as he looked around.

It was relatively tidy with just a couple of clothes here and there. A few books sat piled on her nightstand with perfume bottles (one of them probably holding his favorite citrus scent of hers) and various cosmetic accessories. And in the far corner of the room, a guitar stood against the wall. But with the exception of those personal belongings, there was very little in the bedroom that marked this space as Bella's.

She didn't mind him being there but she wasn't about to let him try and stop her. She rifled through her things and found the costume that she'd already picked out, which was currently hanging in a black dry cleaners bag. Most of her outfits were kept in such condition, she couldn't risk Rosalie or Alice finding them and asking questions. Or worse – wanting to borrow them.

As Edward continued to look around, he realized that her bedroom backed up right against his own next door. His grey eyes flicked back to the guitar. It started to make sense now… the walls were quite thin, and not being a particularly loud person himself, Edward had often heard snatches of what happened next door. Most of the time it was just girl stuff; the murmur of Rosalie's voice punctuated by the combined sounds of Alice's easy, bright laughter and Bella's softer one. And how many times had he thought he'd heard the faint strums of a guitar melody before he'd gone to sleep? He'd always thought that that was just a hazy part of his imagination, but perhaps not. And perhaps, he suddenly realized, nor were the quiet sobs he'd thought he'd heard that he could now be sure was Bella.

Were you planning on coming tonight? You can give me a lift if you want. Or if you're not… I can catch a cab.

Startled from his thoughts, Edward turned to Bella. She had a black clothes bag draped over her arm as she waited for his answer. "Of course I'm coming tonight." He said, his tone implying that she was crazy for even thinking otherwise. "And no. We'll take my car," he added, daring her to argue with him on that one.

As far as he was concerned, Edward was going to drive her to and from that club on the days where he himself wasn't working. She wasn't going to get into another cab at 4 in the morning with him around!

"Okay." Bella agreed happy enough that he wasn't going to press the issue of making her see a doctor for a small bump on her head. Yes, she realized that she'd almost suffered a near fatal accident. She could have died, yes… But she hadn't. And she wasn't that hurt. And she still had a job to go to. She grabbed a t-shirt that was decidedly more modest than the one she was currently wearing, slipped out of it and threw the newer one on. She didn't want to look like a stripper in any way when travelling to work from home and always made a point to dress down. Once she was in the club she would change into her outfits.

"Oh my god!" Bella heard the cries coming from the living room. Form the sounds of it; it was Alice and Rosalie who had just come back from their trip to the grocery store. "Bella! Bella! Where are you, are you okay?"

"The door… I kind of broke it down to get in here." Edward admitted, running a hand haphazardly through his hair.

She grimaced at Edward as she realized the sight that her friends must be taking in. "I'm in here!" She called out. Edward stepped aside and into the room as Alice and Rosalie came bustling in to check on their friend.

"What the hell happened to the front door?" Rosalie proclaimed.

Bella quickly gave a run down on what had transpired in the past half an hour, including the door getting kicked down by Edward in order for him to rescue her. Edward tried to interrupt to apologize and promise that he'd pay for it again, but Bella talked over the top of him.

"He saved my life..." she raised her voice, glaring daggers at him to shut the hell up. "So I figured he doesn't need to pay to replace it… I'll call someone up and get it done."

"Don't worry about it," Alice said. "Jazz is really good at this sort of stuff, I'll get him to come around and have a look." Bella resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Alice would bring Jasper up whenever she had a freaking chance. Instead, she smiled tightly and nodded.

"If he's keen, that'd be great, otherwise let me know…" She checked the time again, her mobile phone flashing at her that she was going to be late. She grimaced.

"I really have to go… Edward's is going to give me a lift to the club… Er… To the bar." Fucking god dammit. She hoped Rosalie hadn't noticed that slip. Not that it was too much of one… But Rosalie was looking at her strangely.

"Didn't you just nearly die? From my understanding, I would think that Riley would be alright with you taking a night off after what happened to you. I mean, you're doing him a favour with all of this. Why don't you give him a call and get the night off? I'll make you some dinner; we could watch a few movies. Surely pouring drinks for people all night long after nearly falling off a two-story building is too much."

"As I said to Edward before," she spoke calmly; her eyes flickered to Edward who was looking between the two girls with one of his unreadable broody expressions. "I'm perfectly okay. I'm not hurt. There's no reason for me to take a night off. Besides, a little extra cash will do me better than harm."

"Oh Jesus! Is this about your damn shoes? Honestly, Bella. You really need to kick your damn shoe habit. I mean… It's one thing to pick up another job, it's a completely different thing to sell your damn car-"

"Look Rosalie! I'm a big girl, I can do what I want. Just let me go to work!" Bella had snapped but she'd felt Edward's eyes flash to hers at the mention of Bella selling her car and she knew that that wasn't what she'd told Edward. Edward had just caught her lie.

She could feel her face flushing, his eyes causing her to slowly turn red.

Rosalie's mouth had snapped shut as she flinched back at Bella's harsh tone. "Right… Well… Okay… I… I'm glad you're alright. Alice. Let's go see what we can make for dinner, I'm famished."

Bella's eyes flickered to Alice's who was staring at her wide-eyed. Bella nearly sighed in exasperation; honestly it wasn't like they'd never seen her snap before. Except she usually only reserved that treatment for the man who was staring at her coolly. He hadn't said a word this whole time.

With Rosalie and Alice now gone, Bella could go about grabbing the stuff she needed for work. Her make up bag, a hair straightener, her clothes. "Shit. My wig…" she murmured and opened up her closet to dig out the wig she'd been wearing for the past week.

"Okay. I'm ready to go," she said finally, Edward had remained silent even through her finishing grabbing her stuff. She dared to risk glancing at him to see if she could work out what he was thinking.

His brow was furrowed, his mouth set in a grim line and he wasn't saying a word.

"You know… I can catch a taxi. It really wouldn't be a problem…"

Edward's mind was going at a hundred miles an hour.

Throughout the conversation with Bella's housemates his shoulders had stiffened and his gaze snapped up to stare at Bella who was hastily trying to derail Rosalie's train of thought. Was that the story that she had fed her friends? That she was waitressing at a bar? But Edward soon found out that that wasn't even half of it.

The expression on his face continued to grow darker with each word that slipped from Rosalie and Bella's lips, his eyes narrowing as he realized that a lot of the things she had told him and that Edward had taken for truth were in fact just outright lies. What the hell was she trying to save up so much money for that Bella had to be forced to sell her car? He refused to believe in her ridiculous shoe story. Bella was a lot of things, but he highly doubted that she was such a shoe aficionado that she would resort to stripping on the weekends.

Edward realised just how nervous he made Bella once Rosalie and Alice had left. The air around them practically radiated with the tension as he felt her sneak a peek at him.

"No. I'll take you," he said quietly after having mentally counted to ten and back down again until the sharper swell of unbidden anger had sank down again. It wouldn't do to get mad and confront Bella now. Not here with Rosalie and Alice just within earshot.

But his eyes were still dark and broody as he took the bag from Bella's hand. "I'll need to drop by my place to change my shirt and grab my keys though. I'll be quick. Then we'll go straight to the bar." Edward emphasized the last word for the girls' benefit.

As promised, it took him less than five minutes to change into a fresh dress shirt, dab on some cologne and grab his keys. In no time they were bundled up in his black Chevrolet and heading toward Indulgences. Edward spoke very little on the journey there; the result of heavy thinking and the strain it took him to not stop the car right there and demand the truth from Bella.

Patience, he tried to remind himself as his hands gripped the steering wheel. He needed to be patient. Getting mad at her now would only serve to push her farther away from him… and how would he be able to help her then?

Q.A

Q. How do you know so much about strip clubs?

A. I've been to a few. I don't know everything but I also have a friend that has worked for a few years in a club (unlike Bella, she loves her job and now does x rated parties). And research. Just reading everything I can about them online has helped immensely.

Q. How long do you expect this story to be?

A. No idea! I've written about fifty chapters but it's not finished.

Q. Will your posting schedule slow down once you've posted up everything you've written?

A. Probably, most definitely.