Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer owns all.
Rated M for several reasons.
Chapter 18 Kangaroo Clams
BPOV
"Wow." I observe as I climb into Rose's car at the airport. "You look frazzled."
"Thanks." She growls.
"Its just dinner." I offer lamely.
"It's a Cullen Thanksgiving Bella." She sighs as she pulls away from the kerb.
"I know Esme rocks it but come on Rose, she adores you, she won't care if you serve up a TV dinner."
"I know she won't but that's not the point and you know it."
"I'll help . . . ."
"Yeah, Cyggers, I love you to distraction but your dodgy culinary skills aren't coming anywhere near my first Thanksgiving Dinner."
"I'll set the table and pour the drinks." I concede.
"Perfect. I can't trust Giantus Doofus to do it properly, he'll just serve everyone beer."
"Rose, chill, everyone likes beer."
"Oh my god." She groans. "I'm turning into Tanya."
"Maybe just a little bit."
"Bitch."
"Over Achiever."
"God I'm glad you're here, I seriously need to blow off some steam before tomorrow . . . ."
...
Em greets me with a smacking kiss and then thunders upstairs, muttering about being late.
I raise my eyebrow at her as we wander into the kitchen.
"Beer." She drawls. "Edward got in tonight too so they're hitting the local bars."
"What's that?" I ask, distracted by the large tray she's retrieved from the refrigerator.
"A little something to soak up the beer." She says, tilting it so I can see.
Loaded nachos.
Yum!
I reach out.
"Jesus Bella." She laughs, swatting my hand away. "At least wait till they're hot."
"Fine." I huff, withdrawing to the counter as she shoves them in the oven. "But just so you know the donut stand at the airport was closed and I missed lunch today."
She makes mini violin motions and I stick my tongue out at her.
"Here." She orders, shoving a bottle of red at me. "Open this and we'll have some empty calories. I just need to go check Em's got all his chores done before he goes out on the lash."
"You're leaving me in charge of cooking?" I ask, raising an eyebrow.
"Its melting not cooking, just take it out when it's done." She calls over her shoulder as she darts out. "Emmett! Where are you?"
I open the wine and pour out two glasses, grabbing one of Rose's magazines and leaning on the counter, quickly losing myself in an article about dressing for success which even has a picture of me and Char at a 'Women in Business' thing we attended.
It isn't long though before my attention starts to wander, there's a distinct smell in the air.
Oh shit, there's smoke coming out of the oven.
"Rose! Rose!" Fuck! "ROSE! It's fucking smoking, what do I do?"
Yeah, I'm a lot more 'Woman in Business' than 'Woman in Kitchen'.
Nevertheless it occurs to me that switching the oven off and opening the door might be the way to go because smoke might mean fire.
I open the oven door, recoiling from the intense heat and billow of smoke.
"Shit. Fuck." Staggering back I flap my arms around trying to dispel the swirling cloud.
An alarm begins to sound somewhere.
Where the fuck is everyone?
In my agitation I circle the kitchen, flapping my arms, chanting a litany of 'oh shits' to myself.
And that's when I hear the deep rich chuckle of the one person who I would probably wish wouldn't see me like this.
"Need a little help there Bella?" He asks and I look up to find him leaning against the door frame, smirking.
My heart does a funny little skip but I force my attention back to the oven, peering in now that most of the smoke has risen to the ceiling.
"Ah shit." I sigh. It doesn't look good. It really doesn't.
"Mind out." He orders, crossing the kitchen to open the windows and snatching up the oven mitts.
He bends over, affording me an eyeful and peers into the oven.
"What was it?"
"Loaded Nachos."
"Yum." He says, pulling the tray out and regarding the charred remains sadly. "I was starving."
"I'm sorry."
"Fortunately I'm not after you for your cooking skills." He laughs, setting the tray on the stove top and reaching up to deactivate the alarm on the ceiling.
A cold blast of air from the window makes me shiver and the closes the gap between us, wrapping his hands around my upper arms.
"Hi." He says, looking down at my upturned face.
"Hi." I murmur.
"I'm going to kiss you now." He says, studying me seriously.
"Good." Might as well be honest.
And he grins his crooked grin but I can hear footsteps and curse words approaching down the stairs so I take matters into my own hands, the first time I think, that I've ever kissed him first. And I think it was a surprised happy sound he made when my lips fastened onto his, but I can't be sure because there's screeching . . . .
"What the fucking fuck is going on in here?!"
...
"So." She says, kicking back and resting her fluffy bunny clad feet on the coffee table. "How was Kentucky really?"
"It was good."
"How good?"
I blush.
"Ah." She says, taking a swig from her wine. "That good. Has he said anything?"
"Like what?"
"Oh Bella." She moans theatrically. "I'm a decade too late but I've finally realised I need you to be my girlfriend?"
"No Rose." I laugh. "He didn't say anything like that."
"So was it just the same old same old?"
"I guess." I shrug, flipping my feet up next to hers.
She snorts and we're silent for a while, listening to the music we queued up on her iPod.
"Can I ask you a question?" She asks, side eyeing me and butting my foot with hers.
"You usually do." I remind her.
"Why didn't you date in college?"
"No one ever asked me."
"That's not entirely true, a few guys did, back in the early days. But I digress. Did you ever wonder why nobody asked you on a date?"
"No." I giggle snort. "I was hardly a man magnet in those days, they saw you, pitched a tent in their pants and that was that."
"That's not true, you were hot even then, you just didn't know it. I've been thinking about it a lot recently and Esme said a couple of things that made me think."
"Made you think what?"
"That most of the guys on campus would have assumed you were dating Edward and that he never once did anything to disabuse them of that idea."
"Rose, come on, this is Edward we're talking about. He 'did' many many things that made it rather obvious we weren't dating. Most them with long blonde hair and really big boobs."
"He did, didn't he?" She chuckles. "But, and hear me out here. You were nearly always with him and no matter where we were if there were guys around he nearly always had his hands on you somewhere. He might not have wanted to call you his girlfriend but he went out of his way to make sure you weren't anyone else's."
I'm silent for a moment, sipping my beer.
"You make him sound like a complete asshole." I point out.
"I know and we both know he's not that, it's just . . . . Do you remember, when it I told you in San Fran that I'd asked him if was in love with you?"
"Yes, vividly, and thanks for giving me that enduring image of what a loser I was back then."
"You're welcome. But I don't think you joined the dots, I didn't until I was talking to Esme."
"What dots?"
"It was after that he stopped hanging out with us for a couple of months."
I'm silent, sipping my beer and thinking back. I don't know if her recollection of the timing is off or not, though the dots she's joining are pretty ridiculous. But I do remember that time. It was when it finally dawned on my brain, which should have had my back, that I had fallen in love him. I missed the absolute fuck out of him, not that I ever told anyone, not even Rose, that. But I hadn't been all that surprised, he was one of the golden ones on campus and I was one of the pasty little ghosts that provided a backdrop to their infinitely more exciting lives.
I'd even started to hate him a little bit even though it was madly presumptuous of me to expect something from him, nothing had ever been offered or asked for, but I had thought we'd been friends and it had stung when he'd just disappeared.
And when he'd turned up on my doorstep one night, out of the blue, blind drunk and visibly upset I'd been mad enough with him to turn him away. He'd looked so devastated that I'd already started after him to bring him back when Em and Rose turned the corner of the hallway and took the decision out of my hands, full of concern for the obvious state he was in.
We never did find out what was wrong with him and he never told us.
Em shoved him in the shower and put him to sleep in my bed. I slept on the couch, waking up sometime later with his familiar form curled around me and his nose buried in my hair.
I'd like to say our relationship changed after that. But I was pathetic and it didn't, though it was pretty awkward for a while and it was a very long time before he attempted to charm his way into my panties again.
Rose's foot nudges me again, jerking me back to the present.
"Congratulations Rose." I drawl. "You've just connected all the dots for an elephant and made a fucking kangaroo."
"I know." She laughs. "Sorry. Esme and I were just trying to make sense of the two of you. You just seemed so together most of the time it was difficult to remember that you weren't. And now, it's happening again."
"We're just friends Rose." I sigh the familiar mantra, just more heavily than I'd intended.
"It's not the same this time though, is it?" She asks quietly.
I sip my beer again.
"No." I admit just as quietly. "Its not."
"Maybe . . . ." She begins.
"Don't Rose, please."
A long Amazonian arm stretches out, pulling me into her side.
"I love you Cyggers." She sighs, clinking our beer bottles together. "But you're like a fucking clam when it comes to anything personal."
"I know, I'm sorry."
"Don't be, it's just one in a long line of things that you and my brother-in-law have in common. And don't hate Esme and me for speculating, we don't mean any harm, we're just fascinated with clams."
"I'll let you off." I sigh, relaxing against her. "Just as long as you don't try an' pry one of us open with a knife."
We drink in silence for a while, mindlessly swaying to the music, as much as you can when you're slumped on the couch.
"Rose?"
"Hmm?"
"Can you remember when Edward started dating Tanya?"
She scrunches her face up for a moment.
"Yeah, I think it was around the time you shacked up with Jake because I remember being in New York helping you guys move when Esme told me that Moira had let it slip he had a girlfriend."
Oh, but no, still a Kangaroo
...
We're safely tucked up in our beds when the boys get back some time later, their loud inebriated voices filling the house with random noise, jerking me out of my fitful wine fuelled slumber. They quieten for a while and I doze off again only to be woken by the sound of raised voices and then the front door slamming.
I roll over to find Rose hovering in the hallway outside my room.
"What?"
"I don't know." She whispers as we listen to someone stomping around downstairs. "Stay there, I'll go find out what's up."
"Hell no, we'll go together, just in case."
I jump out of bed and we link arms to descend the stairs.
"Em?" She calls when we're near the bottom.
"Hey babe." He sighs, appearing from the study with a scotch on the rocks. "Cyggers. Sorry, did we wake up up?"
"Kind of." Rose snorts, going to his side while I linger on the stairs. "Was that Edward?"
"Yeah, I was gonna let him crash on the couch but the asshole's walking home now."
"What happened?" I ask.
"Just an out pouring of brotherly love, we had too much to drink."
"And another one is a good idea why?" Rose asks with a light laugh.
"Too wound up to sleep now, need a nightcap. You ladies go back to bed."
"Hell no." Rose laughs, beckoning me to follow her into the study. "No one should nightcap alone, right Bella?"
"Right." I confirm, patting his beefy arm as I squeeze by him. "You'd better get some more ice . . . ."