AN: Your reviews were extraordinary-as well as your support. I am 99.9% sure that everyone got a review reply; if I missed someone you have my abject apologies.
Someone mentioned they were glad to see that this was winding down. Sorry to burst your bubble, but there's quite a lot to go in this story. We're only about halfway through.
Thanks to my killer beta, JosieSwan and my pre-reader Izzzy.
Chapter 24: The Two Edward Cullens
Edward
I had done shit for years and never once, not even when Esme's face grew hard and I saw the tears in her eyes, or when Rose—or one of the many, many women who proceeded her—begged me to stop whatever it was that I was doing, had I ever felt a single twinge from my conscience. I'd pretty much concluded that I just didn't have one, and the lack was partly to blame for my recklessness towards the people who cared about me.
It was just my way of saying fuck you.
But as I watched Bella walk away, her clothes in her hands, her naked back to me, I felt something in the vicinity of where I'd always thought my conscience might be—if I had one. It was a sick, nearly-nauseous feeling that twisted my stomach, and made me wish that I could take back the last hour, even though I really didn't want to. We'd just had great sex. Great sex was an Edward Cullen trademark.
Like douchebaggery.
Like booze.
Like womanizing.
Like apathy.
While we'd been held in that room, I'd instinctually latched onto Bella's goodness, her bravery, her spine of steel, and I'd thought for the briefest of moments that maybe I could actually be that guy. The hero. But in the end, I hadn't been able to hack it, and while the skin on her back was beautifully smooth and flawless because of my failure, I still hadn't stepped up to the plate the way that she'd needed me to.
That we'd gotten out at all, skin intact and whole, was due to Jane's particular brand of fucking crazy. I'd done nothing, and more than ever, I knew that I would taint her, ruin her, destroy her, if we kept this up.
Of course, the first thing I'd done after getting out had been to tell her that I wasn't done, and then I'd sealed the deal in a way that only I could.
As much as I hated to admit it, it was such typical Edward Cullen selfish bullshit.
I knew how long it would take Bella to get dressed—after all, I'd just removed those clothes in under ten seconds—and though I wanted to hide from the fact, I knew she was hiding from me. And, I asked myself bitterly, who could blame her?
Glancing backwards at the couch, I briefly considered sitting down again, to wait for Bella and for our rescuers, but my insides rebelled at the thought of sitting where we'd just fucked. Nevermind that I'd used to delight in leaving little "gifts" for Emmett and the roadie crew to find—used condoms and streaks of bodily fluids. All part of the sick joke that was part of the persona of Edward Cullen.
That person felt an empty hollow shell now, bombed from the inside by Niall and his Red Hands, even by Bella herself, but it was all I knew. I didn't know how to be any different. I'd asked her to show me how she saw me, to teach me to be that man that reflected back at me in her gaze. But she hadn't come nearly far enough and I could feel our time together ticking away like a timed bomb.
"Hey." I looked up to see Bella hesitating in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, and from the way her newly brushed hair hung around her face, I could tell something was wrong. She was hiding from me—or from what had just happened. It was hard to tell, and I wasn't sure it mattered either way. I had fucked up big time because I couldn't keep it in my pants, but, I reminded myself for probably the fiftieth time since Bella had decamped to the bathroom, that was what Edward Cullen did.
A strange existential question, I decided: if I kept it in my pants, did that mean I wasn't Edward Cullen anymore?
I almost asked her if she was alright, but then I'd spent the past few hours asking that question almost obsessively and at this rate, I'd sprout a pussy, so I clamped my lips together and gave her a short nod. It was classic asshat Edward Cullen-style, but it didn't make me feel any better.
Finally, I broke down and just bit the bullet. Figuratively, of course. After watching Niall in action, I wasn't sure I would ever be really comfortable with violence again. I'd laughed my entire life at violent, gory films, I'd played at kicking ass and had even delighted in running people over in Grand Theft Auto. No more, I vowed. Violence wasn't a fucking joke; in fact, it was the outcropping of violent behavior that had killed my father and had ruined probably my only chance at being relatively normal.
"Are you okay? You seem kind of . . ." I drifted off, not sure exactly what she looked like, just knowing she didn't look right. She didn't look like Bella.
"I'm fine," she answered stiffly, which was apparently becoming her rote answer for my question. Why I was even bothering asking, I didn't know anymore... only that I couldn't stop myself. She had to be okay, I thought, because the alternative simply wasn't acceptable.
"Carlisle will be here soon," I said, hating the self-conscious awkwardness that suddenly cropped up between us. This was exactly why I usually only fucked girls once, and then they were gone—no attachment, no opportunity for them to figure out that I had nothing to say to them whatsoever.
But this was Bella. I knew I had plenty to say to her, I just wasn't sure what it was anymore.
She was eyeing the couch too, much the same way I had, and I wondered if it would be appropriate to make a comment about it, but the sudden tenseness had me shut down like a fucking pussy.
Bella, though, apparently didn't have nearly the qualms that I suddenly did. "Is it wrong," she asked conversationally, gingerly approaching the couch, "that I feel guilty for using their couch?"
When she glanced up into my eyes again, I saw the same Bella that I'd gotten to know over the last weeks—the Bella who made irreverent, snarky, sarcastic comments about everything, no exceptions. I breathed a quick sigh of relief that she was back and tried to push that other girl from my mind. It was pointless to wonder if I had hurt her. I probably had. I was Edward Cullen, wasn't I?
"Well, at least it wasn't the bed," I joked.
She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I wouldn't have gone there. You, on the other hand . . ."
"What about me?" I asked with faux-innocence.
"You probably have sex on strangers' beds all the time."
I shrugged; she wasn't that far off the mark, and usually, with any other girl, I would have admitted that she was right, but the memory of Bella's withdrawal was too fresh. Even though she had recovered, I felt odd about talking other women with her.
I was still searching for a suitable response that hopefully wouldn't send her back to her emo funk when the sound of gravel crunching under tires and the unmistakable sound of an engine sent my heartbeat into overdrive.
"You stay here," I hissed at Bella, "and I'll go make sure it's Carlisle."
"You're crazy. I'm going with you," she argued, and to my annoyance she followed me into the main hallway. I stopped just shy of the front door, leaning around a corner, staying hidden until I could be certain that the houses' owners hadn't returned.
"I thought I told you to stay in the living room," I said, annoyed that she was so fucking reckless with her personal safety. She bribed men into kidnapping her, and she provoked extremely famous musicians until they wanted to wring her neck. Nevermind that she had almost let herself get branded.
I'd been with Carlisle since I was sixteen years old—this was the tenth year of his managing me and Athair—but I had never really understood how much his presence both relaxed and reassured me. He came into view, looking like a Marine on vacation with his olive green combat jacket and jeans, a pair of silver aviators shading his eyes from the early morning sun, and I felt six years old again, waiting for the father who'd never walk through the front door.
My hand wasn't quite steady as I reached out and grasped the door handle. As I opened the door, Bella laid a hand on my back—as if she somehow understood the emotional upheaval I was suffering through.
"Edward," Carlisle said, relief and joy in his voice, "thank god you're safe. And Bella too."
I'd heard somewhere that facing down death changed you, altered you until you weren't who you'd been before the experience. Before my little vacation with the Red Hands, I'd thought this was utter bullshit. You were who you were. No matter if you wanted to be different—it was impossible to change your fundamentals.
But I felt another Edward shifting inside of me, an Edward with a conscience, an Edward who pushed me forward and into Carlisle, an Edward who wrapped his arms around the man who'd practically raised me.
Who'd cared about me when I was pretty much the most unlovable son of a bitch on the planet.
He was understandably shocked at first; after all, I'd never, not once, embraced him. But after an awkward pause, he returned the hug, his arms locking around me and squeezing, as if he couldn't actually believe I was right here and he needed physical proof.
I pulled away, and heard a sniffle behind me. I turned and saw Bella crying, tears running down her face in rivers. "Don't mind me," she said airily, between hiccupping sobs, "I'm just kind of an emotional sponge today."
"Just today?" I asked a little sarcastically, and was rewarded by a watery smile and the middle finger.
Carlisle chuckled, and I faced him again. "Your mother will be beyond thrilled to hear you're safe. Yours too, Bella."
"What," she said flatly, coming up to stand next to me. "Renee knows about what happened?"
Bella looked so appalled at the fact that her mother had discovered her kidnapping that I momentarily forgot to argue with Carlisle about Esme's apparent joy at my rescue. Esme probably would have been happier if I'd never been found—then she wouldn't have to keep pretending she didn't have a son.
The information I'd learned from Niall about my parents' relationship before my birth had helped erase a lot of the misunderstandings I'd had about Esme, but I still thought she was a snobby, selfish bitch who thought she knew what was best for everyone. A leopard might change its spots, I thought bitterly, but the Ice Queen would never, ever melt.
"Of course she knows," Carlisle said sympathetically, putting an arm around her as she wiped her eyes. "Esme might be difficult, but she knows how to do what's right."
"Me and my mother, we don't exactly see eye to eye. . ." Bella tried to explain, but Carlisle cut her off.
"I don't think any mother and any daughter in the history of the world has. Your mother loves you, even if she's the latest incarnation of the Wicked Witch of the West."
Bella giggled at this, and I noticed that her tears had stopped. "Enough joking around," he continued, "do you two have anything in the house we need to take?"
"You mean, other than my matched set of Louis Vuitton luggage?" Bella asked snidely, and Carlisle rolled his eyes.
"I see being kidnapped hasn't exactly dulled your sense of humor," he said, and I wasn't surprised to hear relief in his voice. No doubt Bella's ability to crack jokes had convinced him she was really alright, though I supposed I could let him in on a little observation I'd made while locked up with Bella—she joked around about everything, and the more snide comments she made, usually the worse off she was inside.
Of course, admitting this to Carlisle would also mean admitting that I'd learned to like her and to an extent, care about her, and that wouldn't work at all. He'd be throwing a parade in the streets of Hyannis Port, and pushing us together any chance he got, and I'd never get an opportunity to figure out what the hell was going on between me and Bella.
"I'll take that as a no, then," Carlisle said as we closed the front door behind us and walked towards the Hummer that sat in the gravel driveway.
Carlisle opened the back door and to my surprise, Emmett was sitting in the backseat, grinning sheepishly.
"Emmett, you bastard," I said conversationally as I climbed in next to him. "Way to skip out before the going got tough."
He shrugged, but I could see the guilt etched on his face. He felt horrible about leaving, even though he'd clearly only done it to save us. "Don't," I said when he started to say something—I was sure it was an apology, and I didn't need to hear it. "We're cool. Just don't ever do it again."
"Of course," he said with relief. "I'd never."
"Then we're good." I held out my hand and he gripped it in that hardcore, Emmett way, until my bones felt pulverized.
Bella slid on the seat next to me, the door closing behind her. "Hello, Emmett," she said, just as casually as I had, but I'd have to be crazy to see the knowing look she flashed my direction. Her assumptions about Emmett had been correct, of course, but I wasn't going to acknowledge that. She was insufferable enough as it was before anyone went and started telling her that she was right.
"Good to see you, Bells," Emmett said. "How're you holding up?"
Bella just shrugged lightly, as if she'd just been gone overnight, instead of locked up for weeks with a bunch of fucking maniacs. "I've been better," she admitted. "But it's so good to finally be heading home."
"We're going to Hyannis Port," Carlisle said from the front seat. I noticed for the first time that the driver was a man that I'd never seen before. The driver was like GI Joe in the fucking flesh, and made Carlisle look like Jimmy fucking Buffett. "This is Marcus," he continued, following my gaze. "Esme hired him to make sure we got you two home safe."
"Much appreciated," I told the driver, who merely humphed in response. It wasn't funny, but I couldn't help but crack a smile at his sour attitude. Esme and him must have gotten along like white on rice.
"Marcus is a little pissed that Aro and Jane were gone before he showed up," Emmett explained. "He wanted an excuse to use his new rocket launcher."
"It's a special kind that doesn't use normal rockets," Marcus explained, "but instead mini-tasers that are designed merely to incapacitate."
"Well, I wish that you'd caught them and used the real rockets," Bella interjected. "Or even better—if I had gotten to use the real rockets. On Jane."
"A bit bloodthirsty, are we now?" I asked, only half-joking. I knew what Bella wanted to do to Jane, if only because I wanted to do the same thing, but worse, to Niall. And he was my fucking uncle. If that didn't make me an asshole, I didn't know what did.
"Did she hurt you?" Emmett asked with concern.
"No," Bella said slowly, "but I think she really wanted to."
"She was going to," I clarified, perceiving that Bella was already trying to downplay what had nearly happened to her. "But Jane actually ended up setting us free."
"What?" Emmett exclaimed.
"I couldn't believe it either."
"She said she cared about Aro and that Edward was forcing his grip on reality to slip."
"Well, I will say this. He was a crazy fucker," Emmett muttered. "But I still can't believe Jane let you go."
"She loved him," Bella announced quietly. "And he was hurting. Suffering. She wasn't thinking of us, but only of him."
Bella's words sobered the mood of the car, and I could tell she was similarly affected, even though she didn't break down in tears again. Instead, she turned her head and stared out the window, communicating to me that she needed quiet and to be left alone.
I had done so little that she needed that I gave her what she wanted. I leaned back in the comfortable seat, and found that I was actually more tired than I'd thought. It had been a long time since I'd slept—so long that I didn't even remember when it had last been—and I found myself drifting off to sleep, the non-threatening environment wrapping around me like an old, fluffy blanket.
I woke up with the blazing sun in my eyes and a vision of something I almost thought I'd never see again—the pale, grandiose walls of the Platt Hyannis Port house. I'd been running from the past almost from the moment I could walk, and yet here I was, back again. I was beginning to wonder if running wasn't just a pointless exercise doomed to failure.
"We're here," Carlisle announced, and I closed my eyes again. It wasn't that I wasn't grateful to be safe or that I didn't want to be home—I just didn't know to face Esme. It had been easier before, when I'd known less and as a result, my feelings were a hell of a lot less conflicted.
"I still can't believe you called Renee," Bella grumbled. She was curled up against the door, and I'd have to be a lot dumber not to notice that she'd deliberately kept herself from sleeping against me. Instead she'd chosen the much harder, much more uncomfortable door to cuddle with. I tried not to be offended and failed.
"She's your mother," Carlisle said. "I know you might not always get along . . ."
"An understatement of the year," Bella interrupted with a big sigh as she opened the door.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Esme and Renee and even Rose gathered at the top of the curved driveway, waiting for us to emerge. For some utterly bizarre reason, facing Esme now felt almost scarier than facing Niall had; I'd been mentally prepared to play the hero and sacrifice myself for the good of everyone else, but just facing my mother sent me into paroxysm of doing absolutely fucking nothing.
Bella, however, seemed to have no such qualms. She slid out of the car, and as she marched up the driveway, the resemblance to her mother was the strongest I'd ever seen. She carried herself with pride and with dignity, wearing a ratty pair of my boxers and a baggy gray hooded sweatshirt three sizes too big as if she was walking down the runway in Paris.
If she could do it, I decided, I could too, and I finally forced myself to exit the car. I ambled up the driveway at a much slower pace than Bella -delaying the inevitable- but of course, Esme didn't wait. She never waited for anyone; she demanded what she wanted, when she wanted it.
Today was no exception.
Somehow I'd never pictured Esme as a young woman, in love and happy. She'd always felt ageless to me, unchangeable, eternal, but today she looked old, almost haggard. And it struck me as we met in the middle of the driveway that maybe the dark circles under her eyes were because of me.
I didn't even know where to begin with her, so I just said the first thing that popped into my head. It was less antagonistic than usual, so I gave myself a little credit for that.
"You were right about the protection thing."
She nodded, her face frozen as always, but her eyes—they were warm, and I thought I could see beginnings of tears.
"I'm glad you're safe," she said quietly. "I couldn't have borne it if you weren't."
"Yeah, I'm pretty glad too. It was touch and go for awhile," I confessed. And that was just about as much as I felt comfortable saying for about the next hundred years.
Esme looked as if she might actually cry then, and I was in the middle of debating if I should just bolt now, avoid the untidy emotional scene I never expected my cold-hearted, closed-off mother would throw, when I heard loud, angry voices, and I glanced around Esme to see that, of course, Bella was also trying to talk to her mother.
Or rather, I corrected, her mother was trying to talk to her, and Bella wasn't having any of it.
Esme turned to see what had me so interested and I swore she rolled her eyes. "Oh no," she said, almost to herself, "it looks as if Renee's put her foot in it again."
"I don't want to talk to you. Now. Tomorrow. In a week. Or even in a year. I told you that we were done, and I meant it." Bella's voice had raised and it had a hard-edged decisiveness to it that I recognized from our time together as the one tone that you didn't cross.
She was all serious business, and we all watched as she flounced right past Renee, who stared at her open-mouthed, and into the house. A petite, dark-haired girl followed her, shutting the front door after them, and Esme turned back to face me.
"Alice will straighten her out," she said with certainty, as If the alternative was not only unacceptable, but unimaginable, and if Alice was indeed one of Esme's new minions, nothing could be truer. "Let's go in the house, I want to talk to you. And you must be hungry. We'll get some food . . ."
Esme, true to form, began to rattle off all the things she just knew that I needed: food, a shower, a fresh change of clothes, and of course, a conversation in which I explained and forgave her for every fucking thing she'd ever done to me.
Yeah, that was so not going to fucking happen anytime this century.
"I have to go," I said brusquely. "I'll fend for myself."
"Wait," she said rather plaintively, grabbing at my arm as I tried to walk past her. "Don't."
"Listen. I get it. You're sorry. I'm sorry too. But there's a lot of shit on my mind and I can't deal with any of it, and you. So we're just . . .going to have to figure this out later."
Esme wrung her hands together, and I couldn't help but notice that she kept glancing over at Carlisle, who was standing at a distance by the Hummer—but was clearly listening to everything we were saying. "I know. . .I just . . .I want to help," Esme said, and to my horror and shock, a tear dripped down her cheek.
I had never once seen her cry—in public or even in private. The Ice Queen act had been flawless and so perfect that it had never once faltered, not in front of me. Not in front of anyone.
Carlisle walked forward now, and as if this was some sort of bizarre, bad LSD trip, he put his arm around Esme and I finally observed the novel experience of having the two most important people in my life present a united front.
Disobeying Esme had never been easy—she'd always been hard as nails—and Carlisle was intimidating in his own free love, wild child way. But the two of them together? I'd never admit it, of course, but it was downright terrifying and I fucking hated it.
"I have to go," I repeated, and without looking back, I skirted around them and practically ran into the house and up the stairs to where my room had been.
I wasn't surprised to see that it hadn't been altered all that significantly, except of course, it was spotlessly clean and all the music posters had been taken down from the walls.
I took a shower first, feeling sinfully indulgent at the sheer amount of hot water that I used, and then I dressed in clean clothes that I foraged from the closet. Thankfully Esme had kept some of my old things—honestly I'd nearly expected her to not just throw them out, but burn them in effigy.
She hadn't. In fact, everything was neatly folded and scrupulously neat. But then, that was what she paid people for. I shouldn't be all that surprised, I decided bitterly, Esme would never hire incompetent staff.
I turned to walk out of the closet, but before I could, a familiar, very battered black case caught my eye. This I was truly shocked she had kept—the very symbol of my rejection of what Esme stood for. But she had, and that added a whole other complicated layer to the whole issue of what to do with her, with the relationship that until a few weeks ago, I'd been certain was fractured and broken beyond repair. I didn't want to, but I understood her a little now, and that meant that it was inevitable we'd revisit all the hurt and all the misunderstandings.
I would. I knew I would have to, but I couldn't do it today. It all felt too fresh inside of me, shifting inside, just underneath the skin, until if someone just looked at me wrong, it might explode and burn us all in the fallout.
I needed to be alone, to remember who I'd been before Emmett had taken me. I needed to know if I could ever be that man again.
Mind made up, I descended the staircase. When I hit the main floor, I hesitatingly glanced around—sure I didn't want to be caught and delayed or worse, stopped entirely—and convinced that everyone was occupied, headed toward the back door and the wide expanse of jewel green lawn that Esme was so damn proud of.
I crossed it hurriedly, deliberately closing my mind, not wanting to think what Esme and Carlisle and even Bella would think when they discovered that I had left.
Reaching my destination, I banged on the door, hoping that he was actually home and that I wouldn't be forced to return to Esme's house.
He opened the door himself. I'd told him for years that he needed to act more the part of who he was, but he'd always refused. He hated servants, he hated nice clothes, he hated the elitist attitude that so many men he knew assumed like it was their due. And not surprisingly, he was dressed in jeans that looked as if he labored for a living, and a stained, ancient white t-shirt.
"Jasper."
His face was mobile and expressive; he'd never been able to play poker all that well, and the shock of seeing me on his doorstep showed.
"Edward, what are you doing here? I didn't know you were visiting Esme."
He opened the door wider and I followed him into the cavernous foyer.
"Jesus, I forgot how big your house is," I said, trying to change the subject. I didn't want to talk about what had happened to me, even to Jasper, who was one of my best friends.
Jasper Whitlock might look like a stupid, white trash hick from Georgia—and at heart he'd always be that guy—but he was way too smart to be distracted. "Seriously. I thought you were sick."
"Sick?"
"That's what everyone's saying. Why you cancelled your tour."
I'd never thought about what Carlisle would have to do to explain my sudden absence, but what he was saying made sense.
"Yeah," I tried joking, "exhaustion a la Lohan. You know?"
Jasper clearly didn't know because he didn't laugh. "Exhaustion?" he asked, eyes narrowing, and I could tell he wasn't buying my lame ass excuse.
I couldn't tell him the whole truth, but I could tell him some of it. "Okay, that's a lie. I'm not sick. I just got . . .sick of it all. I had to get away, run away. So I just left. In the middle of the night. Took off. Went off the grid."
It was a testament to how good of a friend—how good of a guy—Jasper was that he tried hard to keep the judgment off his face, but of course, he failed. Jasper was my opposite in so many ways; he hated fame and the obligations and the free passes that came with it. He worked hard to earn his exorbitant salary and had been an extraordinarily dedicated baseball player before his injury, then his early retirement. Still, there was a shadow in his eyes now that hadn't been there before, as if a light had been extinguished and he didn't know what to replace it with. I hadn't spent much time with him since he'd been forced to retire—unlike him, I was a terrible friend—but I had a feeling that he would at least partially understand why I'd done what I did. He wouldn't have before, but he might now.
"Carlisle must have hated that."
An understatement of the century; if I'd actually done what I was telling Jasper, Carlisle would have gone apoplectic. There would have been pieces of Carlisle littered from here to Boston.
"That explains why you're here," Jasper said with a rueful sigh. "He must have dragged you up here so that Esme could berate you too."
"Exactly. And well. . . .you know how well we get along."
"You're hiding," Jasper stated, and I nodded.
"Well, I was just about to order some pizza and settle in for an afternoon of channel surfing. You want to join me?"
Jasper was one of those guys whose loyalty, once it was given, could never be swayed. He'd believe you to the grave, never betray you, and have your back every single damn time. I was pretty sure I didn't deserve that kind of ironclad Southern faith, but I'd take it because I needed it. And, I promised myself, I'd try to somehow be better than I'd been. I needed someone right now, but I had a feeling that he needed someone just as badly.
And his offer of pizza and mindless entertainment? Sounded exactly like what I needed after the last few weeks of fucking batshit crazy.
"Of course," I told him. "But only if you're ordering from that little place in town with the . . ."
" . . .the homemade sausage?" Jasper finished with a grin. "Fuck yes. Why would I ever order something else?"
"I knew I liked you for a reason," I joked, slapping him on the shoulder.
"I'm going to go order. There's beer in the fridge. And I have the new MLB game for Xbox."
"Of course you do," I called out as I headed for the kitchen. It was a huge space, full of stainless steel appliances and terracotta tile. I didn't see why Jasper, who rejected pretty much every other trapping of wealth and prestige, needed a house the size of Rhode Island, but he loved this place. Opening the fridge, I found myself confronted by another decision that before hadn't even been a choice.
There were several six packs of beer in the fridge—Jasper himself wasn't a huge drinker, but liked to have a beer or two with a meal, or on a hot summer day—but he kept it around for the friends who dropped in. I wanted to believe that it wasn't stocked primarily for guys like me, but I knew better. Before the kidnapping, I'd drank like it was going out of style.
I hesitated, glancing at the bottles of water on the next shelf down, and it hit me then. I wasn't sure that I would ever go back to being the guy I was before. An experience like the one I'd been through changed a man, and I felt it, in my bones. I wasn't sure who the hell I was, but what was certain was that I couldn't go back and be the Edward Cullen I'd been before.
Decision made, I grabbed a bottle of water for me and one for Whitlock. As an ex-athlete, he drank so much water that I would sometimes joke he was part-fish.
He walked in the kitchen and I handed him the bottle as I screwed my own lid off and took a big gulp. "Water?" he asked, an eyebrow raised. "Did you go to rehab and I missed it?"
I wanted to tell him that I'd just been to the scariest fucking rehab on the planet—that it made Promises and the Cirque Lodge look like daycare—but I kept my mouth shut and just laughed. "It's noon," I said, "why would I want a beer?"
Jasper gave me a look that said I'd lost my mind, and given what I knew of my mental state, he might not be that far from the truth. "Good question," he murmured and we went into the media room, where Jasper flipped on the TV and then the Xbox. "The MLB game alright?" he asked, and I was glad he hadn't suggested the latest Grand Theft Auto or any of the other violent, bloody games we usually liked playing. I wasn't sure I could handle those right now. Usually I hated playing baseball video games with Jasper, mostly because he complained incessantly about the way the game misrepresented the players—most of who he'd pitched against—but today, I'd take players throwing a ball around a field over machine guns and spurting blood.
"Sure," I said, and he looked at me again like I'd lost my mind.
"Are you sure you're alright?" he finally asked. "You seem . . .different."
I just shrugged. "I'm fine," I told him.
"Okay," he said but I was fairly certain that thought I was full of bullshit. Which was really the only thing that was the same between the guy I'd used to be and the guy I'd apparently turned into.
"Oh, I was going to ask you. I thought you'd broken up with Rosalie. What's she doing visiting your mother?"
"Rose?"
"Yeah. Rosalie Hale. I ran into one of her socialite friends the other day, while I was out mowing my lawn."
I rolled my eyes. "This is exactly what I keep telling you, man. You're Jasper fucking Whitlock. You can't mow your own lawn."
Jasper tossed me a controller and I caught it, internally surprised at how good my reflexes suddenly were that I wasn't constantly under a haze of booze. "Regardless. What happened with you and Rose?"
"Don't tell me you're interested," I tried joking again.
"Believe me, I'm not. You know what kind of girls I like."
I barely stopped myself from rolling my eyes again. This particular discussion was one that Jasper and I had had many, many times before, and no matter what I said, he never seemed to agree.
"You like 'real girls,''" I said snidely. "But for what reason, I have no fucking idea. You could get anyone you wanted."
"Yeah, and most of those girls aren't worth having," Jasper retorted.
I had never agreed with him on this point before, but getting to know Bella over the last few weeks had given me a different side of my own argument. I nearly told Jasper that he maybe wasn't as far off as I'd thought he was before, but then I decided against it. He already thought that my little escape had changed me—he didn't need to know just how much.
I stayed with Jasper all day, even as dusk fell, and the living room grew dark. We ate pizza, swore loudly at the video game, and I learned more about the game of baseball than I'd ever wanted to know.
Finally, I crept back over to Esme's house, sure I was going to have to stop them from sending out another Search and Rescue team. To my surprise, the house itself was dark, and I didn't encounter anyone as I crept back up the stairs, until I opened my bedroom and flipped on my light to see Bella sitting, cross-legged, in the middle of my bed.
"Hello there," she smiled at me. "Did you have a nice afternoon?"
I froze in the doorway, sure that this was some sort of trap. In about five seconds, red flashing lights would start screaming, and I'd get tackled by a SWAT team led by Esme and Carlisle.
"I did," I said cautiously, shutting the door behind me. "Did you?"
"I took a long nap. Had some lunch. Went shopping in town with Alice and Rosalie. She's actually really nice."
"Rosalie Hale? Nice?" I stuck my hands in my pockets and ambled towards the bed, wondering if it would be terrible outré to ask her what the hell she thought she was doing in my bedroom.
It wasn't that I didn't like her there—in fact, I liked her there a lot more than I was comfortable admitting either to her or to myself—but I wanted to know why she was there. Did this mean that she liked me too? I felt like the lamest idiot on the planet, but I suddenly wondered if she really did. Girls liked the outside wrapping of Edward Cullen. I was fairly certain that nobody had ever really liked me before, but that was my own damn fault because I'd never let them see it.
I'd let Bella in, and she hadn't ran away. That had been me, I reminded myself ruefully, though I was back now, and weirdly enough, she didn't seem pissed.
"She is," Bella argued playfully, a big smile on her face. "She hates Renee almost more than I do. So we had something in common right away. That was enough to actually persuade me to go shopping with them. That, and I was trying to avoid Renee."
"I don't get it. You're not mad," I stated. "Are you the only one?"
"Why would I be mad?" Bella asked, a frown crinkling her forehead.
"I left," I said incredulously. I felt like a bank robber the moment before the alarm goes off.
But Bella just shrugged. "Carlisle said that you'd need time away, to process. He said you'd be back. And here you are."
I hated how well Carlisle knew me. Better even than I knew myself.
"Esme said you went to your friend's house," Bella continued. "Is that where you went?"
I thought of Jasper and how much he'd like Bella—a normal, funny, smart, well-adjusted girl. She was exactly the kind of girl he was always telling me that I'd like if I gave one of them half a chance.
"Yes," I said
"Good. I think you needed it." Bella untucked her legs from underneath her and slid off the bed. "I just wanted to make sure you were alright. I'm going to bed."
I didn't realize just how much I'd liked the thought of her waiting for me, not just to make sure I was fine, but because she wanted to be with me just as much as I secretly wanted to be with her, until she was about to leave.
"Wait," I said, reaching out and wrapping an arm around her waist. "Where do you think you're going?"
Bella gave me her patented, "what the fuck do you think I'm doing?" look. "I told you, I'm going to bed."
"You're sleeping here," I told her. I realized about a second after the words faded from the air that I should have asked, instead of telling, but it was a little late to retreat, so I emphasized my insistence by giving her a solemn, "you'd better do what I want if you know what's good for you" stare.
She hesitated, and I knew it was because she really wanted to stay, but that ridiculous independent streak was giving her all sorts of arguments about why she shouldn't—just because I hadn't given her any choice.
Since I was already half-way in, I figured that I might as totally commit. I leaned down and kissed her, hard and passionately, letting her know the only way I could that I'd been thinking about her all day. "Stay," I repeated as I ended the kiss. "I want you to. You want to."
She sighed, and I could sense that I'd defeated her better judgment. Score one for Edward Cullen.
"Alright," she said, reluctantly, as if she didn't want me to know just how much she was dying to let me take her again. And we both knew better than that.
AN: I know a lot of you have been dying to see Jasper again, so I was really happy to be able to re-introduce him earlier than I thought :)
Next chapter is tentatively titled "Flight-or Fight?" And remember, a teaser for every review!