Grateful, as always, for Tiffanyanne3.

Chapter 4

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I spend the last part of the evening doing my best to ignore Emmett as we work side by side to clean up the kitchen. He's tried to broach the subject of Edward's phone call, but my fiercest bitch face shuts him right up.

I somehow manage to sing and giggle my way through Ava's bath, and even my annoyance with my brother can't stop me from pulling out the silly voices during book time, per Ava's request. But as soon as her breathing evens out and her soft snores grow stronger, I tuck her blankets under her chin and leave her room in search of Emmett, who has more than a little explaining to do.

When I enter the living room, Emmett is sheepishly tucked into the corner of our fabric couch, looking like a scolded puppy. He's changed out of his work clothes and into a pair of basketball shorts and an old, faded t-shirt. He looks boyish, hardly more than a teenager, and I'm momentarily grateful for the reminder that he is young. Sometimes I need to be reminded of all that he's given up for Ava and me. But still, I fight an inner war with myself as I stand before him. His giving Edward our phone number without so much as warning me that he might call is completely inexcusable. Devoted brother or not, I want to wring his helpful neck.

Before I get the chance to do much more than glare at him, I hear the click click click of heeled shoes passing through the kitchen and into the living room. "Ugh, I hate heels," Rosalie gripes as she ungracefully hops on one foot while removing a sharp stiletto from the other. After tossing her shoes, she makes her way toward my brother's slumped form on the couch, pausing quickly on her way to squeeze my hip and kiss my cheek. "Birdie," she says by way of greeting. My eyes follow her retreating form—her perfectly coiffed hair, stylish clothes, flawless body—as she folds herself into Emmett's side and sighs heavily.

Rosalie Hale is a part of our family in all the ways that matter most. Despite her perfectly made-up outward appearance and no-nonsense approach to life, she is sweet, genuine, fiercely loyal, and my very best friend. She's been dating Emmett for years and has never been anything but supportive of his role in Ava's and my life. Rosalie loves Ava like she is her own, and she primps and spoils her in all the girly ways that I am—quite literally—incapable of. My brother knows he is a lucky fool, and he treats her with a kindness and vulnerability that he retains for no one else. Watching them together makes my heart hurt.

I stand before them, like an outsider in my own living room, and watch with a mix of envy and admiration as Emmett tucks her close into his side and kisses her hair.

"Sorry I missed the Bug," Rosalie tells me as she rests her head on Emmett's chest. "I had a late meeting, and then traffic was awful. Emmett wanted me to hurry over, so I haven't even been home yet."

Fucking Emmett, using Rosalie as his shield. I narrow my eyes and glare at him.

Rosalie looks warily back and forth between the two of us, and then groans and lifts her head off Emmett's shoulder to rest it on the back of the couch, eyes closed. "What happened?" she asks warily.

I suddenly feel like an idiot standing in the middle of the living room, and the weight of re-telling the day's events to Rosalie is physically debilitating.

"Ask Emmett," I tell her as I move to sit catty-corner from them on the couch. "He seems to have all the answers these days…"

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Bella," Emmett groans. "It's not the end of the world! So he came in looking for you. So what? I told him how to find you—"

"Wait," Rosalie's eyes open, and she lifts her head to look at me directly. "Who came looking for you?"

With my best friend sitting across from me, watching me with concern, I unexpectedly have the overwhelming urge to cry. The harder I resist the impulse to give in to my tears, the harder my chin trembles.

"Edward Cullen," I whisper, my voice breaking on his last name.

Aside from the deep sigh Emmett emits and the sounds of my desperate attempt to clamp down the sobs that are so eager to escape my chest, the room is completely silent.

Rosalie abruptly springs from her spot next to Emmett on the couch and rushes to sit next to me, gathering me in her arms. I bury my head in her shoulder and inhale her comforting scent while she rubs my back.

"What did he want?" Rosalie asks softly. I'm not sure if she's directing her question at me or Emmett, but I focus my attention on my brother when he speaks.

"He said he was back in town, and he wanted to see how we were doing. His mom knows I work at the bank—I see her in there occasionally—so I'm guessing she told him where he could find me. He wanted to know where Bella lives, what she's been up to… I didn't know what to say, Birdie!" Emmett drops his head into his hands and tugs harshly at his hair. When he lifts his head, his stressed eyes meet mine, and my chest aches with the sadness I see reflected there.

"Did he ask about Ava?" I whisper, afraid to hear his answer. Either response seems awful: he's suddenly interested in her after all this time-leading me to worry about his intentions-or he doesn't even acknowledge her enough to inquire.

Emmett shakes his head sadly, "Fuck, Bella, I don't know. I—I was torn between beating his face in for ditching you guys, and hugging his neck! He's a sorry bastard for what he did, and he knows it. He said so himself." Emmett scrubs at the rough stubble on his jaw and drops his eyes to the floor. "Can't you at least hear him out? Let him say his piece?"

Rosalie continues to rub soothing circles on the sensitive spot between my shoulder blades while I stare at my brother in contemplation. Can I listen to Edward's excuses? Do I even care to hear what he has to say? Part of me wants to give him the proverbial middle finger and let him know that Ava and I have gotten along just fine by ourselves—well, with Emmett and Rosalie, too—without one single ounce of help from him. But the young, long-ago-buried teenager inside me longs to see him, to hear his voice again. His face is a hazy memory to me after all these years, save for the traces of him I see in Ava. My remembrances of him have twisted and turned over time, casting him in some type of flawless, teenage idol light.

Edward's comment about my makeup seemed to spark some type of bizarre fuse between the two of us moving forward. He knows the effect he has on me is strong, and I think I'm either too naive or too dumb to care that he plays it up. Inside the comfort of my bedroom walls, I feel smart and capable and every bit the normal teenage girl that I am. But outside, when Edward is here, I become a bumbling mess of nerves and insecurities.

Day after day Edward finds a way to tease me, and day after day I trip over my words and retreat to my room in mortification at the way my skin flushes scarlet when he's near. I'm not quite sure what Emmett thinks about the attention that Edward gives me, except to assume that he's just along for the ride on the pesky older brother trip Emmett is on. My brother is too wrapped up in baseball, girls, and himself to ever really pay close attention to what I'm doing…unless it's to embarrass or nag me, of course.

I'm standing in the kitchen smearing butter on a piece of toasted bread when I hear Emmett belch loudly to announce his arrival. The refrigerator door opens, and I listen without looking as he grabs the milk carton and drinks directly from it as loudly as possible, before slamming the fridge door and belching again. Pig.

"Put some fucking pants on, Birdie," he goads me. "Your flamingo legs are making my eyes bleed."

The name Birdie has haunted me since I was seven, and our Great Aunt Louise visited from Florida one summer. She kissed me directly on the mouth, pinched my thigh, and told my mother to feed me, because my bird legs needed more meat. It's in keeping with the rest of my miserable life that my brother was nearby and heard the exchange. I've yet to live it down.

Licking some misplaced butter off my finger, I glance down at what I'm wearing. "They're shorts, Fuckface."

"Shorts my ass. You're wearing panties and trying to pass them off as shorts. Those are, like…shorties." He pauses briefly to allow himself a victory guffaw. "Get it?"

I finally spare him a glance over my shoulder and notice that Edward is leaning next to him against the kitchen island, smirking. I roll my eyes at my brother and turn back to my toast. "You're an idiot," I remind him.

Emmett's still mentally high-fiving himself as he pulls open the door to the pantry and begins rifling through everything like a toddler. The air around me stirs, and Edward's scent overrides the smell of the toast on the counter opposite me. He props his body next to me on one elbow, angled just perfectly so that he's able to look up at me from under the curtain of hair I'm hiding behind.

"Hi," he whispers. I've met my quota for blushing already, and it's not even noon.

As usual, I seem incapable of forming a complete sentence when he's near, so I merely let forth a shaky snort, and follow it up with several dozen of those rapid blink things I do when I get nervous.

To my horror—or amazement, I'm not really sure—he leans in even closer and ducks his head so that our eyes meet. His are clear and bright, and his eyelashes are long and full. Not knowing what to do in such close proximity to him, I find myself literally squirming under his penetrating gaze. My awkwardness seems to spur him on, and he chuckles once and then sort of shakes his head, like he has no idea what to do with me.

I wait with bated breath as he continues to stare, still smiling and shaking his head slowly. A bead of sweat runs down the front of my shirt, between my virtually nonexistent boobs, and it's then that I realize that I've forgotten to breathe since he last spoke.

Never breaking our stare, he reaches out to grab a triangle of toast and takes a giant bite from one side. His lips pucker as he chews, and the way his jaw muscle works to grind his food makes me swallow thickly.

The sound of Emmett tearing into a bag of chips behind me breaks me out of my daze, and I draw in a deep breath in an attempt to regain my composure. Edward continues to look at me, his eyes alight with amusement on my behalf.

"Dude," Emmett barks at him. "Let's go."

Edward straightens up and walks backwards a few steps, the sneaky smile on his face the only sign of our recent wordless conversation. Eventually, when he nears the section of the kitchen where my brother is standing, he wiggles his eyebrows at me a few times as a parting gesture.

I smile shyly at him and duck my head to turn back to my toast. I'm wondering what it will be like to eat from the same corner that his lips have touched, when Emmett's obnoxiously loud voice breaks my focus again.

"Seriously, Birdie. Go put some fucking pants on."

I'm so comforted by the feel of Rosalie's arms wrapped around me that I almost forget about how painfully long this day has been. I know once I'm in the privacy of my own room, nestled deep in my own bed, all of the raw emotions and memories will come bubbling to the surface, but for now, I find comfort in my friend and my brother. He lost his best friend when Edward bailed, I remind myself. And while Edward doesn't deserve a friend like Emmett, I want nothing more than for my brother to be happy.

I'll just see what he wants, I bargain with myself internally. I don't have to give him one bit of information about myself or Ava…especially Ava…but I owe it to Emmett, and to myself, to hear him out. Maybe a little closure is exactly what I need to put him behind me once and for all.

"Alright, Emmett," I say. "Tell him I'm all ears."

Thanks for reading.