AN: Hello, lovelies.

Enjoy.

Chapter 4

There was an irate woman in front of me. The one I hit with the pool ball which had left an ugly red welt on the middle of her forehead. Her hair was a mullet too. The top was cut close to her scalp. It wasn't quite a crew cut, but far too butch to be a called a pixie. The back was equal parts scary and amazing. Long auburn curls went down her back like a mullet mane. I was fairly certain that I was officially in the Twilight Zone.

I looked at the woman's furious face and then down at her plaid shirt and ripped jeans. She was part of my feminist tribe! A militant lesbian in this land of eighties flashbacks and redneck good, old boys. We were going to be great friends and angrily stand together against oppression 'the man' was trying to suppress us with!

Edward took my arm and hissed, "Don't talk to her, honey!"

That was silly. She was a freedom fighter just like me!

"I'm so sorry, sister! It was a mistake and all a man's fault!" I raised my fist in the air. "Unity, sister, from male oppression! I respect your choice to love the person of your choice no matter their gender!"

The woman's face changed to a look of confusion. "What?"

There was a loud laugh behind me and I turned to find the lone African American man sitting at the bar next to his Native American friend. The men were cracking up.

The African American gentleman, who wore a worn AC/DC tee-shirt and dreads said, "Damn Jake, Charlie's girl is doing the black pride salute! Sing it, sister!"

Crap! I always mix those things up at protest rallies.

Jake, who had a long black braid that hung over shoulder and onto his white wife beater, seemed awfully familiar to me. He snorted. "Bella shouldn't be in here, Tyler. Charlie must be crazy letting her hang with Cullen. Hey, Bells, Jessica there isn't a lesbian. She's dating my friend, Sam."

Oh shit.

Edward tried to pull me away but I just had to apologize. Turning towards her, I sputtered, "I . . . I . . . So sor—"

Jessica, of the mighty mullet, punched me in the other eye. I went down after that KO. Edward almost didn't catch me.

I had barely covered up the previous black eye with concealer. That eye looked diseased and now I would have a matching pair. I am going to look like a raccoon.

I whispered softly, "Sorry."

Edward cradled me in his arms and yelled at my assailant, "What the hell, Jess!"

"I ain't no dyke!" She roared.

"Our gay and lesbian friends shouldn't be called—" Edward clamped a hand on my mouth. "Quiet now, tiger. You can cause trouble later."

Then I heard a shout. "Get the hell outta here, Jess! No fighting in my bar!"

I spied with my barely working eye, a petite blonde with a baseball bat. I was feeling woozy and said, "Her hair is like cornsilk."

"Rest, baby," Edward said softly.

"I'll take the bat to you, Stanley! Go home to Sammy!" She came over and gave me a once over. "Take your slutty bookworm over to the bar, Ed. Let's fix the kid up."

I felt my body be pulled up into Edward's arms and he held me like a baby. I was woozy, but not woozy enough to let that happen. I started flailing to get him to drop me. "Let me down, Edward! I have legs."

"Simmer down, baby, and put all that feminist mumbo jumbo away until we get you all pretty again," he said into my ear. I was too tired to do any more protesting.

Edward lowered himself onto a stool with me on his lap. His arm tightly around my waist to keep me from leaping off. He demanded, "Sit still."

The blonde woman came over with an ice pack. She was blurry, but I could somewhat see her high pony-tail swaying and her nipples poking out of her tank top. I wanted to buy her a bra. I tried to decipher if Edward was zeroing in on her headlights, but he was too busy staring at my sore eye.

She stuck the ice pack on me. "Honey, if you were trying to bond with a lesbian you should have talked to me. I love hanging out with new pretty, progressive girls who come to town."

I felt Edward's grasp on me tighten and he actually hissed. It was weird.

"Seriously?" I admonished him. "Chill out, Cullen."

"Yes, Ed, chill out! The whole town has heard about you two getting frisky on the top of a car. I'll behave. Maybe." She wiggled her eyebrows at me.

"This is so embarrassing," I moaned. The ice pack on my eye didn't help soothe it at all.

"Don't worry, honey! That's old news! Everybody is going to be talking about the bar fight now. Alec! Get this lady a whiskey on the rocks!" She barked at the skinny bartender. He looked liked he was twelve with floppy hair. "I'm Jane. I run this place with my inbreed brother. He's the one pouring your drink right now."

"Damn it, Jane!" Alec complained. The whiskey he was pouring missed the glass. "Oh fuck!"

The tiny woman owned the bar? She looked only slightly older than the child bartender. I think Jane resembled a porcelain doll that I had when I was young.

"Are you old enough to own a bar?" I questioned.

"Honey, my daddy Waylon owned this place and left it to me and the doofus. I'm much older than I look. Oh the things I could teach you," She teased with bright eyes then she directed her attention to the livid man I was perched on. "Get a sense of humor, Ed."

"Don't scare her away, Janie," he hissed at her.

She just laughed. "You'll be doing that on your own, Mr. Touchy Feely. She's her own woman, She has a daddy and doesn't need you to act like Charlie. Bella, you need a job?"

"I'm working at the piercing place at the mall," I whispered. My head was pounding.

"Not anymore. I heard you almost killed Rosie and Em's kid with a piercing gun." She handed me a whiskey. "Drink up, honey. It will cure what ails you."

The amber glass of lighter fluid burned all the way down my throat. After a coughing fit, I protested, "I wasn't that bad! I didn't shoot the baby! I hit my finger instead!"

"Next time, you might not be so lucky. I need someone smart and your daddy assures me that you are. I need a bookkeeper, marketing whiz and someone familiar to classier places that can help me fix up the place. There's a new highway project and I want rich tourists to give me their cash. You interested?"

No more mall? Of course, I was interested. "Yes, I—"

"No! I don't think this is a good place for her to spend her time," Edward protested. "Unsavory sorts around here."

"I'm going to keep my hands to myself, Edward Cullen. Unless she doesn't want me too," she stated, with a humorous wink towards me. I found a great new friend who would drive Edward bonkers. It was a win! "This will be good for her, man. She can handle it!"

"Fine," he relented. He looked cranky.

"I will take the job, Jane. Thank you." I smiled at Jane. Turning to Edward, I snapped, "This was in no way your decision, Cullen. I'm not your woman!"

"Sure you are, Bella. You just won't admit it yet." His bright grin could have lit the dim lighting of the room.

The Native American man came over and said, 'Maybe Bells just isn't interested in you, Ed?"

"Do I know you?" I asked the man. He definitely knew me.

I waited for his answer, but I was ignored. Edward and this Jacob fellow were too busy having a pissing contest. I was surprised they weren't trying to mark me like a pair of junkyard dogs.

"Back off, Jacob Black! You don't have a chance with her! Hell would have to freeze over first," Edward retorted with a sneer.

"No lady can resist these guns." He flexed his muscles at me. "Hey there, Bella Swan!"

Then it hit me. It was Billy Black's son. My dad had been best friends with Billy since before I was born. I lived to torment Jacob and then read Pippi Longstocking books when I was small.

"Oh my god, I remember you!" I exclaimed. "I used to put worms in your hair! You would cry and tell on me! It was so funny."

His cocky demeanor crumbled. "I wasn't scared!"

"You were weeping that they would eat your brains!" I started cracking up. "You made the summer visits to my dad enjoyable. Do you still have dreams of worms crawling out of your ears or have gotten over it?"

Jacob looked like he was going to vomit.

Tyler chugged his beer and then answered for Jacob, "He's still scared of them! He fishes with sliced American cheese."

The whole bar erupted into laughter.

"I'm leaving," Jacob whined, but then he turned to me with a look of determination. "I'll win you yet, girl."

I watched him leave and directed my attention to Edward. "Is everyone here delusional? Can no one take a hint and leave me alone?"

"Sometimes you find something special and want to hold it tight," he said with a quick peck on my cheek. "You girl, are pretty damn special."

XXXXXX

I found myself back at Edward's house after delivering a sleeping Jasper to his angry parents so they could watch over him. We then took a weeping Alice back to her apartment after she promised to call her brother the next morning.

Those two had a pretty lousy evening that was almost equal to mine. I do believe, however, that being punched in the eye trumped the wallowing of those two love struck losers. Jasper was crying into a virgin strawberry daiquiri that Jane lied and said had alcohol in it, until he had passed out. He landed into a plate of nachos covered on guacamole. When he slowly lifted his head, it looked like he was wearing a facial mask.

Alice was flirting with the boy bartender to get Jasper's attention. That Alec kid was blushing and beaming at her like his dreams had finally come true. Alice kept flirting, but Jasper with his guacamole face was too busy snoring. Alec, however, was in heaven until she started crying about the unfair nature of love. The bartender spent the rest of the night comforting her. Love made the whole batch of them stupid.

"I need to go home," I protested as he led me in and toward a room up the stairs. The whiskey was made me slightly tipsy.

"Baby, your daddy will kill me if I bring you home drunk with a new shiner on your face." He opened the door to his bedroom that was surprising tasteful except for the navy, satin sheets. That was an accident waiting to happen. "You sleep here tonight and we'll face him together the morning."

"I'm not sleeping with you." I took the worn green tee-shirt he handed me.

"I know. I wouldn't even try with you being drunk." He pulled the shirt over my head and unhooked my bra. "Damn, you're sexy."

It's been a long time since I'd heard that and I continued to thaw.

Edward pulled his tee-shirt over my head and unbuttoned my pants to pull them down gently. When he finished he kissed my nose and whispered, "Time to sleep."

He picked me up and laid me down on his slippery bed and I watched him strip down to his boxers. Edward Cullen was one good looking man even with the roadkill attached to his head. He came over to me and wrapped himself around my slightly shaking form. I was nervous at these romantic feelings that were coming back to me. You make yourself forget the comfort of snuggling into a man's bare chest or at least I did. The feeling of warmth from his body and the way his fingers move over the skin of my thigh to draw lazy circles.

"I missed the cuddling," Edward spoke into my neck. "I'll sound like a chick, but it was one of my favorite parts of having a girlfriend."

"Oh." I turned my head slightly. My lips against his collar bone. "I don't go home with strange men."

"I'm not a stranger. We're practically best friends." A kiss to my head. "I don't usually do love at first sight."

A snort and a smile escaped me. "You, sir, are a cheese ball. I would call this an unusual dream."

"As long as you didn't say nightmare, I'll consider myself a lucky man." I was pulled tighter against him.

I fell before for a man with pretty words. James would recite poetry to me under the light of the moon. Here I was doing it again with Edward. Falling down the rabbit hole.

"Sleep." He turned my head to give me a dizzying kiss. "Sleep and dream of happy things."

XXXXXX

I was in the forest. The foliage was thick and the pine trees were attacking me with their branches. There seemed to be no exit and the ground was slippery like walking on an ice rink. I skid around and could barely stay upright.

All I knew was that I was thirsty and looking for a stream filled with pomegranate flavored seltzer. I needed the refreshing taste to rid myself of the lingering taste of whiskey.

I continued sliding through the woods slowly until, at last, I completely lost control and careened through the woods screaming towards a cliff. Something stopped my upcoming flight off the rock. It was the chest of a gigantic bear. My mouth filled with its hair.

Choking on his thick, oily black fur, I tried to push it away to no avail. The beast was much to strong. I couldn't breathe, because I was inhaling its hair that smelled of cedar and cinnamon.

My eyes opened as I gasped for breath. I was spooning Edward and choking on his mullet.

I prayed to God for a mighty pair of scissors to chop that mess off, because that tangled mop of unneeded hair certainly wanted to kill me.