Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight, but I do own a further two pairs of thongs thanks to Santa.

Twenty-Five

"Don't know these emotions, don't think I ever have. So helplessly caught in your tide." - 'Grey Ocean' Lior

Edward's alarm doesn't so much wake me, as alert me. Although my eyes were closed, my mind is already half awake, drifting in and out of fitful sleep. I reach over and turn it off carefully, trying not to wake him. Slipping out of bed, I hop around the room looking for something to slip on, willing my bladder to hold on just a minute longer. I find a t-shirt of Edward's thrown over my desk chair. It's stretched and paper-thin, with tiny holes around the neckline, but it's soft and smells like him, so I slip it on.

The sky outside is grey with morning light, the February morning warm already. After a trip to the bathroom, I turn to head back to bed, only to suddenly come face-to-chest with a black Led Zeppelin t-shirt. I have to bite my tongue to stop from screaming.

Fucking Jasper.

"Jesus, Jasper." I hold a hand against my chest, waiting for my heartbeat to slow.

He rubs his eyes, blinking at me. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"What am I doing? What are you doing?" I hiss, trying not to wake the house. "Did you stay here last night?"

"Yes. I live here."

"I know that. But it's Sunday morning. Shouldn't you be creeping out of some girl's bedroom, or chewing your arm off or something?"

Jasper reaches down to scratch his balls loudly as he shrugs. It's bizarre how unaffected I am by his grossness these days.

It dawns on me as he shrugs noncommittally. "Did you sleep alone last night?"

"Yeah, well, bloody..." He sighs, scrubbing the same hand that scratched his balls through his hair. "Ice Princess turned me down again!"

"Oh." Apparently her name is Alice, but since she turns Jasper down Every. Single. Night. and is kind of a bitch, she's earned herself a nickname.

"I gave her my best material, too. It's like she's...not interested, or something."

Patting him on the arm, I move around him. "Well, it's for the best. She's a mole anyway."

"Yeah, but she's a cute mole."

Wandering back into the bedroom, I crack open the door quietly, only to find Edward already awake and sitting on the side of my bed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

His gaze flickers up and down the length of my body. "Hey."

"Hey." I stand in the doorway for a moment. "You going to shower before you go?"

He nods, picking up his folded clothes from atop his carry-on bag. Just the sight of it makes my stomach clench.

It's only two weeks – nothing really. That's what I tell myself as I get back in to my empty bed, listening to the shower run in the bathroom down the hallway.

The first leg of the tour starts at Snapper Rocks, a surf beach on the Gold Coast. It's barely two hours by plane - nothing.

Edward and Emmett have planned to spend the week and a half beforehand training and preparing, meeting with sponsor reps and doing the whole press thing for the tour. Edward isn't a fan of all the press stuff, but apparently Emmett is a natural, so he tends to just keep quiet and let him do the talking when he can. Riles and Jacko have taken some time off too, and are flying up to the Gold Coast with them, making it more of a "boys trip" than anything else. I don't even want to think about what those two will get up to with two weeks free reign.

I desperately wanted to go along, but work at the pub has been so crazy already, and with Paul gone and the casual staff all back at school, it's down to just Jasper, Rosie and I. But, like I keep telling myself, it's only two weeks.

I try to go back to sleep, but the moment Edward comes back into my room, I'm wide awake.

"Emmett's out the front," he says quietly, slipping his cap on.

"M'kay."

I can hear Rosie and Emmett talking quietly in the living room outside my door. She and Emmett spent the night together too, and I can only imagine she's feeling the same way I am right about now. There's a lump in my throat the size of a golf ball, and to be honest just breathing around it is hard. I try to swallow the emotion, slipping a wobbly smile on my face for Edward.

Sitting on the bed beside me, he leans forward for a kiss, just the tail end of hundreds we've shared over the course of the night.

"Miss me?" he asks quietly, blue eyes intense.

"Of course."

Another kiss. "I'll call you when we land."

He tucks my sleep messed hair up and away from my face.

There's a quiet knock on the door. "We gotta go, man," says Emmett.

I reach up for another kiss and Edward smiles against my lips as I wrap my hands around his neck, holding him close. There's a brief awkward pause, that moment when couples would say "I love you" or something to that effect. We just kiss some more until he really has to go.

Adjusting his hat, he lifts his bag onto his shoulder and opens the bedroom door, only to come rushing back for another kiss.

"Go!" I giggle, pushing him away.

Kiss.

"Bye."

Kiss.

"Bye."

Settling back into my pillows, I listen for the rumble of the van and the slide of its back door as Edward puts his things in. I'm laughing already as the front door bangs open and the telltale flap-flap-flap of Edward's thongs against the tiles get louder. He bursts in the door and comes back for one last kiss.

"Seriously."

Kiss.

"I have to go."

Kiss. Kiss.

It takes the sound of his van backing out of the driveway to cement that fact that he's not going to come running back. Instead, it's Rosie who slips in, sliding under the sheets beside me, curling up.

As morning breaks and the sun rises, we hold hands under the sheets, our sweaty palms squashed together, two little aching hearts beating the same rhythm.

Rosie and I watch every single sports report that week, keeping our eyes peeled for our boys. There are a few spots here and there; the arrival of the big names into the Gold Coast stirs some interest, but unless it's tennis or cricket, it doesn't get much air time. Edward calls me every day, sometimes twice a day. The other boys are being complete hoodlums, drinking and partying while he and Emmett spend their days training and in meetings with the company sponsors.

He's tired, and it's all a bit of a mind-fuck apparently, but he's excited, I can tell by the way he talks to me like I'm one of the boys.

"Shoulda seen these eight-footers wrapping up the reef, babe! Cruised in on my six-two, pulled a couple cheeky nugs…"

At about that point I have to remind him that I'm not Emmett, and that I don't have a clue what he's talking about.

He laughs. "Sorry."

He knows he's not in with much of a chance of coming in the top ten in the competition, but if he can place in the top twenty, he'll be chuffed. On the other hand, Emmett doesn't care where he places in this heat, he just wants to give Burrows, and American surfer, a run for his money.

The day of the Pro, the TV's at work play the coverage non-stop, and Rosie screams like a crazy woman the first time Emmett comes on the screen. He's suited-up and wading through the press and the crowds that swarm the beach, his board under his arm, that dazzling, dimple-punctuated smile blazing for the world to see.

He surfs well apparently, but it's early, and the best is yet to come.

When it's Edward's turn, I can't watch, and my tongue is swollen in my mouth I'm so nervous. That is until Rosie gasps.

"Oh shit!" she says with a chuckle.

I look up at the TV and my mouth falls open.

I'm going to kill him.

He's shaved his head.

All that beautiful bronze hair is gone.

"What the fuck did he do?"

Rosie smothers a laugh behind her hand as he smiles shyly at the camera, rubbing a hand across his head in what's obviously a leftover habit from when he actually had hair. I want to be mad, it's sitting right there under the surface - but I can't. The camera follows him down the beach, and I find that funnily enough, the lack of hair on his head just accentuates the colour of his eyes, and somehow, he still looks really good. Or maybe I'm just biased. Anyway, he's got the right shaped head for it, I guess, so it doesn't look too strange. But nevertheless, Emmett, who no doubt had something to do with it, will have some explaining to do when he comes home.

The day goes well. Emmett places third behind another Aussie, the Wilson kid everyone talks about, and Jared Cameron – the current world number one. Edward does better than expected and comes in at thirteenth, a result he's more than happy with. I celebrate with a beer to calm the nerves that have been on edge all day. I don't know how I'm going to cope watching him compete at Bells. My thumbnail is almost a bloody stump, and I think I might have broken Jasper's fingers I was squeezing his hand so tight at one point.

My mobile rings an hour or so after his heat, and I fumble the phone so much I drop it twice trying to answer. He's tired, physically and emotionally – I know how crazy it was for me to watch, half a continent away, I can't imagine what it's like to be in the thick of it. But he's just so happy. I can hear the smile in his voice; imagine the grin that he can't wipe off his face. I don't even have it in my heart to berate him about the hair issue. He assures me it's for aerodynamics or something, but I think he just got sick of me pestering him to wash it all the time. Apparently, there's no need to wash your hair if you're in the water. I beg to differ.

We end the call on a high note. He'll be home the day after next, coincidentally my next day off from work. He's got two weeks until the comp at Bells Beach - the big one. For him and Emmett, and most of the other Aussie surfers, Bells Beach is the one to win. Everyone wants to win on their home turf, and Bells has some of the biggest, roughest waves on the south shores. I know he's trying to downplay it, but Edward is nervous. The result at Snapper Rocks was better than predicted, which means that now he's expected to perform well. I support him as much as I can; assuring him that everyone will be there for him, no matter the outcome.

"Are you going to be there? At Bells?"

"Course. I wouldn't miss it."

He lets out a long, deep breath. "Good. Just knowing you're there is ... it's good."

After Bells, we'll have just three weeks together before he and Emmett take off on the first leg of a long stint away. They'll compete in Indonesia, Tahiti, Rio, and then Fiji before there's enough of a break to come home. All up: ten weeks – almost three whole months.

But we're determined not to let the looming future ruin the time we have left. It might only be two weeks, but I plan to make Edward's remaining days in Clearwater happy and carefree.

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas and a safe New Year. Thank you as always to my lovely team: Tiff, Thimbles and Ink. And thank you to everyone who's still reading.

xx Wink