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LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.

14.

While watching her go, Edward felt like an asshole for not being the kind of man he knew she wanted him to be. Needed him to be. This was by no means the first time in his life he'd been a dick to somebody—not even someone close to him. It was one of the few, though, in which he actually felt like an ass.

And it opened a specific can of worms he'd much rather have kept closed.

The night before had been…everything. Over the years, he'd fucked his fair share of women but he'd never felt any form of connection to them other than physically. Well, until Bella. Being inside her was indescribable for him. It was everything he never knew he wanted offered up to him on a devilishly alluring plate.

But the thing was, he was still too afraid to grab it, even though he desperately wanted to.

When he had woken up that morning and found the bed empty, he'd seen it as her subtle way of informing him that she wanted nothing more from him than a night of hot, steamy sex. Something to make any other girl could cross off 'fuck a rock star' from her list; and there'd been a few over the years. And even though he knew those girls had been a mistake, he still really couldn't fault himself for thinking that way about Bella. After all, it was what he'd grown used to.

Part of him—the pussy part—had even been relieved that he'd been let off the hook that easily.

No awkwardness.

When he started treating her just like he did with every other women that had passed through his bedroom door, it hadn't taken long to notice just how wrong he'd been. The hurt in her eyes, no matter how much she'd tried to hide it, had been apparent. And it had driven him insane with remorse and powerlessness.

Because: could he really be what she wanted?

Could he even make a promise to her?

He hadn't wanted to lie to her…and he didn't, even if he knew it wasn't exactly what she wanted to hear. He couldn't give her any false hope. He could only offer the truth and trust it was enough. And judging from the way they parted, he wasn't so sure about that.

Sighing, he started back towards the house, pausing only to watch as a little kid ran after a dog that was speeding after a low flying kite. And all that under the watchful gaze of, what he surmised were proud parents and equally proud dog owners?

Would he ever have that?

There had been years in which the thought alone would make him sick and he still didn't exactly consider himself family material. What a father he'd make with his drug and alcohol problems and whole scores of groupies knowing the exact size of his dick! And even if none of that shit had happened in the past, he'd never consider himself sane enough to be anyone's parent. Hell, between the insomnia and the frequent panic attacks, he had a hell of a hard time even looking after himself most days!

Still…whether he wanted to or not, he couldn't stop himself from wondering what it would be like if Bella were to mother his child.

It frightened him in more ways than one.

Tearing himself away from both the very real view and the image in his head, he closed the distance to the house. The barrage of noise that slammed into him as soon as he'd opened the door told him that the day had well and truly started in there.

"Edward!" Jasper's face lit up like a Christmas tree as soon as he spotted his uncle. He all but threw his little sister from a barstool to free up space next to him for his favorite person in the world, much to the dismay of both his mother and his nanny. "Come, sit next to me!"

"Hey! I was sitting there!" Rose pouted, straightening the pretty dress she was wearing as she scrambled into a different seat.

"She's right, bud," Edward scolded a not very apologetic looking Jasper. "You should treat your little sister a bit nicer! She might be the only damn person in the world you'll have one day." The look he shared with his sister was laced with the sadness of their mutual past. It lasted just one moment—a second in which Esme's hope was partly restored—before his usual slightly inappropriate lightheartedness was back again. "Besides, you never know when you might need a kidney or something in the future."

Jasper shrugged, scooping up his cereal at an alarming rate as he rushed to get through breakfast. "Do you want to go and catch some waves with me later?" he asked eager to spend some time with his uncle after the man had hidden himself away in the music room for the past couple of days.

"I wish I could," he replied honestly. "But I have to put in an appearance at the record company today." His remark got Bella, who had until then been studying her breakfast like it held the answer to all of the world's problems, to look up. Her eyes were measured; the look in them extremely apprehensive and so he added, purely for her sake, "I hope to be back again tonight, though."

"You'd better," his sister warned. "If you violate the conditions of your parole…"

Edward nodded, chagrinned as he was reminded of the nuisance of having to play by other people's rules. Though part of his trip to the city was to meet his parole officer for a drug test, there was no telling when someone would show up to search the house—his sister's house—and ascertain whether or not he was keeping to his end of the bargain. "I'll be back in time for curfew, Mom," he teased, stealing the keys to her car. "And even if I forget, I'm sure Aro will remind me."

Getting onto the road, the sense of freedom he'd thought he'd feel at being out from underneath his sister's watchful eye wasn't anywhere near as liberating as he would have liked. Instead, the way he parted from Bella was nagging at his brain. What had she been thinking? Was she giving up on him since she learned how flawed he was? Did she think he was playing her?

He wished he could have stolen a moment somewhere to talk to her before he left but with the necessity of secrecy hanging over their 'whatever', that hadn't been possible. As much as he hated himself for forming such an attachment to the girl, he cared about her deeper than he was ready to admit. And that meant that he didn't want her to think he was going to end up fucking some slut in a back alley or shooting up in some crack house.

He really did have business on his mind.

He still planned to meet up with James and Victoria for drinks at the end of the day. After all, they may have been his friends, and the worst kind of friends a man like him could ever find, they were also in his band and he needed to fill them in on where things were standing from his end.

Besides, James had been on his case ever since Edward had left town, blowing up his phone with requests to meet up some time. Edward knew him well enough to know that if he kept ignoring him, James would, at some point, end up on his sisters doorstep. And as little a problem as he had, filling his own life with it, he didn't want that kind of poison to pollute his sister's safe and happy home.

His day went blissfully predictable. Walking into the offices of his parole officer, he was glad those pills that had at one point seemed such a good idea, still remained in their hiding place untouched. After all, it was a lot easier going into a drug test knowing it wasn't going to show anything that could get him into trouble than handing in your piss on a wing and a prayer, hoping your dealer's claims were legit.

Being as it was, he moonwalked out of the building, mentally crossing one boring as fuck meeting off his list as he hopped into the car.

On to meeting number two.

If anyone would have told Aro Volturi that day he went to pick up his most trying client that a couple of weeks down the road he would be sitting in his office, listening to demos of a sheer brilliance that almost moved him to tears, he would have thought them to be a liar.

Being as it was, he had a hard time believing what he heard wasn't some sort of hoax the little piece of shit had doctored up on some godforsaken sandy beach.

But, it was unmistakably Edward's voice.

And definitely his style.

It was better than anything he'd ever heard from this talented musician, though. And that was saying something, since Edward Masen had managed to blow him off his feet when he'd heard his first demo.

"I assume you have more of this?" he asked, poker-face firmly in place as he pushed his fingers into a triangle. Inwardly, his mind was already trying to imagine the figures this album would rake in once complete.

Edward nodded. "Right now I have twelve songs written. I figure about seven of them are album material but the rest is definitely good enough for you to slap on a B-side."

"So you'll need about four more tracks," Aro mused, his eyes tightening as his mind started to come up with time-frames and marketing strategies. "Any clue as to how soon you can get them written?"

"At the rate I'm going, probably a few weeks at the longest," Edward responded calmly, appearing more confident than he had in a long time. Because no matter how hard he'd tried, neither his drug-induced cockiness nor his baselessly inflated ego had never really fooled his manager.

"And I assume you'll want to use the same band you've used since the beginning?" Aro hedged. If it had been up to him, those good for nothing bottom-feeders would have been sacked the moment they'd started introducing his star to drugs and other good-for-nothing activities. Edward, however, had different ideas about that back then.

"I'll let you know when we get to that point, okay?"

Folding his hands underneath his chin, Aro took some time to study the younger man. And for the first time in as long as he could remember, he liked what he saw. "You look good, Edward. Keep up the good work and we might be able to turn your career around just yet."

And just like that, the punk-ass kid was back; all sincerity gone as he jumped up and put as much distance between himself and his manager as he could. "I'll get back to you when I'm done writing," he gruffed, wasting no time shaking hands as he hightailed it out of the office.

Meeting two out of three done.

If only that would have been the most unpleasant meeting out of the three, Edward would not have figured his day wasted at all. Though as he entered the loft apartment belonging to his lead guitarist, he realized just how far he'd been removed from the lifestyle he had once embraced wholeheartedly.

Walking in between gyrating bodies in different degrees of nakedness and kids strung out and staring emptily at the space in front of them, it was like he was stepping into a former life. And he wasn't sure whether it was a pleasant experience or not. Only a couple of months ago, he would have jumped in without a moment's hesitation; accepting every drug or naked body offered to him. At that moment, though, there was only one thing he saw amidst that ocean of writhing flesh.

It was a pair of brown eyes, belonging to a girl far, far away.

Thoughts?