Author Note: Thanks for the great response to this story! Sorry for the mix-up Sunday night with the prior chapter (On the Dark Side). I'd noticed that FF ate my reference to James's email address, and when I tried to update the chapter, I accidentally scrolled to the wrong item in my list of online docs. I fixed it around noon my time when I checked reviews over lunch.
Teasers for guessing the chapter title from Gin Blossoms went to: morena. davidson. 3, monica03, OWT, anitabonita2413, xoxocullenluverxoxo, edwardisaputz, Midnight Cougar, Icequeen13082006, NKubie, Taylor9901, TrulyOutrageous, k8ln713, SassYNoleS, underneaththechalkdust, ocassye, orion03981, wambam45, tawelephant, tff000, AbruptlyChagrined, angels04, MsAndreaRenee, dawnhybb, edwardsgirl007, MissyDy, the real teacher, and MariahajilE. Easy one this time with the suicide clue!
Thanks again to moosals for pre-reading. Stephenie Meyer owns all characters.
Chapter 20 – Hey Jealousy
It's D-Day. Or is J-Day more appropriate? Whatever. We've finally reached the two-week mark since James approached me in The Nosh. My guess is that he'll do the same thing again before going to the Dean.
Despite having no morning classes of his own on Friday, Jake insists on walking me through campus as a bodyguard of sorts, in case James comes up to me in a less-crowded area than the cafeteria. There's no sign of him though as we walk to the Student Center after Edward's class.
"You can't sit with me," I remind him as we near our destination. "James probably won't stop by at all with you there."
"I don't want to leave you alone with him."
"You can sit across the room where you can keep an eye on my table. I faced James alone two weeks ago, and I can do it again. I'm a big girl."
"And I can intervene if things get dicey," he says, pounding his fist into his other hand.
"Yes," I laugh. Truthfully, I'd love to see Jake smash James's face in as much as he'd enjoy doing it.
Jake holds the door for me, then we head through the cafeteria line together. Once we've each paid for our meals, I choose a semi-isolated table — so no one overhears — while he chooses one where he's not too close but has a good view of mine.
Once I've sat down, I start eating my bowl of baked potato soup; I'm too nervous to eat more than that. I try to act naturally and not keep turning toward the door, wondering when or if James is going to show up.
I'm nearly finished with my soup when I hear the awful screech of the chair across from me being pulled away from the table. Seconds later, someone sits heavily in the chair. Dropping my spoon, I look up at my company.
Of course it's James. Only he would be rude enough to sit down without asking.
"Isabella," he nods. "Or do you prefer Bella?"
"My friends call me Bella, but you're not my friend."
"I'm wounded," he pouts dramatically, bringing his hand up to his chest. "Have you had a chance to think about my proposal?"
"You mean your attempted blackmail?" I counter, raising an eyebrow. I'm relieved that he hasn't mentioned anything about the missing photos.
"Po-tay-to, po-tah-to," he shrugs.
"My answer is still no, James. You disgust me," I growl, wishing I were a guy who could spit on the floor.
"I'm not the one sleeping with my professor. Well," he shrugs, "it's your prerogative to say no of course, if you don't care about your boyfriend's job. Hell, maybe he's already dropped you. Are you frigid? Or a bad lay? Maybe you want him to lose his job for the way he's treated you. Am I getting closer?"
"Go to hell, James." I quickly stand up with my tray, dumping it on the moving belt before rushing upstairs to the Quiet Lounge.
As soon as I'm alone, I pull out my phone to text Edward, who should be in his office.
I just told James no to his proposal.
We need to be on high alert now. Delete our message thread and change my name in your Contacts, just in case.
Already changed it, I text back with a wink. Edward has been known as BDE in my Contacts for the last week.
Pick you up tonight at six.
"Hey," Jake calls, joining me in the Quiet Lounge just as I'm deleting the message thread. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," I assure him.
"So what happened? Any sign that James knows the photos were deleted?"
"Not unless he's an Oscar-caliber actor! All we can do now is wait to see if he contacts the Dean."
"With classes out next week, it might be a while," he cautions.
"I know," I sigh. I'd really rather get this over with, but UMSL gives us the entire week off for Thanksgiving, instead of just two or three days. Now I'll spend the entire break wondering when or if I'll be called in to face the Dean.
That evening, Edward leans in for a kiss as soon as I've slipped into his car and tossed my bag into the backseat. "Are you all right?" he asks, looking concerned as he rubs the back of my neck.
"I'm fine. You worry like Jake." I secretly love it though.
"We both care about you," he says, pecking my lips one more time and making me smile.
"So how hungry are you?" Edward asks as we get on the highway.
"Are we going out? I wasn't sure you'd chance that."
"In St. Peters," he replies. "I figured we could do dinner and then a movie out there."
"That sounds good," I agree. St. Peters is several highway exits into the next county, so I doubt anyone from school would choose to drive all the way out there to see a movie. "Anyway, I just had a bowl of soup for lunch, so I'm starving." I didn't even get to finish it.
Edward nods. "I found a Mediterranean place online that sounds pretty good, if you're up for it."
"Sure," I nod.
Once we've placed our orders at the restaurant, Edward reaches across the table to take my hand. "So, how did James take it when you refused to go along with his blackmail attempt?" he asks.
I shrug. "He said that was my prerogative. And then he tried to get under my skin a bit by speculating as to whether or not we were still together, insinuating that maybe I wanted you to get in trouble because you dumped me."
Edward's eyes widen upon hearing that.
"I-I hope you know that I'd never do that, Edward," I quickly rush out. "If we break up, I won't turn on you. Even as angry as I was last year when I found out about Tanya, I never seriously considered telling the principal or anyone else that we'd had sex."
"Thank you," he whispers, placing a kiss on the back of my hand.
"So… have you decided when you're leaving to go see your dad and stepmom?" I ask. I'll be heading home tomorrow to spend Thanksgiving with Mom and Phil.
"I told them no later than Wednesday. I guess it depends on you and whether or not you can get away one night."
"Alice, Jake and I were planning to do something on Tuesday. I can see if they'd mind you coming along. I know Jake really wants to meet you properly."
"He could've come along tonight, I suppose," Edward says.
"Nah," I shake my head. "The basketball team is driving to Joplin tonight for their afternoon game tomorrow."
"Are they off then during the break?"
I shake my head. "Wednesday night they're playing at Indiana State, and they have a home game on Saturday. Alice and I were planning to go to that."
"Do you know anything about basketball?" he questions with a smile.
"Even less than I do about hockey," I wink.
After dinner, we make the short drive to Mid-Rivers Mall to choose a movie.
"Justice League is opening tonight," Edward suggests, looking up at the list of movies playing.
"You and your comic book movies," I complain playfully.
"You and your fan fiction," he says with a smirk.
"I thought comic books were for teenage boys? You're 28."
"Don't you know men never grow up," he grins, kissing me briefly.
I like several of the actors starring in the film, so I agree to see it, as long as Edward lets me choose what we do after the movie. I mean, he's got a pretty good idea what I'm going to choose, and I'm sure he won't complain.
Once again, I'm too stuffed to get popcorn, but I do let Edward buy me a soda. I'm so going to have to pee when this movie is over.
Despite my complaints, I enjoy the movie a lot. Or maybe I just enjoy sitting in the dark for two hours with Edward's arm around me.
As always, there's this kind of anticipation in the air as we drive back to Edward's house. Most of our dates end in sex, but there's always something new to explore, something new that I can learn from an experienced man.
I'm still a little bit jealous of Tanya for the time she got with him, though I'm sure she wasn't his first girlfriend. I've never asked him how many other women he's slept with. I mean, I think he'd tell me, unless the number is so high that he can't actually count them all. English is his thing and not math, you know.
"What are you thinking about so hard over there?" Edward asks, giving me the side-eye.
"How many other women have you had sex with?" I blurt out.
Edward's eyes widen. "Wow, Ok, my fault for asking," he jokes… at least I think he's joking. "Pretty much everyone has a past, Bella. There's no point in being jealous of something that happened years before I even met you."
"No, I-I know that. And I know I benefit from your experience. It's just… you know I was a virgin before you. And I know you were with Tanya, but that's all I know. You've told me about your childhood, but nothing of your past relationships."
"I don't see them as relevant," he sighs.
"So you don't want to tell me?" I ask in small voice.
Edward glances over at me, then sighs. "Can it wait until we get home?"
"Oh… sure," I agree. We're just crossing the Blanchette Bridge back into St. Louis County.
A few minutes later, Edward pulls into his driveway. He unlocks the front door with his key, motioning for me to enter first.
"Do you want something to drink?" he asks.
"That'd be great." I leave my overnight bag in the foyer and take off my jacket, then make myself comfortable on the couch in the living room.
"What's got you suddenly thinking about my sexual history?" he asks, taking a seat beside me.
I shrug. "Maybe something James said today," I reply, remembering his questions about whether or not I was frigid or a bad lay.
"Don't listen to a word that asshole says," Edward says angrily.
"I know. It's just… you're more experienced than me. I knew nothing about sex before I met you, beyond what I'd read in fan fiction."
"Bella, I've never been some kind of manwhore. I was the nerdy kid in high school who was more into books and drama club than playing sports."
"You were in drama club?" I grin.
He rolls his eyes. "So not the point. I never got more than small parts in any of the plays or musicals we put on. I also wasn't a jock or part of the popular crowd."
"I find it hard to believe that women weren't all over you, given your looks and… attributes," I grin.
"My attributes…" He trails off, shakes his head, then takes a long sip of his water. He's acting a little cagey, or maybe just weird about this.
"We were required to take P.E. for all four years of high school," Edward says, and I frown at the non-sequitur. "And after… we'd shower before getting dressed. Let's just say… word got out that I had a larger than average penis."
"You mean your monster cock," I cough.
"I swear to you, it's not that abnormally large, Bella. But on a skinny teenager, it was a bit disproportionate."
"So someone in your gym class told his friends you had a big dick?"
"Yep," he nods.
"And that didn't send the girls flocking to your door once they found out?" I ask skeptically. Or am I a rarity to be impressed by a big dick?
"There was a sudden influx of girls paying attention to me when they never had before," he confirms. "I didn't find out why until later.
"We'd go out for dinner or whatever, and… they'd offer to go down on me in the car. Most of them were pretty intimidated and never got past the head," he remembers. "All of them were too intimidated to actually have sex."
"So you were a virgin until college?" I realize.
He nods. "I'd filled out a bit by then, and I got a fair amount of female attention anyway. Still, the first girl I slept with most definitely told her friends about my size, leading to a lot more attention. Once I realized why, I started declining. I wanted girls who wanted me for me and not the size of my dick. Tanya was one of the good ones," he adds.
I frown. "Is that why you don't like it when I call it your monster cock?" Oh god, if I'd known he had a bit of a complex about his size, I never would've teased him about it or let him know how his dick played into my attraction to him. Am I just as bad as those girls?
"I've gotten past it, Bella," he says softly. "It's a part of me and I can't change it, so I might as well embrace it. There are definitely worse things I could be known for."
"I hope you know I'm not just with you for your dick," I tell him, crawling into his lap.
"I know you're not." He puts his arms around me, hands on my ass. "Just like I'm not with you for your legs, or your boobs, or… any parts that very snuggly hug my dick."
I smile, leaning forward to kiss him.
"I still don't think it's as far above average as you do though," he adds.
"And I still beg to differ. Do you have a ruler? Or a tape measure?"
Edward laughs. "Maybe in the junk drawer in the kitchen."
I scramble off his lap, then take a look in the kitchen. I don't know which one is the junk drawer, but I find it on only my second try. I move around a few assorted pieces of junk and eventually find a tape measure. Not the soft, flexible kind I was hoping for, but it'll do.
He grins, shaking his head, when he sees me. "Should we take this into the bedroom?" he suggests, and I nod my agreement, following him into the bedroom.
Setting the tape measure down temporarily, I help Edward remove his shirt, then open his belt and unbutton his slacks.
"Eager, are we?" he grins.
Once he's totally naked, he lies in the middle of the bed. Unfortunately, he's not totally hard yet, so I can't get a good measurement. I'm sure I can rectify thatthough.
Crawling up beside him, I wrap my right hand around his dick and give it a few tugs. I lean over and take a few licks at the head, feeling him magically harden in my hand. I stop as soon as I think he's reached maximum size.
Edward just looks amused as I pick up the tape measure.
"Hold it for me," I direct, nodding toward his monster cock. I place the end of the tape measure against his body and pull…
A/N: Some comments from Monday's chapter seemed to assume we were through with James, but nope! Bella officially turned down his proposal to sleep with him in exchange for not going to the Dean. It doesn't appear that he's found the missing photos yet, so we need to wait and see what happens when he does!
James's comments got Bella thinking about Edward's pre-Tanya past, so we learned a bit more of his history. Bella really has no reason to be jealous, now that she knows, but the fear of the unknown is always worse I think.
Next update on Monday. What do you think the measurement is going to be? ;)
For a teaser: I was drawing a blank on titles again so I left my original choice, a well-known 80s rock/hair metal anthem.