When I returned from from visiting baby Dallas the next day, I stopped in the lobby first to check my mail and headed up to the apartment. Edward had needed to take care of some things in the office and I was still tired from the day before, all I wanted was a long bubble bath. I dropped the stack of mail on the table beside the door and set the alarm before pulling out the chopsticks that held up my hair and massaging my sore scalp.

I started the hot water, pouring in a fair amount of bubble bath, and headed back into the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea while the tub filled. The envelope caught my attention as I stirred in my honey, the purple NYU symbol waiting amidst the scattered envelopes I'd discarded when I first walk in. Worrying my lip between my teeth, I left my tea on the counter and moved to open the envelope.

Edward surprised me an hour later, I hadn't expected him home so soon, and looked surprised to find me in the tub. He'd known I intended to take a bath when I got home, but obviously expected that I'd be done by the time he got home. I'd expected to be done by then too, but the water was just much too comfortable. I'd been draining half the water and refilling it every fifteen to twenty minutes to stay warm. Most of the bubble bath had drained out by now, but Edward obviously didn't mind the view as he surveyed me appreciatively.

"Comfortable," he asked and I nodded, eyes sleepy. "Come on slacker, I don't want you falling asleep and drowning."

I grumbled. "Join me."

He contemplated for a second before loosening his tie and stepping back into the bedroom to undress. His concern may not have been unwarranted because I was pretty sure I'd started to doze off by the time he crouched beside the tub, tapping me on the shoulder so that I would scoot forward and make room for him. Edward slid in behind me, pulling me back against his chest and sloshing water on the floor as he got comfortable. If I'd thought my long, hot bath was nice, it was nothing compared to sharing that bath with Edward.

"How was work?"

Edward kissed the top of my head, wrapping his arms around me. "Boring. Angela ran me off after half an hour or so, telling me to spend time with my family."

"Angela," I asked, confused.

"My new assistant, she's quite bossy." I giggled and I felt Edward's smile against my cheek, "you'd like her."

"She bosses you around and successfully got you out of the office? I like her already." Edward chuckled and tickled my sides teasingly. I squealed and he stopped, his growing erection stirring after I'd squirmed my butt against it.

"Are we going to talk about the NYU letter on the counter," Edward asked after a few minutes of silence and I sighed, shaking my head.

"Did you read it?"

"No," he answered and I believed him. "Was it bad?" I shrugged. I knew he was confused when he didn't ask anymore questions and he hugged me a little tighter. "Is that why you're still in the bath?"

I shrugged again, "it was just really comfortable and warm, I didn't want to get out." Before climbing into the bath, I'd put my hair up into a messy bun to keep it from getting wet, but a few pieces had since fallen and now stuck to my neck and shoulders. With dexterous hands, Edward brushed aside the few strands on my right side, giving him access to place soft kisses on the back of my neck and shoulder. I moaned softly, closing my eyes and allowing him to take over my mind as his hands drifted slowly down. One hand flat on my stomach, the other drifted between my legs and I forgot everything outside of the two of us for a while.

"Have you eaten," Edward asked, pulling a clean t-shirt from the laundry basket I left next to the bed yesterday morning and slipping it over his head.

"No, I meant to call Rose to see if she had time to meet but it slipped my mind."

"Why don't we pop over to that new deli down the street?"

I turned from the mirror, where I'd been fixing my hair, to look at him — amused. "Pop over?"

Edward grinned, "pop."

"Pop," I giggled. "Yes, we can pop over to the deli down the street."

Tommy's Deli had the look and feel of a small town, mom and pop deli. It was new and there was no telling how long it would last, but it seemed busy enough for two o'clock on a weekday. It was walking distance from the apartment, which was nice, and the sun was shining. Edward stepped inside to grab us a couple of sandwiches while I claimed one of the tables on the patio.

"Well, well, well… If it isn't Bella Swan." I didn't have to turn around to know who had addressed me, I didn't even have to turn around to talk to him because he claimed the empty chair across from me.

I hadn't seen him in over a year and seeing him now, after everything that's happened over the past few months, made my stomach lurch. "James," I breathed and he grinned, the sick animalist grin that had warned me off of him when I'd first moved into my old apartment complex.

"You look well." James Hunter was tall, like Edward, but thinner. He had almost unnaturally blonde hair, pale skin, almost black eyes… honestly, he looked more like something off the pages of a cheesy vampire novel than a tax lawyer.

"You look… the same." James had saved me from a lift of poverty, but he'd turned me into property to be owned. It took a long time to get away from him and his friends, to mentally separate myself from my job, but seeing him brought back the feeling of shame and hopelessness I'd experienced in the beginning.

"You wound me, beautiful."

"What are you doing here, James?"

"I was just happening by," he responded innocently and I didn't believe him. This was New York, anything was possible, but nothing with James was ever a coincidence. "You know, I was talking to Felix the other day and we wondered what you had been up to." I forced myself not to shutter when he mentioned Felix — one of James' friends who had made our arrangement much more violent than it needed to be. Felix was the reason I had finally moved. "We saw your picture in the paper with that Cullen fellow, thought about looking you up — for old times sake." I hated the way he grinned when he said "old times". It made me feel dirty and exposed.

"Bella," Edward asked, approaching us with our sandwiches in one hand and two bottles of water in the other hand. He looked from James to me and then back again, his eyes assessing our body language.

"Oh, I see," James smiled, adjusting his tie and standing up. "Well I never thought I'd see the Edward Cullen looking so… domesticated."

"James," Edward's eyes narrowed and I quickly looked between the two men — my past and my future — confused by their connection. James patted me on the shoulder as he walked by, brushing Edward's shoulder with his as he walked away. "Do you know him?"

"That's James," I responded.

He opened his mouth to respond, then closed it again. "Wait, that's the James who…" I nodded and Edward laughed, less with humor and more with irony. "That figures," he said, not offering any more explanation as he sat a sandwich and water in front of me, then claimed the chair James had just vacated.

"Wait, what figures? What just happened," I asked, pulling the saran wrap off my chicken salad sandwich. Hey, I'm hungry!

"James Hunter was on our payroll a few years ago, we found out he was trying to skim money."

"Really?" I'd say I couldn't believe it but that would be a lie. "How did you find out?"

"We're a security company, babe; it's what we do." I rolled my eyes and he grinned, taking a couple bites of his sandwich. "So are you ready to talk about the letter?"

I sighed, twisting off the cap of my water bottle and taking a long drink. "You're going to think it's stupid."

"Try me," he challenged.

"I got in."

"Bella, that's gre—" he started but I shook my head. "That's not great."

I sighed, taking another bite from my sandwich and trying to decided how to explain myself. I'd spent an hour in the tub and was no closer to making sense in my own head, how was I going to make sense out loud. "All I've wanted for so long was to go to school… I never thought about meeting someone and having a baby and… and now I have and I am and… maybe school isn't really for me anymore."

"Why would I think that's stupid?"

"Because it's all I've talked about since—"

"Bella, I dropped out of college and started my own company. If anyone understands that college isn't for everyone, it's me," he was trying to reassure me but it was only making me feel worse for feeling so stupid.

"You have a marketable skill, what the hell am I supposed to do with my life?"

"Raise my kids," he asked, grinning. I rolled my eyes and tossed my bottle cap at him. "What do you like to do?"

"I don't know," I shrugged. "I always wanted publishing and I like writing."

"You don't need a degree to write," he reasoned and it was good logic.