BABY LOVE
Bella's roommate takes up almost every thought in her mind. But Edward has allocated her a friendzone seat. When an unexpected baby turns up on their doorstep it could be the thing Bella needs to get out of that seat once and for all. After all, who can resist a little baby love?
Characters belong to Stephanie Meyer.
One
The microwave beep increases in volume at 2 o'clock in the morning and it's an absolute bitch for it. I don't know if it actually does, but I'm onto it.
Slipping the TV meal from the plate inside, I place it on the kitchen bench. Concern that I should likely put some sort of mat between the heated base of the meal and the tabletop is at a new level of low.
With the torch of my iPhone I dine in silence. The night shadows creep around the room, making me feel cold and tired.
The date had been a disaster.
They say that cockroaches can survive atomic bombs. Mike Newton had been the radioactive explosive. So I guess I'm the cockroach.
When he showed up twenty minutes late I thought I'd still give him a shot. But then he looked at my tits and went on about cremating pets during my main meal. So I'd faked an emergency (thanks to my best friend's incredible phone call acting skills) and got my ass out of there before I could take another bite.
I'd aimed for sleep, but woken up hungry inside my bedroom, inside my London townhouse that I share with my roommate.
My fork hits the hard centre of my chicken and I groan back a loud, but likely therapeutic swear word, starting with a 'c'. Frozen.
"You fucking would be," I growl, "why can't you just cook."
"So I gather that the date went well?"
The voice startles me more than the room flooding with light does. So much so I think my soul prepared for departure south of the earth's floor level.
(I wasn't getting in upstairs… said best friend who had gotten me out of that date had been a horrible influence throughout college.)
"Am I naked?" I ask sarcastically.
"It appears not," he waltzes around the counter, pyjama pants that I got him for Christmas hung low on his waist.
The dog print would look goofy on any other man. But on this man… woof!
He was sex appeal defined. Muscular, broad, abs that belong on a Magic Mike strip show. His messy auburn hair, his crooked grin, the green smouldering eyes, the lightly pouty lips that I want to kiss… but can't.
Because I'm like his little sister.
Because I'm so far in the friendzone that clawing my way out would take centuries and a motivated construction company.
It was of my own doing.
When I met Edward Cullen I'd had a boyfriend. When I broke up with my boyfriend he had a girlfriend.
A girlfriend who had lost her fucking shit when he told her we'd be rooming together so we could handle the cost of London living.
"You want to live with the American?" Tanya had hissed.
As they broke up in his bedroom months later, I'd blasted 'born in the USA' from mine. Making sure the bitch was well aware he'd picked me.
But he hadn't.
After he'd gotten over what seemed like a small heart sting, I put my arm around his shoulder and told him he was a brother to me. That he was my friend and nothing would change or destroy that.
That was about four months ago. Since he'd referred to me as his 'friend' way too many times and zero chemistry pointed to anything more bubbling beneath it.
We'd spent roughly two years doing this dance. Me crushing incredibly hard on him. Him oblivious to the fact I named my vibrator after him. (Even when I had the boyfriend… judge me. I deserve it)
When I'd first moved here to live in Britain with all its greatness, with my boyfriend Jake I thought I'd be set. Then he cheated. Not that great.
Alice found me crying on a park bench after he'd admitted to it. During our anniversary dinner. After he proposed.
The short woman with an incredibly styled pixie cut, took me (still a stranger at this point) for tea and we became instant besties.
She'd introduced me to her friends who became my friends. I'd introduced her to my own best friend, Rosalie, who'd moved here a few years before me chasing down her sports journalist dreams.
We collectively became inseparable. I think Rosalie has a fuck buddy agreement with Emmett (Alice and Edward's brother) but they've kept the peace throughout it.
When I'd broken up a second time with Jake (I went back for two months to try again… your cue to judge. But not harshly. I was new to a foreign country.) I needed a place to stay.
Edward was my knight in shining armour - despite his horse of a girlfriend who'd started dating him when I'd gotten back together with Jake.
Impeccable timing. I know, right?
They dated for about a year, maybe slightly even less. I kept out of their way when she was around.
Since his offer the living arrangements have suited us both. We're both clean, easy people. We share books, we share chocolate and occasionally he'll play his piano for me. He even takes requests (just don't ask for Katy Perry… I tried it once and he tore up the music sheet I'd printed using the work printer).
"His dog died yesterday and he'd spent all of the day leading up to our date googling burial methods," I twist on my stool to face him, "he showed me taxidermy options and thinking about it is making me lose my appetite again."
"You poor thing," his British accent is a crime and whoever gave him it should be sentenced to death via Space without a helmet.
"I thought you British men were meant to be charming," I sigh, "Prince Harry oversold you all."
"You met this guy where again?" He asks me.
"Tinder," I look up at him shrugging.
"Ahh. I'm surprised that it didn't transpire into a Royal fairy tail," he opens the fridge pulling milk out, "did you try snog him so he'd turn out of his frog form?"
"Snog," I scoff.
"Cereal?" He asks pulling a box from the pantry.
"Yeah," I nod, "the microwave is broken."
"You need to stir these halfway through to make it cook right," Edward slides my meal toward him, "I'll fix it."
"You have it. I'll just have the cereal. Oh and fix my love life too," I lean forward, placing my head on the counter with a light dull thud.
"Have you tried turning…" he begins.
"If you say off and on again I'll pound you into orange juice with pulp," I don't lift my head, my threat slicing the counter.
"If it counts for anything I think he missed out," he places a bowl of cereal beside me, taking my half frozen meal away.
"Why's that," I sat up, dragging my bowl closer.
"You could have been his Meghan," he shrugs.
"I could have been his Grace Kelly," I saw as I chew, "why are you up anyway?"
"I heard you down here," he shrugs, "I was finishing off some work."
"You're always working," I shake my head, "you need to stop acting like you live to work."
Edward was a resident doctor. Following in the footsteps of his cardiologists father… but brains. Yeah… a sexy, British brain surgeon. (Any wonder I have a crush?)
"Okay well I didn't want to fuck up a patients brain so," he shrugs.
"TV and impressionable adolescence probably beat you to it," I watch him as he prepares his own bowl of cereal, deciding against the half raw meal, "when do you give head?"
"I've asked you to stop calling it that," he looks at me deadpan.
"I know you don't give blow jobs. I love watching your face when I say it," I grin, "when is the surgery, Doctor Cullen?"
"Tomorrow after lunch," he says between crunches of cereal.
"I have to prepare for work too," I shrug with one shoulder.
"You teach history," he smiles at me, "to teenagers who only care when you show them ancient brothels."
"Classier than current ones I bet," I point at him with my spoon, "besides I'm nurturing the brains you have to cut up so hush."
"Are you going to Emmett's shit tomorrow night?" He asks.
"Yeah. Rosalie said I had to wear something sexy," I rolled my eyes.
It was his birthday and he'd insisted on checking out some new nightclub. I hate nightclubs. They're sticky and loud. I also have occasionally bumped into senior students. A scenario I detest.
"What's that entail?" He looks at me.
"Near nudity," I say, "without nipples or clit."
"Jesus Christ," he runs a hand over his face, into his hair.
"Does it make you uncomfortable when I say that word?" I laugh.
"Did you drink tonight?" He looks me over.
"Not nearly enough. Don't change the subject. Is it because you don't know where to find it?" I tilt my head.
"I'm done," he puts his empty bowl in the sink, "goodnight."
I don't know what comes over me as I call after his retreating back…
"I can help you find it anytime," I yell.
"I'm doing fine on my own, thanks," he calls back.
The offer stands.
Sipping my wine I watch my best friend flirt her blonde ass off. She leans into the birthday boy, cleavage essentially on his face.
She's drunk.
For 10pm… way too drunk.
He doesn't mind. His hands are all over her.
Usually they aren't like this. All touchy, feely around the rest of us. We know they're sleeping together, but they never act as if it's more then friendship.
"That's different," Jasper mutters to me.
Alice's boyfriend. The blonde, charming cowboy that makes me feel slightly closer to home. He'd moved here for a semester of college, met Alice and moved back the day after graduating. They loved each other so much it made me hate the entire emotion because of my envy. I wanted what they had.
He worked here as an accountant. A human calculator when it came to splitting bills.
Alice was the utter opposite. A fashion writer and creative as they come. She was loud, fun and bossy. Hence why she likely loved Rosalie the second I'd introduced them.
Rosalie's personality was similar… but you need to add a dash or two of ruthless bitch. Her blonde hair, incredible figure and intelligence turned heads. The amount of numbers she was given by athletes shocks me.
Emmett was her guy of choice though. He's broad like Edward, although the three of them aren't related. (Children of adoption… each with a horrific reason they were given to their parents as children. Esme and Carlisle are human saints). Emmett's curly hair is between Rosalie's red manicured fingers, his brown eyes on her chest. He was wrapped around her finger.
"When's Edward getting here?" Jasper asks, clearly bored with the lack of male companionship.
"Depends on that surgery," I shrug, "surely soon!"
"Do you need a refill?" He motions to my drink.
It's still half full, but I nod anyway. Might as well.
"I'll be back," he pats my shoulder before standing to head to the bar.
We'd found a booth to the side of the dancefloor. The bass rattled my seat, the works of a migraine beginning to form.
"Babe," Alice takes a seat beside me, "what the fuck happened on this date? Rose told me."
"He was a weirdo," I scrunch my nose up.
"I'm sorry," sympathy floods her expression.
She sways slightly. The alcohol has made her tipsy.
"It's fine," I shrug, "dating is a sport."
"You know you're a strong independent woman who needs no man," she takes my hand.
"Yeah but that won't snuggle me during the movie on the couch at night," I shrug.
"Make my brother snuggle you," she suggests, "do you want me to make him?"
"No," I laugh, holding my hands up.
Could she?
"I just think I'm in my self pity era," I say, "it's a funk. I'll get through it. I just came here for love and it failed. I don't understand why I'm here still."
"Because of me," she flicks her hand, as if she has long hair to whip.
"I could visit," I look at her.
"You're not seriously thinking of going back to America?" She looks concerned.
"I'm considering what I want my future to look like," I nod, "my mother keeps complaining she's missing me."
"Oh Bells," she whines, moving to hug me, "please don't go! I'd miss you so much. But if you do, I'll support you no matter what."
"Nothing is set in stone," I let her hold me, "you never know what's going to happen."
As if a cruel trick from fate my phone vibrates in my hand.
Glancing down I see Edward's contact name. It's in there as 'Doctor McDicky' after I'd forced him through Grey's Anatomy.
"S.O.S. Come home. Right now! Please. I can't explain. But I need you."
I'm on the street, hailing a cab before Jasper can even return from the bar.
Thanks for reading x