A/N: I know I'm updating painfully slowly these days, but I promise it'll get better. I just don't know when exactly. Shit always seems to happen at once. Why is that?
Anywho, Kim is in the process of editing these chapters, so there's no need to review to point out the dumbest discrepancies. I'm not perfect. Shocker, right? Yes, I'm talking to you, you little anonymous deadshit, and yes I edit anon reviews if they're left simply to be an asswipe ad nauseam.
Okay, enough of this bullshit.
Enjoy.
Footprints in the Sand
Chapter 18
"Ok-kay," I stammer in reply after a good thirty seconds of gauging Edward. "Just let me get out of this dress first."
He nods once, and dumping my purse on the kitchen counter, I head toward my bedroom with bated breath. I'm definitely going into avoidance mode without even knowing what the hell he's about to tell me. Whatever it is, though, it's bothering him—that's evident enough; I'm just not so sure I want to know.
He follows me inside, and sits himself on the end of my bed. Without a word, I take a seat beside him and bend down to pull off each of my boots. Then rising back to my feet, I reach behind me and unzip my dress, allowing it to fall to the floor.
Okay, so Alice's story of being jumped by Jay simply by being in her bra seems to be in effect for Edward. He watches me closely, his pupils very obviously dilating, but he doesn't react physically. Instead, he releases his breath in a heavy rush, and glances down at his hands with slumped shoulders.
I almost subconsciously mirror him, and wrapping a robe around my semi-naked body, I lean up against the wall as an inevitability begins to filter through me.
If he's slept with Rosalie, I think I might vomit.
"What do you want to tell me?" I break the silence, struggling to keep my voice even.
He meets my gaze, keeping his trained on me for an uncomfortable moment when he breaks into a small smile and motions to me with his index finger. "Come here."
Pushing off the wall, I walk slowly toward him, taking the hand he offers and allowing him to pull me back beside him on my bed.
"I need to tell you this in case it ever comes out and you think I never said anything because I had something to hide," he explains, sounding a little too cryptic for me to handle.
"...Okay..." I say, at a loss for his meaning. Or maybe it's more out of denial.
He sighs, and then again deeper, only hedged with it is discernible frustration. "I started working with Rose a couple of months after my wife died," he begins, his voice low and sedate. "She came onto me one afternoon, and then explained it away as sympathy and... wanting to comfort me..." he pauses and glances up at me, very clearly ascertaining my reaction.
"Go on," I coax him, instinctively holding my breath for the punchline.
"Then, about a year later, she... kissed me. That time she claimed it was the alcohol and confessed to being in love with my brother. I told her if it ever happened again, it was over between us, that I'd buy her out. She promised it wouldn't, and..."
"She tried it again today, didn't she?" I state the obvious, the tremor to my voice as equally stark.
He nods and severs his eyes from mine to the floor. "She did, but this time I knew it was some kind of... twisted fucking game. I shoved her away from me and threatened to tell my brother. She laughed, called me dickless, and then tried to play it off as a joke," he mutters angrily, his scowl completely contorting his handsome face.
I shake my head because I have never been able to understand women like Rosalie. "Why?"
"She doesn't like to lose," he replies, scoffing to himself caustically, "and that's how she took my rejection. The thing is, she doesn't even want me. She loves Emmett, but you..."
"Oh my god," I mumble as all it once it makes sense, and as a short humorless laugh bursts from me. "This is all about ego for her. Pride."
"Exactly. She can't handle that anyone would prefer another woman over her. Even me." Edward's laughter almost perfectly mirrors mine, only it's seeped in bitterness. "You threaten her, Bella, and she... she threatened to tell you everything tonight."
"Everything?" I echo in continued disbelief. "What—"
He shakes his head, he's angry, but it goes so much deeper. "Just... about my wife."
"Why..." I falter, needing to collect my thoughts for a moment, but I'm as indignant as I am unable to comprehend any of it. "Why would she need to tell me anything?"
His head snaps up and his eyes burn with sudden hostility. "Because she's a fucking bitch and she knows how to get back at me. Bella..." Without warning, he pulls himself to his feet, and propping both hands on his hips, he lets his head drop. "I'm not the man Tanya painted me out to be," he says so quietly I barely hear him. "I need you to know that."
I'm on my feet in an instant before wrapping my arms tightly around him. "I believe you," I promise him, turning my head to press my face into his back. He's tense, so tense it feels as if every muscle in his body is pulled tight.
He turns in my arms and holds me flush to his chest. "Bella..." he utters more or less to himself. He really has a habit of speaking only my name, but at the same time, it's as if he's saying so much more.
Taking a momentous breath I release it, closing my eyes and tuning into the steady tempo of his heart. The relief overrunning me suddenly feels huge and I'm almost as equally exhausted.
I thought it was over between us. Over before it could ever start, and the very thought of it was gut-wrenching.
"When I'm around you I feel like I can... breathe," he murmurs, and cupping his hands to both sides of my face he tilts me to him and kisses me.
In the next moment, he has me pinned against the wall, and Rosalie quickly becomes the very last thing on my mind.
Sex with Edward is still so emotionally charged, and is over far too soon, leaving us both a mess of sweaty, breathless, twitching impulses against each other.
After, he drags back the covers of my bed, and keeping my still trembling body tucked close to his, he wraps them over us and is out cold within moments.
Just like I did the first time, I watch him, marveling again at the vulnerability that overtakes his expression in sleep that's completely absent otherwise, until I can no longer keep my eyes open.
It feels like only a few minutes later when he wakes me for round two, and as I'm recovering after, my body achingly satisfied, he suddenly hoists me into his arms, and carries me into the bathroom.
He runs us both a bath. I settle in with him behind me amidst the hot, soapy water and release a long languid moan.
He echoes me almost instantly, and plants his lips behind my ear. "Everything about you still surprises the hell out of me."
"Hmm?" I mumble, turning to nuzzle his jaw.
"You believed me without question. No suspicion. No jealousy... Where the hell did you come from...?" He appears to wonder out loud with sentiments of incredulity
"Forks," I answer as he breaks into husky-sounding laughter. "Do you think I'm naïve?"
"Mm... no, you're not naïve. You're just... real," he decides to go with, bending to press his warm lips to my shoulder.
"You thought I was going to accuse you of lying..." I surmise with a frown, and it leaves me wondering, again, exactly what kind of women he's been around.
What kind of woman was his wife?
I hate to even guess.
He doesn't really answer; instead, he expels his breath and moans with it rustically as he drags his nose along my neck.
I tilt my head to the side to better accommodate him and that's when I notice the box of birth control pills still sitting on my vanity. I can only assume he saw them the first night, but I put the question to him regardless before he can distract me from it.
"You know I'm on the pill, right?"
"Mmm... Yes," he answers sounding more than a little side-tracked as he continues to probe my flesh with kisses.
"How did—"
"You told me," he says so matter-of-factly that I immediately pause.
"I... did?"
"You did."
"When? I-I don't remember," I stumble over my words, but I have absolutely no memory of it.
"Last week in Rosalie's bathroom," he answers simply, making me want to groan out loud. Of course I did, and of course I don't remember it, either. I barely remember things when I'm not drunk, "but then we came back here, and I knocked them off the sink. Remember?"
"Hmm... You were kind of distracting me," I say ruefully, relieved more than I am embarrassed. I was beginning to suspect he's had a vasectomy. "Edward?" I ask, happy to change the subject; he only hums in question. "How does your father know Tyler?"
He pauses for a moment in obvious thought. "I'm pretty sure his mother is an RN under him."
"An RN under your father?" I clarify.
"That's right, and I guess my father knows he's at Harborview as well. Do you see him when you're at work—your ex, I mean?"
"Not really, he's in pre-op. I've seen him a few times in the cafeteria, but I look straight through him—my father's rules for dealing with an ex," I say lightly, chuckling.
He hums again and curves his arms around my mid-section. "Your father sounds like a very smart man."
He spoke of him in the present tense and it immediately engulfs me with a level of emotion that takes me by surprise.
"He was," I agree as my voice inevitably falls and threatens to break. "I miss him. So much."
"I'm sorry, sweetheart," he says softly against my temple.
"Yeah," I whisper, biting my bottom lip to keep my tears at bay.
Charlie used to call me sweetheart, and I always thought from anyone else, I'd never be able to tolerate it, but from Edward it's the complete opposite. It makes my heart warm.
"Hey," he speaks up after a moment of holding me tightly to his chest.
"Hmm?" I reply, roughly inhaling my emotions back and glancing at him over my shoulder.
He captures my lips with his tenderly but briefly, before moving them to my ear. "I bet I can tire that brain of yours out a lot better than running," he teases me, and there's a grit behind his voice that instantly arouses my senses.
"You already d—"
He inches his fingers between my legs and over delicate flesh and that sensitive bundle of nerves that sharply draws my breath and comes close to propelling me out of my skin.
On impulse, I grip the rim of the bath with both hands as he a little-too-expertly navigates me into pure, raw, unimaginable bliss that steals the very air from my lungs.
I'm left gasping and awestruck as streaks of white light dim behind my closed eyes and all lucid thought abandons me. In fact, I'm almost certain I'm about to start seizing.
This man is absolutely trying to kill me.
"Oh... my god," I barely manage to utter out as he chuckles huskily from behind me.
"Like that, did you?" His voice has become all but a growl, and I realize I should be offering to return the pleasure, but I'm not confident I even have full brain function right now.
My hands slip from the edges of the bath and I turn so fluid against him I'm beginning to feel like I'm oozing out of my skin.
Then, in one motion, I flip myself over until I'm straddling his hips, with my palms wedged into his chest in an effort to keep my bearings. "Just wait until my thoughts are coherent again," I say, struggling to rein in my breath, as he grins lazily up at me full of self-satisfaction.
. . .
I wake the next morning alone in my bed, and as I turn over and reach instinctively for Edward's warm body, my hand makes contact with nothing but an empty pillow. And paper.
"Huh?" I utter out in confusion before groggily sitting up and taking the note he left me.
You looked too beautiful to disturb. I'll see you at Starbucks in Pacific Pl. with Addie at 11.
I had a good time last night.
Edward.
His handwriting is still as ridiculously neat as it was when I became Bella-from-next-door-to-grandma's-house, but my reaction to it this time is the polar opposite.
I no longer think he's gay, and I have, without a single doubt, completely fallen for him.
Despite the fact I'm unsure I can even walk, I jump out of bed with a spring in my step and my grin broad. I need a shower out of absolute necessity. I'm salty with dried sweat and oozing with Edward, and as much as I enjoy the combined scent of sex and that handsome man all over my skin, it's not exactly appropriate around his daughter.
. . .
I arrive first with Alice hot on my heels, and together we order coffee while we wait for Edward and Addie, because Alice cannot do anything, shopping notwithstanding, without caffeine first.
Edward's late, and just when I contemplate calling him, a familiar chirpy little voice choruses my name exactly three seconds before she attaches herself to my leg.
Her hair is free around her shoulders and she's wearing a multitude of colors that makes me think she picked out her own outfit.
"Hi, sweetie," I greet her, and releasing me she all but throws herself into my arms.
"Look, Daddy gave me money," she announces holding up a crumpled fifty dollar bill.
"Well, aren't you lucky," I note just as Edward walks into the café behind her, a temperate smile warming his face.
He's wearing black jeans, a dark grey sweater, and... white, one-star chucks. It feels so foreign to see him out of a suit that for a moment I almost don't recognize him. He pulls it off well, though, and it adds even more dimension to him.
With Addie distracted by Alice, he draws me against him and kisses the side of my brow. "Sorry I'm late. It was a nightmare finding a park."
"It's fine," I assure him as he breaks into an immediate grin. "Do you want to stay for a moment and have coffee with us?"
"Sure," he agrees as Addie grabs my hand and practically starts swinging from me.
"Hey!" Edward says, a short firmness behind his tone that immediately grabs Addie's attention. "What did I say?"
Addie sighs and all but rolls her eyes. "I'm not acting too silly, Daddy."
With a small, internal sigh, Edward turns to order, while Alice, Addie and I find a table. Addie perches herself on top of my lap, wiping her hair from her face with obvious frustration.
Something tells me her father isn't exactly dexterous in the hair department.
"I'll braid your hair for you, if you like," I offer as she sucks in her breath with open elation.
"Really?"
"Really really. Once we're done here, 'kay?"
Nodding with excitement, she twists around and wraps her arms around my neck, almost whacking me in the nose with her cast in the process.
"Oh my god, she is drop dead adorable," Alice gushes, wistful grin wide.
Addie giggles, until her father arrives, two paper cups in hand. After placing them to the table, he lifts Addie from my lap and onto the seat beside me. He takes the chair on the other side of her.
"Did you put marshmallows in it, Daddy?" she asks, picking up the cup and attempting to wrangle off the lid.
"I did, worrywart," Edward replies, closing his hand over hers to stop her before she spills hot chocolate all over herself.
Satisfied, Addie takes a loud, slurpy sip as Edward closes his eyes and groans only semi beneath his breath.
"I bet you wondered what you ever did without her, Edward," Alice says, chuckling.
Edward only hums in reply, bringing the paper cup to his lips.
"Guess what, Bella?" Addie suddenly pipes up.
"What?" I play along.
"Daddy thought you were my imaginary friend," she outs her father as he immediately chokes on the coffee he's drinking in the same insane speed he usually does.
"...Did he?" I pause, as Alice scoffs back her reaction.
"He's silly sometimes," Addie continues on. "Only babies have imaginary friends, and I'm not a baby."
"You're definitely not," I agree.
"You talk too much," Edward says, his voice still restricted, but he's unable to disguise the affection behind it.
"Bella's gonna braid my hair, Daddy," she changes course on a dime.
"Is she?"
"She is—aren't you, Bella?" She whips her head around to me in anticipation for my answer.
"I am."
"See, Daddy. Bella asked me first, so I'm not bothering her too much."
Edward sighs this time, and without another word, finishes his coffee.
"How do you not scald your throat, Edward?" Alice asks the obvious question.
"Grandma says Daddy used to live in Siberia in his other life," Addie answers for him, pronouncing the "t-h" in "other" as a "v".
"She really doesn't sound like a five year old," Alice notes, bemused.
"No kidding," Edward says in droll agreement, before turning to Addie and planting his palm to the top of her head. "Didn't I have a word to you about not talking Bella's ear off?"
She frowns in obvious confusion, and looking entirely too much like her father, before she once more turns her large, clear green eyes to me. "Am I talking your ears off, Bella?"
"Well... not yet," I reassure her, fighting the urge to laugh.
"Grandma's ears never fall off when I talk to her," Addie adds with the innocence of her age, as Alice bursts into laughter.
"You'd better be careful, Edward. I just might steal her from you," she teases him.
Edward smiles in acknowledgement, and hums, his expression partially exasperated.
Pulling her fifty dollar bill from her pocket, Addie holds it above her head and observes it. "Can I buy a Woobix Cube with this, Bella?"
"You should be able to—you want a Rubik's Cube?" I put to her, surprised.
She nods her head with excessively enthusiasm, and opens her mouth to reply when Edward cuts her off.
"Give your money to Bella to hold before you lose it." Plucking it from her hand he passes it to me.
"I'll keep it safe for you, okay, sweetie?" I promise her, tucking it inside my purse.
"Okay, Bella," she says, sweeter than honey, and she speaks my name almost as much as her father does.
"When I was five I wanted an American Girl doll," Alice chimes in.
"I have an American Girl," Addie replies. "Her name's Sage but Daddy says she gives him the heebie jeebies."
"Okay, I'm going to get going," Edward says abruptly, pulling himself to his feet. "What time do you want me to pick her up?" he asks Alice, planting his palm once again to the top of Addie's head.
"Hmm, about two-ish—we'll message you beforehand," Alice assures him.
With a nod, Edward turns to me and places his hand momentarily to my shoulder, before grabbing Addie's hand and turning in the direction of the exit. "We'll be back in a moment," he says as Addie opens her mouth to protest.
Alice and I both watch discreetly as he leads her back into the mall, then leaning down to Addie's eye-level, Edward proceeds to talk to her. He taps the back of his index finger to her chest, and then takes her chin and shakes it playfully. Whatever he's saying, Addie nods in response, wiping her hair out of her eyes in continued frustration as Edward tucks it gently behind her ears.
"Girl, marry that man before I do," Alice jokes, despite the serious edge to her tone.
"Uh-huh," I murmur because fatherhood only adds one hundred and ten degrees more to Edward's depth, and it's sexy as sin.
Their conversation is concluded when Addie wraps her arms around Edward's neck, before he once again takes her hand and heads back inside.
"Okay, two then?" he ventures as I get to my feet before him.
"Thereabouts," Alice answers as Edward transfers Addie's hand to mine.
"Goodbye, Daddy."
"See you soon, tiger, and remember, be good." He tugs her earlobe this time as Addie giggles.
"I will be," she replies in a tone that suggests he's the child.
"Bella..." Edward speaks my name again with half a wink, and I'm forced to hold off the raging blush I can feel working its way up my neck.
"Edward," I reciprocate, only it comes out as little more than a squeak.
His grin broadens, and placing his first two fingers to his brow he salutes Alice in farewell and exists the café.
"Okay, where to first?" Alice says, downing the rest of her coffee and practically bouncing to her feet.
Like Edward, I finished mine a lot faster than normal that I'm beginning to wonder whether I'm subconsciously mirroring him.
"First, let's fix Addie's hair so it doesn't bother her for the rest of the day," I say digging into my purse for spare hair ties.
Addie takes my hand, and we leave Starbucks for the nearest Mall bench. Alice supplies the comb, and after parting Addie's hair, I tie it into twin Dutch braids that fall to her waist.
"You were destined to have daughters, Bells," Alice observes, shaking her head slightly to herself because despite my best efforts to teach her to braid growing up, she was never able to master it.
Smirking to myself, I turn to Addie. "Better?"
Nodding, she runs her fingers meticulously over it. "Oooh... Bella?"
"Hmm?" I say as she grabs my hand again and jumps off the seat.
"Daddy said I'm not allowed to talk too much, so if I do you won't tell him, will you?" She looks so earnest that only a monster could turn her down, and as it is, her assurances come from Alice.
"Of course we won't, silly!" she insists. "Okay, I made the appointment at BHLDN for 11:30, so we'd better skedaddle."
BHLDN is a bridal and formal wear boutique across the road and two blocks west of Pacific Place Mall. We make it without a minute to spare, as Addie skips along to mine and Alice's hurried pace, her hand clasped firmly around mine.
"Alice Brandon—soon to be Whitlock—for a flower girl fitting," Alice relays to the sales woman who practically jumps on us the instant we walk through the doors.
"We've been expecting you. Right this way," she says, opening her arm to the interior of the store and smiling down at Addie brightly. "Hello, honey, are you going to be a flower girl?"
She's speaking to Addie as though she's impaired as Alice and I share a pointed look. Addie doesn't appear to mind, though, and only nods her head vigorously, her tongue stuck out of the corner of her mouth even as her smile pulls wide.
"Uh-huh, and this is Bella," Addie introduces me, tugging my sweater. "She's going to marry my daddy."
While Alice makes a poor attempt to smother her snicker, I barely utter out a single syllable as the sales woman turns to me with a beaming smile.
"How lovely. When's the wedding?"
"Oh, uh..." I wrack my brain for a plausible lie when Alice saves me from the torture of it.
"They haven't set a date yet."
"I see." Clearing her throat, the woman turns her attention to Addie. "Alright, young lady, let's get you looking like a princess, shall we?"
Addie immediately takes the hand she offers, looking at me over her shoulder with excitement lighting up her eyes.
"Bells..." Alice speaks in confidence against my ear, a troubled tenor infecting her voice for the first time.
"Yeah?" I turn to her in slight confusion.
"You know she has ADHD, don't you?" And while she asks, it's definitely not a question.
Expelling a conceding breath, I nod once. "Yeah, I do."
"How's Edward going to take it?" she inquires as a humorless laugh bursts from me.
"Not well," I mumble, waving at Addie when she glances back at me again, and hastily forcing the smile to my face. "Not well, at all."
A/N: I often find it difficult to make Addie precocious without being a brat. Am I succeeding? Anyway, thank you for reading :)