A/N: Sorry for the delay. The last few weeks have been shit! Three funerals in two weeks kind of shit. Yeah...
Someone PMed me to ask whether there's going to be a chapter from Edward's POV. I thought about it, but no. I feel like it would remove all mystery, and where would the fun be in that?

Footprints in the Sand

Chapter 13

Emotion hits me first.

There's something about throwing up that turns me into a complete baby. When I was little my father used to place an icepack on my chest and rub my belly; telling me funny stories as a distraction from it. Right now, though, not much can distract from the fact I got drunk on our first date, in front of his friends and brother, as well as a vile woman he obviously has a very questionable history with.

"Do you feel better?" Edward asks, reaching out to wipe stray strands of my hair off my face.

I nod in a fractured movement, unable to maintain eye contact with him. "Did I throw up in my hair?" I ask in barely a whisper, dangerously close to tears. I'm fairly certain I made sure my hair was vomit-free five minutes ago, but for the life of me I don't remember.

His smile is pitifully tender and subtly hedged with amusement. "I don't think so." Bending forward, he presses his nose and lips momentarily to the top of my head. "It smells nice."

"Edward..."

"I'm so sorry, Bella," he says sounding suddenly distracted, and while all evidence of the brewing storm from only moments ago is dissipating, he still appears incredibly overwrought. "I should have warned you. Rose serves alcohol like she drinks it."

I scoff to myself, but considering I'm moments from falling apart, it comes out sounding like a whimper. "I'm a big girl, Edward, and it's not your job to babysit me."

He shakes his head, his frown increasing. "Bell—"

"Are you finished with the bathroom?" A voice breaks in.

Edward glances over his shoulder as I look up to see Irina standing in the doorway. She throws me a smile that's as authentic as the Botox in her forehead, and severing her eyes, I hastily drop mine to the tiled-floor.

"Find another one!" Edward snaps, kicking the door so hard it slams closed.

I flinch. Actually, I more than flinch; I almost jump into the ceiling.

"Bella," he starts over, placing both his hands to my shoulders, "the same thing happened to me once. Rose kept refilling my glass before I could finish, and before I knew it, I had no idea how much I'd drank. I saw her doing it tonight, but... you appeared fine..." He glances away, and removing one of his hands, he drags it stiffly over his scalp.

I nod slowly and somewhat disjointedly, but it gives me no real comfort.

"Did she do it deliberately?" I hesitate to ask, because I'm not sure of anything anymore, and it's a state of mind I hate being in.

"She knows if she ever pulled something like that she'd have to deal with me," he says a little too passionately as his expression once again clouds.

I nod a second time and offer him a completely uncertain smile. It's something, I guess.

"Jesus, Bella, I'm so sorry," he repeats, and encircling me in his arms, he pulls me impulsively to his chest.

I'm immediately encased in warmth, and it has such an immediate calming effect on me that I turn almost fluid against him.

I have no idea what I'm doing with this man, but right now, I'm positive I could stay in his arms for an eternity.

"Alice gave her a nickname," I speak up after a moment still sounding too wholly drunk.

"Hmm?"

"Urine," I say just as he breaks into muffled laughter that bathes me in the torridness of his breath.

"Bella... You make me laugh," he murmurs, planting his lips briefly to my forehead. "Let's get out of here," he suggests after pulling back to meet my gaze.

I stare into his too intense, too intimidating green eyes for several long moments and realize they're reflecting the same volatile emotion as I'm feeling.

I nod, and my smile this time is almost genuine.

. . .

Alice meets us just outside the bathroom, fussing over me a little too much for my liking.

"We're leaving," I fill her in, after intercepting her hands and returning them to her side.

"So are me and Jay," she replies, and that's when I notice she's a lot tipsier than she usually is as well. "I don't know how much longer I can put up with Brittany Spears and her two ugly step-sisters." She rolls her eyes, while beside me Edward snorts softly to himself.

"I'll call you tomorrow, okay?" I say, opening my arms to hug her.

"Aw poor, bells," she bemoans just between the two of us. "Get some caffeine into you, okay?"

"I will," I assure her, feeling my smile quickly fade. "I'll be alright."

"Bye, doll," Alice says to Edward, stretching up on her toes to plant her lips to his cheek. "Look after her for me."

"Will do," he replies while I feign ignorance.

Placing an arm around my shoulder, which is evidently more out of support than a show of affection, Edward leads me to the exit. He helps me back into my coat as I pull out all stops not to sway and stumble against him; this is when Rosalie clues on that we're about to escape and immediately makes her way over.

"You're not leaving?" she blurts a little too passionately, and while she's not drunk she's well on her way there.

"Yeah, we are," Edward answers stiffly, and closing the distance, he adds in practically a sneer, "You could have warned me you invited her."

"God, Edward, I thought she'd grown out of all that bullshit," she says sounding annoyed, but Rosalie is a person I don't think I'll ever work out, nor am I sure I even want to. When her attention turns to me she hands me a bottle of water. "Bella, we keep getting off on the wrong foot."

"Thanks for inviting me, Rose," I reply, forcing out a minimal amount of courtesy and ignoring anything else.

"Shall we aim for third time's a charm?" she asks, offering me a smile as her eyebrows pull high.

Edward huffs. "Not right now." She opens her mouth to say more when he immediately cuts her off, "Tell Emmett I left."

We ride the elevator in silence, hands clasped together, but while I stare at the floor, Edward's steely gazed is fixed straight ahead, his thoughts obviously elsewhere. It takes less than a minute to reach the bottom, but it's enough time for the doubt and dark thoughts to penetrate my still incohesive mind. This is when the tears break free, and I have no hope of holding them back than I do concealing them from Edward.

"Hey," he says, his voice overrunning with not only concern, but alarm.

I shake my head, futilely wiping my face dry as we step out into the chilled night air. I'm humiliated enough, and despite my best efforts, my shoulders begin to wrack with sobs.

"Come sit down." He guides me to a park bench a few feet from the entrance, and angles himself beside me. "Bella..."

"I-I'm so... mortified," I stammer, burying my face in my hands as one last paltry effort at retaining any dignity.

"You've got nothing to be mortified about," he promises me in a responsive voice as he attempts to pull my hands free. "Bella... look at me."

I shake my head, steadfastly keeping my face hidden. I'm positive he must think I'm behaving like a child, but I can't look him in the eye right now.

He expels a heavy breath and rests his nose to the top of my head. He's cold, I realize, but I'm so flushed my skin almost feels like it's burning.

"You weren't stumbling around drunk and making a fool of yourself. If you were I would have immediately taken you home. You seemed fairly composed, and then... it just suddenly hit you."

My only response is something completely unintelligible as the tears continue to spill between my fingers and down my hands.

"Tell me what ADHD is really like," he attempts a new approach. "Bella..." Exasperation seeps behind his voice, and slipping his fingers to my chin, he forces me to meet his gaze.

"You w-want to know what it's really like?" I hiccup pathetically, and cupping both hands to my face, Edward runs his thumbs over my cheekbones attempting to capture my tears.

He nods and flashes me a smile I think is meant to be encouraging, but he's looking at me as if I were something sad and wretched.

"It's like having ten brains—ten smaller brains that equal one normal-sized brain—and every one of those ten brains is doing something different." Impatiently, I swat my tears away, and roughly inhale back fresh ones. "Often times I get lost trying to keep up with them, and I repeat myself—all the time! So, really, I'm just an imbecile, and my entire life is spent trying to stop people from figuring that out," I conclude, laughing once flatly.

"Hey—don't do that!" Edward bursts so abruptly it surprises me. "That's not who you are at all."

"Then who am I?" I ask, but my voice is so hopelessly broken it practically fails.

"Who are you is someone who's just had too much to drink, and I don't tend to be attracted to imbeciles," he finishes lightly, before delicately removing wet strands of hair from my eyelashes.

"Edward, I... I'm not sure if I fit in your world," I admit ashamedly, because the truth is I never want to see those people again.

"I don't fit in my world," he immediately counters. "I have to see Rose because I work with her, but I'm lucky to see my brother once a month. I don't spend my time around people like that, Bella. So, if you want to back out on this, do it because of me, not because of those bitches upstairs."

I stall, unsure whether my emotions can be trusted at the moment, and what comes out of my mouth surprises the hell out of me. "I think you were right the first time. We're just too different."

His frown immediately pushes back to the surface with obvious sentiments of frustration. "What if I want different? What if I want real?" he appeals to me, placing his palm back to my cheek to keep his gaze locked to mine.

"If I'm different and... r-real..." I stammer behind a shuddering breath. "What are you?"

"I'm..." he pauses and pushes his rigid fingers through his hair as a single, emotionally-charged laugh bursts from him. "I'm just a guy raising a little girl who'd given up on all women until I met you."

I don't reply, I can't, all words have left me as I stare into the intense depths of his eyes, and for the first time since I met him, I realize he's not nearly as intimidating as he appears.

He leans toward me, only slightly, but enough to make his intentions known as I immediately plant my palm to his chest. "What does my breath smell like?"

Jesus, I'm still drunk.

In response that smirk he's so good at lights up across his face. "Peppermint."

I nod, at least I attempt to, when his mouth closes over mine.

His kiss isn't brief this time, and while it's gentle and tender, it quickly grows in depth and intensity. His nose slips against mine flooding me in the warmth of his breath, as his lips, both firm and supple, take me so deeply down with him I begin to lose myself.

I reach out and grab two fistfuls of his sweater and tug him to me, needing something, anything, to anchor myself to, when he suddenly pulls out of it. Then, planting those hot lips of his once more to my brow, he slides his hand to the nape of my neck and encloses me in his arms.

My forehead thuds to his shoulder while my heart beats so erratically it's making me feel as drunk and lightheaded as it does ravaged by emotion. Tears threaten to spill over again, even as I stubbornly hold them back.

What is this man doing to me? I honestly have no idea.

"Bella..." he breaks the momentary silence before expelling a very resigned-sounding breath and inching me back to again meet my eyes, "I know what you heard earlier, and I need you to..." he abandons it, scoffing to himself in obvious exacerbation. "Shit..."

What I heard earlier... I'm not sure I even want to know more.

"Edward, you don't—"

"I don't talk about my wife. It's better if I don't, but I don't want you thinking of me as some kind of piece of shit who cheated on her while she was pregnant," he explains, as his eyes, now burning below his heavily furrowed brow, almost plead with me.

I nod, holding my breath against an inevitability I'm not sure even exists.

"I miss her. Every day," he begins, and looking awkwardly down, he speaks to his left hand he has balled tightly into a fist, "but just as equally, I thank god she's dead and I don't have to deal with her anymore." This is when his eyes rise slowly back to mine, as the most pain-filled expression encompasses his face. "And, most importantly, I know she'll never be able to hurt Addie."

My mouth falls partially open as I fight the urge to gasp. "Edward..."

Who the hell was this woman he was married to? The woman who gave birth to Addie?

Maybe I'm still under the effects of alcohol but I can barely comprehend any of it. All I'm aware of is the urge I have to hold him, to comfort him, as much as I want to bury myself against his chest and forget this horrible night ever happened.

"Tanya was... she was around when I hit the lowest point in my life," he adds, his frown this time reflecting a definite anger and resentment even as he turns his head to stare at seemingly nothing, "and now she thinks she's... entitled to god-knows-what from me."

"Why did Rose invite her?" I ask the obvious question, because it makes absolutely no sense unless his business partner is a callous, heartless bitch.

He scoffs again dryly.

"Who the hell knows..." he mutters before visibly pulling himself from it. "You want to get some coffee?" he asks while my heart almost breaks.

This incredibly intimidating man is hiding a world of hurt behind those sharp eyes of his, and I can't believe I didn't see it before now. I know the mark that death leaves on your soul; why didn't I recognize it in him?

I nod, my tears once again spilling over, but they're no longer stemmed from self-pity.

Alice once said when you cry for another it's your heart's way of telling you you're in love with them.

Is that what this is?

"What is it with you and coffee?" I make a terrible effort to tease him before bowing my head and hastily drying my eyes. "I must look like an absolute mess."

"Bella, you're beautiful," he professes so matter-of-factly and with such a charming smile that my face flashes beet red.

"Thanks," I mumble awkwardly.

"I mean it—look at me." Tipping my chin so he can see my face, he grazes his thumb over my bottom lip. "You are effortlessly beautiful."

"I... so are you," I utter like a complete lunatic, as his laughter pushes muffled through his nose.

"Come on..." Rising to his feet, he takes my hand and pulls me to mine. "Let's go."

. . .

After Edward practically picks me up and places me into the car the same way he did with Addie the previous week, he head's north. It's just past nine-thirty, but for some reason I thought it was closer to midnight.

He drives for roughly a mile, past the ferry dock to Bainbridge Island, and turns down a back street to park his car.

"I hope you don't mean to get me on that thing?" I say aghast as The Great Wheel looms just ahead, which means we're close to Pier 57.

Edward chuckles. "Maybe not tonight."

After somewhat fixing my makeup, I allow him to draw me from the car. I practically fall against him, and releasing my hand, he wraps his arm securely around my shoulders. It's having the opposite effect on me than I think he intended though; his warmth and the smell of his aftershave is only making me drunker.

Along the roadside a street vendor is still operating selling coffee and fast-food, and I don't realize how hungry I am until I catch the sickly sweet aroma of hotdogs on the breeze.

Edward buys two, and while I squirt a generous helping of ketchup and mustard over mine, he adds pickles to his. Then together with a very large cardboard cup of cheap filtered coffee in hand, we cross the road to the waterfront.

After finding a seat along the pier that faces over the bay, Edward adds sugar to his coffee, while I devour my hotdog in three bites. There's something about greasy food absorbing alcohol in the bloodstream and I'm almost instantly cured.

"Oh my god," I practically moan into my coffee after. "That feels so much better."

"Bella I...I wanted to take your drink off you so many times tonight, but that would have made me look like a dick," Edward dips his head closer to me and explains.

Expelling an ashamed breath, I turn to face him. "I should have been more aware of how much I was drinking."

"I took you somewhere unfamiliar. I should have taken care of you better," he says quietly, more to himself as he takes a sip of his coffee and instantly grimaces. "Oh, Jesus."

"I know. It tastes like... dishwater," I agree, taking another gulp regardless, because with each drop I swallow the wooziness still afflicting me subsides.

"You bounce back fast," he notes.

"Hmm, not much gets me drunk, so it doesn't take a lot to get me sober," I admit, glancing up at the giant Ferris wheel lit up in neon blue.

"You're a lightweight," he teases me, nudging his shoulder with mine.

I laugh in admission. "I am. A total lightweight. So..." I meet his eyes squarely, "what did you figure out about me tonight?"

"That you're a pessimist when you're drunk," he says simply with his smirk ghosting on the edges of his lips.

I shake my head good-naturedly, as he casually drops his hand to my leg. I cover it with my own.

"What did you figure out about me?" he asks after a moment.

"Hmm... that you were fully prepared to follow me into the bathroom and hold my hair back, so I don't think you're as faint-hearted as you claim."

He laughs again beneath his breath. "I have a five year old. I'm a pro at holding hair back."

"Well, it was sweet of you anyway..." Without really thinking, I angle my head to rest it on his shoulder, and removing his hand, he snakes it around me and pulls me close.

"So, what you figured out about me is that I'm sweet," he says rhetorically.

I hum in admittance.

"Stupidly handsome and sweet... Two things no one but you has ever used to describe me," he muses.

I glance at him cynically for a moment. "Do you think I'm wrong?"

His smile hints with amusement again and he slightly shakes his head. "No, you just see things differently."

I dong his knee playfully with my fist. "You're making me self-conscious saying that all the time."

"It's what I like about you, Bella," he says, turning his head and pressing his lips briefly to my temple. "Everything you say surprises me."

I break into a genuine smile for the first time since I stupidly got myself drunk, and taking a deep breath, I release it in a rush. "Well, if they're the woman you're used to, it doesn't surprise me that you want different."

"You say that like you're not the different I'm talking about," he points out, his expression suddenly dubious.

"Hmm?" This man has a real habit of speaking in riddles. Or maybe the alcohol's still affecting me.

"Bella..." he pauses as if he's reconsidering his words. "I want you to be straight with me."

"Huh? I mean, I am—"

"What you said earlier, about us being too different? Is that how you really feel?" He's serious again, I realize.

"No... I mean, I was just... embarrassed and... It's not what I really feel," I mumble, chewing on my bottom lip timidly. His gaze is so all-encompassing I'm positive he could stare me into obscurity.

A gust of wind sweeps over us. Edward visibly shivers as it carries several strands of my hair over his face. Reaching out he tucks it back behind my ear. "Would you like to come back to my house, or is that too forward?" he lightly teases me.

I open my mouth to answer but immediately stall even as my heart threatens to leap out of my chest. Jesus, and I thought Alice was being too idealistic by suggesting a week. "It's very forward, but no. Come to my house and I'll make you a decent coffee."

He breaks into an immediate grin and nods his head, then taking my hand in his he pulls me from the bench and immediately wraps me in his arms. I'm beginning to think it's for his warmth as much as it is for mine.

"Why didn't you bring a jacket?" I ask as he hurries me across the road toward his car. I can feel his flesh lightly shuddering against mine as I futilely attempt to ignore what it's doing to me skin-deep.

"I didn't think I'd be sitting outside tonight," he replies, and, whether he's aware of it or not, making me feel terrible in the process.

"God, I'm sorry," I mutter. "What a terrible date I turned out to be."

"We can talk about who was the worse date over text sometime," he says with a small smile, and pulling his keys from his pants pocket, he unlocks his car, and opens the passenger-side door for me.

We arrive back at my apartment in two minutes as Edward parks in one of the few spaces reserved for visitors. I exit the car before he does, overruning with anticipation as much as my nerves are shot. I'm dying to see this gorgeous man naked, but I'm suddenly questioning my skills in the downstairs grooming department. Not to mention, every insecurity and neurotically irrational thought is suddenly racing through my mind.

Is it too soon?

Is this all he wants from me?

Will I have to fake an orgasm?

Will he text me after tonight?

Will he think I sleep around if I tell him I'm on the pill?

Will he make the first move?

I'm so hopelessly lost in them that it almost escapes my attention when Edward threads his long fingers with mine. Then of course, after keying in the security pin to unlock the main entrance doors, I open them and narrowly miss Edward's head in the process. He swerves at the last minute, and while I'm dying of mortification, he looks to be fighting the urge of all-out laughter.

"I'm completely sober now, I promise," I say a little too desperately as he only continues to find extreme amusement in me.

I'm fairly certain this is the main reason why I find Edward so intimidating. No one wants a man as handsome as he is laughing at you. Unless he somehow finds my ADHD endearing; in which case I have zero idea how to take that.

He follows me up the single flight of stairs to my apartment, and then takes my elbow as I offload my heels just inside. Then crouching to one knee, he follows suit and unties the laces of his black dress shoes. For some odd reason I find myself wondering how he'd look in chucks.

Good, I quickly conclude; this man could wear a brown paper bag and still ooze sex appeal.

"I only have half and half," I say after reefing open the refrigerator door. "Is that okay?"

"All good," he replies.

I turn my head to glance at him when I realize his eyes are glued to my refrigerator. Or more accurately, to the drawing Addie gave me several weeks back hanging on the door with a Forks magnet.

The drawing of Edward with his frown just as pronounced as it is right now.

A/N: Thank you for reading. Hope you enjoyed :)