A/N: Wow, y'all! I can't believe all of the reviews/favorites/follows this story has received in such a short amount of time—thank you so much!

So, I know a lot of you are wanting some chapters in Edward's POV, but I think I enjoy writing in Bella's POV too much to stray from that. I mostly just wanted to introduce this story with the prologue being slightly different than the rest of the other chapters.

I also want to mention that this story will be a bit of a slow burn... So, if that isn't your cup of tea, just know that you've been warned lol.

Until the next chapter,
-Dev

P.S. I want to dedicate this chapter to my sister, Alex. She has been my biggest supporter (and pain in the ass) since day one. Love you, Al! :)

Monday afternoon, Alex spends a good half-an-hour sitting on Edward's front porch, flirting with him over sodas. I'll admit to watching this, but not because I'm spying on Edward. I just find it amusing to watch Alex fail miserably at her attempts to snag the hottie, however creepy, across the street.

Edward seems to enjoy her company well enough, but he doesn't act towards her anywhere near the same way he acts towards me. He talks, he smiles, he laughs, but he doesn't touch her or crowd her. In fact, from where I'm standing, he almost seems like a normal person. Almost.

Just as I'm considering the possibility that maybe I've been overreacting when it comes to Edward, Alex is whisked off by a group of her friends. I can tell that she's invited Edward to come along, but he glances up at my bedroom window and then turns her down. He waves as the car Alex jumps into drives off, and the second it's out of sight he immediately heads towards my house.

My heart races as I run downstairs. I tell myself, again, that I'm overreacting and that he's normal, but for some reason I still hesitate to open the door when the doorbell rings. I stand there, debating, my hand about to turn the knob, when his silky voice calls out to me.

"Bel-laaa," he sings. "Come out, come out, wherever you are! The cat's finally away, so time for the mouse to come out and play."

Instead of opening the door, as slowly and as silently as I can manage, I lock it. Then I creep back up to my room, hoping to catch a glimpse of his face as he goes back home. I peek out the side of the shade and wait for him to cross the street, but instead a dark shadow appears in front of my window. I leap back and flatten myself against the wall just as Edward knocks on it.

"Bella," he calls, without the playful singing this time. "C'mon—I know you're in there. I also know you have a weakness for ice-cream. Come spend time with me, and we'll go to Dairy Queen. My treat."

My mouth waters at the thought of a Heath Blizzard, and I nearly open my window. Except...How does he know my ice-cream addiction?

"At least tell me you found my note."

Note? What note?

Edward sighs, and then, as if reading my thoughts, says, "Look at the high scores on Skateboard Pro 2000."

Of course I check. How can I not?

I'm admittedly relieved when I see my score still at the top of the list, but the next score is only one point lower than the one before it. As baffled by the impossibility of the scores as I am, I'm even more surprised by the names claiming them—or words, rather. The top ten names on the high score list now reads:

1. Bella
2. You're
3. The
4. Only
5. Reason
6. I
7. Don't
8. Hate
9. Living
10. Here

I blink. I read the message again. Then I have to sit down—this is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me, and definitely the closest thing to a romantic gesture that I've ever received. I can feel the flush in my cheeks, but while my heart is thumping, my brain is only processing fear. How did he do this? And when? These scores were normal the last time I played the game, and that was after the day I woke up to find Edward in my room.

"Bella?"

Startled, I quietly go back over to my bed, sit there with my legs crossed, and wait. After a minute more, I hear Edward get up and leave. I peek out the window and watch him scale himself down the big tree next to my house.

He goes back home, and as he walks past the punching bag in his garage, he takes an angry swing at it. He starts to go inside, and then turns around and punches the thing again with his other hand. Then, suddenly, he's beating the bag to a bloody pulp. He pounds it for a solid five minutes with punches so fast I swear I can't even see half of them. When he finally stops to catch his breath, he shakes his hand and examines his knuckles. After that, with one last glance in my direction, he disappears into his house.

The next day I go to the park to get in a pick-up game, and I notice Edward watching me from a distance. After that, I spend the rest of the week in my room, and I'm really starting to go crazy. I'm lying on my bed reading a Spiderman comic when I hear a car start up. It sounds too nice to be any of my neighbors' minivans. I peer out my window, just in time to see Edward drive off in his BMW.

I don't waste a second of this opportunity. I throw my window open, crank up my stereo, and put on my skates. I pull out my hockey net and just sail my first ball through it when a voice behind me says, "I knew you were avoiding me."

I'm so startled that I nearly fall on my ass. "Where did you...?" My voice trails off as I search for the BMW that I didn't hear return.

"I drove around the corner and parked," Edward explains, understanding why I'm confused. "I knew you wouldn't come outside unless you thought I was gone."

I try not to blush. I'm not sure how well it works. "I'm not...avoiding you." I grumble. Lying through my teeth, of course. I look down and slap another ball into the net.

"I'm not mad at you, you know," Edward says.

"Mad at me?" I inquire, startled. "Why would you be made at me?"

"Oh, let's see. You called me gay, you stomped on my foot, and you're avoiding me for no reason."

"You deserved to get your foot stomped, and I did not call you gay," I say, but my cheeks are burning again. "I called you pretty."

"You're still avoiding me."

"I am not avoiding you."

Edward clearly doesn't believe me.

"You...You make me uncomfortable," I blurt out the words before I can stop myself, and I wish I could grab them, stuff them back in, and swallow them.

"Because of the intense attraction between us," Edward surmises, one-hundred percent serious. "That's only natural, Bella."

My mouth gapes open.

"You'd get used to it, if you'd quit running away from me."

Edward takes a step closer, and my breath catches. "I am not attracted—" I stop. He's giving me that look again, not believing one word coming out of my mouth.

If he's trying to make me angry, it's working. I shove him back and shoot another ball into the net. Edward watches with a frown. "Aren't you supposed to be using a puck?"

"When you're on the ice," I explain. I can't help but roll my eyes. Apparently, I'm right about him not having any game. "But a puck won't exactly sail down asphalt. In street hockey, we use these." I smack the last orange rubber ball and it flies directly into the center of the net.

"Teach me how to play," Edward says suddenly.

"You?" I ask doubtfully. I glance him over. Even now he's clean, his hair full of gel, not a single wrinkle in his clothes. "You want to learn to play hockey?"

Edward shrugs. "It seems to be a pre-requisite for making friends around here."

"Alex and her friends don't play."

Edward smirks. "Teach me to play, Bella," he says again.

"I don't think so."

"I'll make it worth your while," he states enticingly. "We could trade."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Trade services. You teach me to play hockey, and I teach you something in return."

I don't even want to know what he means by that, but the words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. "Teach me what?"

The wicked grin that flashes across Edward's handsome features confirm my suspicions. "I can think of a million things I'd like to teach you," he says in that dangerously silky voice of his.

He reaches up and tucks a strand of hair, that has fallen from my ponytail, behind the shell of my ear. I tremble beneath his fingertips as he draws them back slowly. He looks satisfied to make me shudder, and that stab of fear returns in my chest.

"I'm not interested in learning anything you have to teach me."

"How about self-defense?"

Even though the thought of self-defense training seems like a wonderful idea—especially with Edward living across the street now—I'm sure it involves a lot of physical contact. Not something I'm particularly interested in getting into with him.

"I'm not your average, wimpy girl. I can take care of myself," I say, skating away from him.

I quickly pick up the balls I've shot, and as I reach for the net I'm yanked off my feet. Edward grabs me so forcefully that it nearly knocks the wind from my lungs. I gasp and then start to shout. "Wh—What are you doing? Let me go!"

I struggle as hard as I can, but he has my feet off the ground and my arms locked at my sides. Unlike the last time he held me like this, his muscles doesn't feel soft. His body feels like steel against mine, and I can't break free from the cage his arms have created.

"Let me go!" I scream again.

"Calm down, Bella," Edward whispers in my ear. "I'm just trying to show you something."

"That you're a psycho?!" I yell. "I've already figured that out!"

I kick my legs behind me, but it doesn't seem to have any affect on his shins, not even with the added weight of my skates.

Edward's lips are soft on my ear, but his grip doesn't give an inch. "You're so...tempting."

His lips press against the exposed skin of my neck, offering up just the smallest of kisses. The goosebumps rising on my skin infuriates me. "Stop it!" I demand, throwing my head back. "Get your creepy, pervert mouth off me!"

My headbutt attempt fails, and Edward whispers in my ear again. "Look at you right now. I can do anything I want to you, and you couldn't stop me." He kisses my neck again just to prove his point. "Do you like feeling so helpless, Bella?"

I really don't. I'm more terrified than I can ever remember being. So terrified that water wells up in my eyes, and I. Do. Not. Cry.

"Put me down!" I demand, horrified when my voice breaks.

Only then does he release me, and I shove away from him as hard as I can. I blink away the moisture in my eyes before it becomes actual teas. No way am I going to let him see just how much he's scared me.

"You're insane!"

"I was just trying to prove a point. You need me, Bella."

"Just stay away from me, you freak!"

A look of anger sweeps across Edward's face, but he doesn't lose his cool. He opens his mouth to say something, but Alex comes out the front door. "Bella, what are you screaming at? Oh! Hey, Edward, are you ready to go?"

Go? I'm confused.

Edward shoots me a look that I can't decipher. Then, like a light switch, he flips on a bright smile for my sister. "I'm ready whenever you are. And, might I add, that you're looking particularly ravishing this afternoon."

Edward takes Alex's hand and kisses it. I would protest the gross flirting going on before my eyes, except that Edward has never acted quite like that towards Alex before. His suddenly odd behavior towards my sister creeps me out.

"So, how far away is this place, exactly?" Edward asks. After another quick glance in my direction, he adds, "I hope it's a ways. I'm looking forward to having you all to myself for a while."

Alex can barely string a sentence together she's so overwrought with ecstasy. "Actually, it's almost two hours away."

"Is that all? Well, we may just have to take a detour—get lost along the way."

At this point, if Edward wants to attack Alex, she would probably let him. She has no idea that he's secretly deranged. I may hate my big sister, but I am not about to let some psychopath have her.

I watch Edward open the door to my dad's car and help Alex into the driver's seat. After he shuts the door for her, he walks past me with a wink. "Enjoy the rest of your day, Bella," he says with a hint of danger in his voice. "I'm certainly going to enjoy mine."

Edward opens the passenger door, and before he slides into his seat, I'm already in the back buckling my seatbelt. Both Alex and Edward turn around at the same time to look at me. Alex looks incredulous, but Edward is smiling like he has just won the lottery. I'm beyond freaked, but I don't trust him alone with my sister, so I don't have a choice.

"What do you think you're doing?" Alex finally asks, breaking Edward and I from our staring match.

I shrug noncommittally. "Coming with."

"I don't think so. Get out."

I turn my anger on my sister. "Try and stop me."

Alex doesn't know how to respond. I think she's more surprised by the fact that I want to come with her than she is horrified by the thought of having to bring me. Her eyes narrow as she looks me over, and then she huffs. "Well, I'm not letting you go looking like that."

"Like what?"

"It's a lake party, Bella, and you're in ratty jeans and a baggy jersey."

"Your point?"

"Lake party? Hello? You're supposed to dress in swimwear."

"Tough nuts, sister. I don't even own a swimsuit."

Edward snickers, and I glare at him so nastily that he actually throw up his hands in apology and wipes that smarmy grin from his face.

"Alright," Alex says, sighing. "Edward, we'll be five minutes."

"Take your time," Edward encourages her. As if she needs to be encouraged!

My sister drags me from the car and up to her room. "You're lucky we're close to the same size." She throws me a royal blue wad of fabric. "This will probably be a tiny bit too small on you, but close enough that it will work to your advantage."

I have no idea what she's talking about. "Uh, what is it?" I ask, looking at the lump in my hand.

"A swimsuit, moron."

I pull the two tiny pieces apart. "Where's the rest of it?"

"Just go put it on," Alex sneers, rolling her eyes. Then she throws me the shortest jean skirt I've ever seen, and a white tank top. "You can wear that over top of it. And go get your flip-flops, Big Foot. You can't go to the lake in Dickies."

"I am not wearing—"

"Two minutes, or we're gone," Alex says, and then goes back down to join Edward in the car.

I know my sister. I know that she will make good on her threat just as she said she would, and part of me really wants to let het go. But, then I think of the way Edward used the word ravishing while looking at her... With a sigh, I slip into a bikini for the first time in my life. Suddenly, I'm grateful for the skirt and tank top, even if they're meant to fit a Barbie doll.

I don't bother looking in the mirror as I quickly brush through my hair and secure it back into a braid, just before leaving the house—I'm better off not knowing. But I can imagine just how ridiculous I look when Edward laughs under his breath as I get in the car.

"Oh, stuff it, Abercrombie!" I snap.

Edward bursts into wild laughter, and I can hear Alex muttering something under her breath as she reverses out of the driveway. This is going to be a hell of a night.