Fandom: Twilight
Summary: Edward, a political dissident, is a world champion in Tetris. Bella, too, is pretty good at Tetris… a traumatic kind of Tetris. The kind that makes her agree to a deal when she hears that he'd be fired within a month, voiding his H1-B visa and giving him a grace period of 60 days to find another job to stay in the US. Roommates/Fake marriage/Olderward. Slow burn, AH
Genre: Romance/Pinecones/Slow burn/Drama/Humor
Rating: M
...
Tetris
by Anton M.
1: Prologue
...
Denver, Colorado
Saturday, December 14
"Did you touch it?"
Five pairs of eyes looked at her or her reflection in the hallway mirror as Bella stood, mouth agape, staring at the dented, taped box her mother had delivered. Her gaze was intense and voice clipped.
"No."
"Swear on your life none of you touched it."
Edward, the only person not thrown off by the raw edge in her voice, answered her.
"Your mom brought it fifteen minutes ago. None of us touched it."
"Good."
Not missing a beat, she tore off her T-shirt, slid out of her jeans, and in front of the gaping audience of five men, threw her clothes into the lined trash can next to her. Wide-eyed, not blinking, Edward gaped at his wife of two weeks in dotted cotton undies and a black bra, in awe of her body but too stunned to breathe.
For years, he'd seen her casually, during volleyball, in yoga pants and a T-shirt. He knew she was fit. He did not know that a dark, jagged line about the width of a palm ran from the side of her hip to her ankles. Patches of darker skin covered the left leg, too, and Edward would've admired the tattoo-like quality of the injury had he not jumped up in fear that his wife would get naked in front of his friends.
What the hell was she doing?
Emmett whistled. "Dude! I'd have tapped that, too, if I knew what was under the mousy—"
"Fuck you," Edward cut him off. "That's my wife."
He winced at how possessive he sounded, but Emmett couldn't know it wasn't real.
"Asshole's not my type," Bella snapped, casting Emmett a scathing look before she made eye contact with Edward, and maybe Edward imagined it but her face seemed to lose some of its ire. Her gaze felt gentler, somehow, on him. But it was gone in a flash as she tied the trash bag—Edward gaped at the waste of throwing out perfectly good clothes—opened the front door, and only then picked up the box and the trash bag. She slammed the front door shut with her foot.
Edward did not participate in his friends' overenthusiastic speculation regarding what had just happened not because he wasn't curious but because he didn't want to reveal how little he knew his wife, but his silence only increased mystery.
Two minutes later, the buzzer echoed in the apartment, and Edward jogged to let Bella in. Rubbing his palms against his thighs, he waited by the front door while his friends yelled at soccer on TV.
Bella reappeared in her underwear, pink-cheeked and covered in goosebumps but gorgeous beyond what he'd dared to imagine.
"Bathroom." She flicked her finger in its direction. "Now."
Edward gave a middle finger to his friends when their whooping and whistling followed them. Curious, he locked the door behind them.
Bella pointed at the trash can liner. "Take one. Open it."
Edward obliged.
"Turn."
Without intending to, Edward faced the mirror, and his mistake was his undoing. His height gave him the perfect view of Bella shimmying out of her panties. It was too late to blink, to breathe, to let her know he'd seen her strip of hair.
Fuck it'd be a miracle if he ever slept again.
"My favorite bra, too," Bella complained before she dropped it in the bag, and Edward knew he should've shut his eyes by now. He couldn't.
Because underneath his mousy-looking, bespectacled, thorny wife was a stunning woman. He wondered if, in a different world, he'd have the right to turn around and press himself so close to her there'd be no doubt about the soft warmth of her tits.
Fuck if he wasn't fucked.
Their eyes met in the mirror just as she turned.
Frozen, Edward blinked, unable to deny he'd been looking, but Bella didn't make an attempt to hide from him.
"I'm sorry, I—" Averting his eyes, he paused but couldn't finish his sentence.
"Probably better this way in case we're made to answer questions." she said, surprisingly softly. "You owe me a striptease, though."
Questions.
Right.
"Shut the bag," Bella ordered. "Take it straight out to the garbage and use the yellow spray where the box was. I'll take care of the rest." She turned, entering the shower and drawing the curtain. "Thanks, Kill."
Gaze still following her body in the reflection, Edward hesitated even if his fingers were tying the trash bag.
"Why?" he asked, knowing he was unlikely to receive an answer.
"Why what?"
"Why is you receiving a box from your mother a national emergency?"
...
A/N: I've had this prologue on my computer for maybe a year, now, but I'm finally far enough with SfF that I can comfortably allow myself to post something else. (No worries, SfF takes priority over this one for the time being.)
Thanks a lot for being here :) I'd be thrilled to hear from you!
