Mercie beaucoup KatieTv, SugarTits and Buhbeesgirl for the prereading and the laughs, always the laughs. Thank you to everyone who reviewed last chapter.
I've added links in my profile to the chapter songs as well as a few goodies, check it out. :) And without further adieu, I give you Edward.
~~~~~~~
I should climb down off my rugged cross and
Lay with you
But you know by now it's half past late
And I only came here for escape
You, you're just my next mistake
Like me to you
~~Despite What You've Been Told, Two Gallants
Lay with you
But you know by now it's half past late
And I only came here for escape
You, you're just my next mistake
Like me to you
~~Despite What You've Been Told, Two Gallants
~~~~~~~
~~EPOV~~
"Damn it!" I yelled, pulling my foot back to kick something, anything. The most convenient, of course, was my back tire but there was no way I was kicking my car. Didn't matter how much she pissed me off.
I pivoted on one leg spying a tree not a foot away. That would do. I geared up for a heel kick bringing my knee into my chest and sunk my foot into the trunk. Pain shot up my shin as the tree shook and rained leaves around me. Great. Now I was pissed off and feeling guilty for making an innocent tree cry. Sorry buddy, you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The phone in my hand buzzed again lighting up with her face and flashing "Rose" across the bridge of her nose. I resisted the urge to chuck it off the cliff I was facing and into the ocean. I pressed the green button and said nothing.
"You hung up on me!" she growled into my ear.
"You deserved it."
"You are a complete ass."
"You are a complete bitch. Let's call it even."
"How? How am I bitch? It's not like I'm asking for a fucking kidney, Edward."
"A kidney I wouldn't say no to. This is not life or death, Rose."
"Right, it's not. So just come home."
"I am not going to keep discussing this. The answer is no."
"But I want you here. You know how important this opening is. This was a huge break for me. And the last thing I need is to show up alone."
"How many times are we going to go through this? We talked about it when I was offered this conference six months ago. It's just like you to have no beef with it until I'm here."
"I told you! I thought it was next weekend. I didn't realize until yesterday that the premier was tomorrow. What's the big fucking deal anyways, you finished your vamp love talk today, I'm asking you to leave one day early. That's all."
"It is a big fucking deal!" my voice rose considerably, "because this time it's about my career Rose, mine, not yours."
"Oh we're back to this again. I'm supposed to sit back and be your arm candy because you finally hit it big."
"No, you are supposed to support me like I've supported you with everything you've done."
"Exactly, and this premier is the culmination of that, you know how long I've been waiting to branch into the movies. This is my dream."
I stuffed a cigarette in my mouth not because I wanted a smoke but because I knew if I didn't I'd say the one thing that could hurt her. That I thought her 'dream' was the stupidest thing I'd ever heard. That while I supported her making up a career out of thin air and helped her build up a reputation, I thought being an 'Automobile Stylist' was the fucking most make believe excuse for a job if I ever heard one.
In Hollywood anyone who was anyone had someone shop for them. And while some little girls dreamed of being paid to shop designer stores for the rich and shameless, Rose dreamed not of outfitting their wardrobes but their garages. Sure it was hot that my old lady was a car buff. She started out working in custom car orders and quickly became known as the chick who could get the ungetatable get. That's when she had her brilliant idea. She'd get dumb sorry fucks to pay for her opinion on what they should drive and then take a percentage of the price for finding it. Last summer she landed her first gig outfitting a major movie with several dozen period specific pieces and here we were.
"Edward? Are you even listening?"
"No."
"Edward!"
"Look, this is a big deal for me. I'm not leaving. Yes, I don't have any more presentations but I would look like a self-centered prick if I walked out of here just because I was done. I may have written a best seller but I'm still fucking paying my dues with my peers."
"Fuck them. Your 'peers' don't sign the checks. Come home tonight or don't come home at all." This time it was she who hung up on me.
"FUCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKK!" I yelled and clutched my phone in my hand. My foot twitched again and I looked to my tire and back to the tree. Sorry tree, I'm not kicking my car.
The annoying thing was, it wasn't even Rose who was pissing me of. I didn't even know why I was bothering fighting with her. I should have been glad she was giving me an excuse to let the organizers know I needed to leave. Fact was, I did want to come home early. Blow the rest of this off, slam my foot into the gas, and get home to her so I could fuck Bella off my mind.
Because when it came right down to it, it wasn't Rose causing this turmoil.
It was Bella.
It was Bella who sliced me open and turned my skin inside out leaving me to walk around raw and exposed. She had no right. She wasn't available for the taking and I wasn't available to give.
The first time I saw her, all dodgy and confused in the lobby, I thought she was someone's kid. In her jeans and worn out sneakers she made me feel like a pedophile when my dick twitched as she ran into me. Then she walked into that Welcome Reception in a slip of a dress and heels and I knew she wasn't anyone's kid. I could tell, from thirty feet away I could tell, she didn't want to be there as much as me. She didn't want to shmooze, she didn't want to make friends, she didn't want to pretend that Garret was funny or that Jane and Alec weren't creepy as fuck. So I watched her and even though I knew she could feel me watching her, I didn't stop.
It wasn't even like she was the most interesting chick to look at. On paper, she was actually kind of boring. Brown hair, brown eyes, petite, thin. But in motion she was anything but. She was classically beautiful in a way people aren't anymore. The lines of her face were dreamed by Renaissance artists and the curves of her little frame were sadly hidden behind her loose dress. And up close, she was poetry.
When she came to the group and I saw she was from Forks, I'm not going to lie, my first thought was that she was a stalker. I mean, what were the odds that I'd meet someone from a town of a few thousand people where my parents happened to live? She wouldn't have been the first persistent fruit loop to come my way. Masen brought it out in them. I was purposefully vague in the details about my folks and it wasn't until she mentioned meeting Alice and Emmett at the charity function I blew off, that I relaxed. Anyone with working knowledge of Google or facebook could tell you that my dad was an ER doc or that Alice was a "pixie" and Emmett a "linebacker" but only someone from Forks would know they had been there and I hadn't. And now I was wishing I had.
She hadn't known I'd be the speaker for her class but I had the enrollment sheet, I knew she'd be there. I told myself it was no big deal but when I walked in the next day and saw her in the front row, I called bullshit. I shouldn't have looked at her when I mentioned the sex scene class. I expected her to blush, to look away. I wanted to scare her. I wanted to scream at her "What if I'm the bad guy?" But she didn't blush, she didn't look away. She held my gaze and her eyes invited me to consider the scenes we could write together.
That stupid Tanya piped up. I should be grateful that little hot for teacher whore interrupted when she did otherwise I might have pulled Bella out of her seat and taken her right there with eleven shocked faces watching. I finished the class without paying her too much attention and ended up in my room writing a graphic scene where Masen visits a live sex show in New Orleans and Bella is the star. It was worthless, I knew my editor wouldn't publish it, in fact he'd probably have me committed, but it kept my hands off my dick and on the keyboard where they belonged.
Tanya followed me to dinner and I could have shaken her off if she hadn't ate shit right in front of me. I couldn't just walk away even though I think she did it on purpose. Instead, I helped her inside and got her plate of twenty-five calories. Those five minutes I spent with Bella getting our food did me in. I wasn't just attracted to her body anymore, I liked her. I wanted to know her. I wanted to get inside her mind as well as her legs. She was clever and funny and real. She didn't bullshit, she didn't pretend. And coming from La La Land, she was a needed breath of fresh air.
Nothing could have prepared me for hearing that phone call. I saw the little band on her finger the almost embarrassingly small diamond. I got that she was married and maybe it was the Masen in me but I didn't give a shit. But when I heard her talking to her babies I knew I was one sick motherfucker. She was someone's mother. She wasn't just someone's wife, she was someone's family. That wasn't to be fucked around with.
So I flipped the dick switch from turned on to just plain old being a dick. I knew I hurt her but if I couldn't scare her away maybe I could hurt her away. And I pissed her off good. If there's one thing I know how to do, it's be an ass. Then that stupid camera metaphor, okay it was a fantastic metaphor but still, it ruined everything. She'd been silent in class thanks to me but if she was going to be that brilliant I needed to tone it down a notch and quit scaring away her thoughts. Because her mind was amazing.
But I shouldn't have offered her the Red Vines like they were the forbidden fruit of my over eager loins. I fucked up there. I played a game with her, I dared her to take what I was offering just to see if she would. I knew we were both imagining that there wasn't a plastic tub of four pounds of candy between us. I knew because I caught her on the beach that night moaning my name.
I'd gone for a walk after dinner and found her sleeping in the dunes. I'd noticed she wasn't in the dining room but I didn't think she'd be there. It was dark and she was alone and it didn't feel right to leave her by herself, anything could have happened to her. When I considered the possibilities I became protective. I found a spot above and behind her, out of view from the path. I didn't want someone to come along and find me watching her sleep like some kind of stalker.
She breathed my name in her sleep and I'm not going to lie, especially not to myself, it turned me on. She sat up in a start and I threw myself down in the sand afraid she'd see me. When I hesitantly checked if she was gone, I saw her hand beneath her dress and her eyes rolled back in her head and like a sick fuck I whipped it out and took care of business. I jacked my shit off on the beach watching her cum. I pumped myself in rhythm to the f-bombs that rolled from her perfect lips. This girl had turned me into a sex offender.
I was so fucked. How the hell did I proceed from there? Where was the manual for this shit? I tried to scare her off, I couldn't man up and hurt her anymore, I needed to keep my distance. I needed to take the magnet that was constantly drawing me to her and flip that son of a bitch over to push us apart. So I did. I created a mental electromagnetic field where we subconsciously stayed away and she played along like a champ. But even though we wouldn't allow ourselves to get close to each other that didn't stop us from always knowing where to find the other. I guess that's why I wasn't surprised she showed up at the hot tub like a mirage in a scandalous cobalt blue bikini.
I had already been sitting there deciding that the gods must hate me. Why else would this perfect shiny apple be dangled in front of my face? That's what life was anyways, right? A lesson in resisting temptation? Over and over again? If only I could be Masen rather than his creator and just take what I wanted, giving a rat's ass about anything else. Besides, nobody ever said I was a saint. Come to think of it, they'd probably say I was anything but. However, this was different, this wasn't just about making my own mistakes,I wasn't going to make hers too. I couldn't do that to her, she didn't deserve it. I sat in a boiling pot of self-pity crucifying myself when in walked my apple.
She tuned to go when she saw me and I invited her to stay. I drank her in as she stepped into the water. Her creamy skin, bony hips and tight small tits. At least while she was under the water I could only see her face. The heat had gone to my head because I teased her when I knew I shouldn't then I'm giving her beers and we're having a conversation and enjoying ourselves. Somehow we got on the topic of my novel and my talk tomorrow and she gets all perceptive and deep on me discussing Victorian literature and social norms. And fuck me if it didn't get me going like her mouth was wrapped around my cock and not my brain. Smart has always equaled sexy in my book.
I've never had such a good time just sitting and talking to someone and I realized we could do this. We could be friends. She was easy to talk to and I wanted to open myself up and let her read me. Plus, I had the sneaking suspicion that if I got to know her I could try and see her like a sister or a cousin or someone you aren't supposed to want to fuck and then this little problem could go away.
Never mind that she zeroed in on my dick when we both got up for the beers. Forget that she slid that finger down her ass to adjust her bottoms when she climbed out of the tub. Ignore that I followed her into that cabana not just to show here where the fridge was but because I wanted to lift her onto the counter and wrap her legs around me. Disregard the way she pressed that sweet ass into me and how I didn't move away but instead slightly forward. Overlook my need to reach out and untie the strings of that handkerchief of a bikini and let her show the world to me. I could do that. Right?
So I did, I told her, in not so many words, that despite every instinct telling me to stay away from her, I couldn't anymore. She gave the simplest answer, as though it really was that easy.
But it could be. Tomorrow was the last day. I lived in L.A. she lived in Forks. She didn't got to L.A. I didn't go to Forks. Maybe we'd see each other here again next year, if I was invited back and if she decided to come. That was it. Tomorrow she'd be gone.
Tomorrow she'd be gone.
I shook my head and realized I'd been standing in a parking lot staring at my car for the last thirty minutes. Not that anyone could blame me. She was beautiful, a perfectly restored and rare 1958 Volvo PV544 silver convertible. There wasn't a head I didn't fucking turn in that car. There also was barely a thought I could finish when looking at her. Something she and Bella had in common.
I pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes and set off to do what I came to town to do. I turned to cross the street and headed into the liquor store. I walked the aisles until I found what I wanted and pulled the biggest bottle of Jack off the shelf. Tonight I'd be drinking myself sober.
I got in line behind two women I recognized from the conference carrying several cases of champagne. I pulled my sunglasses on my eyes and ignored them until I heard Bella's cabin name.
"So party at Scarlet Begonia first and then on to the tavern. Zafrina said it'll be pretty desolate since almost everyone goes into town bars on the last night."
"Oh purrrfect," said her friend, "we'll get shnockered on cheap champagne and then hit up hotel bar for some Kay-ray-o-kay."
"Shut the front door! They have karoke? Oh it's on."
"Yeah that's what I heard. And if they don't there's a place on Main that does. Either way, best girl's night out ever!"
I watched them leave and paid for my bottle, two packs of Marlboro Reds, and a handful of Slim Jims. I was classy as fuck.
When I got back to the resort I pulled around to the back of the main house to the employee parking lot. With the weekend seminars there was a lot more traffic and I didn't like my baby sitting out just anywhere. I'd made friends with some of the kitchen staff and they offered me a spot back here. Plus it had an amazing panorama of the ocean. My girl had a room with a view. I stepped out of the car and spied Laurent smoking a joint by the back door.
"Laurent, hey man! How goes it?" I walked over and we clasped hands doing the man hug thing. He was the head chef of the hotel and a crazy ass frenchman. I'd spent a couple nights playing poker with him and the waiters and it turned out we knew some of the same cats in Paris.
"Monsieur Eduard, I have non complaints. Comment ca va?"
"Pas mal, mon ami fou."
He laughed and offered me the joint which I took. "So tell me, they got karaoke up in this joint tonight?"
"Helas, oui"
"Who do I need to talk to so they don't?"
Laurent eyed me and cocked his head. He wasn't offering the goods without the motive.
"Sort of want to drink in peace tonight, you know?"
He smiled and nodded. "The bartender James, is his girlfriend Victoria who runs the singing. You do not want singing, you make it worth his while. He's a reasonable man."
"Merci beaucoup, I owe you one."
Laurent waved his hand at me and then pointed to the car, "You let me drive it, we call all even."
"In your dreams. Nobody drives her but me."
He laughed again and opened the door to the kitchen. "Au revoir, mon ami."
I tucked the bottle of Jack behind the driver's seat and went to have a chat with Bartender James. If Zafrina was leading a pack of cougars on a 'girls night out' I know she'd have roped Bella along with them. She could lead Bella to the tavern where I'd be waiting and the lack of generic sing-a-long pop songs will have the group itching to leave and Bella dying to stay. My stalker status was up by a thousand but I didn't care.
After all, it was the last night. Tomorrow she'd be gone.
~~~~~~~
Translations: (sorry I didn't have the ability to type with accent marks)
Monsieur Eduard- Mr. & Edward using a french pronunciation
non- no
Comment ca va?- How are you? (informal)
Pas mal, mon ami fou- Not bad, my crazy friend
Helas, oui- Unfortunately, yes
Merci beaucoup- Thank you very much
Au revoir, mon ami- Goodbye, my friend
~~I'd love reviews more than you'd love to find Edward in a bar waiting for you~~
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