This one is for my girl FrenchBenzo, who is absolutely incredible and supportive. The song is Problem by Natalia Kills.

Disclaimer: I do not own the song or the characters, only the story and the mistakes.

Edward Masen had known Isabella Swan since he was...About seven.

She was the girl who lived down the street who wore her hair in pigtails and always had knee high socks on. That was because she practically lived and breathed soccer. She was good at it as well, she was the captain of the school team, and every afternoon that she didn't have official practice, she would practice with her mum in the backyard. She was funny, and she had lots of friends; everyone liked her.

Then her mum, Renee Dwyer—then Swan, had walked out on them.

And Bella had changed.

She had never played soccer again.

The light brown, almost blonde streaked hair was gone, and she dyed it darker, almost black. It suited her, surprisingly, even though she had quite a pale face. It made her look older.

She started wearing make up, and she wasn't...She wasn't nice.

She started skipping school, and in their last year, she was suspended for three days for smoking behind the gym.

Charlie Swan, her father, and the Chief of Police in their town, tried to pull her out of her funk, but nothing seemed to work. She was still friends with Rosalie Hale, who she had been friends with since she was younger, but they weren't as close as they used to be. She had started hanging out with Alice Brandon, who was a little different, and had been suspended with her for smoking. There was also this guy Jacob Black that she seemed to be dating on and off through high school, although Edward didn't know all that much about him, because he didn't come to their school. Or maybe they weren't dating, but they seemed to be together all of the time.

When Edward was picking out a University, he wanted somewhere that was completely opposite of Forks, Washington. And so he chose the University of California, where it was sunny and people wore board shorts and sandals.

And it seemed like fate that Bella ended up there as well.

"Masen!" Came a shout from behind him, and he looked up from where he was leaning against the concrete railing and texting his cousin, Emmett McCarty. He was surprised to find Bella walked toward him, wearing a pair of cut of denim shorts which left her long legs on full display, a cropped white singlet and a flannel tee-shirt over the top, completely unbuttoned. Her hair was still dyed the darker colour, but it looked lighter than it had when they were back in school, and she looked happier, her fingers hooked under the straps of her backpack that was over her shoulders and a small smile on her face.

"Swan," Edward couldn't help the grin that spread over his face. "What a coincidence."

"You sure you're not stalking me?" Bella tilted her head to the side and quirked an eyebrow at him. He was a little thrown off balance by that, but she gave him a teasing smirk. "I guess I'll be seeing you around a bit for the next few years then, aye?"

"I've always been around, Bella," he reminded her lightly.

"Yeah, I know," Bella grinned at him. She looked like she was going to say something more, but then there was a call from across the quad and she looked over, squinting in the sun. "Okay, well, I'll catch you later, yeah?" Edward nodded and she took off at a jog across the quad. He watched her go, and then frowned slightly when he realized it was Jacob, the guy she was always with over the past few years. The guy bent down to kiss her on the forehead, and then they walked off together, his arm thrown over her shoulder.

Edward couldn't help but frown at that.

Two weeks later, there was a party that Edwards new room mate, Jasper Whitlock, had invited him too. Even though they were only two months into school, Edward was already swamped with home work, and every minute he had spent away from his lectures, had been spent either in his room or in the library studying. Jasper seemed to be handling University life better, and still juggled a social life, and he had been adamant that Edward come to this party tonight.

"I'm not drinking," Edward repeated for the hundredth time as they walked down the street, toward the house where the party was.

"You need to let go, man," Jasper shook his head. "You're too focussed, too uptight."

"You realize I'm studying to become a doctor, right? That required pretty much all my energy."

"But you're not going to be a doctor for years," Jasper smirked as he threw an arm around his shoulders. "So for now, you can just chill out, enjoy yourself. We'll find you some pretty girl who can distract for the night, and then tomorrow you can go back to being a total fucking nerd." Edward snorted and rolled his eyes. "What, you don't want a pretty girl?"

"There's only one girl I've had my eye on," Edward muttered.

"I didn't know you had a girlfriend!" Jasper looked surprised. "Shit, she must be one a kind, to be completely okay with you ignoring her to spend all the time with your nose in those books."

"She's not my girlfriend," Edward replied. Jasper raised a questioning eyebrow, and looked as though he was about to reply, but then there were a couple of girls running out to meet them. They were all clearly drunk already, and they knew Jasper, throwing their arms around him and showering him in kisses. Edward let out a laugh at the grin on Jasper's face, following after the trio as they made their way up to the house. It was almost eleven, and the party was in full swing. There were people spilling out the front door and music was playing so loud it was almost making the walls vibrate. The minute he stepped into the house, he was having red solo cups shoved in his direction. In the end, he took one, just so people would stop handing them to him.

"Maybe just one drink?" Jasper joked with him lightly.

"I don't think so," Edward muttered, looking down into the cup. It was a brown frothy liquid, and it looked as though two or three different types of alcohol had been mixed to get it to the state it was in now. "What the fuck is this anyway?"

"Come on!" Jasper laughed, slapping him on the shoulder. "Have some fun. Let go."

"Edward's never been like that," said a familiar voice from behind them. Edward spun around to see Bella standing there, grinning at the pair of them. "I don't think I ever saw him get drunk at a high school party."

"Oh really?" Jasper quirked an eyebrow as he looked between Edward and Bella. "How boring."

"Maybe between the pair of us we can break the status quo," she grinned and held out her cup to him. Edward stared at him for a long moment, before putting down the cup in his own hand and taking the one from her, purposefully staring at her as he lifted it to his lips and downed whatever was in there. The drink definitely tasted better than whatever had been in his own cup, and it was easy to finish, but it was strong, and he straight away felt it in his head. Bella smirked and then nodded at Jasper, before disappearing into the throngs of people. Edward turned to Jasper, who laughed.

"Not drinking, aye?" He mocked him.

Edward didn't drink anything else as the night went on, but the first drink held enough to give him a bit of a buzz. Jasper introduced him to a couple of girls, and also to a few boys who were in classes with him. They seemed like good guys, and the girls were all pretty and nice enough, but they didn't distract him from looking for Bella every couple of minutes. He saw her once or twice, looking a whole lot different from when they were in high school.

Which was a good thing.

She looked happier.

More free.

He liked that. Admittedly, he was a little upset that he didn't get to spend any more time with her apart from those few words that she had said at the beginning of the night, but it was a start. He was getting ready to leave with Jasper, pulling on his jacket, when Bella came up to him. She looked a little drunk, but she was still standing up straight, and her hair was only slightly messed up from the dancing and bouncing up and down she had been doing.

"Leaving so soon?" She asked him with a grin.

"Yeah, well, uh," Edward looked over to where Jasper was practically eating the face off a short haired girl that he was planning on taking home. He squinted at the pair and then looked over at Bella.

"Is that Alice? Back from school?" He asked in a stage whisper.

"You had no idea who your friend was making out with all night?" Bella let out a laugh. He looked back over at the pair of them, making a face as he saw Jasper's hand sliding up Alice's shirt. "She's up for the weekend, came to visit me," she said by way of explanation. "Uh, do you maybe want to walk me home? Before going back to yours?" She raised her eyebrows with another laugh. "I have a feeling that your place is going to be a little noisy tonight."

"Great," Edward muttered. "I was planning on trying to get some studying done before bed."

"Ohmygod!" Bella snorted. "How mature of you."

"Hey," Edward shot her a playful frown and she just grinned in response. "Wait...You were teasing me about leaving early, but you're leaving now too?"

"Well, if you were the only reason I stayed, once I realized that Alice was entertained. Coming out tonight was mainly about her," Bella shrugged.

"I thought you were all into the partying side of things?"

"I think I did enough of that back in high school," Bella made a self-deprecating face.

"Yeah, maybe," Edward laughed and then froze. "Hold up—you said you had only stayed because of me? What's that supposed to mean?" Bella tilted her head to the side, her cheeks going an adorable shade of red. Edward felt a grin pulling at his lips and canted his head toward him. "What's that supposed to mean, huh, Swan?" He didn't know where he was getting off, flirting with her so unabashedly, but he liked the way her pupils had widened and her face was going even more red.

"It's nice to see a familiar face?" She attempted weakly and Edward laughed. "Oh shut up," Bella shoved him lightly. "Look, back when we were in school, I had a crush on you, okay?" She told him, crossing her arms over her chest.

"You what?" Edward's eyes almost popped out of his head.

"You heard me!"

"But you were so...So scary," he admitted.

"Scary?" Bella gave a short laugh and then scrunched up her nose. "I was kind of in a shitty place, in high school. But I think I'm out of all of that now. I—" She was jostled forward by a group of drunk girls behind them and would have fallen if Edward hadn't gripped her wrists, steading her. They were incredibly close now, and if they were standing in a better light and he wasn't completely biased, he would swear that Bella's breathing quickened. "Anyway! You walking me home, or what?" She asked him, clearing her throat so that her voice evened out and pulling herself away from her.

"Yeah, absolutely," Edward jerked his head in a few quick nods, looking over to where Alice and Jasper were still trying to climb into one anothers skin. "Let's get out of here." The pair of them made their way out of the house and onto the footpath, which was littered with crumpled red solo cups and broken bottles. They walked without talking for a while, and Edward was completely fine with that. It wasn't silent, because almost every third house they passed were homes of Uni students that were all holding parties and playing loud music at this hour of a Friday night. Bella was also humming something under her breath as she sort of half-walked, half-skipped next to him.

Edward couldn't help the stupid grin on his face.

"You've changed a lot since school," he told her honestly as they turned down a side street.

"I've grown up," she shrugged. "I think it was also just that town..."

"Forks?" Edward frowned.

"Yeah," she made a face, her happy little hop-skip-walk turning to just a normal walk which he regretted changing. "I mean, it was all fine until mum left. And then everyone treated me and my dad as though we had something wrong with us. I think that's why I started acting like a total twot. Trying to prove that they didn't know me, they didn't know what was going on in my head." Edward clenched his teeth together, thinking that now probably wasn't a good time to tell her that her little acts of rebellion had actually done the opposite. Bella gave him a wry look out of the corner of her eyes, as though she knew what was going on in his head. "Yeah, yeah. A bit of distance has definitely shown me that I handled the whole thing wrong."

"Yeah, maybe just a little," Edward gave her a half smile.

"Anyway!" Bella continued, starting her half skip again, a grin breaking out over her face, indicating she clearly wasn't going to dwell on the past. "Who would've thought that we would end up at the same University. Kinda seems like the universe doing it's part, doesn't it?" She nudged him in the side and wiggled her eyebrows at him.

Edward really didn't know how to take her.

It was as though the past eight years, since her mother had left, had all disappeared, and she had just never ceased being that happy go lucky girl that she had been before. And now here she was, blatantly flirting with him.

"This is me," Bella announced, coming to an abrupt halt. Edward stopped next to her and looked up at the large house. "I live here with Jacob and two other girls that we met through one of those College Forums." She made a face, scrunching up her nose. "My dad was freaking out when we first moved in with them, saying that there were always crazies online. I think the only reason he didn't move up here with me to make sure that I was going to be okay, was because I was moving in with Jacob."

"Right," Edward hooked his thumbs into the belt loops of his jeans. "Jacob," he hoped that the bitterness he was feeling didn't come through his voice. He was trying to keep it out. He had completely forgotten about Jacob; the person that Bella seemed to be in a relationship with since she was a pre-teen. He was suddenly second-guessing himself. He thought that she had been flirting with him; bringing up a crush, asking him to take her home, saying that she had stayed at the party because of him.

Maybe she just wanted to be friends.

Which would be better.

Because he had no time for a social life. No room for distractions. Absolutely no spare moments for other problems in his calendar.

"You know he's gay, right?" Bella suddenly said. Edward blinked.

"What?" He uttered, unable to find a more eloquent reply. Bella smirked, her pretty red mouth curving upwards.

"He's gay," she repeated. "He wasn't out in high school. I was his best friend, so he told me, but he didn't even tell his dad until our senior year. He wasn't actually planning on coming here—he was going to get an apprenticeship for mechanical engineering in Forks or at the Rez, and I was going to apply for on campus housing. But then he met this guy, who goes here, and so he decided to come with me."

"He, uh. So he—um," Edward stuttered and Bella just watched him, an eyebrow raised in amusement. Edward let out a short laugh and ran his fingers through his hair. "Right. Okay. So it must be pretty serious with this guy, if he decided to move out here with you."

"Well, yeah. I guess," Bella shrugged. "Serious enough for him to want to see where it goes. But he never really had any plans, so he's here for the fun as well."

"Right," Edward pursed his lips. His bronze hair was adorably messed up and he was grinning at her.

Jacob was gay.

He wasn't with Bella.

He was probably never with Bella.

"Right, well—" he was cut off as she reached up on her tip toes and pushed her lips to his. It was only brief, but it was enough for him to feel as though he was flying ten feet tall. When she pulled away, relaxing back on the flat of her feet, she gave him one last smile, before turning around, and skipping up to the door of her house, disappearing inside.

A few days past and Edward didn't see Bella. That wasn't surprising, given they studied on separate sides of the campus. But then one day, she started popping up a lot more; during his lunch breaks, and after his lectures finished, or later in the afternoon when he was spending time at the library. And so he returned the favour, going out of his comfort zone and talking to Jacob to find out her schedule.

It turned out Jacob knew exactly who Edward was, and he grinned as he let her know when her classes finished and the days that she spent studying later.

Things sort of just...Escalated, from that point on. And soon they were together almost every day. For the first few months, it never got physical. Jasper teased him about it relentlessly, but it honestly didn't bother him. Bella was incredible, and he liked just spending time with her. Sometimes they talked about when they were younger, back when they were in primary, exchanging stories from their points of view and remembering fellow students and teachers. Alice, was still living back in Forks, and kept Bella up to date with all the small town gossip, which kept her and Edward entertained. Sometimes they talked about high school, but Bella didn't like discussing that so much. It wasn't the best part of her life, but she had told him enough for him to know that Jacob had been the guy who had managed to pull her out of it.

They were actually friends now, surprisingly.

Well, more like acquaintances, but on the friendly side of that.

He went over to their place and watched movies with them, along with Paul Lahote, Jacob's boyfriend. Kind of like a double date. They all went out for dinner a couple of times; never anywhere fancy that put a lot of pressure on either pair, just for burgers or bad Mexican. At first it was Bella and Jacob who carried the conversation, because Edward was still adjusting to the fact that the man he had always seen as a threat really wasn't and Paul wasn't much of a talker. But then they all got to know each other a little better and more comfortable, and it became easier.

Somehow, they became a couple.

They held hands when they walked down the street.

They sent each other texts filled with smiley emjoi's.

They played footsie's under the table at the library.

They made out on the couches in their lounges.

Edward liked it.

Bella was devoted to her degree, just like Edward, but as usual, he expected perfection of himself, and so he poured over his books and his study for hours. The more time he spent with Bella, though, the less time he had for his studies. She always understood when he told her that he needed to stay in, but he didn't like it. It was coming up to the first exams of the year, at least the first exams that mattered, and he needed to cram.

Yet here he was, Bella's body tangled around him as they made out on his bed, her hands cupping his face and his hands on her ass.

"How much studying have you done for your test on Friday?" She mumbled between kisses.

"Enough," Edward murmured back as he sucked her lower lip into his mouth, but even as he was saying it, he knew he was lying. Unfortunately, so did Bella, because she pulled back from him and attempted to give him a stern look. He groaned and lay back down on his bed, giving her a guilty look. "Maybe not that much..."

"Well, that's not very good," she told him. "And you know that you're just going to kick yourself afterwards if you don't go in there as prepared as you can be. Because you're this bloody perfectionist who can't bare the thought of having a less than A grade on your resume," she teasingly wiggled her eyebrows at him. Edward made a face but didn't disagree with her. Bella thought for a moment and then she grinned and tilted her head to the side. "Okay, I've got an idea."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Bella nodded her head firmly. Her fingers went to the buttons of the blue flannel shirt that she was wearing, twiddling with the top one. "How many practice quizzes have you got left to do?"

"Four," Edward muttered, not at all looking forward to the cramming he was planning on doing overnight once Bella left.

"Okay," Bella slid off his lap, purposefully letting her thigh press firmly against his hard arousal. He only just managed to swallow back a pitiful moan as she kneeled on the bed at his side, rather than crouching over him like she had been before. "For every test you do, I'll take off an item of clothing." Edward perked up.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she confirmed with a smirk. Edward didn't need to think about it, scrambling off the bed and slotting himself behind his desk, pulling out the practice questions that his lecturer had given him. He was writing so quickly that his penned words were a mess on the page. He finished the first page quickly, and then looked over at Bella.

She gave him a saucy smile before undoing the buttons of her flannel shirt, tossing it toward the corner of the room, leaving herself in her singlet and shorts. He could see the outline of her bra through the white singlet and he chewed down hard on his lower lip before quickly turning back to complete the next sheet.

She shed her shorts next.

And then her singlet and bra in one go, leaving her just in her pale blue thong.

Once they was off, she did a little twirl for him, looking at him through heavy lidded eyes. He was still painfully hard in his pants, all the blood resting in his lap rather than rushing around his head.

Now that she was shirtless, the ink on her hip was obvious.

A dragonfly.

Edward had caught glimpses of the tattoo before. They had made out a hundred times, and he had managed to get her out of her shirt on a couple of those occasions. But they were usually in the heat of the moment, and so he hadn't mentioned it. Now, with the way she was wiggling her eyebrows at him and taunting him, he really couldn't do anything except study every inch of her body and only dream about the things that he was going to do to her once she let him touch her.

"I'm almost done," he told her.

"Good," Bella smirked at him and hooked her finger into the side of her panties, pulling it down ever so slightly. He felt his stomach flip over as he tried to concentrate on the questions of the quiz in front of him, but he couldn't stop his eyes from darting up to look at her. She was clearly as turned on as him, the way that her nipples were erect and her chest and neck were flushed, lips parted and pupils diluted. Edward quickly scrawled out an answer and then jumped up from his seat, launching himself toward him. "Oh no, no, no, no!" She laughed, skipping out of his reach and ducking past to have a look at his desk. She flipped over the page to the answers and made sure that he had answered the questions correctly, squinting to read his writing before nodding her head.

She turned around to face him and licked her tongue slowly over her lower lip. Edward swallowed hard, his fingers itching to reach out and touch her, but waited as she pushed down her underwear over her slim legs, leaving herself completely naked in front of him.

"Shit," he breathed out. She gave him a small smile, looking a little more vulnerable than she usually did, now that she was completely bared to him. She walked slowly toward him, spinning around slowly so that he could look over her. He reached out to touch her, resting his large hand on her hip, his thumb brushing over the tattoo softly.

"Yeah," she let out a slight laugh. "From my 'problem' stage." Edward shook his head as he jerked her forward, forcing her to part her legs and straddle him.

"Fuck, Bella," he murmured against her skin. "With the way you keep distracting me, you're still a bloody problem." Bella met his eyes, and then a grin broke out across her face, her eyes dancing, before she lunged forward, connecting their mouths and sending them toppling back onto the bed.

"Yeah, yeah," Bella reached forward to bite lightly at his lips. "I'll be your problem, anytime."

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