Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight

Chapter 10- Fun & Games

EPOV

Truce! We called a truce! My heart sang happy songs, and I was unable to control the huge-ass grin that had erupted on my face. I could only hope that Bella wasn't too freaked out by it.

Thank God I'd found her here. Why on Earth was she here in the middle of the night, and more importantly, why was she here alone?! I didn't even want to think about the trouble she could've gotten herself into. Although, I wondered what would've happened if she had done the sensible thing and not come here alone—or even at all. Would I have tried to sort things out with her in the future, when I wasn't obligated to stay with her and keep her safe? Was there a possibility that such a truce might never have happened? I mentally shoo-ed those thoughts away. She was here now, and she didn't hate me. That was all that mattered.

After our truce declaration, I was pleasantly surprised to find how easy it was to talk to her, or even not talk at all and just listen to the movement of the night in silence—not the awkward kind of silence either, but just a peaceful, calming silence; one where we didn't feel the need to force small talk, which is something I always had to do with people other than my family. I had never been so free of awkward silences. It was a nice change and one that I welcomed.

I saw movement in my peripheral vision and saw that Bella was swinging on her swing. Only a little bit, but it was enough to make me join in, too. She took it as a challenge though, and started to put more force into her swings. I opened my mouth to say something but saw how high she was starting to swing, so my competitive side won out, and I decided to try and overtake her and swing higher.

I was gaining height and doing really well, but that all ended when I put in a little too much force, lost my balance and fell clumsily towards the ground. It was so dark that I couldn't even see where I had landed, but judging by the leafy presence of various plants tickling my nose, I was probably in a bush. The light of the streetlights didn't reach me—it was pitch black where I was. I was so tangled that I found myself stuck in my current position, unable to move. My left leg was in the air, and my other one was dangling out the side of the bush, while the rest of my body was curled up, taking up minimal space—not that there was a whole lot of that in the first place. My right hand was going numb because it was sandwiched between my ass and the ground. Embarrassing. I hurriedly extricated it, doing whatever possible to make my position any less awkward. Nonetheless, I still looked like a weirdo.

"Edward?"

Shit, she was going to see me like this! Crap, crap, crap...

"Edward, are you okay? Are you hurt?" Bella's panicked voice said as she peered over the bush to look at me. "Edward?!" Oh right, I didn't answer her.

"Oh, yeah, I'm fine, everything's just peachy over here! Yep, I'm having time of my life," I replied, rather sarcastically too. Looking back, however, maybe I should've faked a broken bone or two because now that she knew I was okay, she lost it, getting into a massive laughing fit. "Shut up! It's not funny!" I said, annoyed that she found my predicament so amusing. She would never forget this, or let me forget it, for that matter.

"The hell it isn't! You...I...hahahaha....my God, your face! I...saw...your legs...before I...saw...you," she choked out, and I could imagine the tears of laughter that were running down her face.

"Hey, I could've been severely injured! You know—brain trauma, broken bones, loss of limbs?! What happened to you being all concerned, huh?"

"Screw that, you're perfectly fine! Or "peachy", as you like to put it...hahahaha..."

"Well, are you gonna help me up yet, or what?" I snapped.

"Oh, yeah, I forgot about that, you were just too funny—haha... 'Kay, sorry, couldn't help it. Here, grab my hand." I did, and she helped me up. "Oh, and here's your shoe."

My shoe? I looked down at my feet and saw that I was missing one. How did I not realize? "It went flying before you did," she said as I slid my foot in. "Into the pond," she added, and I immediately felt water seeping into my socks. I groaned, but she was laughing again, and this time it was infectious. Soon we were both rolling around on the grass in silent laughter, having difficulty breathing but not caring because I, for one, had been missing these kinds of moments lately. Who knew Bella would be the one to bring them back again?

It was an amazing thing to feel free to smile and laugh with her, without forcing a frown because I supposedly hated her and was too proud to drop the facade. Of course there were times where I felt as though I did hate her—she could be so annoying sometimes, and she knew it!—, but that was never truly the case. How could it be, when I knew deep down that I liked her? I was so happy that we weren't fighting anymore, so happy that I had swallowed my pride and worked things out with her. And who knows—we might even become friends! Although I knew I shouldn't push it—we'd only just started making progress, and I didn't want to ruin it by acting overly chummy and making her uncomfortable.

After we had calmed down a little, and I was no longer on the verge of peeing all over myself, Bella's phone rang, and her ringtone almost made me start laughing again. Almost. I had to control it because I couldn't have her asking me why I found her ringtone so funny. It was Katy Perry's 'Ur So Gay', coincidentally the same song that I.S. had used for the tune of her poem on Lauren Mallory, which automatically caused me to mentally replace the original lyrics with I.S.'s ones. I would've loved to tell Bella all about it—I reckon she and I.S. would make a great team—but I felt as though I should keep I.S. a secret for now, and that even though her little poem wasn't some big, scandalous secret, I felt like I'd be betraying her trust if I said anything. Although apparently I was terrible at disguising my internal laughter because Bella looked at me quizzically, but thankfully didn't ask me about it because she had to answer her phone.

"Hello...? Gah!" Bella instantly yanked the phone away from her ear, and I knew why without even asking. Although I was sitting about two feet away from her, I could easily hear Alice's loud, angry voice coming through the phone. We may as well have put her on speaker—she was that loud.

She was that angry. "...and I have been looking for you everywhere!" Alice said. "Do you know how worried I was? No, you don't! Because you weren't answering your phone! I've called about a gazillion times, Bella! What if you got kidnapped? Or raped?!"

My thoughts exactly—that was why I stayed.

Alice continued on her rant. "Tell me where you are so I can come and get you! ...Bella? Answer me, damn it!"

"Oh, right, um..." Clearly Bella hadn't been paying attention.

I chuckled.

Alice heard me and freaked out. "Who was that? Whoever you are, if you lay a hand on Bella, I will personally put your balls in a shredder while you are sleeping! Now you listen to me, you sick son of a bitch, Bella's dad is the Chief of Police here in Forks so if you so much as—"

"Alice, relax, it's me. Edward. Your brother," I said, before she called the cops on my ass.

"Exactly. No rapists here," Bella added.

"Oh," said Alice. "That's a relief, although it's past one o'clock in the morning, so I reckon you guys should probably head back. Unless Edward wants to get on Charlie Swan's bad side." She paused, before adding, "He has a gun, right Bella?"

I shuddered.

"Anywho, I'm gonna go home now—Jasper's giving me a lift. Is it okay if you guys go back with Emmett, 'cause I've already—"

"Wait a second—who is this Jasper fellow?" I asked. She was not getting a lift with some guy she just met!

"Relax, Edward—he's a total sweetie, and he's Rosalie's brother, not a complete stranger. Besides, I met him before at musical auditions and he..."

I wasn't even listening anymore. I was not okay with this, and she knew it, but I couldn't really stop her from going—I was here, and she was at the party. "Do you have your pepper spray?" I asked.

"Yes, Edward." I could hear her getting annoyed with me. Oh well. Stranger Danger talks are of the utmost importance.

"Well it'll be no good if you don't actually use it, now will it? If he tries to hurt you, or make you do something you don't wanna do, or hold your hand, or even breathe near you, or—"

"I'm going now." She cut me off?! "Be nice to Bella. By the way, since when did you guys hang out? I thought you hated each other." I was surprised she hadn't asked earlier.

"We sorted things out." I smiled at Bella. "It's all good now."

"Oh, that's great! You guys were starting to get annoying." Blunt as always. "Well, I better go now. See you guys later!"

"Bye," said Bella and I said in unison.

I started to get up and held out my hand to Bella to pull her up too. "Alice is right—it's getting late, and we should get back to Lauren's before Emmett leaves without us."

"Damn it, I was just starting to—" she stopped before finishing her sentence.

"Starting to what, Bella?"

"Have fun," she said, quietly.

I was worried—she sounded as though she wasn't sure if we were supposed to have fun, if it was allowed between us. "Is that a bad thing?"

"No. I just never thought I'd say that to you." My heart sank, and it probably showed on my face too, because immediately she began explaining. "Not that I didn't want to. It's just that with the way we were going, I thought we'd be like, I dunno, arch-enemies or something." She laughed. "But you're a pretty cool guy, Edward. I'm glad we sorted everything out."

She thinks I'm cool! I nearly squealed with delight. Edward that is so not cool. Never, ever, ever squeal. I don't care how delighted you are, you'll sound like a moron. "Me too," I smiled. That's good. A normal reaction. None of this squealing business.

I marveled at the carefree and beautiful smile that graced her face, making me wonder how I ever had enough reason to replace it with anger and frustration. If I had just made more of an effort to talk about everything with her than I did in the past, then none of this hatred would have existed between us. And hating Bella Swan was not an easy thing to do, because I hated hating her.

I was crazy about her, and as hard as it was to hate her, feeling this way about her was so much harder. Because I knew there was absolutely no way she liked me the way I liked her, and that hurt like hell. She didn't like me because I was the only stupid fuck who'd constantly hate on the person they wanted to be with most. In my head, if I hated her, then I wouldn't have to worry about admitting my feelings for her and being vulnerable to rejection. She was the type who'd voice her thoughts—I was intimidated by this: it meant that if I was of no interest to her, she'd have no trouble shooting me down. I was afraid she'd just trample on my heart if I tried to give it to her. It wasn't that she was cruel; it was that she wouldn't do anything she didn't want to do. For example, being with me. I could hide behind our fighting, use it as an excuse to myself—an excuse for why I wasn't trying to get her to like me back. Because damn it, I wanted her to.

But Bella didn't like me.

She had no such feelings for me. And how do I know this, you ask? Well, she probably wasn't stupid enough to do what I did—to fuel a fight with the person that she cared about the most. Only I would do that. If she liked someone, she'd probably just tell 'em and hope for the best. Like I said, she voiced her thoughts. And with me, her thoughts had seemed to be quite far from "I am crazy in love with you, Edward, let me have your babies." No, I was just another person who had ticked her off, and she had given me the same treatment as she would've given Lauren and Jessica. I hated that she had me grouped with them, which is why I felt it was so necessary to stress that I was not friends with them and was nothing like them. I would prove that to her.

"So are you pumped for the musical, or what?" she asked, as we began walking back to Lauren's.

"Ha ha, yeah, totally. Can't wait."

She didn't miss my sarcasm. "I wonder who we'll get cast as..."

"Crap! I'm gonna get cast as one of those loonies?"

"What did you think, Edward?" She laughed. "But yes, you will."

"Argh, this is all Alice's fault! She's the one who put my name down on that list without even asking m—"

"Are you serious? She did that to me, too! Well, not exactly. I mean, I knew she was signing me up. But that was only a follow up to the promise she had me make to Coach Clapp. She somehow twisted everything around so that a musical would sound like an appropriate alternative to push-ups."

"Oh, okay. Wait—what?" I was confused.

"Long story short, Coach Clapp found out about certain...issues in my life. Nosy bitch. Anyway, he reckons push-ups will solve everything, and while he was explaining this to me, Alice intervened and said that the musical would suffice in place of the push-ups. Dunno how that made sense in either of their heads—I think she gave him some crap about us doing push-ups as part of our rehearsals, or something."

"...okay then." I wanted to ask what those problems in her life were, but I was afraid that that would be pushing our truce too far.

"Yeah. So that's how I got roped into doing the musical. It's weird, 'cause usually I'm pretty awesome at standing up for myself, but Alice is a force of nature. It's like she has superpowers."

"I know what you mean. But sometimes, I just let her do her thing. For some reason, when she makes the decisions, things have a way of working themselves out. It's like she's psychic and knows that even the most ridiculous suggestion will work in my favor if I run with it, no questions asked...Did that make any sense, or was it just weird? I mean, I know she not psychic, I'm not stupid, but—"

"I get it, Edward. It's okay." She laughed at me again. And if what she said next wasn't the ultimate ice-breaker, then I didn't know what was. "Wanna play The Penis Game?" The What Game?

"Uh, I'm sorry, w-what?" I stuttered.

"You know, The Penis Game! It's where I say penis, and then you say penis, and then I say penis, and then you say penis etc. etc.... But there's a catch! Each time you have to say it louder than the person before you. Whoever says it loudest wins!" She noticed my hesitation. "Oh, come on, Edward! It's not like anyone's around anyway. It's just you and me, 'kay? Alright, I'll start."

"O...kay then."

"Penis," she whispered, with a goofy grin. I sighed. This was going to be interesting.

"Penis," I whispered, a little more forcefully.

"Penis," she said, in her normal speaking voice. Shit, we were past the whispering stage already?

"Penis," I said, a little louder.

"Peeeeeeeeeeeenis!" she said in a sing-song voice.

"Penis!" I yelled.

She looked at me, surprised, before screaming out, "Doodle, Willie, PENIS!" Shit, how was I supposed to top that?

"PENIS!" I screamed—and it fucking echoed! Good job, Edward. I was grinning like an idiot. I looked at Bella and saw her clutching her stomach, laughing like there was no tomorrow. I was about to start laughing too when she pointed behind me.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph—we were in front of Lauren's house already? How had I not realized? How had I not heard the deafening music as we were approaching? I mean, I knew I was easily distracted by Bella, but I didn't know she could distract me that much. People in the front yard were giving me weird looks, and now I wasn't so glad that I had made the word "penis" echo.

"Why didn't you tell me that we were here already?" I whispered to Bella.

"And where would the fun be in that?" she replied, before skipping into Lauren's house.

I shook my head at her. She was crazy. But she was amazing.

BPOV

Oh. My. God. I can't remember a time when I had laughed so damn much in one night. Who knew Edward could be like this? I knew that right now, my feelings for him were growing. Not only did my legs turn to Jell-O when in the presence of his hotness, but he also had an awesome personality—something I had thought he was sorely lacking, but clearly I was wrong about that.

I briefly wondered what would've happened if I had met up with E.C. Would I have gotten the chance to talk to Edward tonight? Or would I still be with E.C. in the cosy space near the shed? Even though I felt bad for not seeing him, I was happy with how the night had turned out. I got to talk to Edward, and could finally see a possibility of friendship. I just hoped I hadn't jeopardized the one I had with E.C. I would email him tonight and apologize—tell him I'd gotten his message too late and that I'd tried looking for him, because it was the truth, and also a perfectly valid reason. I knew he would understand. I hoped he would understand. Please understand.

Edward caught up to me and we both went looking for Emmett. Surprisingly, Emmett was sober—but I supposed Alice would've made sure of that before relying on him to drive everyone back—, yet unsurprisingly, he didn't want to leave. Reason being Rosalie actually giving him the time of day. Well, night, but you know what I mean.

"Oh, come on, dude, don't be a party pooper!" Emmett wailed. "I wanna stay here for a bit—and so does Rose," he said, smiling at her while she snuggled into his side.

"Yeah, I kinda do wanna stay here for a bit," Rosalie said, "so if you guys want, you can take my car home, and Emmett will just drop me off." That was unexpected. Since when did she loan out her car? She must really like spending time with Emmett. "Wow, I can't believe I just offered you my car. I never do that. If anything is screwed up when I come to get it, there will be hell to pay." Ahh, that's better. More Rosalie-like.

"I'm leaving now—if you want you can catch a ride with me," said Victoria, appearing next to Edward. "It's no trouble," she added. I decided that getting a lift with Victoria was probably the best option. I was too scared to take Rosalie's car. Apparently, Edward thought the same.

"Thanks, Victoria, that would be great!" said Edward, "Is it okay with you, Bella?"

"Yeah, of course! Thanks heaps, Victoria."

"Cool. Let's go then! Bye Emmett, bye Rose."

And so we left with Victoria.

Once we were all seated in the car, Victoria asked us, "So where did you guys head off to? I haven't seen you all night!"

"Oh, well we were just at the playground," I said, sounding a little lame.

"And..." she pressed.

"We were just talking," said Edward, sounding kind of embarrassed.

So was I, even though we had nothing to be embarrassed about. Her insinuation just made me blush.

"If you say so," said Victoria, knowingly. Well, that was awkward. "Okay, I'm sorry. I'll change the subject now. What do you guys reckon is gonna happen with the musical. Lame as it is, I'm still itching to find out who I got cast as."

"Ah, I know what you mean!" said Edward, "I really wanna know who I'll have to play, even though I'm not very keen on actually doing it."

"Hmm, I reckon you'd make a good Ron," said Victoria.

"Are you serious?! No way am I playing Ron!"

"Well with that reddish hair of yours, I wouldn't blame Aro if he cast you as Ron. I know I would."

"Well what about Bella?"

"Hmm... Hermione Granger."

"What the fuck? No! As if I'm her! She's so anal about everything," I protested.

"Well, I couldn't think of anyone else! And I love Hermione, she's hilarious," laughed Victoria.

"Okay, well if we're going by hair color, then you're Ginny."

"I can live with that. Although if I get cast as her, it means I'll have to kiss whoever gets cast as Harry. That might be awkward." Yeah, it would be. Not for her, though. I was just pondering what would happen if I was in that situation. Although I saw no reason for Aro to cast me as Ginny—after all, Ginny had red hair and I had brown. But man it would suck if I got cast as Ginny and consequently was forced to make-out with, say, Eric? No, Mike? Nah, they wouldn't get the part. Shit, I hope they don't get the part. But then who would?

"Anyway, where do you guys live? I completely forgot to ask even though I'm supposed to be dropping you off."

Edward spoke first. "Actually, I live just on the street coming up on the left right now." So we said our goodbyes and dropped Edward off. And then there were two.

"'Kay, so my house is a little trickier to find. I'll give directions as we go." Which I did, and a few minutes later we pulled up in front of my house. "Thanks so much for the ride, Victoria."

"No problem," she said, smiling.

"Cool, so I'll see you at school on Monday then? ...wait—crap! Do you know the way out of here? Shit, I'm so sorry I—"

"Relax, Bella—I can find my way home," she said, "I live next door." But she sounded off, as if she should've known about this sooner. Weird.

"Serious?"

"Yeah! I'm surprised you live here 'cause it's kinda far from everyone else. Not that far, obviously, I mean it's still Forks, but most people live near Lauren or Edward."

"Yeah, well, my dad won't let go of this house—my family has had it for ages, so I guess it has a lot of sentimental value."

"Ah, well we just moved in, obviously, but I just live with my brother, James."

"You have a brother?"

"Yeah, I do." She smiled.

"How old is he? Does he go to Forks High? Have I seen him around?" Okay, Bella, no need to interrogate her...

"Nah, he graduated a while ago. It's just me that's still in school."

"So it's just you guys living here then? What about your parents?" Victoria was starting to look a tad uncomfortable. Enough with the questions, Bella!

"They...umm...well, they are a long story." And also none of my business. Take the hint, Bella. "Anyway, I should go, James is probably wondering where I am right now." She started pulling out of the driveway. "Bye Bella."

"See ya." I waved, before heading inside.

A/N: So not much happened in this chapter cuz I felt that if I kept going, I wouldn't be able to stop and the chapter would get too long. Plus, I was all for E/B bonding time ;-) Next chapter will be more interesting (I hope) :P Just curious—have any of you guys ever played the Penis Game? After watching (500) Days of Summer, my friends and I can't not do it. Ahh, so much fun. He he. Anywho, review & tell me about any funny/embarrassing games that you've played before, cuz I'd love to hear from ya ;)

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