A/N: Something just for fun. No contest, no fundraisers, just a plot bunny I had. The story is short and complete, so I'll probably post the chapters once or twice a week. No worries, canon friends, it's straight Edward/Bella from here =)

Thanks to mycrookedsmile for giving this the beta business. You already know the characters aren't mine, but these incarnations of them are. No copyright infringement intended.

EPOV

Ow. Ouch. Ow.

Light burning my eyelids.

Is my head being squeezed in a vise?

Carefully, and really fucking slowly, I roll myself off the edge of the bed and land gracelessly on the floor. I've never felt this terrible in my life. Never. What the hell did I drink last night? Better yet, what didn't I drink?

Since I'm already on my hands and knees, I just crawl to the bathroom, my eyes pretty much closed the entire way there. It hurts to keep them open anyway. You know the feeling, where your eyelids feel a hundred pounds each and actually tremble when you attempt to move them. Not to mention that bizarre sound you hear inside your head. That has always freaked me out, being able to hear my muscles and nerves. So weird.

I close the bathroom door but don't turn on the light. It's too high up to try and reach anyway. The brightness would kill me, too. I find the toilet and lean over it, waiting. I know this is going to hurt, but hopefully the end result will be better for my abused stomach. A burning esophagus and some muscle cramps on account of the reflux are better than the death warmed over thing I currently have going on.

I'll leave out the details, though.

With the bathroom still dark, I get the water on and crawl into the tub, proceeding to take my shower while seated. Not my finest moment, but it feels better than trying to stand and risk falling over. With my luck, I'd probably hit my head and pass out, then get hypothermia when the water turned cold.

Eventually, I manage to finish up. I still feel like complete and utter shit, but it isn't quite as awful as it had been when I woke.

After drying off, I have to sit with a towel wrapped around my waist, though I do manage to stay up on the toilet seat instead of the floor. I'm not sure how much time has passed, but it feels like hours. I eventually decide to get on with my day or at least fall back into bed. I brush my teeth and swallow a few sips of water before opening the bathroom door.

The light creeping in from behind the drapes is more than I wished for, and it takes me a few moments to acclimate after being in the dark for so long. I look around the room and when my eyes finally trail over the bed I see something I certainly wasn't expecting. Or better yet, someone. Long brown hair is splayed out in a wild mess and her face is buried in a pillow, but I know who she is. My concern is that I have no idea how she ended up sleeping in my bed. I can vaguely recall dragging her out of a club, but that's where the details fade out. I can only assume that I slept with the girl, and I'm more than a little pissed at myself for not remembering.

Keeping as quiet as possible, I tiptoe toward my suitcase to grab a pair of boxers and some clothes. That's when I notice it.

My left hand is extended, and now in the light of the room, I see I'm wearing a ring.

Holy shit. I'm wearing a ring on my left hand. On that finger.

I'm in Vegas and I woke up with a hot girl in my bed and a silver ring on my finger.

I need to get out of here. Without even dressing first, I grab for a few articles of clothing and bolt toward the door. I'm hyperventilating by the time I make it out to the hall.

What the hell did I do last night?

.

My cousin Emmett was one of my best friends growing up. Our moms are sisters and have always been close, and our childhood in Chicago involved a great deal of time together. College took us in different directions – me to Boston and Emmett to Tennessee. We kept in touch through the years, and whenever we were home, we hung out as much as possible. Having a cousin the same age was sort of like having a brother but without all the sibling rivalry bullshit.

It was sometime during the summer before junior year that I first noticed an individual who made a lot of posts and responses on Emmett's Facebook account. I paid closer attention to this friend of his, Bella Swan, and may have stalked her profile a little bit. What could I say? She didn't keep her shit private. Even though I had never met the girl, I was infatuated. Her sense of humor and well-appointed quips and responses captivated me, and there was just something about her dark hair and deep eyes that caught my attention. She wasn't the blonde bombshell type like Emmett's longtime girlfriend Rosalie, but there was a draw I felt to her unassuming smile in all her photos.

My little internet crush continued on through the next couple years of school. Whenever Emmett posted something, I always waited to see how Bella would respond to it. That would often incite banter between the two of them, which was yet another point of amusement and intrigue for me. Emmett was obviously quite comfortable with this girl, and that made me like her even more.

I wouldn't go so far as to say I was obsessed, but I felt a kind of connection to Bella, even though she was a complete stranger to me.

Every so often, our Facebook comments would spur side conversations between us, but that was it. I didn't even think she knew who I was.

I still liked her, though.

So it came as a surprise to me when Emmett suggested an impromptu weekend trip to Vegas only a month before our respective graduations. I hadn't gone on a spring break that year because I'd been saving money for grad school, but Emmett insisted that my Uncle Carlisle had agreed to pay for our flights and hotel rooms. My dad made decent money as a lawyer, but it was nothing compared to the prestigious Carlisle Cullen, M.D. So Vegas it was, and once the drinking started, everything else seemed to blur.