Chapter 18 ~ Thin Line

Edward POV

I can do this.

I pulled an older pair of jeans out of my dresser and inspected them, before sliding them on.

I can go to the festival.

Have a good time with Bella.

Ignore the assholes…

I hesitated, as I’d began throwing a t-shirt over my arms, knowing the Volturi family would be there.  Knowing they’d be spreading their bullshit through the grapevine…so to speak... Knowing there was nothing I could do about it.

Then I finished pulling the t-shirt over my head.

I can do this, I thought, one last time, shoving the old baseball hat onto my head and adjusting it properly.

The few days prior to the event were…taking a little getting used to, for lack of a better phrase.

Emmett and I were on some sort of bizarre, avoiding topics neither of us wanted to talk about, plane where we were speaking but not really…speaking.

Which was nice and all but…I felt like I was nearing a breaking point, wanting to rant about my own issues that I’d had with him, since leaving.

Issues I’d thrown into hibernation but still…issues.

On top of which, I could feel the tension pouring off of him, as well.

Except, neither of us dared go there…for some unknown reason, otherwise known as Bella Swan.

My commanding officer was playing some type of…footsie slash tug of warm my heart while you freak me out, with the groundskeeper and Bella…

Well, she was fast becoming a fixture at the Cullen Vineyard.

She’d stayed the night a couple of times but also had her other commitments to work on, over at the Hales, and I’m missed out on seeing her a few times because either my visits to Carlisle, or her obsession with getting some…website formatting perfected.

Carlisle didn’t seem to be getting much better but the doctors said that was expected with the chemical reaction to the drugs he’d miss matched and the strokes…he was lucky to have survived at all.

As for me…

I was…confused.

About a lot of things.

All of the above plus throw the Army in there…and, the Vineyard.

It was all suddenly a lot more confusing that when I’d first arrived.

Especially Bella.

I was beginning to have a hard time digesting the fact that I’d be leaving soon.

That she’d be leaving.

That there wouldn’t be a bright spot to my life, anymore, once this summer was over and that was not something I was ready to deal with.

There’s still time, I finally told myself. 

Time to see her, touch her…feel her. In every way shape and form.

And when the time came, I wouldn’t make her feel like shit…I’d be a man about it.

I hoped.

Nearly, laughing at the way I’d become so attached to her laughter.

Even just her smile…it was, therapeutic.

“Ready?” Alice asked me as I tried to convince myself it was a far better idea to stay home.

One last ditch effort, and…

“Yep,” I said, smiling. 

Then I stopped, when I took in the site before me.

Alice in a sun dress…Jasper in…jeans…weird.

“Are…you two…going together?” I motioned between her and Jasper, who…had had arm around her waist.

“Do you have a problem with that?”  she challenged.  Scowl…baring down on me.

“Uh…no, I don’t…” know what I’m supposed to say here… “Think so.”

“Great.”

Jasper was only slightly hiding the grin on his face when he turned to open the door for Alice, then winked at me as he followed her out.

Well, good for them.

I think.

The offer was made, for me to hitch a ride with them to the festival, but I declined.

I like to walk.

I especially liked walking, lately.  Enjoying the smells of the vines as I passed them.  The memories they held.

Most of them, anyway.

And the possibilities of what wines they might yield in the future.

Ideas for different way the vineyard could go for Carlisle spun in my mind and before I knew it, I was there.

And I stayed away, for just a few minutes, watching the people. Listening to the laughter as it floated away from the clearing, toward me.

I wondered if the laughter would be just as audible, once I arrived.

As though my very presence would diminish the fun.

Then I shook my head at myself and walked onward, scanning the crowd for her as I walked by the people, trying to blend in, and finally…

“Bella.”

She spun around on me and I noted the auburn tints to her hair as each strand blew through the air.

The extra something, just for me, in her smile, when we made eye contact.

The want that mimicked my own in her body language.

And I breathed easier.

It was almost as though I was always waiting.

Waiting for her to realize she’d somehow picked the wrong guy.

To figure out that she’d misread me, in some way.

That I wasn’t right for her.

For this…

Whatever it was.

But she never did.

And I was grateful.

“Edward, you came,” she beamed, as she threw her hands around my neck and hugged the air right out from my lungs.

I coughed.  “I said I would.”

She wasn’t fooling me.  She knew I’d be there.

Before she let go, she kissed the underside of my jaw, then took a clump off of the cotton candy she was holding and shoved it into her mouth.

“I know, but I also knew you might talk yourself out of it.”

Tried to, anyway.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I said, teasing her, then I pointed at the sugary substance she was almost finished with. “That’s horrible for your  teeth, you know.”

She blew me off, of course and started right in on her urgent quest for the day.

The one she’d been attempting to get a commitment out of me for, for the previous few days.

“Rose is already registered for the grape smashing…she was going to do it with me, but then Emmett said he wanted to, and…”

“Crushing, Bella…” I laughed.  “Grape..crushing…and I…wait, Emmett?”

“Uh huh,” she said, pulling the last bit of candy from her paper stick.

“Em…is gonna grape crush,” I said, half laughing and in turn, spitting a little.

Say it, don’t spray it.

“Yeah,” she giggled as I apologized and wiped her face, as we were then, very rudely, and very non-eloquently, interrupted.

“Hey, Bella Swan…” Felix called out as he approached and I let out a sigh that said, please god…not today.  I don’t want to have to kill anyone on U.S. soil.

“Uh…hey…Felix,” she said, cautiously, back to him. Only because she’s one of the most polite individuals on the planet Earth.

Felix eyed me as he grew closer to us.

Then smirked.

“What ya doin’ hangin’ around such riffraff, Bella Swan?”

I watched him.

Wondering what the point was.

“It’s just Bella, Felix, and I’m here with Edward, if you don’t…”

“Oh really,” he crooned and then punched me in the arm.  “Well, sport, good luck with that.” 

He smiled a highly suspicious smile at me, then kept on walking and I watched him go, half expecting him to turn around for some more banter but he didn’t and I had to wonder, what the fuck that was all about.

“Jerk,” Bella muttered and then I was very appreciatively distracted by her, when she began licking her fingers, ridding them of any and all sugar and I thought, man…I wanted to do that.

Instead, I licked my lips.

While I watched her lick her fingers.

Which was…really sexy, for some reason.

“Oh,” she said, “Did you … want some?” she asked, all innocent looking but I knew what she was doing.

I narrowed my eyes at her.

“You’re evil.”

“Yes…yes I am,” she snorted and then tossed the paper tube into the trash, before putting her hand around my neck.  “But I’m also serious.”

She kissed me, then, letting her tongue tease me.

And the sugar.

It was okay.

It paled though, in comparison to Bella.

She just…tasted…perfect.

My hands went to where she was already pressing against me and I nearly forgot we were in a public place.

With lots of people.

Watching us.

Watching me.

Losing control.

I was half way up her shirt when I realized it.

“Maybe…” I pulled us apart, a little. “We shouldn’t be doing this…here…”

“I don’t care about them,” she said, eying a few people as they gawked, while passing us by.

“Oh I’m not referring to them,” I told her, nodding downward a bit. “I’m talking about walking around with a hard on all day.”

She giggled and leaned her head against my chest, then looked up at me.

Something stirring in that head of her’s.

“Maybe if you crush grapes with me, I’ll let you take me back to your place and ravage me, some more.”

My eyebrow raised a tad, at that. “Let me, huh?”

“Yeah,” she purred, slowly, kissing the corner of my mouth, softly…and very, sex kitten like.

And yeah.

Tempting.

Very…fucking…tempting.

I grabbed at her tank top.

What there was of it, anyway.

“Nice try, Pie Girl…but I promised you a grape festival…and I’d hate for you to leave Napa, never knowing the pleasure of free wine tastings.”

I might have been just a little bit sarcastic, there.

Maybe even bitterly so.

But I really did want her to get the experience before she left…and Rose might have hurt me, despite my manly physique, had I made her miss it for a romp in the winery.

About an hour or two, some laughs, some horrible wine and cheese combinations…and many…many junk food purchases, later, it was time.

And Bella was looking hard core, too.

I laughed because she was so excited and yet, had no idea what she was getting herself into.

This competition was vicious.

Not to mention, a work out on the calves.

Maybe I could rub them for her, later.

I peeked down at her.

She was bouncing and I didn’t hide my entertainment.

The announcer ran through his official list of rules and time limits and then the crushers were helped into their grape filled chambers.

Bella removed her shoes and tossed them onto the ground, then asked, “Mind helping me up?”

“My pleasure,” I told her and as I lifted her at the hips, she gave me a soft kiss. “For good luck,” she said and told her, “Good luck.”

“You don’t have a partner?” the announcer asked Bella, who gave me another look of pleading but I stood my ground.

“No way,” I mouthed to her and she shook her head to the man who then counted down, after telling them, “The first one to produce five gallons of juice, wins a case of the Volturi’s private stock.”

Woo hoo.

I rolled my eyes and Bella just smirked.

Then the whistle blew and the crushers all began stomping the grapes.

I kinda felt bad, because Bella wasn’t going to win with just her against all of the two person teams up there.

Especially Emmett and Rose, who were absolutely merciless, when it came to games.

He and I made eye contact at one point and I gave him my, man are you pussy whipped, look to which he gave me a look right back that pretty much said, yeah, don’t I know it.

“You should be ashamed of yourself, you know,” Alice said into my ear as I watched the festivities and I smiled, continuing to watch Bella.

The silent chuckles I let out were unhelped.

She looked more like a cat, trying not to get it’s paws wet, than a completely beautiful woman, inside a wooden barrel of grapes.

“She’ll be fine, she’s a fighter that one.”

“That may be,” Alice countered. “But that doesn’t mean she couldn’t use a certain someone up there with her.”

Then she walked on and Jasper bounced his eyebrows once in awe of the grounds keeper’s wisdom as he followed close behind her.

I went back to the show at hand after a look of confusion on my part and it was almost painful to watch Bella, as she tripped and squished and “ewe’d” her way around that damn basin, after a while.

“You're doing it all wrong, you know," I called up to her, unable to filter the laughing as I stood there watching her try to crush the grapes with the cutest fucking bare feet. Ever.

She stopped, holding on to the side wall of her enclosure, threw the hair out of her face, and then looked down at me, standing safely on solid ground.

"Well then why don't you get up here and show me how it's done, Edward."

And…

Was she challenging me?

“No thanks,” I said, politely but then Emmett had to chime in, from his own tub-o-fruit.

“Yeah, Ed…get up there and help a girl out.”

Eyeballing is an art, you know.

“He’s chicken,” Rose called out and damn it that woman didn’t know what buttons to push…

Still.

“I’m not…”

“Bwahhhhhck! Bock bock bock!” Emmett started chanting, as he stalked around in his and Rose’s basin…and yes, like a chicken.

“You’re an idiot, dude…you know that right?”

“Bwaaaaahhhhhhhck!” he pecked, sticking his neck out as far as it would possibly go.

Annoying.

I know.

He’d been like that since I’d known him.  But ya gotta love the guy.  I guess.

“Okay,” I told them, and Bella started clapping as I took my shoes off and rolled my jeans up some. “We’ll kick their asses, Bella.”

“Keep dreaming Edward,” he mocked me, snorting. “Rosey and I already have like…at least two gallons on you all.”

I hopped into the wooden tub with Bella, feeling the slimy grapes in between my toes.

“Ah…ha ha…that’s cold.”

Bella laughed and Emmett just kept walking around like a chicken, over in his basin, as she shook her head at him and told me, “I knew I’d get you in here, somehow.”

“Come here,” I said, as I pulled her by the hands and tried to get her to copy what my feet were doing.

“I can’t…get my feet to….” She struggled and I couldn’t help but get a kick out of her devotion to learning the art of crushing grapes.  It was as though it was her life’s work.

“It’s easy, Bella,” I said to her, finally, and she looked at me, then, with hope.

And fear.

“Just follow me,”  I told her.

It wasn’t like I didn’t know how to do it.  I just…never competed, before.

We made a sort of a coordinated effort to mash the grapes in a sequential order around from the middle of the basin, working our way out and I felt like, in some way, we were dancing.

Holding hands, watching the juice filter out from the skins, watching each other.

Bella’s laughter rang out and I just enjoyed her enjoying herself.

We were in the middle of a side splitting, rib hurting chuckle fest, while we slipped and lost balance every few steps, about to surpass the Emmett, Rose camp, when…

“What the fuck,” I spat, as a glob of smashed grapes hit me in the side of the face.

I looked over to see Emmett shoulder bobbing and Rose was bending over to gather up another handful.

“Oh, that’s how you wanna play?” I asked as I grabbed a handful and flung it over into Emmett’s territory.

And he says I’m  the instigator?

HA!

He never could stand losing.

And my have been a great come back, my toss, had it actually hit…Emmett…in the head. 

But it didn’t.

It hit Rose…so I went in to slow mo hero mode as she narrowed her eyes, pulling an arm back to wing a pile back at me.

And as they made it across the gap between our bins, I tackled Bella, taking her down into the grapes with me, so she wouldn’t get hit in the cross fire.

“Um, contestants, I don’t think you’re playing correctly…” the announcer was telling us as my partner and I hit the bottom of the basin, laughing our asses off.

So much for rolling the jeans up to keep the grapes stains off.

“Stay here, Pie Girl,” I told her as I peeked over the top of our protective wall, to see what our enemies were up to.

They were plotting, alright…So I grabbed a handful of grapes and tossed them like a hand grenade.

Hearing the screams of a woman…

Rose, I suspected, I chuckled as Bella and I looked over to see that…nope, wasn’t Rose I’d hit.

But the ladies in the bin next to Rose and Emmett, who’d thought Rose and Emmett had thrown them, so they were now throwing grapes.

“I gotta remember to not put so much ummph into my ummphs.”

Bella couldn’t control the giggles as the announcer sounded again.

“Ladies and gentlemen…this is NOT…”

But he was quieted by a grape that flew into his mouth.

He was choking, in other words.

“What are the odds on that?” I asked as Bella’s hand flew to her mouth to cover the inappropriate fits of snickering that she was letting out over the matter.

He was fine…someone was heimlich’ing him as soon as it happened.

But what that instance opened, in addition to our dear announcer’s wind pipe…eventually…was an all out, take no prisoners, fruit fight.  Including all ten basins of participants in the annual Napa Valley grape Festival competition.

No lie.

Grapes were flying in every direction, from every direction and the crowd was eating it up.

They even started picking the grapes up off of the ground that were falling out of the basins, back at us.

I got my pay backs in, finally, on Emmett, who’d been taken down by a side slinger of mine and he yelled out, “You are gonna pay for that one, Cullen!”

And then, although Bella and I gave it our best shot, all good things must come to an end.

She was weaving out of the direct line of fire from Rose and Emmett’s camp when she slipped on some grape skins and started to fall over the basin wall.

Her hands flailed and she screamed, reaching for anything close to her but it was all for naught.

As she flipped over the edge, and her feet flew upward, I grabbed for her waist but the momentum that Pie Girl had going was too much to bring back and we both went over the edge of the basin, onto the ground, into a messy, slimy, pile of crushed grapes.

I held her head, cradled into my hands and I pulled some of the grape skins off of her face, just…unable to stop smiling.

“You’re a mess,” I told her and then added. “A sexy mess.”

“So are you,” she laughed and the sun. It was so bright, that her eyes shown with the giggles she was letting out.

“You need a shower,” I said in a much lower, much needier voice, then, feeling her wriggle underneath of me.

Wanting her.

No, needing her.

“Wanna give me one?” she answered, more seriously.

“Definitely,” I told her, placing my lips against hers, tasting the sweet juices that were left over from the grapes, there.

When I pulled away…sort of, anyway…she wiped the wet hair out of my face and whispered, “Let’s get out of here.”

And I was very…in on that plan.

A cloud moved over head and I cursed Napa weather, not calling for rain, but then I realized...

It wasn’t a cloud.

It was a shadow…of a person.

I twisted, and looked up, blocking the brightness with my free hand, to find a man standing over us.

He looked annoyed…or, angry and I was about to ask him if he’d never seen two people about to go get down and dirty in a vineyard before when Bella squirmed out from under me.

“Jake,” she muttered, embarrassed, it seemed, almost…and then he spat, “Is this what you’ve been doing out here in Cali, Bella?”

She was already up.

“I…” she shook her head a little.  “What are you doing here?”

I was still sitting.

On the ground.

Trying to figure out how we’d gone from getting ready for a water saving shower, to the fiancé ruining the moment.

Emmett, however…was out of his basin and next to Bella, in about five seconds.

As was Rose.

And I was thinking, the competition was officially over.

As was the fun for the day.

Ex’s.  Ya gotta love ‘em.

Or…not.

“I’m here…” he said sarcastically, “To bring my fiancé home.”

“Jake…I…” she breathed.  “I left you a message,” she said, in a quieter tone and he laughed. “Yeah, I got it, eventually…but you’re clearly going through some…” he looked my way then, as I, finally, was standing.

Next to Bella.

“Thing.”

“Excuse me?” I said but Bella cut my anger off.

“Jake, I’m not…going through…anything,” she tried to explain, but he seemed to be quite hard headed, this…nice…ex…fiancé person.

I eyed him up and down.

“Seems like you wasted a trip,” I told him and then we squared off.

“Edward,” Emmett was saying and we locked eyes for a moment.

“I don’t waste…anything,” the ex retorted and I broke the silent communication with Emmett, then, to look back at our latest uninvited guest.

“First time for everything, I guess.”

“Edward,” Bella was warning and I didn’t know if it was to ask me to leave the ex alone, or to tell me to back off from the love of her life.

“Everything alright, here?”

It was Jasper.

And Alice.

Who’d noticed the crowd forming and had hurried over to see what was up.

I’m sure Alice wasn’t surprised.

“So far,” I told my commanding.

“Why are you here, now?” Emmett asked the ex, like the protective cousin that I myself had seen him as, the first day Bella arrived in town.

Arms crossed.

Brow…furrowed.

If I wasn’t me, I’d have been scared of him.

The ex shot him a kind of a fuck you look and told I thought Em was gonna be-head the guy right then and there but Rose stopped him and he was the perfect gentleman, again, as Jake gave him his answer.

“Not that it’s any of your business..but like I said, I’m here for Bella, to take her home.”

“No,” Emmett said…almost…like a question.  He un-crossed his arms and I was in the middle of trying to figure out where exactly he was going with his line of questioning when he answered my question for me.

“I mean, why are you here…now…?  As in, Bella called you, like, a week ago.”

And our hero all of a sudden didn’t have an answer right away.

Which I found…highly amusing, to say the least.

Bella’s look of annoyance changed, as she looked from Emmett…to me…finally, landing on this guy, Jake.

Waiting.

“Well…”

“Yeah…where have you been? I’ve been calling you all week.”  She seemed more curious, maybe even worried with the question, at first.

Until he answered her.

“Bella, can we talk about this…in private?”

And OH…the control freak comes out to play.

I knew it!

He made to take her arm and I was about to take it off for him when she snatched it away. “I don’t think so, I want to know where you’ve been all this time.”

He let out a shortened breath of defeat, thinking…probably of a good story, but then again, he didn’t look like the lying type.

Which meant, he was about to feel the wrath of Pie Girl.

More amusement.

“I had a work emergency, Bells…it wasn’t avoidable.”

Oh…

No.

I put my hand over my eyes for the guy, then peeked through two of my fingers.

Tell me he didn’t just…

Bella’s eyes closed and her brow scrunched together, as though she was trying to understand what he’d said.

But I knew what he’d said.

And I was glad I wasn’t that guy.

“You…I don’t understand.”

Yes you do, Pie Girl, tell him to fuck off.

“I had to take care of some things…for a client.”

And oh my fucking god this guy was such a putz.

Blank stares.

Blank stares were abundant.

Not on my part though.

I was still stuck on who the fuck did this guy think he was showing up in the middle of my quality Bella time?

“So…”

It was Emmett again.

“Bella broke it off with you…and you….went to…work?”

Then they were toe to toe, those two and the ex told him, through gritted teeth. “Yes.”

“Jake…” Bella was starting her break it up efforts.

“Bella Swan….these guys giving you a hard time?”

And… “Jesus…Christ,” I spat as he found his way in to the middle of the chaos.

“Nobody’s giving anyone a hard time, Felix, just…”

“Looks to me, like ya are, Eddie boy,” he teased and I grew weak in my defenses against killing people on U.S. soil.

I balled a hand into a fist, then let it go, stretching out the punch muscles.

It was kinda like a sixth sense with me, knowing when a brawl was about to break out.

Maybe I’d learned it from Jasper.

Maybe it was because I’d been in so many.

Either way…

I moved strategically and protectively around to a more frontward position to where Bella stood, so she wouldn’t get hurt.

Then I realized, in addition to the fact that the ex was there, randomly…that Felix seemed to know him.

“I think we should go,” I started to say, and I actually thought Bella was buying into the idea when the he…the ex that is, started his own form of convincing Bella of…something.

“I just don’t get it, Bella, why are you wasting your time with this…” he waved a hand at me. “Random…fling…I mean, he’s leaving….in like…”

“I’m not…” she said.

“Wait,” I stopped him…because, “How’d you know that and what’s that go to do with…?”

He eyed Felix…

Ofcourse.

Then back to me with a hearty, “Fuck you, Army guy.”

“No, fuck you,” I told him, really referring to Felix, but it didn’t matter. 

Felix pushed me away as I started for the ex.

Emmett put a hand on Felix and I desperately…needed to hit someone…so, next, I threw the first punch.

It was inevitable.

Where Edward Cullen is, this is where trouble begins.

Fists flew.

Emmett was even in the middle of it somewhere, although, who’s side he was on, I couldn’t tell….but along with us, was Jasper, who hadn’t hesitated to get my back.

Ever.

Officials came over, yelling at us to break it up as they got struck a few times themselves…but in all honesty, it wasn’t until we noticed some screams and looked to find Bella, struggling with Felix that we stopped.

“Felix…I can take myself home…” she grunted as he practically dragged her away from the crowd and Alice was slapping him.

Hard.

“You don’t need to be here for this,” he was saying and try as she might have, she wasn’t getting anywhere fast.

“Get your hands off of her!” I yelled out and realized, it sounded louder than I’d planned, even.  But then I noticed, that was because the ex had screamed the same thing…at the same time I had.

And if ever there was someone I didn’t want to say the exact same thing as, at the exact same fucking time…

It was the ex fiancé.

We looked at each other.

Like peacocks, in a stand off.

Everyone was stopped dead.

Even Felix, who’d let go of Bella finally and my breathing had never been so rapid.

I was waiting.

For something.

For Bella to tell him to go home.

For Emmett to tell him to fuck off.

For a sign that it was okay for me to tell him to fuck off.

But none of it ever arrived.

And then, as he and Bella stared at each other, with a wave of his hand, he said, “Ya know what, I’m outta here.”

And you’d think…

For a minute, at least…

That I’d have felt triumphant.

That I’d…I don’t know, laugh in his face…kick him to the curb…tell him good riddance.

But the look on Bella’s face, when he said that.

It tore at me.

At my heart.

And I just couldn’t be anything but broken.

She hesitated, as he stomped off like the momma’s boy he probably was.  Like the temperamental child, who’d gotten his toy taken away.

Then she made to go after him.

“Bella.” I grabbed her hand before she could leave all together.

I was practically laughing.

But it was more like an…aching kind of laugh.  One that said, please don’t go.

I want you to stay.

Even though I knew better.

It wasn’t like Bella to let someone she cared about, hurt like that.

“Edward,” she was looking to me for answers.

For understanding.

But I didn’t have any.

It wasn’t my place.

“I can’t let him just….leave like this,” said, practically tearing up right then and there.

God, it hurt.

It hurt that she wanted to go to that…dick and make him feel better.

I wanted to support her decision.

To tell it was okay, I understood completely.

But I didn’t.

And I didn’t answer her.

And then, she left.

Felix guffawed and I started over for him.  “You did this.”

“I confess,” he tried to say seriously, with his hands up in the air as though he was under arrest.

“Why?”

“Someone’s gotta keep you in check, Cullen, your father certainly couldn’t do it…”

And then I lost it.

Everything I wanted to take out on that bastard of a life long love of Bella’s…I took it out on Felix.

I jumped him before anyone could stop me and we were on the ground at lightning speed.

Felix is big, but I’m fucking stronger than his lazy ass…as was proven already, approximately four and a half years prior to that day and he was bloodied before long.

Before Emmett could grab at my shirt and pull like crazy to get me off of that dick.

Jasper stood by, all the while.

And when Emmett was able to finally pull me off of Felix, I found my commanding officer, immediately, almost as though I was back at Fort Benning.

In the beginning.

I expected a look of disappointment.

Maybe even disgust.

But what I found, was nothing but enlightenment.

Like he had just read the missing part of a book he’d never quite understood.

People were helping Felix up, getting him some first aid when Emmett took the opportunity to chime in. 

“Why, Edward…why do you always go after that guy…I just don’t…”

“Why don’t you shut your mouth, Emmett McCarty.  And stop making accusations about things you know nothing about.”

And it was…not who I’d expected to hear that phrase coming from.

I looked to see Alice, as she stood there, eying him, like a force to be reckoned with as Rose took up next to Emmett’s arm, pulling at him.  Then there was some commotion finally, like things were over…people were moving on from the excitement.

Emmett didn’t say another word, when he left with Rose and I…who pretty much had nothing left to say, started to just…go, when Felix added one more insult to injury.

“May as well give the vineyard away, Cullen.  It’s a piece of shit…just like you…just like your father.”

“Oh I’m the piece of shit…” I said, tired of him…tired of his family and their…fucking money.

“You heard me, then…good.”

I laughed.  “My family’s vineyard will be up and running, Felix…” I told him, getting closer…more in his face… “It’ll be just as good if not better than it was, before I left, and when it is, we’ll sell you out of house and homes.”

And yeah, I said homes.

As in plural.

It wouldn’t be easy, but Carlisle could do it.

If he had the motivation, that is.

“Is that a threat, Cullen?”

“It’s a fucking promise, Felix,” I spat at him.

“You willin’ to bet on that?”

I sneared at him.  “I don’t need to bet when it’s a sure thing,” I said, and then left, along with Alice and Jasper and as we headed back to Carlisle’s, I sat in the back of the car, silent.

Fuming.

Over…everything.

Until, my commanding officer advised me that he needed to head back to Georgia.

I wasn’t ready for him to go but he seemed pretty hell bent and nothing I said or that Alice could have said was changing his mind.

“Us enlisted men don’t get the time off you civilians do,” he said, while we walked back up to the house…and he smirked at me but I assured him, “I’ll be back, sir, that’s the plan.”

“Really?” he mused.  “’Cause it sounds like ya got your hands full, here, Sergeant.”

“I’m just cleaning up a mess, is all, sir.”

“You sure about that?”

“Absolutely.”

He nodded. “Mind puttin’ your signature where your mouth is?” he asked and when I eyed him curiously, he said, “’Cause I brought somethin’ for ya.”

Alice remained quiet when I followed Jasper to my father’s study and after we talked…

About everything from prior commitments…to current situations, we finally emerged, long enough for him to spend his last few hours alone somewhere with Alice while I made my way down to the back patio to be alone.

Which is pretty much where I wanted to be for the time being.

I didn’t want to think about what was going on with Bella and that…fucking asshole that had “come to Napa for her”…after his work was done…

And I didn’t want to think about dad, or his situation, following his hospital stay…

Or the decision I’d made that day, based on anger.

And I definitely didn’t want to think about Felix fucking Volturi and his band of merry men who were able to pay officials off to stay quite about just about anything.

I don’t know how much time had passed and I barely registered when Jasper had come down to say goodbye.

Then, finally after Alice had taken him to the airport and was back home, I heard her open the sliders behind me, before joining me on the back patio with her wine glass in hand and I filled it for her.

She sat down and we both just sat there, staring out at the vines for a while, like it was an old hat for the two of us.

Then she took a sit to finish her glass off and said, “That was pretty ballsy, today, Edward.”

I twisted the wine glass in my hand, at the stem, watching it.

“Probably pretty stupid, too.”

“Yeah,” she said, breathing in, through her nose.  “But it was more ballsy than stupid.”

I nodded, thinking about how she had a way of putting things sometimes and then we were both quiet for a few more minutes.

“It’s probably gonna fail, miserably.”

“Maybe…maybe not.”

More silence.

More open, honest, silence.

Then, when I’d had enough of it…

“Alice?”

“Mmm Hmmm?”

“Thanks for backing me up out there, today.”

She smiled at me when I looked over at her.

Then we clinked glasses and finished our wine.

In more silence.

I got up after finishing off another bottle or two and she asked me, “Where ya going?” as I stepped out into the back of the property, toward the vines.

“Just…” I turned a little toward her without exactly looking at her, frowning at nothing.  “Gonna see how they’re doing,” I finished but really, it was that I wanted to be able to clear some things out of my head.

Away from Alice, no offense.

And maybe just, enjoy the scenery.

While I still could.

I found a spot I’d used to go when I was younger.

Where I knew Carlisle wouldn’t see me, had he come outside looking for me to go do my chores.

And I sat there, with bent knees and lazy arms…eyes closed, letting the wind push up against me, unable to stop picturing that last look of pain on Bella’s face as she’d left the festival earlier that day.

I knew I had no rights to her.

Felix had been right.

I didn’t like it, but he was right.

It wasn’t like I could promise her anything.

A boyfriend…

A future.

Especially a happy one.

That was about when I realized, that despite the lightness of our exchanges…the passionate feel to our intimate encounters….

Despite the fact that she was incredibly perfect beneath the sheets.

It was her.

Just Bella, that I’d enjoyed.

Everything about her was…it made me whole.

And now, I’d be un-whole again.

Regardless of her situation, or mine.

And I was so…completely screwed.

A/N: Thin wines are unpleasantly watery, lacking in flavor intensity and texture.