This entire story is dedicated to Brittany who is responsible for my newfound addiction to human AU stories. None of this would be happening if it weren’t for her. She even betas for me. :-)

Title: New Kiss

Author: ladyakako

Rating: PG-13

Summary: As Bella begins her third year at college, she befriends Alice Cullen and finds herself falling in love with her new friend’s older brother, Edward. All human AU.

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to Stephenie Meyer. Fic title is shamelessly stolen from Elisa’s song “New Kiss”.

The plane skidded to a hasty stop and I braced myself in my seat for the uncomfortable impact of the landing gear as it screeched across the runway. My hand gripped the arm rest a little too tightly and I felt an instant rush of gratefulness when the captain came over the intercom to prattle about what a pleasant flight it had been. Finally, I was back in Seattle.

It wasn’t that I hadn’t enjoyed my summer. I had, really. It was just nice to get back to my friends after two straight months that had been filled almost solely with my parents. I had spent the first month of my summer break in Forks, Washington, with Charlie, my father, and the second with Renee, my mother, in Jacksonville, Florida.

The two towns were almost as different as the parent they held.

Forks was the rainy, too green town that was almost too tiny to be even included on a map. I had been born there and had spent my last two years of high school there as well. I had only moved out to Forks because when my mother got remarried, I felt like I should have given her some space to get back in the swing of the whole marriage thing. After all, her first marriage, with Charlie, had been an utter failure which had fallen apart only months after my arrival into their lives.

Jacksonville was a sunny, beachy area that suited Renee and her new husband, Phil, perfectly. She had always been a bit flighty, so when she married Phil, I had been worried about how he would take care of her at first, but over the years he had proven himself to me. When it had been just the two of us, I did most of the care-taking in the house and she handled most of the childlike behavior. I was glad that she had found Phil, who could handle her erratic behavior, even if it meant moving out to Forks, which wasn’t so bad after I gave it a fair chance. It was just…boring.

It was still always nice to see Renee again, though. She knew me better than anyone else in the world and even being with her again for just a short month put me at ease again. It was a relief to return to Seattle, however, where I was attending college with a few of the good friends I had made in Forks. Among those good friends was Angela Weber who had volunteered to pick me up at the airport today.

I spotted her without much trouble in the crowd. Her dark brown hair and slight frame were always easy to pick out the crowd. She had her hair swept back into a neat ponytail and she smiled brightly when she saw me approaching. I returned the grin and hugged her tightly as soon as I reached her. It was good to see a friendly face of my age.

“Have a good time?” she asked sweetly.

“Yeah,” I answered truthfully, but didn’t elaborate. She didn’t probe me any further, probably noticing my fatigue and instead she took my single duffel from me, leading me out to her car.

The ride to our shared apartment was quiet, which was nice. After a month with Renee, any kind of quiet was appreciated. My mother talked more than anyone else I knew and although I loved her dearly, I had noticed that this summer her constant stream of words had tried my nerves more than usual.

When we arrived at the apartment, I immediately dove onto the couch and groaned, burying my face into one of the pillows. The apartment was immaculate, mostly because Angela had been home for almost a week without me and she tended to clean when she had nothing else to do. When I was home, I tried to help her keep the apartment neat like she preferred but most of the time it was a losing battle to keep anything clean for long. We were just too busy to have the time to pick up everything and it seemed to accumulate when we weren’t looking.

“Do you want to order pizza for dinner?” Angela’s voice floated over to me from the kitchen and I rolled over on the couch so that my face was no longer covered with the pillow. It took me a moment to answer as I cleared my brain of scattered thoughts of the last two months.

“Sure, that’s fine,” I answered finally.

“We can go out if you’d prefer,” she offered, coming out from the kitchen. “It’s just that I haven’t had time to go grocery shopping, so there’s nothing here except some milk and bread.”

I laughed to myself and nodded in thought. Going out to dinner sounded like a good idea. I didn’t really feel like spending the first night back in Seattle in our apartment. I wanted to re-acquaint myself with the city after being away from it for so long.

“Let’s go to that one Italian place downtown that Jessica showed us last year,” I suggested and swung myself off the sofa to go check my appearance in the mirror. I heard Angela agree behind me. I wrinkled my nose at my reflection as I stared into the mirror.

My dull brown eyes glared back at me as I pulled my impossibly straight hair back into a ponytail that swung to my shoulders. I contemplated changing clothes for a brief moment but then shrugged. It didn’t matter anyways. We most likely wouldn’t be seeing anyone of much importance there.

Angela and I took her car to drive to the restaurant and I was grateful because although I loved my old, beaten-up truck, it was a bit out of place in downtown Seattle. The big rust-red truck had been a gift from Charlie when I first moved to Forks. He had bought it off an old friend of his, Billy Black, down at the Indian reservation.

I had only met Billy a few times when he and my dad would get together to watch the games, but I would usually be up in my room or in the kitchen cooking when he was over anyways. Billy’s son, Jacob, was a few years younger than me but was a pleasant enough companion when he came over with Billy.

We made it to the small restaurant in record time and were seated almost immediately. The tiny place was almost empty except for a few couples here and there. I was glad to see that the quaint atmosphere hadn’t changed much over the summer.

Angela and I were both still skimming through our menus when I saw them for the first time. They were being seated in a corner booth out of the way of the rest of the patrons, but it was impossible not to notice them. I caught myself gawking openly as I took them in.

All three of them were breathtakingly gorgeous and I blinked a few times to make sure I was taking them in correctly. They looked as if they could be family of supermodels. All three had dark hair, although one of the two boys had a copper hue in his hair that the other two of his party lacked. The other boy, looked a few years older than me, and had some of the biggest muscles I had ever seen. His size was almost laughable next to the petite, graceful girl that accompanied them. They all were dressed impeccably well and I felt woefully inadequate in my jeans and t-shirt in comparison. I felt a flash of regret that I hadn’t changed before leaving the apartment.

I kicked Angela under the table and she looked up in surprise. I tore my eyes away from the trio and nodded my head in their direction. Angela immediately giggled as she glanced in their direction. She had obviously seen them before.

“Who are they?” I asked in an urgent whisper, darting another glance at them and storing away in my memory the fact that the one with the copper hair was particularly attractive.

“They are the Cullens, the kids of a new professor at school,” Angela explained quickly in a low whisper, careful not to look in their direction. “The two boys are apparently already graduated but the girl is supposed to be a Junior like us. She transferred up here when her dad got the job. Some family ties, huh?”

“Yeah,” I agreed, trying desperately not to gape at the lanky, copper-headed man that sat a little bit apart from his siblings. I was quite certain he was the most gorgeous man I had ever seen.

“His name is Edward,” Angela informed me intuitively, obviously seeing the direction my gaze was drawn in. I broke out of my daze and smiled thankfully at her with a small laugh.

“Sorry…just admiring the view,” I tried to joke, but my voice cracked a bit. Luckily, the waitress came at that exact moment and took our orders. Whatever I had planned on ordering completely flew from my mind when I had caught sight of them and I gave the menu a quick, desperate glance and chose the first thing I saw on it.

I didn’t dare look up at them again until Angela and I were getting ready to leave. As if he sensed my gaze on him, his green eyes darted up from where he was staring at his food and held mine for a brief moment before I looked away hastily. I flushed bright red and I felt the heat from my cheeks increase as Angela smiled at me from across the table.

“Ready to go?” she asked cheerfully, side-stepping the issue much to my relief. I nodded thankfully and followed her meekly out the restaurant, telling myself the whole time not to look back even though I was sure I felt his gaze on my back as we left.

Well, how was it? Review and let me know.

I have several more chapters written, so I’ll be posting Chapter 2 within a week or so. :-)