"Alice, I really don't see why we have to go shopping every freaking weekend," I whined as she opened the door to her house; mansion was more like it.

"Oh come on Bella," Alice rolled her eyes. "You can't honestly tell me that you didn't find that Hollister worker delicious."

"That was one guy at one store, Alice. You made me go into every single store in the freaking mall. He was the only cute guy anywhere in the entire mall," I pointed out, glaring slightly at her. "And you made me buy like four bags full of clothes that I'm never going to wear!"

We made our way into the family room of her huge house, dropping our heavy bags gratefully in the doorway. Inside the room, there were three guys looking up at us, waiting for Alice to notice them, but she was too busy arguing with me.

"There was that one guy at the movie theater place. He bought that ticket to see some movie. Remember him? He was hot," Alice grinned. "And you definitely are wearing those clothes."

"Yeah, I think I missed that guy," I said sarcastically. "When, exactly, am I going to wear the lingerie set that you bought me? Huh? Last time I checked, I didn't have anyone to wear it for!"

"I have foreseen a great romance in your future," Alice said imitating the voice of the fortune teller in Pirates of the Caribbean while dramatically placing a hand on her forehead. We both started laughing at our inside joke. Alice was such a freak; she seriously believed that she could see the future and I always made fun of her for it. "But Bella, seriously, you need to start dressing better."

"What's wrong with what I wear now?" I asked defensively.

Alice stared at me like I was stupid, still not noticing the three gorgeous boys sitting on her couch. "Bella. You're wearing a sweatshirt and jeans," she said in an obvious tone.

"And…?"

"Summer vacation just started! It's freaking almost a hundred degrees outside!" Alice exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air exasperatedly.

"Hey! This is my favorite sweatshirt! I'm attached to it!" I exclaimed. "And I like these jeans."

"Bella, they're baggy!" Alice rolled her eyes, placing a hand on her hips. Suddenly, her hand shot out and grabbed a hold of the hem of my worn sweatshirt and yanked it up, revealing my form-fitting tank top.

"Alice! What the hell?!" I shouted, jumping away from her hands and pulling my sweatshirt back down.

"Bella, you have a hot body. You need to flaunt it," Alice said, making me blush. I was fully aware that the eyes of all those guys were on me.

"Alice! I didn't know you were like that! I suddenly feel very uncomfortable about sleeping over tonight," I said sarcastically in an attempt to cover my embarrassment.

"Shut up, Bella. I was just saying," Alice rolled her eyes again. The number of times that pixie rolled her eyes astounded me.

My eyes subconsciously glanced over at the boys sitting on the couch, alerting Alice to their presence.

"Oh my gosh! Edward! Emmett! Jasper!" Alice squealed, running over to the couch and jumping on top of each one of them excitedly. I noticed that she lingered in the arms of the blond for a moment longer than either of the others. "Oh, Bella! These are my brothers Emmett and Edward and this is their friend Jasper. Guys this is my best friend, Bella! What are you guys doing here?!"

"Summer break," the blond said, smiling easily at her. I didn't miss the way they looked at each other and made a mental note to ask her about it as Jasper nodded to me in greeting. I smiled, already comfortable with him, and nodded back.

"Yeah, we college kids get out before you little high school children," the big, buff one, Emmett, said with a proud smirk, making me scoff. He noticed and narrowed his eyes at me, trying to look intimidating, I'm sure. "What's so funny?"

I smiled. "It's just that… you're so proud that you're in college and you got out early, yet where are you for your summer break? Partying it up with a bunch of drunk college kids? Oh, wait, no. You're here at your parents' house. With a couple of high school kids," I pointed out. "And we are already on summer break anyway, we got out early 'cause we're seniors!"

The third boy laughed easily, a natural sound that made my heart soar as I turned my attention to him. He smiled approvingly at me. "I applaud you. Not many people can put Emmett in his place. They're usually too intimidated by him," Edward said in a musical, velvety voice that had me smiling immediately.

"Intimidating? Emmett? Psh… I don't see what makes people think that," I said, looking Emmett up and down. "He totally looks like a teddy bear."

"We're going to go upstairs!" Alice exclaimed before anyone could say another word, running back over to my side and grabbing my hand, along with most of the bags and dragging me up the stairs to her room. She shoved her door open, dropping the bags just inside of it and letting go of my hand to shut the door as soon as I was inside.

"Okay. Spill," she said immediately, flinging herself across her bed and looking at me expectantly.

"About what?" I asked, looking at Alice like she was crazy.

"You and Edward," she said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "You totally had a moment."

"He smiled at me and I smiled back?" I said. "Last time I checked, that didn't constitute a 'moment.' I think you've been watching too many romance movies."

"No I haven't Bella," Alice persisted, looking at me stubbornly. "When I said I foresaw a romance in your future, I was telling the truth. You and Edward are going to end up together."

"Alice, you're crazy. I don't think I've told you that often enough," I said bluntly, sitting at the edge of her bed and pulling my sweatshirt over my head. It was really hot in her room. When I stood back up to find a new shirt to wear, just to pacify my best friend, I felt her eyes on me.

"Okay seriously, if you're like… bi or lesbian or something, tell me now please because your staring is making me very uncomfortable," I said as I pulled out a cute blue shirt and threw it on.

"No! I'm straight, totally straight! I love boys!" Alice shouted.

"Yeah, tall, handsome blond boys who just so happen to be best friends with your big brothers?" I said casually, sitting down next to Alice, whose face paled.

"How did you know?" she whispered.

"You lingered," I shrugged. "It was pretty obvious."

"You don't think my brothers know, do you? I thought we were being so good at hiding it! We've barely even spoken in front of them and we…." Alice rambled, but I cut her off.

"Wait, you're going out with Jasper?" I asked in a hushed tone. Alice nodded. "And your brothers don't know?" she shook her head. "Shit. You don't watch too many romances, you're living one."

"I know," she sighed, then smiled sadly. "He's so sweet, but I know it hurts him, having to hide our relationship. It hurts me too."

"Then why don't you just tell them?" I suggested softly.

"I can't!" she wailed. "They're so protective of me! They wouldn't understand and it would ruin their relationship with my Jazzy."

"Alice, do you love him?" I asked.

"Yes," Alice answered pathetically.

"Then you need to tell your brothers. I mean, you can't get too serious if you're in a secret relationship. Like, if you want to marry him… which, I understand that's a very far-off prospect, but still… If you want to marry him eventually, you're going to need to tell your brothers," I said.

"Maybe not," she said desperately. "Like, maybe we could elope or something. Then they'd never know."

"Elope and what? Have a secret wedding, just the two of you? You know you don't want that. You want a huge wedding with all the attention on you," I said, quickly shooting down that plan. "And even if you did elope then what? You're going to come back and act like nothing ever happened? Go live separately like you are now? You could never have kids, you couldn't start a family. No, maybe you'd just move somewhere far away where your brothers would never find you. You think they wouldn't notice that you had disappeared at the same time as their best friend? You have to tell them."

"Why are we talking about eloping? I'm a senior in high school, okay? I don't have to worry about this for a good few years," Alice sighed. "Besides, I don't even know if Jasper really feels that way about me."

"Well have you ever talked about how you guys feel?" I probed gently.

"Yeah, but you know guys at this age. They'll say anything to get laid," Alice shrugged.

"Alice, if you really think that's all Jasper's in this for then maybe you should stop whatever you're doing," I said softly.

"But that's the thing, Bella. I don't know what I think. I know what I feel and what Jasper's told me he feels, but I don't know anything else," Alice whimpered, burying her head in her hands.

"Alright. I'm gonna go downstairs and I'll send Jasper up in a minute so you guys can talk about this, okay?" I said as Alice nodded weakly and laid back on her bed. I stood up and walked to the door and made my way down the stairs.

Standing at the foot of the stairs, I had a clear view into the living room, where Jasper was watching Edward and Emmett play video games. He looked up, seeing me there out of the corner of his eye and I gestured for him to go upstairs, but he just shot me a questioning look.

I started to gesture more openly for him to go upstairs, my hands almost flailing around my head. Edward looked up, his eyes locking with mine as my hands froze above my head and he looked at me questioningly. Thinking fast, I smiled and started doing the YMCA and then lowered my arms, shaking my head to myself as Edward chuckled at me.

"YES! I WIN!" Emmett shouted, jumping up from the couch excitedly as Edward turned his attention back to the television, groaning to see that Emmett had beaten him while he was distracted.

"That's not fair. Bella distracted me. She doing the YMCA, man," Edward protested.

"That sucks for you," Emmett said, gloating over the fact that he had beaten Edward at a video game. Then he turned his attention to me, grinning up at me. "So Bella, what is our darling little sister doing that has you so bored you decided to come do the YMCA for us?"

"She wasn't feeling too well and I'm in a good mood, so she told me to come down here so she didn't ruin my mood," I lied, looking at Jasper, who still looked confused.

"Does she want us to go talk to her?" Emmett asked, his voice laden with concern as Edward actually made to get up.

"No!" I exclaimed, walking over to Edward and putting my hand on his shoulder to keep him seated. "This isn't the sort of conversation she wants to have with her overprotective, big brothers," I said with a pointed glance at Jasper.

Jasper's mouth opened and he let out a little "Oh!" of comprehension. Emmett and Edward both turned to look at him. "Heh, I, uh, I'm going to the bathroom," Jasper said quickly, rushing towards the staircase and giving me a quick pat on the back as he passed me.

Once Jasper disappeared up the stairs, I realized that I still had my hand on Edward's shoulder, holding him down on the couch. I withdrew my hand quickly as if burned and took a few steps back, towards the door connecting the living room to the kitchen.

I turned around and walked into the kitchen, heading for the refrigerator which was usually pretty well-stocked with food I could cook. As I was looking for something to cook, Edward's face kept popping up in my mind and I found myself staring into space in the refrigerator.

"Are you lost in there or something?" A velvety voice asked from beside me, making me jump. I turned around to see Edward standing there, an amused expression on his face as he watched me stare into the depths of his fridge.

"No. I was just getting… this," I said, grabbing the first thing that my hand found in the refrigerator, which just so happened to be a bottle of beer. Edward looked at it and then at me, seemingly amused while I breathed out a laugh. "Actually, that's not what I was getting. I was going to get the ground beef to cook for dinner."

"You're cooking?" Edward asked, taking the beer from my hand and popping the cap off of it before taking a swig and making a sour face. "God. Even after a year of college and being dragged to frat parties by Emmett and Jasper, beer still has the most unappealing taste to me."

I laughed as he poured the rest of the bottle down the sink and got a glass out of the cabinet above it and filled it with water. He then turned back to me, smirking slightly.

"Why are you cooking again?" he asked, leaning against the edge of the sink as he gazed curiously at me. I turned to get the pack of ground beef out of the refrigerator as I thought of my reply.

"Someone has to make dinner," I said, turning around to place the meat on the counter. I could feel Edward watching me as I pulled the plastic wrap off of the ground beef package.

"And my mom couldn't do it because…?" Edward asked.

"Esme is out of town for the better part of the summer with Carlisle. Apparently your dad had some medical conference thingy that he had to go to," I said, glancing at Edward who looked genuinely surprised. "They didn't tell you?"

"No. They didn't," Edward shook his head before a smile lit up his beautiful face. "You know what this means, right? Party."

I don't know how they did it, but Emmett and Edward had a party planned barely an hour after they learned that their parents were out of town. I watched and listened, amazed as the brothers called number after number rattling off instructions on how to get to the house and details about the party. From what I gleaned from listening intently to Edward on the phone, people were bringing drinks and they could stay as long as they wanted as long as they didn't trash the place.

"First party?" Edward asked, grinning up at me after he hung up the phone and caught me staring at him.

I shook my head honestly, turning back to the stove where I was cooking the meat for dinner. I had been to a few parties when I lived with my mom in Arizona, but I had a not-so pleasant experience at the last one I attended and I hadn't been to one since.

"You just looked in awe at the process of calling and whatnot," Edward explained.

"Oh, no," I said. "You just seem to have a lot of people in that contact list of yours."

"You think this is a lot? You should see Emmett's. He's got almost a thousand people in there," Edward said, getting up and bringing his phone over to me as he leaned against the counter next to me. "I don't even talk to half of the people in here. Let's see, there's… Eric. You probably know him. He goes to school with you… or went to school with you."

I nodded my head. I did know Eric. He was a pretty nice guy, but he came across a little too strong. Too overly eager to help.

"Then there's…" Edward went through his list, naming a good few names that I recognized and even more that I didn't.

"Lauren? As in Lauren Mallory?" I asked at one point, unable to hide the obvious disgust in my tone as Edward turned to look at me, amused.

"That's the one," he answered.

"Oh man, I can't stand her. She's such a bitch to me," I said, shaking my head as I stirred the ground beef in the pot.

"I know she is," Edward said darkly. I raised my eyebrow at him curiously. "Ex-girlfriend," he shrugged.

"Oh my God!" I exclaimed, dropping the spatula that was in my hand. "I just lost so much respect for you!"

"Hey, if it makes it any better, it was a very short lived relationship. Like three days or something like that. One date, that's all," Edward said. I continued to gape at him, still disgusted by this new discovery. "It was a dare, okay?"

I bust out laughing at that and lost my footing on the tile floor. I started to fall, clutching my stomach in laughter, and braced myself for an impact that never came. Edward had caught me and was holding me up, his hands on my waist.

When I was finally able to stop laughing long enough to talk, I pulled away from Edward. "Who dared you to go out with her?" I asked, still giggling.

"Emmett and Jasper," Edward muttered under his breath, looking away from me and rubbing the back of his neck in awkwardness. I wasn't sure if the awkwardness was from what had just happened or the fact that he didn't want to talk about Lauren anymore, so I just turned back to cooking.

"Speaking of Jasper, where is he?" Emmett asked from somewhere behind us and I jumped and turned around, my heart racing.

"I don't know. He went to the bathroom over an hour ago," Edward said, looking towards the living room as if to see if Jasper was in there. I felt my heart speed up and wondered what to do, how to keep them from finding out that he was in their little sister's room doing God knows what with her.

"I'm right here," Jasper said and relief washed over me as I turned to see him in the side door to the kitchen. He looked happy and only slightly disheveled. "I stopped to talk to Alice upstairs and was catching up on stuff at the high school. Apparently Mr. Banner still holds that grudge against you, Em."

"What grudge?" I asked, looking from face to face to proud face.

"Well, when I was just a little kid, your age, I guess," I rolled my eyes as Emmett started telling the story. "I had Mr. Banner for Biology and we had to dissect a frog for class, but I didn't want to do it because, I mean, those poor defenseless frogs never did anything to me. So I asked if I could be excused from the dissection, but he made me do it, saying that it was like an exam grade or something like that. Well, I didn't appreciate being made to do something that went against my morals and I took it to the principal, who agreed with me. So the principal told Banner that he couldn't make people dissect the frogs and he had to give us a choice. Well, as it turns out, I wasn't the only one that didn't like the idea of cutting into a poor little froggie. Almost the entire class decided to sit out the dissection process. I mean, it wasn't a big deal, but Mr. Banner always hated me for taking it to the principal and almost getting him in trouble."

"That's a boring story," I said when he finished. "No offense or anything," I added. "It's just that I was expecting to hear about some amazing prank that you pulled on him."

A wide grin lit up Emmett's face as he shared a secretive glance with Edward and Jasper. "Well, Bella, that is a story for another time," he chuckled.

Hmmm… do you guys like it? I don't know if I do. But yeah, so reviews would be cool. If you want me to continue it, then tell me? And also, think of any cool pranks that Emmett could have pulled in Bio? Let me know.