Disclaimer: Meyer made the mold but we are all here to break it. I own nothing except this here story's events.

beta'd by jcat5507

(she corrects my a/n's too—it's love)

Go Fish

Chapter 20 – Sweet Emotions

"Rosie-baby…stop paintin' flowers, or we are goin' to lose." Emmett's smilin' as he says this and paintin' like a beast, with a roller fisted tight in each of his large hands.

"Hmm, hmm—hmm…Emmy," she warns, "don't interrupt my creativity. It can only be good for our growin' baby girl." She continues her humming as she keeps on paintin' those silly little yellow daisies, not caring one bit that they are just goin' to get rolled over with one of Emmett's fast-movin' paint strokes.

Ben yells over from where he and Alice are both finishing up the second side of their cabin with that soft pink. "You might start thinkin' about your grillin' technique, McCarthy, 'cause me and this fine little lady have just about lapped you when we finish up this here wall."

This earns a frown from Emmett as he curses and double-times.

Rosalie just laughs and shakes her head at her man, and then she looks over at Alice and winks. She's thinkin' it would be good for her man to lose this battle since he almost always wins. Besides, Emmett absolutely loves to be grill-master.

Alice giggles and calls over, taunting, "Don't hurt yourself, Emmy-bear."

Emmett growls at that. He looks down to his lady-love and says, "Just so you know, we are havin' a boy…not a girl."

Rosalie ignores him and starts to paint another yellow daisy.

Bella's smilin' at the lot of them as she bends at the waist to dip her roller in the paint tray and load it up just right with that pretty sky blue. Then she yelps a little when she feels something large and warm squeeze her right ass check through her cut-off jean shorts. She straightens up real quick and admonishes Edward, who she knows is the culprit. "What do you think you're doin'?"

Edward is grinnin' lopsided as he shrugs and answers, "It was right there, B. I couldn't help myself."

"Well, you can help yourself on over to the far side of the wall. I'll stay right here, safe from prying eyes and wandering hands."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes…re—really." She stammers her words as she sees him get even closer to her. His heat surrounds her as well as his scent, and she wonders if she herself can keep her hands off of him. She blinks rapidly, her hand goin' up to cover that mark on her neck like it's some sort of brand. She swears she can feel it throb under her palm when Edward's darkening green eyes move down to stare right where it is.

He murmurs, just low enough for her to hear, "You know, B, every time you at sass me it makes me hard." His eyes flash back up to stare into hers.

She blinks two times in a row, and then she gulps and says, "Oh."

He shifts his weight from his right hip to his left, angling himself even closer, again. "I like it…a lot."

Her breath lodges in her throat.

She's got nothing.

Nothing but dirty thoughts now that Edward's rumbly, sexy voice has invaded her entire body.

She watches him, eyes still locked together, as he leans down to dip his own roller into that blue paint. His eyes disengage to travel hotly down her hyper-aware form as he blindly moves his roller back and forth. When he straightens up again, he's bent close to her ear, and he proceeds to breathe a big lung-filling breath of her. He hums is satisfaction. Then he turns and walks slowly over to that far end of the wall, whistling as he goes, and discreetly adjustin' himself.

Bella's thinkin' oh, Lord . She's got her hands full with that one, and she couldn't be happier about it. He's captured her good and true, and she has a feelin' that he's nowhere near the endpoint of showin' her how good it can be between them.

She shivers at the thought and forces her head away from watching his strong and long, lean bare arm as it rolls a solid line of blue paint up as high as he can reach.

As she turns to paint again, she sort of shrieks, 'cause Esme's standin' right next to her, all up in her space. "Jesus, Esme!" She swats at the woman's arm. "You scared the shit out of me!"

Esme snorts and shakes her head. "I was just checkin' your progress, dear."

Bella rolls her eyes. "Yeah, right? And I'm a monkey's uncle."

Smilin' big and bright, Esme waves over to her son, who nods back and shifts his hips to the right out of his mother's line of sight. Esme snorts again and looks back at Bella. "You two havin' fun?"

Bella, wary, eyes the woman's face and says back, "Uh…I guess."

"Looks to me like you guys could be in trouble as far as losin' concentration goes. Might come in last place, and then where will you be?" Her eyes sparkle as they move back and forth between her baby boy and Bella.

Bella tries to see where Esme is goin' with all this. She shakes her head in confusion and answers, "I guess that'd make us losers? I don't really care about that, Esme. It will just be really awesome to see these cabins with fresh paint. Charlie'd talked about doin' this for years, so…"

At that, Esme's eyes soften.

Suddenly, Bella finds herself in a tight Esme-hug, only her own hands are held out to each side in an effort to keep her pain-covered hands away from Esme's soft, flowy summer attire. Her heart tightens, and her eyes suddenly sting and mist.

Esme gives her one more long, tight squeeze around the waist, then she releases Bella and moves a loose strand of dark-brown hair back off her face and behind her ear. She smiles softly as she says, "Charlie would be so proud of you, Bella. All this hard work," her light eyes shift back as she speaks, only for a second, to where Edward watches them, then they go back to Bella, "and tryin' to move on—move forward—and findin' your heart…your love." Her own light eyes mist now. "I have no doubt he's smilin' down from where he is, and he's thinkin' to himself…hot damn, she's finally caught her big fish."

Bella chokes up at Esme's words. Not caring anymore, she throws down her paint roller and wraps her arms tightly around Esme. They hug and sway and smile and cry a little. And when they are through, they each release the other and start to laugh.

Bella says, "It's funny, too, 'cause my 'big fish' isn't much of a fisherman."

"Don't I know it, dear. We would have never had any fresh fish to fry if it hadn't been for you and for Charlie."

Just then, a ruckus is heard, and the two women look over across the way to where Carlisle is busy settin' up what looks to be Emmett's portable stereo, tryin' to find a good station. He's a might unsteady on his feet, but he finally succeeds, and BOB FM booms out the beginnings of Sweet Emotion.

Esme gasps out as she continues to watch her husband, "Oh, my! Here we go."

Carlisle sort of starts to do his own version of the legendary band's lead singer and that spread-wide leg-stance as he air-sings the lyrics to himself. It's obvious he's just toked up. He starts to shift his still partially-naked chest to his left, just like the rocker does, only he loses balance a little and has to catch himself. Once he's steady again, he moves over to a now-empty cooler, sits, and proceeds to lift it up over his head and pour its contents down over his head and chest.

Well, several gasps are heard, all of the female variety.

Bella looks to Alice, who's starin' wide-eyed at Carlisle, with her hand over her mouth, and then she looks over to see Rosalie staring at Carlisle, too, and fannin' at her face. Lookin' back at Esme, who's got her own look on her face—one of those looks a child should not ever see on its parent's face—and she exclaims in shock, "Did your husband just pull a Hugh Jackman from Australia?"

Esme's hand plays at her clavicle as she responds with a grin, "Why, yes…yes, he did." Then she leaves Bella and walks over to Carlisle, who's drippin' wet in those overalls-with-no-shirt. She wraps her arms around the back of his neck and lifts herself up onto her tippy-toes to whisper into his ear.

Carlisle's reaction is to wrap his own strong, bare arms around his lovely wife's slim waist and lift her up and carry her off to Bella's front porch, out of sight.

Bella's just stares after them and hopes they keep whatever their doin' to themselves.

That's when she feels something cold and spongy roll up the side of her neck and under her chin.

Her eyes flash to her left where she sees a ginning fool.

He shrugs, and says, "What? Paint happens…very messy stuff." His eyes kind of widen a couple of times like he's darin' her to do somethin' about it.

She turns to face him, somehow not surprised that Edward's just rolled blue paint onto her person. Her hands go to her hips.

He does that eye thing again. "Besides, you keep covering up that stunning mark I gave you, so I thought I'd help you out and just cover it up."

She stares at him. She shifts her hips. Then she say, "You're just so helpful, aren't you?"

Another widening of his eyes thingy, and he answers, "The most helpful, I think you'd agree."

More staring, except this time it's at his bare chest. She looks back up to his eyes and says back, "Well, I think I need to show how helpful I can be, too." With that, she turns around and bends over—on purpose—at her waist again, so her ass is staring right up at him, and she grabs a paintbrush this time and loads it up good and thick. Then she stands up again and turns back around and sees Edward's eyes trained at her hips. Then she proceeds to use that paint brush like a fencin' sword, and she paints several streaks across his fine as hell pecs. Then she flicks a spatter of paint at his face, and spots in various sizes of sky blue splatter him there.

His eyes, having automatically closed in reflex, open again as he sort of laughs then.

Next thing, and suddenly Bella Swan is air-borne, and then Edward's got her over his shoulder, and he's runnin' down toward Mud Cat Lake's cool waters, straight down that old wood pier, and then he jumps with a screechin', squealin', laughin' Bella up and off its end and into the water.

They both come sputtering up, splashin' and laughin' at each other.

Edward says, "God, I have always wanted to do that."

"Really? I have always wanted you to do that." She splashes him again.

This time, Edward lunges and grabs her by the ankle and jerks her to him, wrappin' her up in his arms good. When her legs automatically wrap around his waist, he knows she's not the least bit mad. In fact, he can see that her smile really can't get much bigger.

He whispers to her, "Give me a kiss, baby."

She whispers back, "Okay," as her eyes soften to him, and she plants a soft, sweet kiss to his waiting lips. Then she gives him about a hundred more after he moves them under that pier and out of sight.

xxGFxx

"Put that back. We are not getting that."

"No. We're getting' it."

"No…we are not."

"Yes, we are, too."

"Edward, give it to me, now."

"Or what, B? You gonna attack me?"

"Um…no-oh…duh."

"Aw, but I want you to. I like it when you attack me, so feel free."

Her face gets hot and red as she glances down the aisle of the Piggy-Wiggy grocery store they are currently in to see if anyone is watching them.

The basket Bella'd been pushing just seconds ago is now at a stop and slightly askew in its spot as she tries to snatch the small box out of a devilish-faced Edward Mason Cullen's hand. She is wholly unsuccessful, too, as he merely raises his longer arm straight up into the air and out of reach.

They'd all finished paintin' about thirty minutes ago, and as promised, Bella had taken Edward grocery shoppin' for all the needed supplies for grillin' burger, after they'd changed clothing first…and made out some more in her bedroom. It was strangely weird and sweet that Esme had gone to get another clean outfit for her son and placed it on Bella's still-rumpled bed.

She and Edward had actually ended up losing the painting race, because they'd had that kissin'-spell for so long in the lake water. Ben and Alice had finished first. Ben had even performed an Asian prayer-of-sorts for thankfulness after they'd won. Emmett loved to man the grill, so he volunteered to be grill-master even though he came in second—pretty much all on his own—just like Rosalie knew he would want to do. Bella had agreed, and let the gorgeous, expecting mother paint blue-n-pink flowers sporadically around the base of the Velvet Leaf Sienna's fresh but dry coat of yellow paint. She couldn't wait to see it.

Said askew grocery basket, havin' been filled up with everything they needed, Edward had told Bella he needed to check something out and proceeded to lead them down the personals aisle…

…and straight to the personal lubricants; i.e. Pure Blue Luxury Lubricant.

"Edward, give…that…to…me…now…"

"No."

She tries to jump up and grab it, but only succeeds in colliding with his taller, lean frame and smacking her breasts against his chest.

"Mmm…do that again."

"Edward!"

"Bella!" He sort of waves his hand holding the box of natural lubricant around and around up in the air.

She jumps—stupidly—again, and both his arms come down around her to hold her up tight against him. His mouth swoops into the crook of her neck to give her a raspberry.

"Arg…st—stop it!" She can't help her laugh. Then she bites him. Right behind his jaw under his ear. She knows he likes it there.

"Fuuuuuck, B! You are mean." He stares at her with lowered lids and begins to lower his lips to hers, open-mouthed.

"Hold it! Hold it right there, buster."

Bella and Edward both freeze. Edward moves his hand to hide the box of lube back and behind his rear end.

"I said freeze, fucker!" Again with the pointed nightstick and hand-over-gun threat.

Edward's thinkin' this guy is a loon and obviously has a strange knack for showin' up at the most non-apropos of moments. He's got a semi…again.

Bella hisses, "Embry Young, what in hell do you think we are doin'?"

Embry's shifty eyes move back and forth between the pair of them. "You just stay out of this, Bella Swan. I can see—clear as day—that this punk was about to steal something from this here fine store." He licks his chapped, dry lips and eye-balls the area where Edward is obviously hidin' something from his officer-of-the-law view. "Now, real slow like…" His hand tightens suggestively over that hand-gun. "…I want you to pull that hand out from behind your back and show me what you got."

Edward snorts. "Show you what I got?"

Embry moves the toothpick currently residin' between his lips from one side to the other. "You got a hearin' problem, boy."

Edward's thinkin' Embry really shouldn't call him "boy". He watches that toothpick's movement. He challenges, calling Embry Young out on stealin' another's move. "You got that toothpick thing from Carlisle Cullen, didn't you?"

Embry's eyes sort of widen then narrow, and he reaches up to whip it out of his lips angrily, except he accidentally pokes his lip with the damned thing, and a spot of red blood is seen forming. He points, furious-like, as he wipes at that blood with his shoulder, sayin', "Boy, say another word and you're goin' to the slammer."

Bella goes on alert at that. "Slammer? What for? And, who the fuck says slammer anymore?" She's thinkin' about callin' his mother. They are just as close as Angela is. Farmer's Market—Saturdays. Mrs. Young sells pecans.

"Bella!" It's man-shrieked, and it came from Embry. He spits out, "Shut the hell up, woman! This is man-business." It's said exasperatedly.

Bella fumes, but stays quiet.

Edward pipes in, "Embry, look, I am not tryin' to steal. We were messin' around, and—"

"Shut the FUCK up, Cullen! Show me your hands…now! Raise 'em high!"

Edward glares, not wanting to show this doofus what he has in his hand at all—for Bella's sake. He looks up and around the ceiling instead, then back at Officer Young—who's in uniform this time, but still—fucker. "Embry, look…you know there are video cameras up there. If we—I mean I—if I was stealing anything, they would have seen and come out for me." He stresses his next words. "I…wasn't…stealing…man…" His chest is heaving now, he's getting so mad.

"Show me your fuckin' hands, now, Cullen, or I will cuff you so quick you'll think I was Flash Gordon!"

Bella and Edward both have to try real, real hard not to laugh out loud at the comparison that Embry's just made of himself with the comic strip hero.

Embry continues, "They don't call me The Young for nothin'. Just like The Flash."

Edward snorts. "Dude, you know those are two different characters. Football hero…student hard-water inhaler?"

Embry pauses to think, and then he just looks confused. He yells, "Fuck off, Cullen!"

That's when a tapping sound is heard, and an older—very short—woman appears at the end of the personals aisle. She drawls out, "My word, son. I can hear you from the hair dye aisle way across the store."

Now, Embry is the one who's frozen. He peeks back over his right shoulder. It's frantic sounding when he says, "Mama, not now. I am busy holdin' up the law!"

Mrs. Young—that is, Nettie Young—stands still, annoyed with her fool of a son. Her right foot moves back and forth tap-tap-tappin'. Her aged, wrinked lips thin. "Embry Young. You step away from those fine folks, straightaway. You hear me?"

He spits, "Mama…not now!" A trickle of sweat runs down from his temple and over the side of his cheek. He looks wholly nervous and unsure of himself now.

"Embry. I said move. Now." More tapping of that same foot.

Hearing that tone…and that foot…Embry straightens up and eyes Bella and Edward. Then he adjusts his stiff shoulders and rolls them several times, seeming to morph onto a completely different person as he then turns around and goes to his mother.

She tusks at him, and says to Bella and Edward, "I am sorry. He's just not been the same since Tia left him. You should go say hello to her at the checkout. She's manager here, now." With that, Nettie smacks her son hard one time on his shoulder and then pulls him out of the aisle with a hard-holdin' pinch to his ear.

Edward lets out a puff of breath and sees Bella do the same. Then he says, simply, "Let's get the fuck out of here…with the box of lube."

Bella just looks at him and then relents. "Fine, you win. But you are buyin' that yourself."

"Fine." He grins.

With that, they both push that filled basket straight to the checkout lane.

a/n …*twirls*…read/review/love…*spins*…

BOB FM – I don't own anything where this awesome radio station of concerned. Sinclair Communications, Inc. does.

Song Credit: Sweet Emotion by Aerosmith…one of my all-time favorites and sadly I own nothing where it's concerned, either, but I'd be willing to go into negotiations with Mr. Tyler and Mr. Perry if they are willing (lol). Perfect summer song!

Pure Blue Luxury Lubricant: Not owned by me but by ISN Labs LLC. *kudos*

Flash Gordon: I do not own Flash Gordon, but I would definitely buy him a drink anyway, as long as he agreed to carry me across the end zone. *waves to Alex Raymond circa 1934* *sings: Flash…ah ah!*

The Flash: I do not own The Flash, either. *waves to Fos and Lambert, writer and artist*

xxx jess