Hi peeps! Is anyone around? Happy Halloween! I'm sitting at home with hardly any trick or treaters :-(

Anyway!

So … this is my 'kind of' new story. I've been sitting on it for a long time now with no idea what to do with it, but my apprehension with this site couldn't outweigh my wanting to share something with you guys since I haven't updated in a long time.

A few things to keep in mind - this is an Olderward story (about 13 year age difference btwn E/B) and once upon a time I thought about entering a short version of this in one of the 'Forbidden Contests' (which means their tie to each other is wonky). With that said, I think you know what time it is, and if this isn't your type of fic, feel free to hit the switch. No hard feelings :-)

This is unbeta'd. All EPOV. Prewritten and will update 1-2 times a week.

I hope you like it.

Happy reading!

SERVED COLD

1.

At the ass crack of dawn, and halfway through my morning routine, I was stopped short by the doorbell. My friends never dropped by unannounced, and while the sun was still rising, so I knew who it was as soon as the bell rang.

My heart slammed against my chest, and the toothpaste went stale. I was nervous as hell, but more than that, I was in a spiteful mood. So I'd continued getting ready for work, hoping she'd get frozen out by the cold and go away.

I should have known better.

Minutes passed with the incessant knocking grating on my nerves and making my eye twitch. While a few ideas came to mind about what to do, calling the cops while laughing my ass off at watching her get dragged away would've only caused me more drama and heartache in the end. So with a clenched jaw, I took a deep breath and opened my front door. Doubling it as a shield, I used the wooden frame to protect myself from the blasts of March wind and from the bitch standing on the other side.

Taking Angela in, my eyes narrowed. She looked as beautiful as she always did. Sky high boots with leather that stopped past her knees; long hair flowed down past her fur coat. And her signature bright, red lipstick was in place—sticking out against her tan skin, and almost begging to be sucked.

The expectant look on her face told me she was there to ask me for something. Money. A quick fuck. I wasn't sure which, but she'd only been bothering to come around now when she needed one of the two. Months ago, I would've felt different, might have been happy to see her, but today she'd wasted her time.

"No." I smirked as her eyes bulged out, eyebrows shot up, and mouth dropped.

For a good six months, whatever she'd asked me for I've given to her with no questions asked and for no other reason than to get her out of my face.

Before that, I spent years letting her dick me around and fuck with my emotions—control me. She had a hold over me I couldn't explain. My boys and my parents straight up told me I was obsessed, infatuated even. Pussy whipped. I disagreed, but whatever you called what we had, one thing was certain: whatever my wife wanted, I broke my back to make sure she got it. But that shit was over now.

"But—but you haven't even given me the chance to say anything."

"Because I don't care. It's too early to deal with your shit. So ..." I tried to close the door, but she threw her glove-covered hand against it with a loud smack.

"Please. Five minutes. It's freezing, please let me come in." Behind her light brown eyes I saw the unmistakable look of desperation—something uncharacteristic of her.

I caved with a frustrated sigh. "Fine. Come in. Five minutes." But ten minutes later she was still on my couch complaining and whining in my ear. "Remember what I said when you first got here? The word 'no'? Yeah, still applies."

"Edward." Her voice dropped, giving way to shock mixed with an undertone of sincerity. "We planned this vacation months ago. I can't afford to lose out on these tickets. No one can."

I scoffed, knowing she was full of shit. Angela came from a good stock of money. Plus, whatever she got from me. So finances and "not being able to afford" losing the tickets was her blowing smoke up my ass for sure.

I had a handful of guesses as to what she was up to. The first one being ... "So you want me to what, give you, your sister, and your friend the house? Is that why you're here? For the key?"

"No, no I—of course not," she stammered. "I … I guess I thought you'd want to come, too."

"The fuck I'd wanna do that for?"

She paused, blinking before she blurted, "For us. This could be a good thing for us."

"Because we're on such good terms, right?" I snorted. "You're delusional. Time's up."

"No, listen." She grabbed a hold on my arm, halting my attempt to get up off the couch. "Think about why we didn't work out."

"Oh, you mean because you were ungrateful and resentful of my job?" I twisted the top half of my body to face her, lifting up my thumb. "Acted too busy for me when I tried to make time for us?" I added, ticking off my pointer finger. "Or because you were hanging out with Caius all the fucking time?"

The latter of reasons—her spending time with a rival colleague of mine—obviously hurt and pissed me off the most. Me and Caius Volturi weren't friends—barely acquaintances even. And though I never had proof of what happened between them, guys know these things; and the looks the smug asshole always shot me during meetings, or when Angela stopped by the office, was always enough to have my hackles rise, my fist clenching, and my mind envisioning different ways to fuck his shit up.

"I was lonely." She protested with a sniffle. "As for Caius, you have to believe me that nothing happened. I just—I needed a friend, y'know. You have no idea how lonely I felt in this house with you always away."

With that—and despite my aggravation with her—a part of my heart cracked at the broken sound of Angela's voice. There was no denying the unnecessary drama she constantly brought into everything, but I couldn't deny the part I played in our downfall, too.

As a kid, I was obsessed with buildings. Growing up, designing was second nature. So becoming an architect was a no-brainer. It was a struggle at first, but when the time came, and I got a big boost in my career, I considered working day in and day out the past few years a blessing.

Unfortunately, my hard work, that I thought was for us, wasn't enough. And after spending the entire summer fighting I wasn't surprised when Angela served me with divorce papers. Less surprising for me was that I signed so willingly. Things had been going through in record time bringing mixed feelings of relief and devastation. No one wants to see hard work of any kind go to waste, and divorce felt like a fucking failure.

"This is our chance," Angela whispered, bringing my attention back to her. "Every day I regret not fighting harder. Not making time for us. Don't you?" I had to admit I'd wondered the same thing—if maybe I'd given in too easily. "This is our time to see if maybe we jumped to end things too soon."

"Do you really mean that?" My lips formed into a semi hopeful, but still skeptical, smile. "You'd want to work on things? For real?"

Despite my exhaustion, hurt, and fury, nothing took away the fact I was lonely. I wasn't sure I wanted my wife back, specifically, but I did want someone in my life. What good were accomplishments, reaching your goals and living your dreams, when you had no one to come home to and share them with?

I grew up watching how my parents held each other down. My father was my mother's rock—she was his biggest cheerleader. Sure they fought like anyone else did, but they always came out solid—stronger from it.

That's what I wanted in my life, too.

So in that moment, I was thinking that even though Angela and I had been through a lot of shit over the past eight years, getting back with her would be easier than me having to get to know someone else's quirks, and them mine, at this stage in my life.

There was absolutely nothing appealing about the idea of starting over at thirty-four. Which was probably why I was willing to settle for tolerance in a relationship than at having no one at all. Convincing myself happiness existed as nothing more than a state of mind came easy. And with that came the notion that if I was happy with Angela once, I could get myself there again.

But there was still something that nagged at me about this sudden desperation of hers to see her family. She never cared this much before.

"You don't even talk to them." I looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

Angela and her family had a serious falling out a long time ago. Serious to the point they couldn't get their shit together and sorted long enough to come to our wedding. As the only child to two people who also had no siblings, I had no uncles, aunts, or cousins to speak of. I clung to my family with a vise grip, and I always found it strange how neither Angela, or her sister, ever reached out to each other. Especially given the fact both their parents were dead.

We never discussed the reason she didn't speak to them, but I knew enough that it was over a guy. I just never saw the need to push the subject any more than necessary. One thing I held fast to were my beliefs that people's pasts didn't matter. Angela knew I wasn't a saint before I met her. Since she never ask for specifics, neither did I.

But I hedged on; something still not sitting right with me."If you want to work on us, doesn't it make more sense for it to just be us on this trip?"

"I thought about that, really. But this is a chance for me to reconcile with everyone. I mean, I'm still shocked Renee even agreed to make the trip." She started sniffling again at the mention of her friend. "And I haven't seen Isabella since she was twelve. It's been ten years. Please, Edward. It would make me happy if everyone was there, too."

I glared at her, looking for traces of any of her emotions being crocodile tears. For once, I couldn't tell. A part of me still wanted to protest, and was about to—but I couldn't. Those words, "it would make me happy," always had a way of making me do the most asinine things. And she knew it, too.

But I couldn't find my voice—either to tell her yes or to fuck off. So I settled for, "You should go. I need to get ready for work."

"Oh, OK." She blanched at my dismissal. But by the look she gave me as she walked out, she knew she'd gotten to me.

So, what do you think?

The chapters will all be about this length (Around 1,500-2K words).

The story as a whole isn't all that long, but will be updating 1-2 times a week, and, again, it'll all be EPOV. It's prewritten so updates will be steady. I'm publishing crap and also doing NanoWriMo – so I won't be adding any new stories (ever again) unless it's already complete. I've learned that lesson thanks to my hiatused fics that I can't figure out how to continue. SMH.

Anyway, that's enough out of me!

Until Next Time,

~Lo