ARLTY- Chapter 3

Chapter 3~Edward

I stood quickly and began to pace. "Look, I had no choice. Carlisle is giving me money to help me pay for this trip and I kind of have to help him out here. I mean what is this trip if I can't go? You two don't have a car so that would screw us all over, right?" Reasoning with them sounded like a good idea.

"Give us more details before we decide if you're off the hook just yet." Jasper answered with his usual cautious self as he folded his arms across his chest. He always was a tough one to convince.

"Carlisle ran into Chief Swan and his daughter, Bella at the diner the other night; they got to talking and he found out that Bella and a couple of her friends were home for the summer from college. Her and two friends were going to drive out to California and work for some modeling agency but Bella's truck died and now they don't have a way to get there. Carlisle, of course, offered up the fact that we would be driving that way and maybe the girls would like to ride with us. The Chief got all happy about the girls not being by themselves on the road and so our fate was sealed." My hands seemed to take on a life of their own as I spoke. My nervousness at how wrong this trip could go was making itself known.

"Girls, we're picking up girls?" Emmett boomed. "Hell yeah, that is cool with me."

Jasper slapped him in the chest with the back of his hand, "Dude, do you remember Bella Swan? She had braces and tripped a lot and wore those damn pigtails all the time. She never talked and spent her lunch hours in the library, she isn't a girl, at least she never was to us. She liked that Eric kid from the AV team." With his rant finished he dropped back down on to the bench. His face looked crest fallen. I could understand that feeling. This was our last hurrah, our chance at beaches and babes before it was time to settle down, finish school and get a real job. The last thing we needed to blow our fun and babes was three girls tagging along. Three potentially boring girls, three girls that were interested in all the things we were not interested in. The more I thought about it the more I wanted to cancel the trip. I dropped to the bench alongside Jasper and put my head in my hands.

"Well, at least we'll have a few weeks before we have to drive back. We can have fun once we drop them off. Besides, if gas is going to cost that much then we need some more bodies along to help pay the way. Just think one-twenty split six ways is a lot less than when it's split three ways." For once in his life Emmett had the right idea.

"Carlisle sent me a text with Bella's number, so I will call and talk to her about everything and confirm the plans." It looks like the gas sharing idea perked us all up. I tossed the keys to Jasper and he slid into the driver's seat as I dialed Bella on my cell. I got her voice mail.

"Hey, this is Bella, sorry I missed your call. Leave me your info and I'll get back to you."

"Hey, Bella, this is Edward Cullen. Long time no talk huh? I talked to Carlisle and he told me that your friends and you needed a ride to California. We plan on leaving tomorrow morning to head to Forks so we should be there about noon. I'll call you when we're close. We can grab some lunch then head off again, if that's alright with the three of you. Call me back and let me know. I'll be up late so don't worry about the time. Talk to you soon." I tapped the button to hang up and turned to look at Em and Jas.

"What the fuck was that? You can't give them an option, they're riding with us. We need to lay down the law and let them know who's in charge here. Take off your frilly panties and put on a jock, damn it Edward; I refuse to be pushed around by a bunch of girls on our trip. Be tougher with them next time." Emmett barked at me.

"Shut up Em, you were the one that was so damn gung ho about them coming with us. Shit!" I slapped him in the back of his head. He turned to sit against the door and watched me out the corner of his eye the rest of the trip back to the dorm rooms.