Edge and Belle

Chapter 9 (Belle): You Can't Hide

One thing that Edge couldn't be mistaken for was the pizza delivery man. I'd opened the door, expecting our three large pizzas...and there stood Edge, looking at me with the baby on my hip like he'd never seen me before. His face got soft and he smiled.

His smile was beautiful, if I had to be honest.

"Belle, I'm sorry for what I said, what I insinuated earlier," he began. "I didn't stop to think, I just knew I didn't like being replaced, and I definitely have never felt jealous before."

"Edge, you have no right to feel that way even if I wanted to parade a hundred uncles in front of my children."

"But I do feel like it's my right," he insisted. "You all snuck up on me. Belle, I wasn't expecting...my feelings were bigger than I thought, and I didn't know what to do with them.... Shit! It all sounds so lame when I try to justify it, but I'm sorry, Belle. I'm sorry inside like you wouldn't believe because I hurt you and I didn't want to. I'm sorry for hurting you again today with what I said and insinuated, and I mean that like I've never meant anything before in my life."

"He said sorry, Mommy."

Piper. Of course my little ninja girl would sneak up on me when Edge and I were in the middle of a whispered discussion so no one would hear. She had ears like a bat when she heard whispers. My nosy little girl was probably going to grow up to be a spy or a journalist, and she lived to eavesdrop. I'd yet to instill in her how rude it was to listen in to conversations not meant for your ears, but somehow, every time I lectured her on the subject, I felt like I was fighting a losing battle.

And now, she'd heard Edge apologize and mean it, which in our household, was the golden ticket to forgiveness.

"Can he come in and have pizza with us?" she asked, her eyes pleading up at me. Dammit. "Please? He said he was sorry."

Every mother has faced this situation about, oh, a million times. Where we preach forgiveness and repentance to our children...only to not want to extend it to someone else because...because...someone had really hurt our feelings, and we didn't want to forgive him.

"Piper," I began and felt another presence.

"Hey," my brother-in-law said to Edge before turning to me. "We wondered what was keeping you."

"I just --"

"Edge Camden," Edge stuck his hand out. Landry grasped it and introduced himself.

"Edge, huh?" Then Landry slanted a look at me. "This is the baggage handler?"

Eavesdroppers, secret spillers...I needed a vacation. So, this afternoon, while my children had been playing in the yard, Phoebe, Landry and I had been sitting on my lawn chairs, and I may or may not have spilled the beans about the first man I'd been interested in and how he'd broken my heart. Landry had started the conversation by asking who the coach was who had taken me aside for a word at West's game.

After I'd told my story, Landry had looked thoughtful while Phoebe and I grumped about m3n in general and Edge in particular. Then Landry had started in.

"Now, I get it hurt you, Belle. What he said and all," he began thoughtfully. "But I'm a man and I can tell you that we say shit all the time. It's how we're made. We're just popping off and saying stuff without thinking things through and ninety-nine percent of the time we don't even mean what comes out of our mouths."

"I can vouch for that. And even that one percent margin of error he gave himself is iffy," Phoebe said, tossing him a look. Oh, yeah, she knew. "They definitely don't think before opening their mouths. That's just plain fact."

"So, you said this Edge guy apologized, and he kept turning up for two weeks without a word or returned text or call from you? That's dedication to someone he thinks of as just a booty call. If you'd really been that to him, he would have given up after the first day. You said this guy has women chasing after him, so think about it. If he'd really thought of you and the children that way, he would have gladly taken the out. Like, whew! Glad that's over! Instead, he kept coming back, trying to understand why you ghosted him and not liking it at all."

"He's just not used to being the one who ended things. Edge didn't like that I stopped seeing him. Usually, it's the other way around with him. So it was basically male pride."

"Nah. You're still not thinking this through," Landry argued. "If he'd meant what he'd said, no way would he apologize and no way would he become the coach of your son's little league team. He also publicly humiliated this Karen in front of you and set her straight. Would have been the easiest thing in the world to go with her if he'd wanted to get rid of you. In guy speak, he was letting you know he had his eye on you and only on you. If he wasn't interested in you, Belle, he could have gone with easy instead of unimaginably difficult and stubborn and pissed off. When a man's willing to put in that kind of effort to win you back, he's into you."

I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at Landry. Phoebe was kicked back, her baby asleep in her arms, enjoying the show.

"You're wrong. Because he said it and didn't know I was listening. Why say something you don't mean in that case?"

"We just went over this. Because we, as a species, don't think sometimes. We have these horrible things called emotions that we aren't sure what to do with when we really like a girl. It's why we tease you on the playground in elementary school and why our methods don't change all that much when we grow up. We try to deny we're having feelings until we can deny it no longer. This guy, what he's doing...it sounds like he opened his big mouth and his brain wasn't connected. And now he's scrambling. And the fact that he didn't like me around -- that wasn't a dig at you so much as, once again, he was having that big emotion, jealousy, and didn't know how to handle it."

"You know what?" I shot at Landry. "I'm tired of women having to be the only ones who think. I'm a guy isn't a defense. It's your get out of jail free card for bad behavior."

"Preach!" Phoebe added, then cocked her eyebrow at me. "Although, Belle...from everything you've told us, this guy sounds like he's trying to make up for it."

I got up from the chair and fixed them both with a snooty look. "I'm through discussing this and I'm going to hold the baby now."

And I held out my arms to Phoebe and she, with a grin, handed over that bundle of sweetness and innocence.

"You can run, but you can't hide, Belle," she sing-songed to me.

And now, several hours later, standing at the front door with a baby in my arms, Piper at my side, Landry at my back and Edge in front of me, I definitely couldn't run and hide.

"You want to join us for some pizza?" Landry asked him.

"Only if I can pay," Edge negotiated.

With a huge grin, Landry accepted the deal. Without consulting me.

Thus proving that those with the unfortunate xy chromosome combination were never to be trusted.