#ficception

And then there was Jasper, whose cocktail of terrified fury and frantic, aching relief kept seeping out and giving Alice emotional whiplash even when he wasn’t actively lecturing her. It was strange to have their roles reversed—last year she’d been the one anxiously hovering, afraid to let him out of her sight for a moment. Now she could hardly step out of her room without an interrogation, or so Emmett teased her (“serves you right,” said Edward when he caught her mentally complaining about it.)

Only Bella was, as usual, blessedly quiet about the whole thing, welcoming Alice back with a hug and a simple “I’m glad you’re okay.” Trapped at home under Rosalie’s “lay low and stay out of the public eye, for fuck’s sake” edict, Alice found herself retreating more and more often to the second floor sitting area that served as Bella’s unofficial reading room for peace and quiet. She and Jasper had a tacit understanding that whenever she went to sit with Bella, it meant she wasn’t in the mood to talk about the James Incident.

Unfortunately, Rosalie had no such understanding, and certainly no scruples about launching into another tirade three feet from where Bella was trying to finish The History and Future of Reading.

It was late afternoon, the three of them alone in the house, and Alice had been curled up on the couch, flipping through another of Josie’s oh-so-subtle wedding magazines. She abandoned it with a sigh as Rosalie launched into her latest theme, which was listing off all the things Alice had yet to do, working up to what she obviously thought was her coup de grace:

“And I can’t believe you were going to die a virgin!”

Alice looked away. “Um. Actually…”

Rosalie froze mid finger-wag. Bella looked up from her book at the sudden silence. “What’s happening?”

“No,” said Rosalie slowly. She crossed her arms. “No way. You didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?” demanded Bella.

Were Alice human, she would have been bright red. “We did.”

“Did what?”

Rosalie made an earsplitting sound of pure indignation. “Do you mean to tell me you finally fucked Jasper and didn’t even tell us about it?”

“Ohhh,” said Bella. She opened her book again.

“It didn’t seem important!” protested Alice.

“Not important? Alice, he hasn’t gotten laid since 1976!”

Alice threw up her hands. “I was kind of preoccupied with my sister getting kidnapped, Rose! You know, the whole thing where James almost killed me?”

“Oh, forget James,” dismissed Rosalie. “We want to hear about Jasper! Details, now.”

“I’m not giving you details!” Alice’s voice was on its way to a pitch only bats could hear.

Rosalie’s eyes narrowed. “That bad, huh? I guess I can’t blame the guy. I wouldn’t be able to last longer than a few seconds either if I’d been celibate for fifty years.”

“He didn’t—that’s not what happened!” spluttered Alice.

“Oh?” said Rosalie. (Bella’s eyes appeared over the edge of her book.) “So it wasn’t bad?”

“Of course it wasn’t—wait a second.” Alice cut herself off. She crossed her own arms, mirroring Rose’s posture down to the glare. “Nice try. You aren’t getting another word out of me.”

Rosalie groaned. “Come on, Alice! After the 24/7 PR nightmare you two have stuck me with for the next decade? You have to tell me something. Bella, back me up.”

“Well…” said Bella, shooting Alice an apologetic smile. “I have to admit, I am a little curious…”

It was Alice’s turn to groan. “Not you, too!”

“Maybe you can give us some more, ah, impersonal details. Like, where did it happen?” Bella suggested.

Alice let out a huff. “If I tell you, will you leave me alone?”

“Yes,” said Bella before Rose could reply to the contrary.

“It must have been in Denali, right?” supplied Rosalie. “Unless…don’t tell me you joined the Mile High Club.”

Alice laughed nervously. “Not quite,” she hurried to answer before Rosalie could jump to conclusions.

Rose and Bella exchanged a significant glance. “What does ‘not quite’ mean?”

“Nothing happened on the plane!” Alice lied.

“Then it was in the Denalis’ guesthouse,” assumed Rosalie. “Nice choice. Classy place. Emmett always says if Carmen and Eleazar didn’t want us to fuck there, they shouldn’t have provided a king-sized bed.”

Alice laughed again. “Um. Yeah. Funny you should mention beds,” she stammered. She checked the immediate future and saw that if she wanted to get this conversation over with, she was going to have to fess up. “It was actually on a couch in the library,” she finished in a rush.

Rosalie’s mouth popped open. Bella’s book slid into her lap.

“The library?” said Rosalie. “You had sex in the actual library?”

“Mm-hmm. The third floor,” Alice confirmed.

“Wow,” said Bella quietly.

“No way,” said Rosalie. “Em and I have always wanted to fuck there! I can’t believe Jasper of all people agreed to it.”

“Well, we didn’t make it a full month, it’s true,” said Alice, sounding a little too pleased with herself. “But he hadn’t had an episode in weeks and I could see that he wasn’t going to hurt me—”

“Not that,” scoffed Rosalie. “The cameras.”

Alice frowned. “The what?”

-

The security room in Denali was woefully outdated, Tanya knew. Aside from the periodic ripping out and replacing of its monitors, the place hadn’t been refurbished since the 80s, and it showed. The wood-paneled walls, the godawful brown carpet…luckily, no one ever came in here but the five of them, and now Garrett. It was Garrett who had come up with the ingenious new system whereby whoever had lost a bet most recently had to review the past two weeks’ security feeds. Tanya had to admit, it was more fun than drawing straws.

Still, watching the feeds was monotonous work on the best of days. Ten floors of bookshelves and file cabinets didn’t exactly make for a visually dynamic experience.

Which is why today’s viewing experience was so very, very notable. So...interesting. Tanya fired off a quick text to the group chat.

“What is it?” wondered Kate, poking her head in a few minutes later. Garrett lounged against the doorframe beside her.

Tanya beckoned them in. “Take a look at this.” She hit play on the black-and-white feed before her.

Garrett and Kate watched, silently at first. Then Kate said, “is that—?”

“Yep.”

Garrett leaned closer. “And are they—?”

“Yep.”

Kate let out a low whistle.

“Damn,” said Garrett, raising his eyebrows at the monitor. “Who knew Whitlock had it in him?”

“I always suspected,” said Tanya thoughtfully. “I mean, Maria must have kept him alive for something.”

“You realize we could make a killing off of this?” Garrett mused. This was followed by a yelp as Kate shocked him.

“Mmm,” agreed Tanya. “It would make Kim Kardashian’s look like a flop.”

Kate nodded her reluctant agreement. “There was a thinkpiece last year about how searches for ‘spinner’ on pornhub increased by 190% after Alice’s first press conference. Do you think she reads her instagram DMs?”

“Doubtful,” said Tanya. “Surely Rosalie has that sort of thing moderated.”

“God, imagine the audacity it would take to send a dick pic to Jasper Whitlock’s girlfriend,” chuckled Garrett.

“Probably the same amount it takes to watch security footage of them fucking in a library,” said Tanya dryly.

“Don’t tell me the original succubus is afraid of a little light voyeurism,” Garrett teased.

“Alice probably watches us all the time,” added Kate.

“Shit, do you reckon she’s watching right now?” wondered Garrett, looking around as if she might be lurking in the rafters. “Hello, Alice! Tell Whitlock I said ‘nice technique!’”

His phone rang a half second later, making all three of them jump.

“Fuck,” said Tanya.

“It’s her,” hissed Kate. “Now you’ve done it!”

Tanya’s awestruck “She really was watching” was drowned out by Garrett’s indignant “I’ve done it? And I suppose you were an innocent bystander in all of this!”

Kate answered the phone. “Hello?”

“Kindly turn that off,” growled the voice on the other end. Tanya would never have imagined that a little thing like Alice could sound so menacing.

The three of them looked at each other in turn. Behind Tanya’s head, the two figures on the security feed changed positions.

“Turn what off?” said Garrett. Tanya had to admire the man’s sheer balls. Kate reached around her and hit the spacebar with a sharp tap.

“All the way off,” commanded Alice. “And then delete it.”

“Awww, c’mon, Brandon,” Garrett teased. “Don’t tell me the hero who killed Maria is embarrassed. There’s no shame in a little good old-fashioned exhibitionism.”

“It was not exhibitionism,” Alice insisted. “Now delete it.”

“Are you sure about that?” piped up Kate. “You certain you don’t want to keep it for personal use? Take my advice, you could really make Whitlock’s decade with—”

“Ha. I think she’s already made his decade, Katy,” snickered Garrett. “But you raise a good point—let’s not be hasty, now. A cinematic masterpiece like this could come in quite handy. Why delete it when we could—”

“Because if you don’t, I’ll have you court-martialed,” snarled Alice.

Garrett and Kate looked at Tanya. Can she really do that? Kate mouthed. Tanya had no desire to find out.

“You know I can see you, right?” came the voice from the phone.

“Guess that makes us even,” murmured Tanya. 

“Fine,” said Alice. “I don’t have to have you court-martialed. You’re going to delete that footage right now because if you don’t, I’ll tell Jasper.”

Garrett and Kate looked at Tanya again. It might have been her imagination, but they looked even paler than usual.

“Now, now,” said Tanya, forcing a light laugh. “There’s no need for such drastic measures.” She took a last, appraising look at the screen before switching off the monitor. “I’m deleting it,” she announced. Garrett and Kate sighed in unison.

“Thank you,” said Alice.

“Of course,” warned Tanya, “there’s no deleting a vampire’s memory—absent company excluded.”

Garrett grinned at the phone. “It’s okay, Tanya—Brandon’s cool! She won’t tell the old grouch. This’ll just be our little secret, then, eh, Half-Pint?”

And so it remained. Tanya had to hand it to Alice—she had hit upon a threat greater than being court-martialed. The three of them kept their mouths shut, even though Tanya was simply dying to tell Irina.

Of course, some of them were better at discretion than others. Poor Jasper, Tanya reflected. If Alice had her way, that scary sonofabitch was going to spend eternity deeply confused as to why Garrett insisted on slapping him on the back and wolf-whistling every time they met.

.

you’re welcome shannon 🤠