Alice ran down the stairs to the front door, vibrating with excitement. "Aaron's here!" she squeaked with undisguised joy. Carlisle watched her in amusement, for a vampire with a mate she did get carried away when Aaron put in his occasional appearance.
Bella joined Alice at the door. The parade of vampires she needed to meet still seemed to be quite endless, centuries of friends to be entertained and explained. "Wow." Bella thought, and found herself exceptionally pleased, in the moment, that Edward had no idea what she had just thought. She would have blushed had she been human.
"He's pretty." whispered Alice, sounding strangely sad.
"Pretty?" that was an understatement, though pretty wasn't really the word Bella would have used.
"Not Aaron, his, friend."
Bella at least knew that Alice was looking into Aaron's future.
Edward appeared alongside the ladies. He seemed genuinely pleased to have Aaron, who by all accounts lived on the fringes of the vampire world, over to visit. Edwards brow contracted suddenly, as Aaron's thoughts became available to his mind. Aaron was coming to ask Carlisle about a friend? A friend who was seriously ill.
That was the trouble with living in the human world, the mortality, the frailty of your companions. Edward tried to make sense of the rest of that thought. Aaron was here for help, he was in love with a human. It was a bad habit, it had ended badly with Haley. Aaron had lied to Haley, day in and out, he had never taken her as his lover, the little boy was fathered by Edward knew not who. The relationship with Haley had been a mistake, but Aaron was doing it again. She was pretty though. He, corrected Edward to himself, he is pretty.
"He? you're in love with a man?" Edward had lost his cool just a touch.
"He's beautiful." purred Alice.
Jasper turned on his heel and was gone.
Bella was aghast by the time Carlisle and Esme reached the door to greet Aaron in a normal fashion. Carlisle drew Aaron into the Cullen home with a handshake. "I got your letter Aaron. I can give you advice, I would need to meet him, I'm not sure if I can offer help."