Chapter 2

"Hi, I'm Edward Cullen and you must be Bella, please come in."

With some effort I was able to make my legs follow him into his home, I even managed to walk without tripping.

I tried to take in my surroundings, considering that the walls were mainly glass the living room was decorated in a way to be very inviting and cozy.

The furnishings were in varying shades of blues and greys, lit candles were scattered around the room in different sizes in an attempt to look randomly placed, but I had a feeling it had taken meticulous planning to get that desired effect.

A roaring fire in the stone fireplace rounded out the look in a way that would make someone feel as if they were in a cozy cottage.

It screamed comfort and security and I instantly understood the difference between a home and a house.

This was a home, meant to be welcoming and warm.

Clearly, I had always lived in a house.

Edward gave me a moment to take it all in before he asked if he could take my coat.

I simply nodded in assent when he walked behind me and with gentle but strong hands slid the jacket from my shoulders and hung it on a hook next to other jackets that were hanging on a coat rack.

"Yeah, my music room is this way." He pointed to a set of French doors.

I started to follow him but half way across the room he stopped and asked, "before we start, would you like something to drink?"

"Yes please." I half-whispered. My throat suddenly felt as if I had been gargling wet sand.

My voice sounded foreign to my ears, and I realized that those were the first words that I had spoken since laying eyes on Edward Cullen.

"Well, she does speak." He said with a smile, immediately my cheeks felt as if they were on fire.

Jeeze Bella, get it together. I scolded myself, I mean I had seen good looking guys before, what was my issue.

I realized then that the issue was that no other cute guy before had made me feel the need for a change of panties and I was humiliated.

I followed Edward into a chef's dream of a kitchen and stood by the breakfast bar while he rifled through the massive Sub-zero fridge.

"Let's see what we have here, we have apple juice, orange juice, soda, I guess that it's a little early for beer or wine, or I could make some coffee if you prefer." He offered.

"Just water is fine" I assured him.

"Still or sparkling?" He retorted.

"Plain old water works for me."

"Water it is" He rose to his full height and leaned over to hand me a bottle, grabbing another for himself.

"So shall we?" He asked.

I wanted to ask what he had in mind when I remembered the reason that I was there to begin with.

Once again I was filled with dread, piano lessons.

But then again, if that's what it took to get to spend an hour a week with Edward, I would take piano lessons until I was old and grey.

We made our way back to his music room, allowing him to open the door for me.

"Ladies first." He stepped back allowing me to pass through first.

His gorgeous black grand piano was in the center of the room, but this room didn't have the glass panel walls, instead the walls were covered in warm dark wood. Cherry, I assumed.

I didn't realize that I said anything but he answered my thought with "yeah better acoustics."

The room also had a roaring fire, a leather sofa and a leather recliner that looked very comfortable.

I thought that I could spend hours in this room curled up with a good book and be perfectly content.

He walked up to his piano and then I noticed the bench and by its' side a wooden chair.

He took the chair and asked that I join him, offering me the bench.

"So Bella, why do you want to learn piano?"

I could feel the fire flood to my cheeks, I had not anticipated this question and I had no idea how to answer.

He laughed this time, not a chuckle this time, but a real laugh.

"So in other words, my dad asked your dad to do me a favor, am I close?"

"Well, sort of, but I love music and now that I'm here, I do really want to learn." That part wasn't a lie, I was more than willing to learn anything he might want to teach me.

"Ok, that's a start, and I promise to try not to make you miserable."

"Well tell me then, what kind of music do you like?"

"I guess that you could say that my taste is pretty eclectic, I like some modern rock, a little pop, some classical and I love classic rock, my favorite bands are The Beatles and Pink Floyd."

"Good choices." He answered

I couldn't help be notice that he seemed genuinely pleased by the last two.

"Well, what do you say we try to get a lesson in and after I will play a Beatles song for you?"

"Sounds great." I said and for some weird reason I knew that I had never spoken truer words.

He pointed to a book on the music stand of the piano and started teaching me to read a treble clef.

He explained the difference between quarter notes and half notes. He showed me proper hand position and where middle c is.

By the time an hour was up I had learned to play Mary Had a Little Lamb. I know how lame that it is, but I was genuinely proud of myself.

He praised my efforts and told me I was a natural.

I wanted to call bullshit on that, but it felt too good to have this gorgeous guy praising me.

True to his word, after the lesson he asked me to switch places with him and asked "So Bella, what is your favorite Beatles song?"

I had been so intent on the lesson that I had forgotten to try to narrow it down to one so I just went with the first one that came to mind. "Hey Jude."

"Great song." He said softly and began to play it flawlessly.

"Give me another" he said after he finished.

"Eleanor Rigby" I spouted off immediately.

He played through that and began playing Strawberry Fields Forever, that transitioned into Comfortably Numb from Pink Floyd.

He was amazing, I could have listened to him play all day long.

I was so caught up in his playing that I never noticed the door open and a tiny girl enter the room.

He continued to play, but asked suddenly "What are you doing in here Alice?"

I turned around to notice for the first time a girl, that despite her tiny stature appeared to be about my age.

She was gorgeous in that waif like way, tiny with short black hair that was cut into a style suiting a pixie.

"Lighten up Edward, you know that I love to listen to you play, besides I wanted to meet Bella."

Without missing a note, Edward said "Alice, this is Bella Swan, Bella, this is my annoying sister, Alice."

She made a noise clearly indicating that she was not amused. It was adorable.

"I'm your favorite sister." She argued.

"You're my only sister." He replied.

I laughed at their antics, I had always wanted a sibling, but it wasn't meant to be.

"Look Alice, we are almost finished here give us ten minutes and then if she would like, you can get to know Bella."

She huffed but stood up to leave the room, "Ten minutes and then I'm coming back if you are not out of there."

She winked at me and I swear that she skipped out of the room.

"I'm sorry about that, she is what you would call a people person and has never met a stranger, if she gets to be too much just tell her to back off and she will."

"No problem" I assured him "She seems sweet."

"She is and she has a heart of gold, but she can be a little enthusiastic at times."

I laughed at his diplomatic description of his sister, but my heart warmed at his words, he clearly loves his sister dearly.

"So let's talk homework." He said with a crooked smile.

"Homework?" I asked

First of all he handed me the book that he was using to teach me saying "This is yours, I want you to practice what we learned today and once you are comfortable with Mary had a Little Lamb, you can try to move on to the next song."

I didn't recognize the second song, but vowed to try to learn it before next Saturday.

"The other assignment, I hope is a little more fun for you."

"I want you to think about and make a list of your top twenty favorite songs of all time."

"I want to get to know your musical tastes better and hopefully I can work on some beginner arrangements for you work with."

I could get behind that, I would love to learn a real song as opposed to nursery songs.

"Edward can I ask you a question?"

"Of course Bella?"

"What is your favorite song?"

He smiled and said "Let's save that for next week."

I handed him Charlie's check and grabbed the book that I was supposed to practice with.

He walked me back out to the living room, where Alice was waiting for us.

"Well Bella, I am going to leave you with Alice, I'll see you next week." He said and then he took off for the stairs, taking them two at a time.

I thought that the hasty retreat was somewhat strange, I thought that we were getting along well, but it appeared that he couldn't get away from me fast enough.

I tried to not let it bother me but I have to admit that it hurt a little.

My inner voice was telling that I was nuts for thinking that he might have been interested in me.

He probably had a girlfriend to go call or maybe she was there already waiting for him. I felt so stupid and struggled against the tears that were already stinging my eyes.

I had almost forgotten that Alice was still there, and blushed when she cleared her throat to remind me.

I was shocked by her reaction to Edward's departure. Her body was vibrating from the effort that she was using to keeping from laughing.

She was probably thinking that I was just another stupid girl pining after her brother, and the sad part is that she would be right.

She finally said with a gleam in her eye, "Bella, I'm so glad to meet you, I have a feeling that we are going to be best friends." She finally gave into the hysterics that she had been fighting and began laughing like a maniac.

"Let me show you my room." She said while literally dragging me up the stairs.

I didn't know that something so small could be so strong. I came to the conclusion that she must be part Tasmanian devil.

Once we reached her room which was decorated in shades of aqua, purple and blue and surprisingly not a shred of pink in sight, she opened the doors to a walk in closet.

But her closet was bigger than my bedroom, really who needed that much space?

Clearly Alice did, there were rows upon rows of shoe boxes, shelves devoted to bags, the racks were holding so many dresses I don't know how they kept from collapsing.

She pulled drawer after drawer open obviously not finding what she was looking for, before dropping to the floor in frustration.

"Do you know what we need to do Bella?" She asked finally after catching her breath.

I had thought honestly that she had forgotten that I was still there.

"Huh? I asked.

"We need to go shopping, I have absolutely nothing to wear."

What, really, she claims that she has nothing to wear?

I have been to the one and only department store in Port Angeles and I promise that she has more in her closet than they have on their sales floor.

I couldn't help but notice that many of the items in her closet still had the tags on them.

Maybe Dr. Cullen should consider getting her into some sort of twelve step program for shopping addiction.

"Uh Alice, what do you mean?"

"Bella, a group of us are going out next Saturday night to the new Italian restaurant in Port Angeles, it's supposed to be up-scale but not pretentious and I have nothing that fits that description."

"You are so coming with us too." She stated in a matter of fact way that left me no room for argument.

I didn't know how to tell her that the most elegant thing in my closet was a pair of black jeans and the only other pair of shoes that I owned are a pair of Sperry's.

I wasn't sure but I had a feeling that they wouldn't make the grade with her.

"Alice, I'm not so sure that I can."

"Why on earth not?"

"Well, I'm not sure how Charlie would feel about it, we sort of have this standing Saturday night thing."

"I'll handle him, I'm sure that once he knows that you will be out with us, he'll be fine with it."

"Alice, who is this us, that's going anyway?"

"Let's see, first of all there is me and my boyfriend Jasper, you may know him. He is a senior at your school also, late birthday." She shrugged, like that explained everything.

"Then there will be my brother Emmett and his girlfriend Rose, she's a sweetheart, but looks like a supermodel, don't let that intimidate you."

"You have another brother?" I asked.

"Yep, he is 21, so he's in between Edward and I." "You will love him he's a total teddy bear."

"Oh" she said like she had just remembered something "and Edward will be there."

My heart sunk, the last thing that I wanted to do was to sit at a table and watch Edward and some gorgeous girl fawn over each other.

"Uh Alice I don't think so."

"Please Bella, it would be a real favor."

"I personally promise that it will be fun." She looked at me with a gleam in her eye, like I was the only one not in on some big secret.

There was something about Alice, I just couldn't seem to tell her no.

I loved her enthusiasm and her energy, and kind of wished that some of that would rub off onto me.

"Ok" I said with a sigh of resignation, promising myself that I would go to Port Angeles this week and try to find something to wear.

"Great, so we need to go to Seattle to go shopping, what are you doing tomorrow?"

"Seattle, that's like three hours away." I said.

"Not in my car it's not." She said, with a smile so big, I could actually count all of her perfectly straight and white teeth.

My stomach sank again. I was beginning to wonder if I would actually survive this tentative friendship.

"So, I'll pick you up tomorrow around 9:00."

Funny, I noticed that it wasn't worded as a question.

"9:00" I confirmed dejectedly.

OK next chapter will be EPOV, let's see what's going on in his head.

I just want to say that you guys rock, thanks for the reviews and for all of you that put that story on alert thank you.