Chapter 3: Tour Day
EPOV:
I had been waiting around the phone all day. Alice and my mom kept coming in and asking if I wanted to go swimming. My dad at one point suggested I go swimming in the pool. I just wanted to be near the phone for when she called.
It did not make much sense because I was pretty sure that even if I wasn't in my room, she would figure out a way to find me as long as I was in the hotel. Around two in the afternoon the phone rang. "I got it!" I shouted to my dad, the only person left in the room.
"Hello, Edward?" Bella's voice asked on the line.
"Hey, it's me. Are you ready?" I asked anxiously.
"Shouldn't it be me asking you that?" She laughed. "Yes, I'm ready to go, I'll meet you down here."
BPOV:
I hung up the phone and smiled. He seemed excited to be getting a tour. I just hoped he was not too disappointed when he realized how little I knew of the campus.
"Hey, Bells. Mike has been talking about you again." I heard Jessica say to me. I had a feeling she had been talking long before that though. "I think you should have a talk with him again."
Mike, the bellman, had always had a crush on me since I started working here last summer. Every once in awhile he would start telling everyone what a great couple we were. It was getting to be a little frustrating when I had to let him know he needed to stop spreading the rumors.
The elevators opened just then and Edward walked through the opened doors. He looked extremely handsome in a pair of fitted jeans and a blue shirt that was not too tight. He left me speechless. I felt awkward in what I was wearing.
"Hey, we match." He said, noticing we had on jeans and matching blue shirts. The only difference was that he looked fabulous and I looked plain and awkward.
"I guess, we do." I responded. I looked back at Jessica and let her know I would be talking to Mike. I began to lead the way out of the hotel and headed for my old truck. It was the first time I felt embarrassed by the thing, I just hoped he wouldn't say anything. "That's mine."
"Great, let's get going." He headed for the driver's door.
"What are you doing?" I asked confused.
"Being a gentleman and opening your door for you."
I could not think of a single person who had ever done that for me before. It caused my insides to melt slightly.
A few hours later, towards the end of the tour, Edward and I were sitting on the steps in front Terry Hall. I found out that we were both going to be living in the same building. I showed him around the building since that was the one thing I knew very well about the campus. For most of the tour though, we just walked around read the signs. We were both learning the campus together. We had stopped at the bookstore and bought water bottles.
"Thank you Bella for this." He said softly to me.
"It was great. I know the campus a bit better now." I responded.
He looked over at me. "Can I surprise you with something?" He asked. He probably had no idea that I would never be able to deny him anything.
"Sure. Where are we going?" I asked, knowing he wouldn't tell me.
"Surprises are supposed to be secret." He teased me. He stood up then and stretched his hand out to help me up. "I'm driving, though."
EPOV:
I asked her for the truck's keys as we approached it. She grabbed them from inside her purse and handed them over. I proceeded to open her door before going around the truck to get in.
I knew where I wanted to take her. When my dad had first brought us to visit, he had taken us to a quiet little Italian restaurant in the middle of the city. I wanted to take her there, to thank her for the tour. She kept staring over at me.
"Is there something on my face?" I asked her. She blushed and shook her head. The rest of the ride to the restaurant was quiet.
I parked the truck and went around to open her door, only to find she had already let herself out. She was biting her lip.
"Is something wrong?" I asked her, maybe she didn't like Italian food.
"I'm not sure I can afford this." She answered truthfully.
"Well, good because I wasn't planning on letting you pay anyway."
"Oh, that's not fair, I need to pay my half." She persisted.
"No, and that's final. Let me do this. I mean, you just wasted your day showing me around the school. Allow this to be the thanks I give in return." I told her.
She nodded and I sighed with relief. We entered the restaurant and the hostess greeted us. She kept smiling the entire time as she sat us in our own private booth.
"You're waitress will be here shortly." She let me know. I noticed she kept avoiding Bella's gaze. Once our waitress arrived she asked me what we wanted to drink. "Bella, what do you want?"
"Coke," she responded.
I smiled at her and replied to our waitress, "Make that two." The waitress disappeared to get our drinks.
BPOV:
The waitress would not stop staring at Edward. It was making me mad. I couldn't explain why though. The only consolation was that Edward wasn't taking his eyes off of mine.
She came back with our drinks and asked Edward, not us, what he wanted to eat. He proceeded to ask me and I named the first thing on the menu. Again, he told her to make it two. He was so smooth. He stared at me the entire time and it was starting to frustrate the waitress. She stalked off.
"So tell me, how long have you been living here?" He asked me.
"I haven't been living in Seattle more than a week actually. I moved to Forks, which is about an hour away from here, from Phoenix." I stated. "What brought you to Seattle?"
He seemed to hesitate. I didn't know if he was thinking about how much to tell me or to tell me the truth. "Next."
"Okay, tell me about your family." I asked, not understanding what was so hard about the simple question.
"Alice is my older sister, she goes to UW in Tacoma. Not too far, but not too close." He told me. "My dad, Carlisle, is a doctor back home in Canada. My mom, Esme, is the most perfect mother anyone could ask for in life. You?"
The fact that he spoke that way about his mom made me happy. Very few guys seemed to be able to do that nowadays. "My dad Charlie is the reason I came out to live here in Washington. My mom Renee got remarried to this baseball star and wanted to travel with him. So I agreed to come live with my dad. It was a great decision."
"Yeah, it really was." He said softly. Our waitress arrived just then with our food. We ate in silence for the most part. He would occasionally ask me if I wanted anything else or not. We finished and walked back to the truck.
He let me drive, and simply directed me back to a street I knew. "What's your favorite color?"
"Blue. Are you single?" He asked bluntly.
"Yes, I've always been." I replied, giving him more information than he needed to know.
"Why?" He seemed shocked.
"I've just never been interested. It has always seemed like a hassle."
EPOV:
"The right guy just hasn't come along." I told her softly. I was having such a hard time believing no one had captivated her heart yet.
"Yeah," she replied. I leaned in a bit closer to her, my breath was on her face. She had her eyes closed.
"Have you ever been kissed?" I asked, realizing that maybe she had never experienced one.
"No." She was so honest, it warmed me. I pulled back. I wanted her first kiss to be something special, not something that happened in the front seat of her truck. She noticed my change in action.
"Sorry, I'll explain it all to you someday." I told her. "I'm moving in tomorrow. Will you come by and say hello?"
"Sure. If you need help, just stop by and let me know. I won't be doing much anyway." She told me. I grabbed her hand and kissed it softly. I wasn't ready to kiss her. I needed to sort through my past and make sure I wasn't going to hurt her. Kissing her was not a way to start if I wasn't sure of those things. I began to get out of the car. "Have a good night, Edward." She called as I got around to the driver's side.
I had a good feeling it was going to be a great night.
AN:
Sorry this took a few days. My computer kept making it disappear so I had to restart from scratch. That always makes it harder.
thanks to my beta; singer1940
Chapter four should be up today or tomorrow.
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