Chapter Nine

Disclaimer: Twilight and its characters are the property of Stephenie Meyer. This story however, is mine, and all similarities to real persons are just that, similarities. Please feel free to review or not, I just love reading and writing. Hope you enjoy this journey with me.

"Alright, enough of poor Bella, we've got a wedding to cancel folks." I threw my wedding planning book down on the coffee table and flopped back onto the couch next to Edward.

He scooted closer to me, wrapping and arm around my shoulders and I leaned my head on his chest. That's when I noticed the scrapes and bruising on his hand.

"Edward! What happened, are you okay?"

"Nothing to be concerned about, just had a mess to clean up last night after you left. I'll be fine." His voice sounded off-putting, as if he was trying to hide something from me. Edward had always been an open book, so for him to start acting sneaky now was highly unusual. "So, I'm assuming you're going to need some help with all of this; where do we start first?" He removed his arm from around my shoulder and grabbed the planner off the coffee table where I'd tossed it and started leafing through the pages.

"Luckily, I have the next three weeks off because of the wed- wedding," I stuttered out. "I guess I should start calling the florist, caterers, dress-shop, the limo company, the church, the hotel…" I continued to tick off all of the things I had listed as Alice's eyes grew to the size of dinner plates.

Alice held up a hand to interrupt my chain of thought. "How about we split up everything; each one of us can take a few things and get them done. With the three of us working together, we can have everyone contacted and taken care of. I bet even Jasper would be willing to help out a bit."

I grabbed the planner from Edward's hands and leafed to the back of the book, where all of the details about the romantic two week honeymoon I had planned for Jake and I were. "The only things that can't be absolutely cancelled are the honeymoon plans. I've already paid for most of the trip and I only have the last payment that's due on Thursday, but it's non-refundable."

Edward reached across the planner and grabbed a brochure out of the pocket page. "Portugal? That's… different." He started leafing through the brochure my travel agent had given me. "Why did you two pick Portugal?"

I started pulling the rest of the brochures out and spread them across the table, setting aside the wedding planner on the seat cushion next to me. "We didn't decide on Portugal, I did. Jake was never really involved or interested in any of the planning. He just said to pick whatever I wanted; it's one place I've always wanted to go but have never been. I thought it would be romantic; just the two of us wandering the streets, exploring the island villages and eating local cuisine." I sighed, tossing a brochure in Alice's direction to look at. "Now I'm stuck with a trip for two, and it's only going to be for one."

"You'll get through this, sweetie," said Alice. "I'm convinced that when one door closes, another one is set to open up to bigger and better things. With us helping you, we should be able to get all of this cleared away in the next day or so; after that you can worry about what you're going to do about the Portugal trip."

Alice left the overstuffed chair she was sitting on to move around the coffee table and sit on my other side. Two sets of arms came around me, squishing me into a Bella sandwich group hug.

With my best friend and my hero by my side, anything was possible.

A/N So… I've had almost 2,000 hits to this story and only 18 reviews. *makes sad panda face* You all know what you need to do… Please? OH! BTW, if you want to hang out with me on twitter, you can find me stephabelle77. Also, I just started a tumblr… Lord help me! stephabellaff if you're looking for me there too! Can't wait to see you around!