This chapter is a small one and I don't like it that much. At least I have the next chapter almost done...

I apologize for any mistakes, but I'm really tired right now so I may have missed some...

Thank you!

Chapter 12 – Carlisle and Esme

His parents were waiting for us in the large living room. Carlisle had one arm around Esme's waist and she was slightly leaning against him. They were both smiling kindly at me and I couldn't help but to notice how well they fit together.

Edward squeezed my hand when they started to walk towards us and I took a deep breath to calm myself.

Edward's father, Carlisle, was extremely handsome. He looked young, was blonde, tall and lean. He appeared to be an easy going person.

Esme was equally beautiful. She was small and her soft hair framed her heart-shaped face perfectly. She emanated calm and safety.

"You must be Bella. I've heard so much about you." She enveloped me in a tight hug before pulling back to look at me. "It's so nice to finally meet you."

"You too, Mrs. Cullen."

"Oh dear, call me Esme." She smiled at me and I couldn't help but to smile back. When I looked back at Carlisle he reached his hand out for me to take it.

"Hello Bella, I'm Carlisle." I moved to take his hand and he smiled at me. "Edward wasn't lying when he said you were beautiful."

"Thank you." I knew I was starting to blush and Edward's chuckle beside me didn't help. He kissed my temple before taking a step towards Esme.

"Don't I get a hug too, mom?"

"Of course you do, love." She moved to hug Edward tightly while Carlisle smiled at me.

"The party won't be until later tonight Bella, so please feel free to look around if you want to. You're very welcome here."

"Thank you Carlisle and happy birthday by the way." He chuckled at me, much like Edward did, and I could immediately tell that Edward had acquired some of Carlisle's habits.

"Thank you, Bella." Edward placed his right hand on the small of my back and motioned upstairs with his head.

"So, do you want to go see my old bedroom?"

"Sure."

"Take your bags upstairs and leave them in your room, Edward. I'll take care of a few things on the kitchen so we can talk a little before the party, Bella." I smiled at Esme and nodded in her direction. Edward took my hand in that moment and led me upstairs to his room.

He placed our bags down while I looked around his room. It was neatly organized with a few books and cds lying on a shelve.

"This is nice. I like it."

"Thank you." He walked towards me and wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me closer to him. I wrapped my arms around his neck and stood on my tip-toes to kiss his jaw.

"So, what did you think about my parents?" I smiled at him as I let my fingers play with his hair.

"They are amazing. I knew they would be by the way you talk about them but they were extremely nice to me. I really liked them." He leaned in to kiss my nose and a smile spread on his face.

"I'm glad." He once again leaned in to kiss me. He began by kissing me softly but quickly deepened the kiss. I allowed our tongues to dance together while I pressed my body against his and ran my hands along his hair.

When one of his hands moved under my shirt I knew I had to stop this. We were in his parents' house after all and I didn't want to offend any of them. I broke our kiss and pulled back to look at him.

"Hey, stop it! We won't be doing any of that under your mother's roof!" He put on his best innocent face and looked down at me.

"What? I wasn't doing anything!"

"Yes, you were and you know it. Behave!" He chuckled slightly before pulling me closer to him again and nuzzling my neck.

"I already told you, it's not my fault I find you so irresistible. I just can't have enough of you. You're so beautiful, charming and sexy that I simply have to keep touching and kissing you." I titled my head slightly to the side as he kissed my neck.

"You know at this rate I'm going to get a cavity soon."

"You won't, don't worry." I nodded as he kept kissing my neck and took a deep breath before taking a step back.

"Come on Mr. Cullen, your parents are waiting for us downstairs."

"My mother will monopolize you for the whole night; I can already see that…" I laughed at him as I took his hand and headed downstairs.

Esme was sitting on the couch with Carlisle nearby.

"You have a very nice house, Esme."

"Thank you, dear." I moved to sat beside her.

"I bet the boys loved growing up here. There's a lot of space to run around…" With so much space and a beautiful garden I was sure the boys had loved growing up here. Carlisle laughed slightly as Edward took a sit on the love seat.

"They definitely did a lot of that! They had Esme and me running around after them all the time. They would stay outside for hours and we eventually had to go hunt them down!" I couldn't contain myself and started laughing. I could picture Esme and Carlisle running around Emmett and Edward perfectly. Well, maybe not after Edward but definitely after Emmett.

"Yes, I can definitely imagine that!" Esme jumped slightly beside me and I looked at her curiously.

"Well I actually have a bunch of pictures I have organized so I could show them to you when you came over, Bella. I'm sure there are a few of them playing outside." Esme got up and headed to one of the shelves standing on one of the corners of the living room.

"You organized them so you could show them to me?"

"Yes. We've heard a lot about you, honey." She came to sit down beside me again with a few photo albums that she placed on her lap. Edward huffed from his place on the loveseat and I smiled at him.

"Mom, do you really have to show her that?"

"Of course!" Carlisle laughed loudly and came to sit beside Esme.

"Get ready Edward, your mother is going to scare Bella away." Esme glared at Carlisle and lightly smacked his arm.

"Leave us alone you two. I've been waiting for this for a long time!" I couldn't help but to smile at her as she opened one of the photo albums. I could see she truly was a great mother. It was evident by the way she wanted to share the childhood memories of her boys with me.

I was quite happy to be able to be part of this.

"Come on Esme, I want to see those photos. And please tell me you have some embarrassing ones of Edward!" Esme nodded happily as Edward came to stand behind me.

"No, she doesn't!"

"Really?" I looked up at him as he placed one hand on my shoulder.

"Yes, I've always been a very good boy. I was very well behaved." I laughed out loud and rolled my eyes at him.

"We'll see." I began to go through the several pictures Esme had of Edward and Emmett growing up. She had pictures of every moment that truly mattered. There were pictures of them playing together, going to school and opening their Christmas presents. There were several snapshots of Edward playing his piano and Emmett running around… The only pictures that were missing were their babies' pictures but, of course, she couldn't have those.

Edward was right, there weren't any embarrassing pictures of him but there were a lot of him with Carlisle and Emmett playing games or simply sitting on the living room. There was a particular photo of him sleeping on the couch when he was about 5 years old that caught my eye. He was very peaceful and amazingly cute.

"You were so cute!" I showed him the picture of him sleeping and he simply smiled before kissing the top of my head.

"That's one of my favorite photos too, Bella. Edward was always a very calm and cute child." I nodded as I kept going through the photos Esme had to show me. We only stopped when we heard a loud noise on the entry hall.

"Hello family. So where's my girl, Bella?" Emmett came loudly into the living room successfully startling all of us. He took a look around and immediately smiled at me. "There she is." He came over to me and bear hugged me. One of these days he was going to successfully suffocate me!

"Emmett, I can't breathe!" He let me go grinning before turning around to hug Esme and say hello to Carlisle and Edward.

"Hey Emmett, what's this picture I see?"

"What picture, squirt?" I showed him a picture of him wearing a dress and sitting on the floor surrounded by what I presumed was Esme's china. Emmett went immediately white and I couldn't help but to laugh at his expression.

"There's an explanation for that picture…" Edward chuckled and gestured for him to go on.

"Is there now? Come on, go on Emmett. We want to know…"

"Well you remember that friend of mom's who had two daughters, right?" Edward simply nodded once. "They used to dress me as a girl and make me play with them…" Everyone burst out laughing as Emmett huffed in annoyance.

I couldn't let this pass; I had to tease him a little more.

"You allowed to girls to dress you up?"

"They were older than me!" I laughed again as he took a step towards me.

"I can't believe you were dominated but two little girls, Emmet…" Esme laughed slightly as Emmett huffed again.

"Come on Bells, give me that picture. I want to destroy it." Edward took the picture from my hands before Emmett could.

"No way! I'll keep this picture." Emmett glared at Edwards and started to walk in his direction.

"For what?"

"For blackmail purposes, of course. What else?"

"Come on Eddie, give me that!"

"You should know that Ccalling me Eddie is not going to help you get this picture, Emmett." Edward took a step back when Emmett reached him and waved the picture in front of him. I couldn't not roll my eyes at them. Esme got up in that moment and interceded before they could continue their bicker.

"Come on boys, behave! You were not raised by wolves!" They both immediately stopped what they were doing and Edward saved the picture on one of his pockets with a wink at Emmett.

We all stayed in the living room for a while longer, talking and laughing until the guests arrived. To my surprise I felt comfortable being there with them. They made me feel at ease and welcome, almost like I was part of the family.

The night went by swiftly and by the end of the night, after all the guests were gone, I found myself in the kitchen with Esme while the boys discussed some baseball game in the living room.

I felt comfortable near her. She was very calm, sweet and… motherly. I could see why Edward and Emmett loved her so much.

"Esme, can I ask you something?"

"Of course, honey."

"Why did you decide to adopt Edward?" She placed the dish she was washing on the table and turned to look at me.

"Well I always wanted to have children but then found out I couldn't. A couple of years later Carlisle and I decided we would adopt. I wanted to be a mother more than anything and, for me, it didn't matter if I gave birth to my child or not." She smiled and took a sit. "We were living in Chicago at that time and after we decided we wanted to adopt we went to a home in order to meet candidates. The woman who ran the home sent us to a room where the meetings took place saying there was a little boy of 4 years old waiting for us. He had been there for about four months, sent after his parents had died in an accident. We went in and there was Edward, sitting on a corner and holding a stuffed animal. It was a bear who was playing a little piano." She laughed and I couldn't help but to laugh with her. The love for music had, apparently, begun early for Edward. "He looked up at me when I came in with those shiny green eyes and smiled. Right at that moment I knew that boy would be my son. We took care of all the papers and he came to live with us." She stopped for a while, looking like she was remembering those days, before going on. "He was such a cute child, Bella! He was always very calm, very intelligent and so loving. I'm truly proud of the man he became." She stopped once again to smile at me. "About two years later we adopted Emmett. He was 8 and what a handful! He was always running around and laughing. He really was a happy child." I couldn't help but to smile at that.

"He hasn't changed that much then."

"No, he hasn't!"

"You did a great job with both of them Esme. You should be proud."

"Thank you, Bella." Esme stood up and walked towards me so she could take my hands in hers. "I can tell you really like my son. I can see it in the way you look at him and I want you to know that he truly does love you. I have never seen him so happy before. He practically glows when he is around you and I want to thank you for that, for making him happy. He deserves to be happy." I simply nodded, not knowing exactly what to say. "I also want to ask you to take care of him and let him take care of you. He enjoys taking care of you…"

"I will. Thank you, Esme." She hugged me strongly before stepping out when Edward came in.

"Hey."

"Hi." I walked towards him, wrapped my arms around his waist and rested my head in his chest.

"Are you ok?" He kissed the top of my head and I turned to kiss his chest.

"I am. I really like your mother. She is very nice." I could feel him smiling.

"I'm glad. I'm really glad. She likes you too. In fact, I think she already liked you before she met you." I smiled before yawning involuntarily.

"Come on sweetheart let's get you to bed. You had a long day. I know you're tired."

"Where I am going to sleep?"

"In my room." I turned my head to look at him.

"What about you?"

"Well I was hoping you wouldn't mind having me sleep beside you."

"I never do, you know that. Won't your parents mind?"

"No. Besides it's not like we'll be doing anything, apart from sleeping. Right?" I smiled at him and stood on my tip toes to kiss his lips.

"Right!" he shook his head and purposely sighed in exaggeration.

"Yes, that's what I thought…" I rolled my eyes at him and moved in order to kiss his lips once again.

"Ok then. Come on, let's go." Once we said goodbye to everyone Edward took me to his bedroom where I changed into one of his shirts before jumping into bed. I cuddled against him and soon after feel asleep in his arms.