A/N: Now beta'd!
EPOV
House hunting in a word: exhausting. We'd walked through at least a dozen and nothing seemed to match what we wanted. One house even looked like a giant Barbie Dream home. We had two more houses to look at, and if we didn't find what we were looking for in one of them, we decided we were going to build one. Glancing down at my watch I noted the time and closed up the file I was taking notes on. After shutting everything away in the filing cabinet, I grabbed my jacket and headed out.
Twenty minutes later, I headed up the driveway of house number thirteen and - to be honest - it didn't look promising. The structure itself wasn't bad. No, what was bad was the fact that the outside was painted at least four different colors ranging from orange to teal. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for being creative, but come on people, if you're trying to sell a house at least paint it back to a neutral color. As I got closer to the house, I spotted Bella and Ethan talking to our realtor. Even from a distance, I could see the crease between her brows and knew she was thinking the same thing as me about the color. Walking up to them I wrapped an arm around Bella and quickly ruffled my fingers through Ethan's hair in greeting before shaking Tanya, the realtor's, hand. "So, what do you think of the house? Isn't it just fabulous! I think this could be what you're looking for. I know the color is a little off the charts but that's just paint. Let's have a look inside, ok?"
Not really waiting for a response, she ushered us inside. It was…different.
It had an open plan like we wanted but...I don't know...something seemed off. Maybe I was still hung up on the color of the exterior, but the place just didn't have that ' homey' feeling to it. One quick look at Bella and I knew what she was thinking. I didn't even have to ask; her eyes said everything.
"Let's look at the other one?" I asked without further comment. Tanya let out a quick breath, nodded and followed us out. Our final property was located on Mercer Island. It had eight bedrooms and eight baths. Normally I wouldn't have even considered looking at something that big, however it was a foreclosure, which meant that we could take possession immediately. On top of that, the price for it was practically indecent. I was hoping that it was the one that we'd been looking for because the timeline was ideal for us, moving wise. Hopping on the I-90 we were there in 30 minutes. With Tanya leading and Bella following behind me, we started down the long drive. It was tree-lined and had what looked like pine and palm trees with floodlights throughout. When we pulled up to the house my jaw dropped. It was a stone structure that looked more like a compound than a house, but at the same time wasn't imposing or looming. It was grand yet charming. In the middle was a 4-car garage and to the left what appeared to be the main entrance with a covered carport. It was two stories...three if you included the basement.
I got out of my car and turned to see Bella getting out of hers. Her eyes never left the house and her jaw was steadily getting closer to the ground. Walking over to her, I touched my index finger to the bottom of her chin and pushed up, closing her mouth. That seemed to snap her out of it. As she finally looked over to me, I could tell she was at war with herself - over what I didn't know.
"Edward Anthony, how in the hell is this even in our price range? It's like flipping huge! What do you intend to do with all this extra space...collect all of Seattle's homeless and move them in? I know we brushed on the subject of more kids but there's no…I don't even…." She was slowly growing redder and redder until she started turning a purple color. Grabbing hold of her I attempted to calm her down. I glanced over at Ethan, but he was riveted to one spot, his head moving back and forth trying to take it all in.
Turning my attention back to Bella, I spoke quietly. "Calm down, ok. I know this place looks huge, but I'm getting an excellent deal on it because it's a foreclosure. The bank wants it sold ASAP and we can move in right away. It meets all our criteria plus has a little extra. Just come and take a look with me. I've seen some of the online pictures for this place and what I've seen I like and I think you'll love it too." I hit her with the pout, the one I knew she could never resist. Slumping a little in my arms, she agreed to give it a look. Letting one arm drop to her side I do the same with mine but keep one arm around her, we started making our way towards the front door. I grabbed Ethan on the way since he seemed to be lost in his head, no doubt already planning various adventures for the house in front of him. Tanya was already holding the door open for us by the time we reached the main entrance. We walked in and I immediately felt at home which was surprising to me. Looking at the outside I'd expected something that seemed stuffy, pretentious, and snobby – but it was none of those things. I had no doubt that if we decided on this place Bella would have no trouble making it a home. We walked further in and Bella immediately gravitated toward the kitchen. It was huge. You could easily fit three of Bella's kitchen in there...and that was an understatement. The counters were all granite, a light brown and white with a rectangular center island with chairs. But what caught Bella's attention were the windows. At least I think they were windows. She pushed on one and it popped out and then she kept going till they were all pushed towards one end, kind of like the blinds you have on a patio door. She looked at me and I could see it in her eyes...she wanted this. She'd ventured no further than the kitchen and already she was in love with the house. I didn't say anything; it would ultimately be up to Bella whether we would buy it or not and I didn't want to push.
Tanya chose that moment to come in and start rattling off facts about the place. "So, I see you found the kitchen. Isn't it amazing? It's every chef's dream! And I've heard that the cross breeze you can get while working in here with the window's open like that is just fabulous! If you follow me, you'll see that just outside there's a pool, hot tub and outdoor entertaining space. A little further down is the dock too." It had gotten darker outside since we had come in, but after Tanya disappeared for a few seconds, the entire back yard lit up all at once. The pool had those lights in it that changed colors - the hot tub too - and the rest of the yard had light dispersed throughout - enough so that you could see, but not so much that it was blinding.
"As you can see, the pool faces the water. The lighting out here is all on a dimmer switch so you can adjust it to the occasion. There's also separate lighting out to the dock and mooring. Looking back at the house, the living room has nana doors on the wall facing this way so you can come and go from there or from the kitchen. The living space out here has a fire place and is spacious enough to hold more than enough seating for any kind of entertaining."
Tanya kept naming off things but at that point I started tuning her out and instead focused on Bella and her expressions. Unable to control myself any longer, I made my way over to her and wrapped my arms around her middle.
"So, just based off of the little bit we've seen, what do you think? Is it too big? Too much? Not what you want? Just say the word and we'll keep looking or draw up plans of our own." She drew in a breath and looked around once more.
"It's amazing. It so much more than what I've ever dreamed of - even for Ethan! This place is completely over the top, but at the same time I can see us here. I can see us having pool parties for Ethan and his friends. And that kitchen! I swear I could live in there if I thought you'd let me. But this isn't just about me. Let's go find Ethan and see what he thinks ok? I can't be the only one to make this decision. So while we go see where our child ran off to, what do you think?"
We walked back in the kitchen and went through the living room. There was a door that led to stairs that seemed to descend to the basement, and we figured we'd look there first. Walking down the stairs, I started telling her about everything I liked, the multi car garage and the dock and mooring as well as how open it all looked but as soon as I stepped foot in that basement, all that went out the window. It was the man cave of man caves down here. There were three 52'' plasma flat screens along the back wall, one above the fireplace and then one on each side. Looking around I noticed speakers in each corner of the room...surround sound. One corner held games, like a fooze ball table, a pinball machine and an air hockey table. There was a bar set up in the back corner. Walking over to it, I noticed a popcorn machine and an ice cream machine as well as several expensive bottles of various adult beverages. Looking up at Bella I saw her looking back at me with a smirk on her face.
"Everything I said before about the house that I liked? Well that is all shit compared to here. I want this basement!"