A/n: Hey! Ho!, let's go! - or at least, that's what my mate's teeshirt says. I've always thought they're kinda offensive aren't they? I mean, come on, what if you didn't listen to the Ramones?

Chapter 14

Edward POV

Well, I thought to myself, this is awkward.

But for some reason it took me an inordinate amount of time to pull my eyes away from her own, beautiful, chocolate brown orbs.

God, she's beautiful.

I knew I shouldn't be having such thoughts; after all, she was now an unsuspecting guest in my flat - and she'd been practically forced into that by Alice. Though to be honest, I'd never been happier that I'd got a spare room. And I'd also never been happier that Alice was my sister. I was going

to buy her an absolutely huge present for Christmas.

Make that doubly, absolutely huge. Perhaps it'd be from me and Bella.

I tried not to get ahead of myself, but it wasn't really working. Just looking at her, sitting there on my couch, was stirring feelings in my chest. She looked absolutely perfect just sitting there, casually, in my lounge; smiling happily with my sister, and with me…eating my food…drinking my water…

Just as perfect as her books looked on my shelf.

I suppressed a sigh, and gave her a quick smile.

"So", I started, still feeling a little ill at ease. "Do you want some dinner?"

She giggled at me, and shook her head a little.

"Actually, um, I had a lot of snacks", she said, blushing a beautiful red, and hanging her head, so her gorgeous brown locks covered her face.

"Ah, okay, well is there anything you'd like to do?" I asked quickly. "Um, is there anything you usually do at this time?"

She shook her head again, and looked back up at me with a smile.

"I'm really not very interesting, Edward", she told me, "I usually just sit and read…or write."

I couldn't help but smile at her. Bella was so calm. I loved that about her. She didn't do anything extraordinary, or loud for fun. She was perfect. And she sounded exactly like me, to be honest. Except I might have added 'piano' to the list of hobbies.

"Well, I think you're very interesting", I said, grinning at her, "and so do our readers, of course."

I couldn't resist winking at her, and grinning big when her face turned even redder.

Adorable.

"How about we watch a movie?" I asked after a few minutes of silence. She seemed to perk up at my suggestion, and nodded back at me. "What's your favourite?"

She blushed again and muttered 'The Dark Side of the Sun' under her breath.

"Brad Pitt fetish?" I asked, wiggling my eyebrows at her, and her own eyebrows shot up into her hairline.

"You know it?" she asked, and I smirked, walking over to the shelf that housed all of my DVDS (there weren't many), and picked up the one she'd named; then I waved it at her. Luckily, it was one of Alice's favourites, and she'd started leaving a copy here for whenever she stayed. I could probably recite every line of it by now. Alice didn't like to watch movies alone.

Bella looked like Christmas had come early, all wide eyed and sweet. I stuck the disk in the DVD player, and sat down the other end of the couch from her.

I tried to tell myself that it was normal to watch the person you were with, rather than the movie you were watching. Especially if they kept moving around and making 'awh' noises…and sighing at sweet moments.

And crying.

I'd almost managed to convince myself when I remembered that Alice fidgeted constantly through movies, ate loudly throughout, leaned forwards so far I thought her little spine might crack, and squealed and cried in a very high pitch, loud way…and I almost never looked at her.

Obviously, it was just Bella.

By the end of the film, I'd seen several new facial expressions of hers, which I now absolutely adored. Oh, and I was extremely jealous of the young Brad Pitt. If the film wasn't so serious, and really quite touching, I might have cheered when his character died.

When the film finished, I gave Bella a box of tissues, because she was crying so much; and quickly made myself scarce, by taking all of the plates, glasses, and leftover snacks out to the kitchen, and putting them away.

I returned soon after to find that Bella had recovered.

Then came more awkwardness.

Bella yawned, before saying,

"Well, I think I'll go to bed now", and smiling at me. Luckily, she'd asked Alice to just help her into a different pair of pyjamas that morning, so I'd not have to help her change or anything highly embarrassing.

I nodded to her, and walked over to help her move. I wrapped my arm around her slim waist, and helped to manoeuvre her into the bathroom; where I left her to brush her teeth…and stuff.

She met me at the door again, a few moments later, and I helped her into the guest room; grinning proudly at her impressed look. Apparently, Bella liked the room.

"Wow, Edward, this is really nice!" she told me, with one of her heartbreaking smiles.

"Thanks", I muttered back, unfortunately unable to run my hand through my hair as I usually would have done, because I'd wrapped one of them around Bella, and the other was holding the door wide open. The room had been decorated in hues of blue by Esme and Alice, who thought it was 'tranquil' at the time. Alice had since regretted this and often wished that she'd painted it pink. Thank god she hadn't though; I didn't think I'd be able to stand that.

"Esme decorated it", I felt the need to add, wondering if I'd just shot myself in the foot; perhaps I should have taken credit for that?

"Esme?" Bella asked, as we managed to sit her down on the bed.

"Yeah", I replied, "my mother".

"I see", she smiled back. "She has good taste".

"Well, yeah", I teased back, "after all, she did pick me!"

Bella looked a little confused.

"Though she also picked Alice, so sometimes her taste is obviously not perfect", I mused, and Bella looked even more confused. I suddenly realised why.

"We're adopted", I said quickly, and her eyes widened in realisation.

"Oh, I see", she murmured softly, making a face that looked like she didn't know what to say.

"They're awesome though, Esme and Carlisle", I said quickly, "best parents ever".

She smiled another breathtaking smile.

"That's good", she said simply. "I take it that's why you and Carlisle have different surnames then?"

"Oh, yeah. Um. Alice is actually Alice Brandon. And Emmett is Emmet McCarthy. But both of them changed their names when they were younger."

"That's cool. Why didn't you change yours?" Somehow she seemed to ask all the things I wasn't expecting.

"Well, I guess I never got over their deaths really. My parents, that is. I never really thought about it. Though… if I get married, I'd like to make my wife a Cullen." I smiled down at her, and couldn't help myself putting the names 'Bella', and 'Cullen' together.

I might have been biased, but I thought Bella Cullen sounded fantastic. Or Isabella Cullen. Actually, Bella Masen sounded pretty wonderful too. So did Bella and Edward. Or Mrs Edward Cullen. Or Mrs Bella Cullen. Or-

I have to stop thinking like this.

She seemed to be contemplating something. I braced myself for a question about my real parents deaths, remembering the countless questions that others had asked about them once they found out I was adopted. Most people were interested in the gory details.

"That would make Carlisle and Esme very happy, I'm sure", she said quietly, blushing again. I was growing very partial to that blush. I was going to make a list of all the things that caused her skin to redden, and do them all of the time she was living here.

"Ahh", I replied, lost for words. So unpredictable.

"By the way, you mean 'when' you get married, right?" she asked me, her face reddening. What?

"Umm, what?" I asked her, thinking that I sounded a little rude.

"You said if you get married, but you mean when, right?" she clarified, and I looked down at her, confused. I wasn't engaged or anything, so there was no reason to think I would definitely get married. Was there?

"But…I might not get married", I tried, and she snorted. "What!?" I finally cried.

"Guys like you always get married", she replied, softly, but matter of factly.

"Guys like…me?" I was thoroughly confused now. Was that a bad thing?

"You know…gorgeous, great job, caring, loving, sweet, funny, compassionate, great family…etcetera…"

She trailed off, and I found my heart beating at a mile a minute; she'd called me good looking…amongst other things. I suddenly had a small flashback of the night before:

Well I want him to be relatively good looking; obviously…loving, caring, sweet, compassionate. She'd said, great family of course!

Had she…did she just…did she mean to describe me like her perfect guy?

Was there some small chance that Bella Swan might actually like…me?

Just as I thought my world was going to implode I remembered that Bella was waiting for an answer, and quickly blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

"You never know, I might have some skeletons in the closet. Or, I don't know, a mad ex-wife in the attic."

Oh god, I was an idiot, I'd blown it.

Thankfully, Bella giggled.

"I don't know about the skeletons, but I'm pretty sure you don't have an attic, Edward. Seeing as you live in a flat." I felt my face heat up, and realised I'd stolen Bella's trademark blush; which made my blush harder. But she giggled again, so all was right in the world.

I sighed.

"That's not the point, Bella, I'm as likely to get married as anyone else." Now she was on the bed, rather than in my arms, I could reach up and run my hand through my permanently-messy bronze locks. So I did, wishing I could read her mind and understand the look on her face at that moment. I found Bella particularly hard to read.

She suddenly shrugged, and muttered 'sure' under her breath.

"Well", she said suddenly, "I hope you'll invite me to your wedding anyway; It'll break up the monotony of my life as a cat lady."

You'll be the bride, was my first thought, before she started talking about herself being a cat lady. There was no way in hell I was going to allow that to happen. If I had my way, my Bella would never be lonely. Definitely not lonely enough to by sixty or so cats.

Maybe we'd just have the one, and called it Emmett for a laugh.

As I looked at Bella, I realised that I was going to make damn sure she'd never be that lonely. And I was going to make even more sure that she was invited to my wedding day: as the bride. In that moment, getting a ring on her bare ring finger became my life's new aim. And I was going to reach that aim.

Even if it's the last thing I ever do.

A/n: Oh, Edward, getting serious now, are we? Ehh? Don't even deny it! Teehee. Review?