Assumptions Chapter 23

Flowers for a pretty lady

BPOV:

Esme and I had a great time shopping in Seattle. She was a lot of fun to be around and was frank and honest when she saw furniture that she thought was tacky or gaudy. We had a lot of laughs at some of the ugliest pieces of furniture that we'd ever had the misfortune of seeing. She was also a fierce negotiator and got me good deals on everything, plus deals on the delivery fees for the things that we couldn't take with us. Even with the bargains she got me I dropped a lot of money on new furniture, carpet, and accessories. If my new book did well then I was going to hire someone to gut the kitchen and redo the whole thing, including the flooring and cabinets.

We finally got back to Forks and pulled up to my house around midnight on Tuesday. The drive back from Seattle had taken us six hours due to torrential rains and fog that was impairing visibility. The fact that we could barely see five feet in front of the car had us completely terrified and we drove at an absolute crawl all the way back. A couple of times we talked about just pulling over and getting a hotel room but ultimately we decided to just press on. We both wanted to get home. I was texting Edward, Carlisle, and Rose every once in a while to let them know that we were still alright and where we were on our way home. I don't think that I was ever so relieved to be home in my life. Esme had had it with driving by that point and decided to spend the night in Emmett and Rose's guest room. I didn't blame her one bit for that decision. The route back to her house would have her going through some really low lying areas that would make the fog situation a lot worse.

When I woke up on Wednesday, Rose and Emmett came over to help Esme and me unload her SUV before she finally went home. We got everything in the house and stored in the spare bedroom upstairs until I was ready to put things out. That wouldn't be until the new carpets were installed and the furniture was delivered and that wasn't going to be for a couple of weeks yet. I wanted to get the painting done before everything was delivered and we weren't going to be able to do that this weekend. We had Angela's baby shower this Sunday at Esme's house.

Speaking of Angela's shower, after Esme left Rose and Emmett brought over a few of the gifts that people in town had dropped off for her. We'd had the bright idea to have everyone drop off the presents to me this week and I would pack all of them in the car and drive it over to Esme's on the day of the shower. I would drive the car over there and surprise her with it all, that the car and everything inside were her gifts. We hoped that it would soften her to the idea that I was giving them the car. I had my truck now and really had no use for the car anymore.

We were done shortly before lunch time and I was starving so I decided to run and grab some takeout Chinese and surprise Edward with lunch. I walked into the shop to find him talking to a customer. He looked up as he heard the door and smiled at me before returning his attention to the elderly lady who was going on and on about a book that she wanted that was apparently out of print and hard to find. Edward was promising her that he would call all of his contacts and do everything he could to try to locate a copy. She seemed happy with his promise of a good effort and left the shop.

He walked over to me where I was now standing behind the counter and kissed me, "I missed you."

"I missed you too. I thought it would be nice to have lunch together since we're both busy tonight."

He kissed me again, "That does sound nice." He sat down in the chair next to me and I handed him the container that held his food before sitting down with mine. After we were done eating I helped him stock a new shipment of books that just came in. By the time that we finished moving things around to fit the new books I had been there for just over three hours and I needed to get back home to get ready to babysit Bree.

I walked across the street to Rose and Emmett's just before five; Rose had told me that she had bought some frozen pizza that Bree loved for us to have for dinner. I asked Bree what she wanted to do tonight when I saw her this morning; all she wanted was to watch her favorite movie and play with the new paper dolls that Emmett had bought her. That sounded like fun to me. Little did I know that her favorite movie was SpongeBob. That stupid sponge's obnoxious voice always gave me a headache, but I would end a night of watching it to keep Bree happy.

We had just finished the first viewing of the movie and were coming back downstairs from getting Bree into her pajamas and brushing her teeth when there was a knock on the door. I looked out the window and smiled when I saw Edward standing there with something in his hands. I let Bree go ahead and open the door to let him in. He stepped in and squatted down in front of his niece and handed her a bouquet of daisies. He gave her a kiss on the cheek before standing back up and turning to me. He handed me a bouquet of tulips and gave me a kiss on the lips.

"What are you doing here," I asked with a laugh.

"Alice and I finished early so I thought I pay two of the most beautiful girls in Forks a visit."

"Uncle Edward, we're gonna watch SpongeBob again. Come on!"

"Bree, we need to put our flowers in water first so they don't dry out." She ran off to the kitchen while Edward and I walked behind her, hand in hand. "Thanks for the flowers, Edward, but you really didn't have to."

"What kind of gentlemen would I be if I showed up empty handed? My mother raised me better than that," he teased. Then he leaned over and whispered into my ear, "Besides, I might have had an ulterior motive for coming over tonight."

EPOV:

I hated that Bella was out of town again, even if it was only for a couple of days and she was only in Seattle with Mom. Dad was having his own separation issues with Mom being away. He and I ended up eating dinner together at the diner on Monday night and Tuesday we ordered pizza in and had dinner at my apartment while watching the Mariner's game. It wasn't too far into the game that Bella started texting me that they were on their way home but extremely dense fog was making them go slow. Mom was driving so Bella was the one keeping us informed of their very slow progress home. Dad went home around ten to try to get some paperwork done while he waited for mom to get home. The last that I had heard from them they were just on the other side of Port Angeles. Every time that I heard from her and knew that they were safe I could relax a little more and breathe a little easier.

I followed Bella and Bree to the kitchen and watched as she helped Bree put her flowers in a vase before finding one to use for her own flowers. Bree struggled to carry her vase of flowers to the living room, we both offered to carry them for her, but she refused to let us. She put them down on the coffee table and I had to jump forward to catch it before it tipped and spilled all over.

I sat down on the couch next to Bella and Bree climbed up on my lap and cuddled into me. We were only about halfway through the movie when I realized that Bree had fallen asleep on us. I tried to stand up without waking her too much. She stirred and held onto my shirt a little tighter, "my flowers," she mumbled. I looked back at Bella who was now standing holding Bree's flowers, and followed me up to Bree's room.

We got my niece tucked away into her bed and returned to the living room. Bella immediately turned off that annoying movie that Bree loved for some reason. We returned to where we had been sitting on the couch, only now we were sitting closer to each other. Bella shifted until she was practically sitting in my lap. She grabbed the remote and started flipping through the channels until she found a cooking show to watch, "Ohhh. I love Chef Morimoto!"

We sat watching for a minute, it was a crazy show where two chefs were competing with each other. "Ok. What is a secret ingredient and what is a kitchen stadium?"

"Ok. Each show the chairman chooses one ingredient that is the 'secret ingredient' and neither chef will know what it is beforehand but it has to feature in each of the five dishes they are required to make. Kitchen stadium is the arena. You don't always see it but there is stadium seating above the chefs for spectators to watch the competition."

I nodded and we watched the show in relative silence. I guess today's secret ingredient was some kind of fish. Bella groaned when one chefs went for the ice cream machine.

"You have a problem with ice cream?" I asked with a smile.

"I have a problem with them and ice cream after one chef had the nerve to make trout ice cream."

"Please tell me you're joking."

"Unfortunately, I'm not. There was also one chef that made blood ice cream."

"That is just gross."

"Yeah, there are many times that I am very, very thankful that I am not a judge. The original show had its moments too but it was a very different culture."

"Really?"

"Yeah, it started in Japan and was restarted here in America a few years ago." We continued watching the cooking show, thankfully the chef only made some lemon sorbet.

My brother and Rose got home around eleven. They didn't seem too surprised to find me at their house. Bella and I said our goodbyes to them and quickly made our way across the street to her house to enjoy a glass of wine and hopefully a little play time of our own.

As soon as we got in the door I grabbed her, spun her around, and pushed her against the door. "You know, I really don't want that glass of wine," I whispered as I kissed her neck.

"You know I don't either," she moaned as she put her arms around my neck, pushing my face more firmly into her neck, making me laugh and her shudder.

I pulled back, "then why are we wasting our time down here?" I grabbed her hand, pulling her along behind me as we made our way to her room. I had been thinking about this since Bella was at my store this afternoon. We were putting books away and she bent over to grab some more out the box, flashing her ass at me. If we hadn't been in the middle of my store on Main Street with a store front made almost entirely out of glass, then I would have gone with my first instinct which was tackling her to the ground and ripping off her clothes. But I wasn't a cave man and I wasn't going to disrespect her like that.

I grabbed her and kissed her until Bella pulled away from me, she started to take her shirt off as she back up towards the bed with a smile on her face. I stalked toward her, taking my shirt off as well. I caught up to her as she reached the bed. I wrapped my arm around her waist and went back to kissing her neck. I felt her hands grab the button of my jeans and within seconds she had them open and was pushing them down my legs.

I grabbed her butt and lifted her up a little, just enough to flip her back onto the bed. I took her by surprise and she squealed as she bounced a little. I finished taking my pants off then leaned forward and pulled hers off. We spent the next two hours making love to each other until we both fell asleep.

I was woken the next morning by the sound of my phone ringing. It took a second for me to realize where I was and crawl out of bed. I dug my phone out of the pocket of my jeans on the floor and groaned when I realized who it was.

"Why are you calling so early, Tanya? Is there something wrong with Abby?"

"She's fine, but we really need to talk."

A/N:

Happy Saturday! Dear God. I am my son's rehearsal. He and several other teenage boys just came running around the corner at full speed and converged on the table of cookies like they hadn't been fed in a week. I know my son had breakfast today. If you haven't already seen it, I've posted an outtake in a separate story from this. There will be a few random outtakes that I have in mind, but there won't be too many. This first one I wrote for Sweetpea123 for her birthday. She is so wonderful to go through these chapters and clean them up for me before I post them and I am glad to call her my friend. The next update will be in two weeks. See you then!