We spent the next few hours exploring. I asked questions about décor, vampire habits, and random routines. They had the largest television I'd ever seen, and I knew that Charlie would be jealous if I described it. Edward had turned it on with the tiniest remote I'd ever seen, and it was now displaying a baseball game. A slight sadness filed me and I re-expressed my regret at not being able to attend the baseball game.
"Perhaps we can utilize some modern technology for this instance?" Edward asked, looking as though he'd found an especially clever counter argument for something. "I believe you video-chat your mother?"
"You want to video chat a baseball game?" I laughed.
"Call it a live stream," he grinned in response. This was utterly ridiculous. I shook my head in bemusement, and bit my lip.
"Really? You'd do that?" I couldn't help but feel intrigued. Edward nodded enthusiastically at me, but his eyes shifted, as if his name had been called, away from me and he squinted in a glare ever so slightly. I'm almost positive I knew who would have been the note of discord there.
They really don't like me? I signed tentatively.
"In his defense, Emmett has nothing against you, he's just safely siding with his wife." Edward scowled, loudly enough that I had very clearly heard him. I'm sure that the raised voice wasn't for the benefit of me. Edward glared over to the garage again, listening to some kind of reply.
Edward began signing; Rosalie is complicated. She fears more for her own safety than she cares to meet you. "I will admit…" Edward switched to speaking. "Rose seems happy enough…." And back to signing 'In her own way…' "That I'm happy."
"Her dislike of the clumsy human is slightly overruled by love for her big brother?" I whispered, with a sad smile. I hated making people uncomfortable.
"Exactly." He nodded.
I sat in silence for a few moments, considering, and was interrupted by a strong vibration in my back pocket. I had honestly forgotten my phone was there. It had been such an intriguing day that I'd sort of stepped out of the range of normalcy.
I weaseled out my phone and took a look. There were two messages that had come in at the same time.
Hey Bells. I'm going to be out late with Billy today. We got a good catch, and we are headed over to Harry's to share. You can come over too. Or fend for yourself. Let me know kid. Charlie.
Happy Saturday Bella! You'd mentioned coming over today and I just wanted to be sure we'd save you some dinner if you were. Angela.
Well that killed two birds with one stone. I quickly messaged Charlie that he should stay, and have fun, I'd be headed to Angela's for dinner, and then I messaged Angela to tell her I'd be over soon.
I looked up at Edward, who was currently tracing the seam of my jeans.
"What time are you all going to be playing tonight?" I asked.
"Seven." He held up the sign too. He was watching me with contemplative eyes.
"Is it alright if I go to Angela's for dinner, and then head back home for this epic baseball stream?" I asked. Edward's eyes flashed and he frowned.
"You don't need to ask my permission to do anything Bella."
"I was just trying to be courteous and informative." I reassured him, holding my hands up, on the defensive. "Besides, I know you would feed me, but I'd feel really weird being the only one eating in the house."
"I could go grab some squirrels." Edward mocked, pretending to be speculative.
"That will never stop being funny." I chuckled, and then tried to force my face into not smiling. "But I'm assuming you'd want them alive, and that's far too much squeaking for my taste."
Edward threw up his hands in a mock 'oh dear' gesture, and then resumed tracing my jeans.
"Speaking of food…" I started. "What's the weirdest thing you've ever eaten?"
Edward raised his eyebrow disapprovingly but thought about it anyway. "Probably a puffin."
"A puffin?"
"Yes, a puffin. It was a dare." Edward glowered into the ceiling.
"I ate snails once. I was six – or maybe seven – and I'd just learned about escargot. So Jacob and I washed a snail each from the garden, and…" I shuddered with the memory. It was the grossest thing I could ever remember doing. My stomach riled at the thought. Edward looked almost horrified.
"What's the smallest and the largest thing you've ever eaten?" I asked again, as Edward watched me with concerned fascination.
"The largest would be a grizzly bear for me, and the smallest… probably a squirrel actually." He admitted ashamedly as I laughed. "You should really play this game with Emmett and Jasper. They've done some extensive travelling, and would undoubtedly have a larger list to go through."
"Has anyone tried a whale?" I asked, surprised at myself. "I mean, that's gotta be a large enough meal to warrant a take-home bag."
Edward smiled, and then groaned. "I'll give you three guesses as to what my brothers will be doing the next time we're in Alaska."
"Oops. Sorry." I smiled. Edward glanced upward and then back to me.
"Alice says it's going to rain shortly. If you don't want to arrive at Angela's wet, then you should leave now."
"Uh… Thank you, Alice." I said, looking up to the ceiling, in what I hoped was a slightly louder voice than the one I was talking to Edward with. Edward cupped his hand towards his chest in a 'You're welcome' sign.
I began reluctantly headed towards the door, gathering my mental awareness together. I'd been in a very dream-like state here. It had felt very comfortable, except for the whole – only person leaving fingerprints, hair, and oil thing. I'd have to start wearing long sleeves, and maybe keeping my hair tied up. I stumbled into my shoes at the door, and Edward helped me into my coat. When I turned back around Esme was there again, holding a plastic container that looked suspiciously full of muffins or cupcakes. She offered it to me.
"Thank you for being brave enough to come here today. I'm so happy that you're managing to lighten Edward's life."
"Did you bake these just now? I mean while I was here?" I asked, blushing. She nodded. How did I not smell that? How had I not noticed?
"I'm sorry. I didn't hear you working in the kitchen, or I would have helped." I started to apologize. She merely laughed, handing me the container again. I took it.
"Thank you. For this… for your hospitality, for everything." I said.
'Anytime'. She signed, and Edward ushered me out towards my truck, looking dubiously at the sky. The sky did look rather menacing, a depressing twist from such a beautiful day. It was hard to believe it was going to storm before, but now I definitely believed it. I clambered into my truck, as Edward held the door open and helped me in.
"I'll video chat you at seven o'clock exactly." He said, looking a little sad that I was leaving.
"Good." I said. "I'll be sure I'm done eating and home. I can't wait to see this. I think it'll be fascinating."
Plus, you'll look cute in a baseball outfit. I signed, shyly. Edward rolled his eyes dramatically.
"Alice is already working on designing yours, you should know."
I shuddered at the thought of trying to run in a game, competitively, or worse, trying to hit a ball.
"Yeah, we'll talk about that later." I squinted suspiciously at the house, and closed my truck doo. Edward backed away, smiling.
Until later.
I did a very clumsy, and probably very loud three-point turn, and began making my way down the fantastically long driveway. I would have fun explaining parts of this day to Angela, undoubtedly.
Alice's timing was impeccable. As I was pulling up outside of Angela's house, the first few rain drops began to fall, splattering onto my windshield. I hurried up to the door and knocked. I couldn't hear the barking, but I saw the door shake with Rocky's weight as he informed her that someone was there. A few seconds later I was barrelled to the ground as the door opened.
"Ouch – Hey Rocky. Jeez, you think I'd been gone for years." All of his weight disappeared as Angela helped me up, looking really concerned. My face was burning a little – one of Rocky's claws had caught me. It hadn't broken the skin from what I could feel, but a nasty welt-scratch was stretched across my cheek.
"I'm sorry about that Bella." Angela said, addressing me clearly. "Rocky gets really wound up when storms are coming in."
"He's not the only one." I muttered, making my way indoors. I shed my coat, and boots, feeling much less like an outcast here. In the Cullen house, everything was so impeccably clean and perfect, that I felt like I was a dark, and dirty stain walking through. However welcoming they were, it was awfully hard to shake the 'gross human' with 'perfect vampire' thing. I had felt welcomed, but shy, uneasy at the thought that I was causing discord and discomfort. At Angela's house, I was the cleanest thing in here. With two younger brothers, and the mountain of a dog, everything was covered in something sticky, pointy, or hairy. We ate almost immediately, a king's dinner, of sloppy joes and sweetcorn, with Esme's vanilla muffins as a dessert. After a sad attempt at some dishes, we went up to Angela's room. Her room was the second cleanest thing in the house – if I counted as the first. It was the only safe-haven from mess, with the exception of dog hair.
"So today I was over at the Cullen house." I started, quietly. Angela smiled, and raised her eyebrow for me to continue. "Edward brought me home to meet his parents."
"And I'm going to guess that they loved you." She said, almost too quietly for me to catch. As good as Angela was at including me in conversations, the Cullens were definitely better.
"They were very welcoming. I felt very unnerved by being the center of so much attention. But they invited me to a family event a few weeks from now, and nobody killed me, so all in all success." I smiled. My inside joke was mainly for my own sanity. I had felt remarkably safe with them, but who knows how much of that was actually me? The whole food chain situation was going to take some getting used to. Angela shook her head, comfortingly.
"I probably would have felt overwhelmed too. A family that large to be introduced to would be pretty intimidating." She looked around, checking her surroundings for the possibility of being overheard. I wondered idly if she could hear her brothers outside the door or something, because she switched to signing.
B.E.N. asked me to meet family.
My face lit up with enthusiasm. And?
And so I asked him to come meet mine too.
"That's so exciting Ang. You have no need to be nervous at all, you realise that? You're unfathomably sweet, and definitely less of a nuisance than I." I reassured her.
"Nuisance?" she asked, for clarification. I sighed, relaying one of my insecurities.
"The whole Cullen household –" give or take a few "Took it upon themselves to start learning how to sign. I guess the Doctor already knew it, and he's been teaching the others. They also make sure to raise their hands when they're talking, even if it's not to me, so that I can keep up with the flow of conversation."
"That must have been a huge relief for you then. A pleasant surprise." She said, her face relaying her confusion.
"I didn't want anyone to have to jump through hoops, or go out of their way on my account." I said, sadly. "I feel like it's too much. You know? They're already being nice enough that Edward's bringing me places, without going to all that trouble…" I trailed off, and looked meaningfully at her, hoping she'd understand.
"I understand what you're feeling." She said, then smiled. "But I also think you're an idiot."
I did a double take. Angela and insults? That was the most bizarre combination ever.
"People don't learn sign and be extra courteous because they have to…" she started, emphasizing the 'have' with a very condescending head shake. "They do it because they want to."
I wanted to respond with something, anything else that would somehow seem adequate, but instead sat in silence for a few seconds. That was short lived, as Angela's two brothers made an appearance, covered in glitter and between shooing them out and trying to scoop up the mess, we ended up swamped, distracted, and ironically sparkly. When I caught sight of my sparkly and slightly disheveled reflection in the mirror, I reminisced on the beautiful day I'd been having, and tried to lighten up a little. I was a very lucky person to be in the situation I was in. Alive, healthy, no bone breaks (currently anyway), a supernatural boyfriend who felt more like a soulmate than a high school crush, I'd just had a pretty darn beautiful day, and I still had more to look forward to. Life was good.